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It was the boy’s face, however, that caught the most of Wade’s attention. It still had traces of dirt smudges across cheekbones far too defined for a teenage boy. His brown eyes were large and looked slightly sunken and heedless of the dark smudges
, his pale skin was very obvious. The boy’s angular face was more than likely the result of malnutrition, Wade thought with a jolt of compassion.
“Come on, boy. Get something to eat.”
He looked with unease about the room as he had caught most of the wrangler’s attention. Prescott got to his feet, plastered a bright smile on his face and approached the boy. With his hand outstretched, he said, “Welcome to the Circle H. Prescott Haddock is the name. Have you got one yourself?”
The boy looked unsure at first but cautiously took Prescott’s offered hand, but chose to ignore his question.
Peeved, Joe slapped his fork on the table. “Mr. Haddock asked you a question, boy.”
He visibly cringed at Joe’s harsh tone, before glancing back at Prescott’s friendlier grin and nodded his head.
“Can’t you speak?”
The boy looked uncomfortable and tried to pull his hand away from Prescott, his eyes nervously darted in Wade and Joe’s direction.
“Can’t you talk?” Prescott asked again, noticing the boy’s wish to free his hand and allowed him to drop it.
The boy took an unsteady step back and shook his head.
“That’s terribly awful. How much sign language do you know?”
A puzzled look crossed the kid’s face as did Wade’s. “What are you talking about?”
Prescott turned and gave his brother a surprised look. “Haven’t you heard about it? Its society’s way with helping the handicapped population. They’ve even come up with a Braille system for the blind.”
“Braille? What the hell is that?” Joe asked.
“Some form of language using raised punctured dots on paper.”
“What do they do with that?” Joe looked confused by the image forming in his head.
“Read.”
“How the devil is that goin’ help?” Joe drove a mouthful of food into his mouth and mumbled, “Hell, even I don’t know how to read.”
Some of the younger wranglers snickered causing the big ranch hand to growl at them from under his breath.
Prescott ignored Joe and the others to ask, “Do you know how to read, boy?”
He shook his head.
Prescott sighed, looking disappointed but gave the boy a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “Well, how about we give you a name.”
At that, Wade spoke up. “You’re treating him like a lost puppy. The boy has a name, Prescott, and we’re not keeping him. He has a family and a community who will be missing him and want him returned.”
The boy’s head spun in his direction and the terror that lit his eyes caught Wade off guard. Instinctively, he started retreating back into the shadows of the bunkhouse. Frowning heavily, Wade said, “Hold on there, boy.”
But he turned and bolted for the back room. Joe scraped the legs of his chair loud against the wooden floor as he got to his feet with intentions of going after the boy. However, Wade put a hand on his arm to halt him. “I’ll take care of this.”
He glanced down at his bowl of stew and knew it would be cold by now so thrust it onto the closest table, then went in pursuit of the boy. He found him in the same corner, huddled up in a fetal position once again. It was obvious something was wrong. Wade knew in a heartbeat whoever or whatever the boy had left behind, had been bad. Real bad.
Kneeling down on his haunches, he brought his face as parallel as he could to the boy’s head. His face was buried in the folds of his arms. Looking at the top of his muddy head, Wade realized he had little experience with children. In fact, the only ones he ever came across being his niece and nephew, but those visits were usually kept to once a year.
Not accustomed to offering compassion, he felt awkward as he attempted to comfort the kid by placing a hand over his folded arms. He was rewarded with a flinch as the boy shriveled away.
“Look, kid. Why don’t you just come on over and get something to eat?”
