White Fangs

by Christopher Golden

  Both Louis and the Reverend had also drifted off. Louis had curled up against the window, his face smooth and innocent as he slept, with no trace of the beast in evidence. The Reverend, though, reminded Jack of a sleeping tiger he had seen once at the zoo. His face twitched and his brow was knitted, perhaps stalking tender prey in his dreams.

  A glance around revealed that many of the train's passengers were also napping, including Maurilio and Vukovich. Had the rail line from Skagway to Whitehorse been straight and flat, they'd have long since arrived, but with the precarious curves and long inclines along the route, the train never had the opportunity to build up any speed. Still, Jack thought they must be nearly there.

  He turned to look at the landscape slipping by outside. Moonlight played amongst trees' branches and threw shafts of golden illumination into the deeply shadowed woods. As Jack relaxed into this picture, wanting to explore the terrain on foot and lose himself in the Yukon wilderness, something moved through the trees. Sitting up, alert now, he peered closer and saw a shape dart from cover, moving fast and low to the ground, parallel to the train.

  A wolf.

  Jack smiled and his chest filled with warmth, for this was not just any wolf. It was his wolf, the near-mystical beast that had been his companion and savior when he had last been this far north. He ought to have felt its nearness, because it had certainly sensed his return to these lands. Watching it now — its grace, primeval power, and the delight with which it seemed to lope across the landscape — he wondered if perhaps the beast was nothing more or less than his own heart set free to run.

  Jack closed his eyes and reached out into the wild terrain with the senses that Lesya had taught him to use. It had been as if she had opened a door inside of him, and once he had walked through he could perceive the world in ways that other men never would. Now he felt a hare sleeping in its den, protecting its newborn brood. And there he sensed an owl taking flight, its eyes searching the ground below for something foolish enough to be out in the moonlight. As the train steamed on, he felt other creatures, touched on them for an instant, and then let his senses move on.

  All except the wolf. Just as it kept pace with the train, Jack matched its heartbeat with his own.

  He was elated. His wolf had come out to greet him, showing that this truly was where he belonged.

  Then Jack felt another awareness that was neither the wolf's, nor the sleeping thoughts of the werewolves who had become his allies. And this was something he had known before.

  He opened his eyes and looked around to see that Ghost had entered the train car again. The pirate loomed there, filling the passageway and blocking the door, but his attention was not on Jack. Ghost was staring at the window with a profound longing. And when Jack looked through the glass again, he realized that Ghost was watching the wolf running alongside the train.

  Jack bristled, the small hairs rising on the back of his neck. This wolf was a part of him. If Ghost were to try to harm it, Jack would not hesitate to kill him. There would be no mercy. No second chances.

  Sabine shifted uneasily against him, mumbling something in her sleep, and in that moment the wolf vanished back into the trees. He could still feel it there, racing along, keeping pace with them, but its attention had been partially diverted, for it had caught the scent of some prey. Jack pulled his thoughts away, releasing whatever hold he might have over the wolf. It should hunt and eat. He knew they would see each other again.

  The back of his neck still prickled with the weight of Ghost's presence. But when Jack glanced back again, the pirate had once again retreated to the next car, leaving only doubt and mystery behind.

  An hour after dawn, wagons carted trunks and crates from the train station at Whitehorse to the dock along the Yukon River. Several passengers were greeted by carriages to transport them, but the river was within walking distance, and most went by foot. Waiting at the dock was the stern-wheel steamboat that would carry them north to Dawson.

  Jack thought that the railroad builders had made an error in choosing Whitehorse as their terminus. If they'd laid tracks all the way to Lake Laberge — the last bit of water to hold onto its winter ice every spring — they'd have gained a good couple of weeks' worth of business every year. The train could have been running long before the ice thawed enough for the steamboats. Though, at this point, he wasn't sure how much business the rail line was going to have. There must have been some sort of upper limit on how many people were going to make the trek north searching for gold, and he suspected that most of them had likely already done so.

  Of one thing he was entirely certain; if the railroad and the steamships had been in place two years ago when he had arrived on the shore at Dyea with his brother-in-law, John Shepard, the man would never have given up so quickly on their quest. For better or worse, there were many who could never have made the journey to Dawson before who would be able to do so now.

  Whitehorse was a sleepy little burg, barely a town at all. If not for the shops and bars amidst the small, drab homes, it would have looked as if it had been abandoned ages ago. But the dock had been freshly constructed, solidly built, and Jack marveled at its appearance. It was likely that employees of the railroad had built it, since most of the steamers plying the waters were independently owned, and he knew from experience that fierce competition would have precluded collaboration on something like dock building. They had done a good job this time.

  The stern-wheeler had been tied to the dock, the powerful river rushing around her. Jack thought about the hell he and his friends Merritt and Jim had gone through on the Yukon River. He laughed out loud.

  "What's funny?" Sabine asked, casting a bemused expression his way.

