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"The 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 s confused Jack, and he becary 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 Dahts--they would not do here!
He decided to make a brew and let the hot coffee an
"Just theto 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 fro face of Merritt Sloper The er beard and a thick cap pulled down over his ears, so he looked like soed Father Christmas
"I suppose you want a cup of coffee," Jack said He could not hold back a sht noelcouely
"I thought you’d never ask"
"I hope you brought your own cup," Jack told hirunted 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 the small black coffeepot that Jack had propped beside the fire
Sloper dug a tin cup fro coffee, anotherthe tether of a horse
"Damn it, Merritt, you could have waited for me!" the man chided Thin and bespectacled, he had the air of a fussy schoolone to seed
"The smell of coffee drew ing his head "Do not curse y, sipped his coffee, and let out a loud sigh of content his eyes
"You left an, then lowered his voice "Those two fellows fro our supplies ever since the last of their own horses died, and you--"
"Besides!" Sloper said, eyes springing open "We made it over the top! Despite all your doubts, y for a victory dance, but a cup of coffee is celebration enough"
Rolling his eyes, Jiave up He led his burdened, exhausted horse over beside Jack’s two, knocked a peg into the snoith the heel of his boot, and tethered the beast to it
Then he held out a hand, leaning over the fire "Jim Goodman I believe we arrived on the same ship"
Jack smiled and shook "Jack London I re filled hih to crest the Chilkoot Pass, to face the challenge and not turn back In the short tih failure and breathed in enough death to last him a lifetime Now he found the companionship of these two men very welcome indeed
"I don’t suppose you have another cup of coffee," said the morose Goodman
Jack shook the pot "Only a drop, I’m afraid Merritt took the last of it"
Goodh used to being left out
Suffused with this new feeling of bonhomie, Jack reached for his pack "Actually, there’s more where that came from I’ll fix us another pot"
"Really?" the twotheir eyebrows in surprise
"Why not?" Jack replied "We ether now"
After al the Chilkoot Trail, Jack’s bones ached and his muscles burned, but he felt alive in a way he believed few people would ever experience Unshaven, unwashed, he nevertheless perceived himself as clean, somehow purified by the icyefforts Away from his mother and her spiritual charlatanism--but more important, away from every job he’d ever had, every version of himself he’d ever tried to create--at last he could strip away the world’s expectations and find the man within
Who is Jack London? he wondered, certain that this journey would bring him the answer
Seen from the top of the pass, the reift It leveled out and then began a gentle descent toward distant canyons
"How far to Lake Lindeman?" Sloper asked
Jack cocked an eyebrow at Ji estimates