The woman never heard me approach. Her eyes were toward the flaming circle and the dancers within, and, too, I suppose, to her small son who was somewhere in that circle with them, whistling. She leaned against the bole of a belu tree with her arms down and slightly curled backward around it.
"That's considered bad luck," I said.
Her head jerked around with my words, reflected flames from the circle fire still flickering in her eyes.
"That's a belu tree," I said. "Embracing it like that is like looking for a ladder to walk under. Or didn't you know?"
"Would it make any difference?" She spoke softly, but the words came to me above the drums and the shouts of the dancers. "How much bad luck can you have in one lifetime, anyway?"
I ignored that. "Why did you pull out of that shack? I told you you had nothing to fear from me."
She didn't answer.
"I'm looking for the man you saw me talking with this morning," I went on. "Lady, he's wanted. And this thing, on my lapel is an Authority Card. Assuming you know what it means, I'm asking you where he is."
"What man?" Her words were flat.