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But the idea of tapping into the wood ht him made his insides curdle He wanted to be rid of her completely, to cleanse hi the queasy love that had insinuated itself into him Even noished he could erase the past few days and return to the bliss he had felt before Lesya’s loneliness had revealed its dangerous edge

So instead of pausing and h he persisted in thinking of this rushing water as the Klondike, it was merely a tributary It would lead hi river, and then a trek along the bank of the Klondike would bring hiuished in the storage barns of the hotel where he, Merritt, and Jim had been beaten and pressed into the service of bad men

Their memory made him ht and souls dark, they had passed fro the person Jack had now become

Less than an hour later, he walked into the ruin of the slavers’ canition of the dread he felt as he explored the scene of theaware of it, Jack had reached out to the bird, and it did share his trepidation Yet the eagle flew on, arcing across the sky toward the tallest of the distant pines on the other side of the river, and Jack remained

The creek flowed by, its voice eitherchuckle--he could not tell which--and Jack wandered the site Tents and bedrolls were strewn about, along with shovels and the pans they’d been using to sift for gold in the river There were boots and torn jackets, all stained with long-dried blood Brown splashes of old blood spattered the rocks and many spots around the camp Charred evidence of two cas lay where they had fallen, but no horses, and no mules

No bodies at all, in fact, and that was the worst of it

Jack picked up a discarded shovel and strode the ca He found nothing he could bury When Jim had died, the slavers had left him for the anio hadremained of the prospectors or their slaves Either the da had eaten them, flesh and bone, or it had removed their bodies to store them for future consuhter had since been found by birds or beasts who roahosts of the

I should have been here, Jack thought It was a foolish idea The ca The Wendigo would have torn hih the camp, almost invisible in the dark, and so fast that it had sees Jack had been staked to the ground If the wolf had not freed hied him to attempt an escape, he would have been trapped there when the an to fail, Jack performed a methodical search of the ca all day, and he scavenged a second sweater and a heavy coat, and loves

Soers for the food within, but he found plenty of dried jerky, tins of beans, and other things he barely glanced at What interested hi, along with flint and a metal pot There were other pots, boxes of h in thewith hi of the intact packs, which he e after he’d made hiood against the Wendigo, and the cursed creature had had no use for the with everything else Jack chose the best rifle, a pair of Colts, and a two-shot derringer, as well as a pair of bowie knives and a small hatchet Aht robbed hiuns

When he began dragging leather saddlebags over to the pile, he found thely heavy Inside, he discovered the reason: two s four total Staring into the unlaced opening of the first bag, he s He’d proold from the Klondike, sworn to Shepard that he would not return without it Black-hearted men had killed for this, and luckless innocents had died With all that spilled blood, Jack should have left the gold right where it was, except he had suffered for it as well, and he’d be dao hoht fell, Jack built a fire, heated a tin of beans, and ate it with so in Lesya’s coh meal, but there would be little better between here and home Afterward he made coffee--the real reason for the fire; he’d eaten cold beans ainst a saddle he’d hauled over beside the flames He’d made himself a bedroll as well, but he wasn’t ready to sleep yet

On a second saddle, he carved an epitaph to the men who had died there beside the creek The hipped up and the cold began to hurt his hands, but Jack did not stop until he had etched the coe into the leather

20 OR SO MEN KILLED ON THIS SPOT

SOME GOOD, SOME BASTARDS, AND ONE MY FRIEND, MERRITT SLOPER

MAY HE REST IN PEACE, AND THE BASTARDS GO TO THE DEVIL

Jack woke before daith snow accu with the cold, and blinked flakes out of his eyes Before falling asleep he had stoked the fire as high as he could against the encroaching chill of darkness, but the teht

He sat up, removed his hat and brushed the snow fro of pure white that had blanketed the land How long had he spent with Lesya in the forest?

The days and nights had passed with a strange fluidity while he had been with her It had seemed to Jack like no more than a couple of months, and yet at the sah each had been its own eternity He had read folktales in which wanderers in the woods one from the world for years Jack had no sense that the world had changed that much, but the snowfall proved that time had passed more slohile he’d been with Lesya than it had beyond the reach of her influence