  "Not a damn thing," he replied, still smiling. They'd almost died two years past, but now a man with enough money could travel to Dawson without much effort at all. All it had taken was the right motivation — rich men who didn't like the idea that poor men were getting their hands on gold they thought should be theirs. Now there was an entire industry in place to move people up north with less effort and better odds of survival.

  Jack studied Sabine as they walked down a gentle slope toward the dock. Louis and the rest of their pack were ahead, laden with valises full of clothes they'd bought in San Francisco before departure, and Vukovich had taken Sabine's valise without a word. They had all noticed what a toll being away from the sea had taken upon her. But now, as they approached the river, she looked much improved. The light of confidence had returned to her eyes, the color to her face, and a certain vigor to her gait.

  "Is it the river?" Jack asked.

  Sabine glanced at him. She took a deep breath and let it out, as if relieving herself of a great burden that had sat squarely upon her shoulders. "I think it is restoring me."

  "You didn't know that it would?" For just a moment Jack saw the depth of eons in her eyes.

  "I'm certain I have traveled by river before. In my mind I can see the curves of the Danube and the rough water of some furious African torrent. But I don't really remember any of them. I have been on the ocean for so very long."

  Jack let that echo in his thoughts as they walked with the other train passengers. No matter how he tried, it was impossible for him to truly comprehend the life that Sabine had led. Intellectually, he understood that she had lived for perhaps thousands of years, and that her memory deteriorated over time. But he could not imagine what such a life could contain. It fascinated and terrified him.

  Yet that was precisely what they had come north to discover. If the forest spirit, Lesya, could help Sabine to define herself, or better yet to remember her long past, then the journey would be considered a success. Sabine would have the answers she so desired, the knowledge they had all come so far to help her discover. But Jack also wondered what impact such discovery would have upon Sabine, and on the love they nurtured between them. For so long she had been a sea witch, wielding a magic connected to the water, but she had lived as if she were an ordinary wom
an. A human being, more or less. If the full scope of her nature and history were revealed, would she still be able to love a man who was only a man?

  The question troubled him but he had promised her this. He would fulfill that promise, and worry later about the cost.

  A loud whistle split the sky — the steamboat was putting its passengers on notice that they hadn't time to tarry. Now that they were closer, Jack could appreciate the elegant simplicity of the ship, with the big paddle wheel at the back and the twin smokestacks that jutted skyward from its upper deck. With the white railings that ran along its three levels and the white wheelhouse sitting atop the pile, it looked more like a royal wedding cake than a ship. On the prow, bright blue paint spelled out the vessel's name — Fort McGurry — which Jack vaguely recalled as a trading post rather than a military fort.

  When Jack and Sabine reached the boat, black smoke had already begun to plume from its stacks. Several dozen passengers were boarding, some of them already milling on deck while others moved up the gangplank. Crewmen oversaw the loading of supplies and cargo from wagons, while an officer stood at the bottom of the plank with a passenger manifest, making certain no one boarded who had not paid for the privilege. Louis waited for Jack and Sabine beside the officer, but the other wolves had already begun to board.

  "You look better, cherie," Louis said, studying Sabine.

  She only smiled as they told the officer their names, and waited patiently while he checked the manifest before waving them aboard.

  "No second thoughts?" Louis asked as they walked up the gangplank, a glint of gold showing in his smile.

  "None," Sabine said firmly. "It's time for me to solve my own mystery."

  Louis arched an eyebrow and glanced at Jack. "A challenge we all face, eh?" Then he turned back to Sabine. "But don't forget what Jack's been telling me and the others: who you were doesn't matter nearly as much as who you're going to be."

  Jack smiled and clapped Louis's shoulder. "Exactly."

  He was happy that Louis and the others were exploring the possibility that they did not have to remain monsters. If people were truly forged only by their pasts, Jack would have had no chance at a life worth living. He'd been abandoned as an infant by his biological father and his unstable, distant mother had called him her "badge of shame." He'd been taught brutality in back alley brawls and by the foremen at the canning factory where he'd worked as a child, and seen it in a thousand ways as he tramped around America. His time in jail as a vagrant had showed him depths of human depravity and led him to aspire for the heights. The life he wanted for himself, he would have to build from nothing. He wanted to define himself, not allow his past to do it for him, and this was the lesson he was trying to impart to Louis and the others. And yet because they all knew their pasts, he understood Sabine's desire to uncover her own history. Mysteries such as hers needed illuminating if they were to be understood.

  "And the devil appears," Louis said, his smile vanishing. His nostrils flared in distaste and his lips were set in a grim line. Though he still wore his human face, Jack could see the beast beneath.

  "Ghost?" Jack said, not bothering to turn around.

  "None other," Louis confirmed.

  "Ignore him," Sabine said.

  But as they reached the steamship's deck, Jack could not help turning to look back at the dock, where Ghost stood exchanging an amiable word with the officer checking the manifest. The temptation to hurry back down and tell the officer that he was about to allow a pirate captain on board was strong, but he'd been turning the situation over in the back of his mind. Ghost had said he had nowhere else to go, and that was probably true. Jack knew he would get on board one way or another.

