After the first day of sulking through the step n' fetch it tasks we had given them while Sarah and Variety patched the children up, the older boys went on strike. Ricky took their complaints directly to Dusty. After some consultation with her imaginary friend, she had assigned a child to each of the boys to do "gifting".
"Gifting" was what the kids called it when they put their hands on each other's heads and closed their eyes. None of the adults knew what was going on. It was one of several odd new behaviors. We were so concerned with dealing with the physical and medical necessities that we had little time to ask questions. Even when we did, we often couldn't understand the answers.
Jesse and James Purcival were working with Dusty and a little oriental boy named Nam Chin. Nam was in charge of the planned exodus to New Mexico. He was a scrawny, wiry rat of a kid with a goofy smile. He bobbed his head all the time and laughed at things no one else thought were funny. Then, when you were just about for some location near the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation in southern New Mexico. As it turned out, Mr. Purcival's mother was Apache. He had spent most of his childhood summers with his grandfather's people around Lincoln National Forest.
Nam and Joey had "seen" the location. As soon as James had brought the first load of Wardie kids to the house, the two boys ran up to him and started describing the "place with the cave and the waterfall". Purcival was obviously stunned. He wasn't very explicit about why. He just said it sounded like a place he knew. The whole thing was a mystery. It took a while for the self-assured Mr. Purcival to regain his bearings.
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