“Oh, it is the miracle, Pideau,” she cried. “Mine the eyes he look into first. Mine the arms that first hold him. His mother no. His father—tcha! They nothing. He knows me. He loves me. Always I make him love me. They both are dead. So I steal him. Yes. Why not?”
“This missionary. His folks? The police?”
Pideau was deeply considering. Luana laughed voicelessly in spite of her weariness.
“There are folks way east,” she said. “They hear of the death of them, an’ they think my boy-man killed, too. The police know nothing. How should they know? They find me. They say, ‘this woman an’ her child.’ When I wake they ask me. I tell ’em quick. I am a breed woman who goes on a visit to folk at Lake Mataba. Oh, yes. My boy. He’s dark like the half-breed mother. I say my man way south, at Calford. I ask ’em quick send me to Calford. They say ‘yes.’”
Luana shrugged her drooping shoulders contemptuously, and her gaze turned to the magnet that always held her. The children were stirring. Annette was reaching out towards the little bare feet of the boy. It was a gesture of infantile friendliness.
“An’ they bring you to Calford? They ask no more?”
Pideau wanted to be very sure. He must know it all before taking his final decision.
“I go before the inspector. He ask much,” Luana went on easily. “But I all ready. I think my story good. I tell him I go to High Creek, where is my man. I think they ask on the telephone. So I say quick he works on a farm ’way out on the foothills. The inspector, the fat inspector, says he send me in police wagon. I say, ‘Yes—you are so good to poor woman. When?’ He say, ‘to-morrow.’ I say, ‘yes.’ I go. I think hard. I buy food in the stores. I set it in a sack across my shoulders. Then I make the sling for my back, so boy-man ride easy. An’ I go quick. I walk. I walk far. One hundred—two hundred mile. I don’t know. Twice I nearly die in the muskeg in the hills. I’m scared of the timber wolves. I light plenty fires. I follow quick on the trail I know. And I say, ‘Pideau in the hills.’ I come to him. So I keep my boy-man.”
Luana drew a deep breath, and closed her tired eyes. Pideau watched her. Suddenly he looked away down into the valley below.
“I bury Annette this morning,” he said.