“Poor boy. Your shoulder must hurt badly.” Ma tried to soothe him as she continued with the washing. “I’ll have to get this awful stuff off your face.” But when she began scrubbing his face, he groaned again and tried to turn away.
“Maybe it means something to him to wear that vermilion streak,” Jim suggested. “Looks like mud, doesn’t it? Or it could be he doesn’t like water.”
Ma wasn’t able to get the Indian boy’s face thoroughly clean. She brought a bowl of hot grits to him. “Here, boy, try to eat some of this.” She held a spoonful of grits to his lips.
The boy tasted it gingerly, found it good and opened his mouth for more. Ma fed him the contents of the bowl while Jim and Pa ate their breakfast.
For several days the Hudsons’ strange guest rested in Jim’s bed. Now and then he tried to sit up only to lie down again with a low moan. With Ma’s good food, however, and excellent care, he did improve and seemed to be less frightened at being with the white family.
Little by little he and Jim began trying to talk to each other. By signs, gestures, and a word or two, each boy began to learn a few words of the other’s language.
Jim learned that the Indian boy’s name was Wahbunou, which meant The Juggler, and that he had been pulled from his horse when it galloped under a large thorn tree. One of the low branches had brushed him off and a large thorn had pierced his shoulder. He had fallen on a jagged stump and into the tangled wild grapevine, where the Hudsons had found him. But Jim was not able to find out what he was doing near their clearing.
As for Pa, he was disturbed because the Indian boy had been riding so near their farm. Every night after Ma and Jim were asleep, he rose from his bed and sat in the cabin doorway with his rifle ready. But no Indians appeared.
Sometime later Wahbunou was able to be up and about in the cabin. He would watch Pa clean and oil his Deckard rifle, but he never offered to touch it. Soon he began walking around the clearing with Jim and Ma Hudson. He followed Ma everywhere, gratitude for her care shining in his brown eyes.
One morning Pa said, “We’d best have a look at that shoulder, Wahbunou, to see if it’s healing properly.” But when Pa tried to remove the rag bandage, Wahbunou jerked away like a wounded animal, terror in his eyes.