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Updated: May 20, 2025
In a moment they had passed the curtained barriers out into the fresh night air. Steve paused. "Would that be the headman?" he demanded. An-ina shook her head. "Him headman by door. Him sleep where we stand. Him sleep by door. Him brave. Keep devil-man away. So." "I see," Steve moved on down the path. "Well, we'll get right back. I'm going to reckon on you, An-ina. Each day you go.
"All Indians sleeps. All winter. My Pop says so. So does Uncle Cy. They sleeps all the time. Only An-ina don't sleep. 'Cep' at night. I doesn't sleep 'cep' at night. Indians does." The white man and Indian exchanged glances. Julyman's was triumphant. Steve's was negatively smiling. He looked up into the child's face which was just above his level. "These Indians sleep all winter?" he questioned.
But somehow Steve's will was her law, and she knew that will was driving him now in a fashion that would only leave her words wasted. So, while her lips remained silent, her feelings were clearly enough expressed in her eyes. "Just a draw or two at the old pipe, An-ina," Steve said, with his flicker of a smile that was full of gentleness.
Not a thing for yourselves ever." The woman's eyes were suddenly filled with startled questioning and solicitude. "Oh, yes? That so," she said simply. "Why not? You all Uncle Steve got. You all An-ina got. So." "And aren't you both all I've got?" The man's smile disarmed the sudden passionate force which had taken possession of his voice and manner. "Can't I act that way, too?
So does Marcel. We both want you bad. Unaga it's a hell of a country, but you come along right up there with us, and I'll fix things so you'll be as happy as that darn country'll let you be. Julyman and Oolak are going along with us. They've quit the police, same as I have. I can't do without them, same as we can't do without An-ina. We're going there for the boy. Not for ourselves. It's the weed.
He remembered only the gentle dusky creature who needed his man's support. "You needn't say a thing, Uncle Steve," the youngster cried. "I was crazy to go. I'm that way still. But well, I just can't stand for An-ina being left. She's more than my second mother. She's the only mother I remember." Steve nodded. "I guessed you'd feel that way boy, and I'm glad."
You'll help him, my dear, won't you? You're just Marcel's mother, and if I don't get back you'll need to be his father, too. Good-bye." An-ina made no reply. She had listened to him with a heart that was overflowing. As he said "good-bye" she turned her head, and the speechlessness of their farewell was deep with simple human passion. A moment later they had moved apart. It was Steve's initiative.
With unthinking abandon he flung himself upon the pile of ropes, and manfully struggled to gather them into his baby arms. The result was inevitable. In a moment hopeless confusion reigned and An-ina was to the rescue disentangling him. It was in the midst of this that Marcel became aware of Steve's presence.
It was not out of any feeling of joy. It was the self-consciousness of youth before the eyes of maturity. He shook his head. "Not yet," he said. "Uncle Steve isn't back anyway." "No." An-ina sighed. For a moment her smile died out, and her wistful gaze was unconsciously turned towards the North.
But through all, above all, floated the spirit of Keeko, and he knew that whatever might have befallen nothing would have made him act differently. He was troubled to realize that for the first time in his life Uncle Steve and An-ina had only second place in his thought. His reflections were broken by An-ina's quiet return. "Supper him all fixed. Marcel come?" Marcel started up.
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