Read White Fangs for Free Online Page B

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 woman. 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