En route: Anchorage to Nenana

When Nicole awoke, she half-expected to see Nenana, but instead she saw the same scene she saw before she went to sleep. The barren tundra and frozen rivers all began to look the same. Night had fallen, and the air had become much more frigid. The wind was blowing harder against the side of the train. In the distance, she heard the solemn howl of a lone wolf in the distant darkness, carried by the icy winds over the mountains through the dead of night. She curled up with her tail over her nose in the corner of the car, and slept on through the night as the bottles of antitoxin clinked along with the motion of the train.

Kuskokwim Mountains, Alaska

A black wolf/dog with grey markings howled into the night. She had been sent from the pack to survive on her own for a week, as was custom in her pack, to prove herself worthy of her place. She had succeeded, for a week had come and gone, but she had lost her bearings when a blizzard came out of nowhere. Now she was lost, and desperately tried to find her pack. A brown wolf stepped out of the shadows before her, barely making a sound as he walked on the fresh powder. Her sapphire-blue eyes flickered with surprise. The brown wolf greeted her with the usual formalities.

"Who are you, and what is your business in the territory of the Mountain Pack?" He was on guard duty. His aging father was the alpha of the Mountain Pack, and he would one day succeed him. He circled her and took in a sniff of her scent. The faint odor of his rival pack reached his nostrils.

"I am Sage, daughter of Aniu, of the Valley Pack," she answered him formally. Snow blew through the thick foliage of the forest, and the wolf grew tense at the mention of the Valley Pack. Sage then realized the gravity of the situation. The Mountain Pack had been the rival of her pack for generations. She would surely face death for intruding on their territory. She shuddered as she explained herself, looking solemnly into the wolf's glaring eyes. "I was sent away from the pack, as custom demands, to survive on my own for a week. The week is over, and I was heading home, but I lost my bearings in the blizzard. I am here completely by accident," she said, and hung her head in shame.

Normally, he would have done what any other member of his pack would do: take Sage to the pack for the sentence of a Valley Pack trespasser, but something about her made him shudder at the thought of her death. She was about his age, and pretty, especially for someone from the Valley Pack. Her bright blue eyes penetrated the darkness of the night, and his hardened exterior. They called to him . . . Please, spare me . . . She looked up at him, and his amber eyes had softened. "Come with me," he said. "I won't hurt you . . . I promise." She looked at him curiously, and followed in stunned silence. He led her to the border of the Mountain Pack's territory, which had been scent-marked numerous times. "Roll in the scent," he instructed her. "They won't know you're an enemy. Our pack is large, so large that even I, the son of the alpha, don't know all its members," he explained.

At that moment, Sage realized that this wolf was different from the rest. He had spared her life for no particular reason, and all he knew was her name. She knew only that he was son of the alpha of the Mountain Pack. "So, who should I be thanking for this, 'son-of-the-alpha'? Sorry, but you never mentioned your name."

The wolf blushed. "It's Nualto, son of Noatak and Valina," he said.

"Nice name," Sage said. "And I'm Sage . . . ," she repeated before rolling in the scent marks on the ground. Lying on her side in the heavily marked snow, she looked up at him and smiled. ". . . Now of the Mountain Pack."

He chuckled and grinned. He liked this 'Sage' person. She had a sense of humor, and her eyes were an intense blue that made his insides tingle. Sage stood up and Nualto moved his nose to her neck, taking a whiff of the aroma of his pack on her fur, and half-nuzzled her in doing so. As he did, a shiver of sensation went down her spine, seemingly from the cold night air. "No one will ever notice," he said playfully. "Come on, let's go 'home'. I bet you're cold . . ., and tired . . . and hungry."

He was right. Sage yawned, and heard her stomach growl. She followed Nualto back to his pack's den. I'll just stay here until the storm dies down . . . then I'll go back to my own pack, she thought as she entered the warmth of the cave.

Nome

Balto watched from his boat as Steele's team went out into the storm towards Nenana. He sighed. "Why is it such a crime to be different?" he asked himself aloud in the silence on the deck of the abandoned trawler he called home. A wolf's howl pierced the false tranquility of this, the most troubled night of his adult life. The rest of the pack joined the howl, each member's distinct voice harmonizing with the leader. It reminded him of Steele's harsh words of a few days earlier. Get out of here, wolf/dog! You'd better get back to your pack! The words echoed in his mind as the chorus of howls resounded across the night sky to his ears. "I wonder if I'd be better off with them?" he said, hanging his head.

The musical howling ceased, and one long howl rang out over the trees; in it, Balto heard the fabled 'Call of the Wild.' He tried not to admit it, but he found Steele's words to have some reason. "Steele's right; I should go back to the pack. Then no one will be able to tell me what I can and can't do. This town doesn't seem to need me, so I don't need it." Balto jumped down from the deck of the boat to the snowy ground below. He began to run for the edge of the forest.

He stopped to answer the Call, and as he threw his head back to howl, he thought of what Jenna had said the day before. "If only the musher could see what I see . . . a good dog with a pure heart, even if mixed blood runs through it." He blinked a few times as he came out of the trance-like state that the Call had placed him under, and thought of Jenna. "I can't just leave her . . . I love her . . . I just can't!" he said under his heavy panting.

The wolf howled once more, long and low: calling Balto to join him. Balto took one last look at the forest, and sighed. He turned back to the boat, and walked slowly up the plank. He looked out over the town, and saw the dogs gathering at the Old Mill. "They'll never accept me," he sighed, "but at least Jenna does."