Wanted

Chapter 5

They had been travelling in silence for an hour, the loud noise from the river beside their path racing towards them making up for the lack of conversation.

As the evening was fast approaching it got rapidly colder, and Jeremiah was hungry, tired and fed up. Not sure if he had made the right decision he had avoided looking down onto his young travelling companion beside him until now. The boy seemed to try to make himself as small as possible, the way he sat with his feet pulled up onto the seat, his arms slung around his legs, and his chin resting on his knees.

"Are you cold?" Jeremiah asked. The boy glanced up at him and shrugged his shoulders and then rested his chin back on his knees looking out onto the road ahead of them. Of course, he was cold, the temperatures dropped quickly around here even on one of the warmer spring days as this one. The boy wasn't even wearing a jacket. He'd probably been cold all along, Jeremiah chided himself.

"You're probably hungry too, eh?" Jeremiah asked, again the boy looked up at him briefly and just shrugged his shoulders. He had stopped in Salesville and had lunch there, but not the boy. God knows if he had anything to eat on this or the previous day for that matter.

"When was the last time you ate?" he asked the child.

"Yesterday," the boy replied quietly after some pause and without looking at Jeremiah.

Jeremiah blew out air in frustration. People usually told 'him' he was quiet and uncommunicative.

"When yesterday and what did you eat?" Jeremiah asked for more information.

With his chin resting on his knees the boy continued to look straight ahead. "Breakfast," he replied.

Jeremiah brought the horses to a halt at Spanish Creek where he had stopped on his way to the city as well. The circle of stones was still there. He'd left some wood beside it which had been used up but replaced with more by someone else. Someone who appreciated the gesture, Jeremiah mused, and smiled.

Halfway between the city and his ranch, he had gotten as far as he had hoped to for the day but arrived a lot later than planned. Considering how much time he had lost in the morning helping McManus search for the boy and then running after the little fellow earlier in the woods, he decided he was lucky to have gotten that far at all.

He'd be back home by tomorrow that was all that mattered, he mused, but then had a look at the boy again, wondering if maybe he shouldn't turn back after all.

He looked after the horses first. They had worked hard all day and deserved to be comfortable now. He inspected their legs as he thought he had noticed not a limp but somewhat of a cautious gait on the 'Brown One' for the last mile or so. He couldn't be sure, but he put some ointment on the leg all the same. He gave them some oats and then sent the boy off with a pail to get some water for them while he started to light the fire. Brushing them down had to wait. "Not from the River, Kid," Jeremiah called after John when he saw that the child headed straight toward it. The boy looked around in confusion. "Over there, at the creek," he shouted, pointing in the direction where the little stream ran into the much bigger one.

Jeremiah sighed. The stream was dangerously strong at this time of year, the snow on the peaks was melting. The boy had a lot of learning to do.

When the boy came back with the water Jeremiah gave him some beef jerky and nuts that he got out from the back of the wagon, to tie him over and the boy ate it greedily, only saying thanks when it was all gone. The biscuits, Jeremiah had brought from home and that had kept him company throughout the journey were too dry to consume on their own but nevertheless the boy tried to eat one.

"Wait for dinner. They are not nice like this," Jeremiah told the kid. Truth be told they weren't nice full stop, which was why they had not been eaten yet, but the boy took no heat and continued to try and nibble on them.