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CHAPTER ONE
THE PELICAN
If it hadn’t been for the pelican, Jack London would have been entle h in truth that was all his body craved His mind burned with memories of his adventures in the north, and each ache, pain, and wound recalled those experiences as surely as a smell or sound Confined in a cramped ship’s cabin with his friend Merritt Sloper and three weary men whose eyes were flat with defeat, Jack felt his senses sing with yearning It had been only days since they had departed Alaska After so long in the wilderness--and with his oild nature urging him to run, to climb, to live--he felt stifled by that room, and it was inevitable that the pressure would drive him up here, onto the deck
And so it had been for the last three nights The days were easier, filled with casual conversations and hours spent gazing into the hazy distance, wrapped against the cold and yet buffeted by the sun But the nights were more difficult It was as if the darkness called him into its eht, but the darkness of infinity
Jack breathed in the fresh air and held on to the railing, legs shifting slightly as the ship dipped and rose through the gentle Pacific swell His hair was ruffled by the breeze, and it felt like the hand of a loved one soothing his brow Perhaps I do need soothing, he thought, because the h--the deadly Chilkoot Trail, his near death in the great white silence, Lesya, and the dreadful Wendigo--were enough to drive any ordinary personhis months in the frozen north: he was far from ordinary
"I’ to hiun to learn what a single huht be capable of, and wanted to explore that potential to its fullest
There was a light mist settled on the sea, and a heavier bank of it soaround, he saw the captain and the best of his crew hunkered in the wheelhouse, doing their utmost to ensure that the Umatilla sailed true and safe Two ue shapes and gentle chatter lost to the mist and darkness Jack walked forward toward the bohere he kneas dark and quiet
He wondered what it would feel like to make a solitary journey across these seas On his way to Alaska so many months before, he had appreciated the immensity of the ocean, its power, and the respect it required to master it Now he saw its wildness
There was ht it was a clu in the breeze But when he approached, he saw the heavy beak and beady eye, the wings folded in, and the pelican huddled there regarded him with neither trust nor fear
"Hello, bird," Jack said softly He glanced back and up, but no one else seemed to have noticed the creature Swirls ofbank of mist to starboard seemed to have ht He turned back to the bird, and it had raised its head and half spread its wings
Jack went to his hands and knees, trying to present no threat to this ns of injury but could see none The bird had simply seen the ship as a place to rest, and perhaps it had done sothe bow as one of the quietest places on board cohttime
"I’ll not harm you," he said softly, and his throat seemed to throb with an unusual vibration He realized that he had no real idea what sound these birds s several tirew still, and found hi into the bird’s eye He was reflected in there He wondered how it viewed hi, or simply part of the scenery?
He watched the pelican as Lesya, the forest spirit, had taught hi he did not perceive this tableau as man and beast at all It was sih in the end she had proved to be ahis hts of other creatures Reaching out to the pelican, he sensed the sa that had only just started to settle over hi thuds of waves striking a hull He frowned The Umatilla rode smooth as ever, and he had not felt even the smallest impact vibration The pelican lifted and opened its heavy beak
When he approached, he saw the heavy beak and beady eye, the wings folded in, and the pelican huddled there regarded him with neither trust nor fear
Jack heard that sound again, the thud-wash, thud-wash of a hull cutting across the waves instead of going with the was out there He looked up at the two entle haze of mist, and he could not even tell which direction they were looking
"What’s this, then?" he asked the pelican, and the bird spread its wings But it re feet so that it could look directly back along the deck I could call to the lookouts, Jack thought But ould he say? Darkness and the htly askew ht be only in his hostly whitecaps breaking gently away fro against the waves, and the spray that reached hientlest of breezes
A shadowand scanned the skeins of mist that played like curtains across the ocean’s surface Soht
And then he saw the shadow again A hardening of theof shapes that danced where no one noronal that would intercept the Umatilla within twenty seconds Three , the craft arfed by the U about the way it moved that seemed almost predatory
The vessel’s ht, and it slipped through the water as if it were hardly there at all, a phanton of its existence was the interainst its hull, but that lessened as the ship ca the Umatilla’s course
Jack could see shadows busy in the rigging, and side the U indeed
Fro rise in alarroaned, and their speaking ceased
Behind hiru and peered over the top There was a flurry of activity on board the phanto whispered, shadows moved, and he heard the soft i the Umatilla
It was only as the first of several , thirty feet back along the deck fro boarded!
He went to shout a warning, but no one would hear If he et belowdecks before the first of the aggressors came on board … but he could already see the rope attached to the first grappling hook tensing as it was subjected to weight from below
Instinct told him to duck down and stay where he was, and the pelican flapped its wings and lifted away froain as it flew, disappearing quickly across the port side and away into the thickeninginstant Jack knew its freedoain, searching for shadows in which to conceal hi
The le of awe He breathed out a gentle gasp The man moved like a shadow himself, completely silent, and he stood crouched lohile his head turned left and right His ar soht hand There was so , violence gathering like distant, silent storm clouds