  As long as the pirate kept his distance, Jack was determined not to interfere with him.

  "Jack?" Sabine said, touching his arm.

  "We should all ignore him." He took her hand. "Come on. Let's stow our gear and then come back on deck. The last time I rode this river, I was just trying to stay alive. This time, I want to appreciate the beauty of the land."

  Jack and Sabine spent most of the river voyage on deck, descending to their tiny cabin to sleep and visiting the small dining room for barely passable meals. Venison and potatoes were mixed in a stew for dinner to make them stretch further, and there were ham and eggs in the morning. The other members of their pack were used to bunking together, so the four former pirates shared a cabin with upper berths that pulled down like those Jack had once observed in a train compartment.

  They saw very little of Ghost. He seemed barely there, as if he had become his namesake, haunting the corners of rooms and the far ends of gangways, until Jack came to believe that he was doing them the courtesy of avoiding them. In the time he had known Ghost, he had never before associated the word courtesy with him. The idea of a polite or respectful Ghost would take some getting used to.

  Though there were several dozen passengers, Jack and his companions kept mostly to themselves. Some of the men on board were businessmen. Others were merely thrill-seekers with enough money that they hoped they could keep the dangers of the northlands at arm's length, and return home with stories of their courage in the face of the wild. After all he had seen, such men were absurd creatures to Jack, but he found them harmless enough. They did him the favor of ignoring him as thoroughly as he did them, and that was fine.

  Jack's interest was piqued by the crew, however. It had become obvious within hours of boarding that something troubled them. A low current of unease seemed to run beneath every interaction he witnessed amongst the steamship's stewards and officers. Even the cook seemed agitated when Jack caught sight of him early on the morning after they'd departed.

  Late in the afternoon of their second full day on the river, Jack and Sabine stood on the starboard side of the upper deck, watching a trio of hawks up ahead, beyond a curve in the river. The hawks were circling, and Jack imagined they must be intent upon some prey that hid in the woods along the riverbank.

  "They're afraid," Sabine whispered.

  For a moment Jack thought she meant the hawks, until he saw that her eyes were closed, and realized that she referred to the crew of the Fort McGurry.

  "I wish we knew what of," Jack said.

  Sabine let out a breath and opened her eyes, turning toward him with a gaze full of regret. "I'm sorry. At sea, I can see more deeply into hearts and minds, but on the river it's all quite muddled."

  "Nothing to be sorry about," Jack reassured her, taking her hand. "Whatever it is, it may not concern us at all."

  And yet he was concerned. Most ordinary men would never allow themselves to believe that werewolves existed, but Jack wondered if someone one board had realized that there were monsters steaming up the Yukon with them. Ghost and his crew had robbed and murdered up and down the Pacific for years. It wasn't impossible that someone had survived and recounted the tale. He had tried to put himself in a position to eavesdrop on some of the whispers among the crew, but thus far had been unsuccessful. And if it wasn't the wolves they feared, then the question remained: what had spooked them so badly?

  "Try not to worry," Sabine said, now trying to reassure him. Her smile reached all the way to her copper eyes. "You said Dawson wasn't much further."

  Jack nodded. "Forty miles or so, if I've gauged it right."

  "Good. Then whatever is bothering them isn't ours to worry over anymore."

  He knew she was right, yet he could not fight the uneasiness he felt, as if the crew's agitation was contagious. An ominous weight hung in the air.

  As the steamer followed the bend in the river, black smoke pluming from the stacks and the paddle wheel slowly turning, Jack watched the circling hawks ahead and exhaled slowly, trying to clear his mind. The sky had turned a dusky blue, headed toward the indigo of evening. Night would be falling in minutes. He extended his senses, feeling for the birds. Closing his eyes, he focused on one of them, easing himself into its awareness, matching his pulse as best he could to the rapid th
rumming of its tiny heart. He could feel the air around him as the hawk's wings sliced the wind, and the sensation of flying helped ease tension from his body.

  "Jack?" a voice said, and it was not Sabine's.

  Though Jack opened his eyes, he maintained his connection with the hawk, his senses open wide.

  The Reverend stood in front of him, brow knitted in consternation as he stroked a hand over his unruly beard. Vukovich accompanied him. Jack had been reaching his senses toward the river bank, but now that he allowed himself to feel the men's presence as well, he understood how close to the surface their lupine nature had risen. The men fairly bristled with agitation.

  "What is it?" Sabine asked.

  The Reverend glanced at her. "Just wondering what the hell Jack's gotten us into."

  "Meaning what?" Jack asked. "You knew what the terrain was going to be like up here. I warned you how remote it was. I thought you'd like the hunting."

  Vukovich glanced over his shoulder at a member of the crew hurrying by in the fading light. The sun had already set, and all that remained were the hints of it over the horizon.

  "That's not it," he said, his accent thicker than usual. "We talked to the cook. He likes his sherry this time of day and it loosened his tongue. We know what's got the crew spooked. They don't like making the run to Dawson these days."