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Runner went to the mule and began walking slowly around it, studying the tracks made in the dirt of the street.
“Runner, what is it?” Stephanie asked, moving to his side.
“We will follow the tracks,” he said. “We will find the one responsible for the theft.”
Stephanie paled. She knew the danger of Runner getting involved with the theft. She had already seen how people felt about him being the “White Indian.” If he confronted a white man over her belongings, and the white man was injured in some way, the law would more than likely take the side of anyone but Runner. In their eyes, he was Indian, through and through. They would take great delight in treating him no better than an Indian.
“That’s not necessary,” she blurted. “Let it be. I have other cameras. I have more equipment.”
Runner turned to her. “No one steals from my woman,” he said. “Especially not another woman. These tracks are made by a woman’s bare feet.”
“A woman?” Stephanie gasped.
“Come. We will find her.”
She smiled weakly up at him. She knew that it would be a waste of breath if she tried to argue further. It was ironic how he would place himself in danger to get her camera back, when deep inside he hated the sight of it. By doing this for her, he was proving the depths of his love for her.
Grateful for such a love, tears of joy blurred her vision as she walked beside him, the moon lending enough light for them to continue following the trail.
When they came to a run-down shack at the far edge of town, Stephanie’s heart began to race. But who could live there, she wondered, a foreboding knotting inside her. The place had an unkempt, deserted look. No smoke rose from the chimney. The silence was broken by the wails of an infant coming from within the hut, wafting from a door over which hung only a sparse covering of buckskin.
Stephanie gave Runner a questioning look, then her heart leapt as Runner brushed aside the buckskin at the door and stepped inside the shack.
She placed her hands at her throat, afraid that gunfire might ensue. Instead, the only sounds that emanated from the building were the continuing cries from the child.
And then Runner emerged again, carrying the child. Stephanie’s fears melted when a rosy little nose and bright, blue eyes peaked out from a blanket made of a soiled, limp gunnysack.
Stephanie looked at the child a moment longer, then stepped past Runner through the low doorway. When she entered the shack and peered about in the windowless gloom, she discovered not only her camera equipment, but also a woman who was just coming out of hiding.
“My child,” the woman said, her voice filled with panic. Her dark eyes seemed to take up all of her face. “Tell the man to give me back my child.”
Stephanie looked over the woman slowly. She felt sick at heart, wondering when the woman had last eaten. She was emaciated, the skin drawn tautly across the bones of her face. The dress that she wore was no more than two gunnysacks sewn together, with holes cut for the head and arms to go through.
Her blond hair was a tangled mess and Stephanie could smell her unpleasant odor. It was so strong, it burned the inside of her nose, and all of the way down her throat.
“You were hiding,” Stephanie said. “Runner didn’t see you. I’m sure that he took the child because he thought it had been abandoned.”
“My baby is all I have left in the world,” the woman said, tears sliding down her wasted cheeks.
“Where is your husband?” Stephanie asked, looking slowly around the drab, squalid hut. It reeked of all sorts of unpleasant odors. The furniture was sparse. The fireplace was empty and cold.
“There’s no husband,” the woman said. She looked anxiously around Stephanie as Runner came back into the shack, rocking the child in his arms.
“You are one of the street whores I have heard about,” Runner said, yet without condemnation. He had been forced to tolerate ridicule all of his life. He had none to cast upon anyone else, not even a woman who sold her body to countless men.
“Before the child, I was,” the woman said. She held her arms out for her baby. “Please let me have him ba
ck. He’s hungry. I must feed him.”
“How will you feed him?” Stephanie said. She shuddered as she watched roaches crawling in and out of discarded filth-laden dishes on the table.
“My breast offers my child warm milk now, but for only a short while longer,” the woman said, eagerly taking the child as Runner lay him in her arms. “My milk is drying up. I am being forced to find ways to get food.” She glanced over at Stephanie’s equipment. “Even if I am forced to steal, I will still find ways to feed my child.”
Stephanie followed the path of the woman’s troubled eyes. They stopped on her expensive equipment. Now she did not know what to do. If she took those things back, the woman would have to steal from someone else. If she was caught, she could be placed in jail, and then what would happen to the poor child?
Still, Stephanie knew that even if she allowed the woman to keep her things, it would only give the woman enough money to last for a little while. She would then be forced to steal again, and again.
“What is your name?” Stephanie asked. She edged over toward her camera equipment, still not sure what to do. On the one hand, she did not wish to encourage thievery. On the other, if she was in the same position as this woman, she might also be forced to steal.
