The Wild Read Online Free Page A

only affection she gave to Jack came on days when he managed to bring a paycheck into the house. And there were those times when she’d made him lie on the kitchen table during a séance and called upon the spirits of the dead to damn him for some boyish wrongdoing. Even back then he’d never really believed, but she’d done her best to ensure that the process scared him.
    â€œThe spirits are closer to you than you think,” she’d say. “And if you’re bad, I can invite them in .”
    For days after these séances he’d be angry and resentful, sad at his mother’s treatment of him. And come sunset and bed, alone in the dark, he’d also be terrified that perhaps she was right. Now he could hardly bear to think of it. And yet despite all this she was still his mother, and he loved her.
    Such musings confused Jack, and he became angry at those confusions.
    He cursed and led his horses to the side of the trail. He had crested the top of the pass whilst buried in introspection, and that moment of success had passed uncelebrated. Damn these melancholy thoughts—they would not do here!
    He decided to make a brew and let the hot coffee mark the moment the rest of his journey began.
    Â 
    â€œJust the man I was hoping to run into,” a voice said.
    Settled into a windbreak he’d built by piling up his pack and hauling boxes and satchels down from his horses, Jack looked up from his small fire into the ruddy-cheeked, smiling face of Merritt Sloper. The man had frost in his ginger beard and a thick cap pulled down over his ears, so he looked like some deranged Father Christmas.
    â€œI suppose you want a cup of coffee,” Jack said. He could not hold back a small smile. He was comfortable in his own company, but right now he welcomed the company of another, even someone he knew only vaguely.
    â€œI thought you’d never ask.”
    â€œI hope you brought your own cup,” Jack told him. “I’ve only got the one.”
    Sloper grunted as he settled onto the ground beside Jack, shucking off his own pack. He banged his gloved hands together, pulled the gloves off, and held his palms out to the small fire. Primarily, however, his attention was on thesmall black coffeepot that Jack had propped beside the fire.
    Sloper dug a tin cup from his pack. As Jack poured him half a cup of strong coffee, another man approached, this one holding the tether of a horse.
    â€œDamn it, Merritt, you could have waited for me!” the man chided. Thin and bespectacled, he had the air of a fussy schoolmaster gone to seed.
    â€œThe smell of coffee drew me on, friend Jim,” Sloper replied with mock penitence, hanging his head. “Do not curse me for my one indulgence.” Then he shrugged an apology, sipped his coffee, and let out a loud sigh of contentment, settling more comfortably on the crusty snow, closing his eyes.
    â€œYou left me with the horse,” Jim began, then lowered his voice. “Those two fellows from Texas have been eyeing our supplies ever since the last of their own horses died, and you—”
    â€œBesides!” Sloper said, eyes springing open. “We made it over the top! Despite all your doubts, my friend, here we are! I hadn’t the energy for a victory dance, but a cup of coffee is celebration enough.”
    Rolling his eyes, Jim gave up. He led his burdened, exhausted horse over beside Jack’s two, knocked a peg into the snow with the heel of his boot, and tethered the beast to it.
    Then he held out a hand, leaning over the fire. “JimGoodman. I believe we arrived on the same ship.”
    Jack smiled and shook. “Jack London. I remember you.”
    A rush of good feeling filled him. Odd as they were, here were two men hardy enough to crest the Chilkoot Pass, to face the challenge and not turn back. In the short time since he had set out from Dyea, he had seen enough failure and breathed in enough death to last