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The sound of his own ragged breathing filled his head The darkness hung heavy,his head to the left and saw trees looh not the same woods where he had hidden before He had left those behind How far had he run? Half a rowling of the Wendigo

The roar swept over hiust of wind, far closer than half a o had abandoned the caore, and opened his ht And it did not escape hirip of utter terror he had for a moment lost the sense of himself as a man and fallen back upon the perceptions of the rest of the world, whose eyes looked upon hie Just a kid

And he rejected it

He had defied the wild, died in its eed it to do its worst and yet survived In the combat of man versus nature, Jack had snatched victory not frorasp of death He was no ht closed in and then retreated, again and again, as he passed through shadows and into ht Branches whipped at his face when he found hies he stu at his knees and scraping his hands--knowing even as he rose that the so would easily follow

Yet he did not stop, and if he slowed he barely noticed The frigid night soaked into his bones; his ehtened to a painful clenched fist; his cracked ribs grated and set his jaw on agonized edge And when at last he heard the Wendigo roar again--or perhaps only the howl of a whipping wind--it seemed farther away

Always, the wolf raced ahead or darted back It nipped at his hands when he faltered and the darkness at the edges of his vision flooded in Three ti, and three tis pinching skin, waking hi, bone-jarring run again

How far had he come? Miles, at least, and in no discernible direction

And then, eyes half lidded, he lost track of the wolf for a olden eye of the ht, left--until the ground vanished beneath hiround had fallen away His heel found purchase a foot lower than anticipated, but too late Moully and he tu, down the rocky slope until he came to rest at its base

Jack tried to rise, but this tiully and he shivered, but then he lost even the capacity for such involuntary functions

He heard the wolf’s howl nearby but could not respond to the call of the wild Not this tio’s reply, and so listening, he drifted Darkness coalesced at the edges of his vision, and he could do nothing but surrender to its embrace

He woke to pain Unlike a hundred other times when he had come slowly from an injured or drunken sleep to find a sense of dislocation, he recollected everything the instant his eyes opened Pain had kept his hts now, so devoid of the disorientation he had felt all during his flight froht he had never fallen unconscious at all

And then he saw the girl, and the world tilted yet again

He felt soft fur against his cheek, but it was not the sleek coat of the wolf upon which he lay Rather, he had been swaddled like a child in the warentle on his bruised and battered forh their branches he saw the pro the sky

Beside one of the trees there stood the girl, watching hi behind itspast her shoulders, fine as spun silk, and in that first hint of leaant lines of that exotic face She wore boots akin to those favored by the local tribes and an ivory-hued cotton dress, but nothing else Despite the cold she had no jacket, and though she breathed, he could not see the plu air

In all his life, he had never seen a ht have been sixteen or twenty--he had no way to gauge--and the sight of her rateful for only moments earlier

His breath cah he are of the pain in his cracked ribs, it felt distant to hiue only to find sorit upon it Jack spat, and a rich odor filled his nostrils as he tasted herbs

The girl cocked her head with birdlike curiosity, and he understood that this was so she had done--put these herbs in his mouth--perhaps as some sort of remedy Or had someone else done it? Surely she couldn’t be alone out here in the wilderness, a beautiful young girl…astonishingly beautiful, stealing his breath…without even a coat?

He tried to raise hith His aruished song of protest at the merest effort For a moment his eyelids fluttered, but he forced theain now that it had been returned to him

On his side, he let his head loll back, scanning the trees and the landscape beyond for soirl’s tribe or family, but he saw no one

"Who are you?" he croaked, his voice ragged "Did you"--he ran a tre one of the furs that covered hi irl h she kept one hand upon its bark as though it comforted her When she smiled, he saw such natural innocence in her that his heart broke just fro at her, and he cursed his weakness and injuries for preventing hi that very moment so that he could be closer to her

Jack had no touchstone by which to recognize love He had been infatuated before, and fascinated, and even irls once or twice, but he had never been in love Still, he did not think what he felt in that moment was love It felt more like sheer wonder

He had to blink to clear his mind of her sht of the wolf, the spirit aniuide The wolf had led hio night with the first light of , the beast was nowhere to be seen

Only the girl And it struck hiain how odd it was that she had no coat, only that dress and her boots, and for a ht not be as clear as he had thought Were his perceptions skewed? Could the girl and the wolf be one and the sa a hand to cover her h she had read his mind or at least seen the question in his eyes

Jack felt hiiven him could not compensate for the exhaustion that drained him, for the need his body felt to rest and recuperate fro he had taken He had heard of horses ridden too hard for too long that had simply collapsed and died, and he knew someti nearby, but his body seehted with surrender Without help, without food, exposed to the eleirl and her tribe saw fit

Yet there seeain

The wind shifted, a gust rustling the branches overhead, and Jack froze The breeze carried a fa stink of fresh blood and rotting ht, face-to-face with the cursed devil of the Yukon