Light frost covered each strand of the chicken wire fence as the sun crept over tree tops, sending golden rays onto the meadow below. Nick hurried toward the chicken pen to let his “girls” out of their house. The day promised to be warm even though he broke ice on their water pan to fill it. He scattered grain and told them it was a beautiful morning and he would see them that evening. Then, climbing into his pickup truck he drove off to work at the mill.

As promised, the sun warmed Nick’s cabin and the New Mexico mountainside he called home. The flock of mixed breeds of hens chatted softly among themselves with only an occasional squawk when the rangy rooster got too fresh. They pecked at unsuspecting beetles in the grass and shouted jubilee when one of them caught a mouse. Otherwise, all was quiet in Nick’s private paradise.

“Let’s break for lunch.” Clyde said, mopping sweat from his face.

Nick nodded and pulled off his hearing protectors and safety goggles. The two men grabbed lunch boxes from their trucks and walked to the shade of a nearby pine. Soft early summer breeze cooled their sweaty bodies. A jay landed above them, hoping for bread crumbs or apple cores, her daily feast.

“How’s life on your side of the hill?” Clyde asked, taking large bites from his triple-decker sandwich.

“Pretty good.” Nick replied, munching on chips from the crumpled bag in his lap. “What’s new with you and Beth?”

“Aw, we’re okay but we have something going on we can’t figure out.”

“How’s that?” Nick asked, turning to face his neighbor and coworker.

“Things keep disappearing,” Clyde said. “At first, we thought we must have forgotten where we put them but lately, it’s too hard to explain. Stuff is just GONE! It’s like a thief comes in when we’re not there and makes off with odd stuff, like a stack of old buckets. Who in the world would want a stack of old rusty buckets?”

Nick’s furrowed brow and nod agreed, that was strange.

As the two men went back to work in Clyde’s sawmill, Nick thought of things around his place that seemed to have disappeared.

That evening, when Nick checked nests in his hen house he found no eggs. “Hey, you girls, where are my eggs?” He asked as chickens gathered around him waiting for their bedtime snack. Nick shook his head and sprinkled grain on the floor of the hen house, then, closed them in for the night. He carefully closed the gate on the pen and wondered if he needed to put a lock on it.

The following day, Nick asked Clyde if anything else had disappeared. Clyde shoved the board in his hand onto the pile, and looked at Nick. Concern in his eyes, Clyde said, “Yeh. Beth is mad as hell about this one. She left a big bag of dog food on the back steps for me to put in the shed when I got home. When I went out back, it was gone. That dog food is not cheap and we need it for old Bertha. She won’t eat anything else. It’s made of people food and the dang stuff costs more than our groceries!”

The following morning, Sunday, Nick went about his regular weekday schedule. He longed to take the day off and do a little work around his place but something nagged him. No eggs for two days in a row told him the problem wasn’t “his girls.”

After letting the chickens out and giving them their feed and water, he hopped into his truck and drove away, as if to go to work. A mile down the road, he pulled off into a shady spot and waited. Mid-morning, Nick walked back toward his cabin, keeping to the shadows. As he approached, he heard the rooster give a call of alarm. Hens were scurrying around unsure of where to hide. Nick quietly entered the yard and slammed the door shut on the hen house.

“There, caught you!” He shouted. Nick slowly opened the door. At first he saw nothing unusual. Dust motes danced in the air. Hay from the nests lay undisturbed. A sudden burst of a body slammed against him as he stood in the doorway. He grabbed at a dirty shirt and held on to a thin arm, then pulled the intruder out into the bright sunshine to see what he had caught.

Thin as bones, a hollow eyed boy stood panting for breath.

Nick gulped and fought for words. “Who are you?” He stammered.

The boy just looked at him. He carefully cradled two eggs in the front of his shirt. Nick reached into a nearby nest and pulled two more warm eggs from the hay and handed them to the boy.

“Do you speak English?” Nick asked.

The boy looked at him with haunted eyes and said nothing.

“Where are your folks?”

The boy said nothing.

“Well, I guess I can spare some eggs but after this, don’t come sneaking around after I’ve left. Come knock on my door and I’ll give you food. Do you understand?”

The boy slowly nodded, not taking his eyes off of Nick.

Nick let go of the ragged shirt and the boy ran to the woods, still clutching the eggs tightly to his chest.

The following morning, Nick followed his usual routine but when he made up his lunch, he made two. Setting a brown bag of sandwiches and fruit in the shade near the chicken pen, he added a jug of drinking water. His eyes skirted the nearby woods but only caught glimpses of birds darting through the shadows.

Nick sighed. He bade his chickens a “good day” and waved in the direction of the trees. Then, tossing his tools and lunch box in his truck, he climbed in, and drove off to work.

Days, then weeks, disappeared without a trace of the boy except each evening when Nick got home, the water and lunch were gone and two eggs remained in the nests.

Nick told the story to Clyde one day, as they sat in the shade, eating their lunch. Clyde nodded between mouthfuls of sandwich and said, “I wondered what happened. One day most of those old buckets showed up at the shed.”

The two talked about how they might help the boy. With winter coming on, he couldn’t be expected to live in the woods. Social Services needed to be called but somehow neither wanted to be the one turning him in.

That evening, there was a chill in the air. The sun set behind the hill and threw shadows on the high peaks. Nick pulled on his jacket and walked to the chicken pen to close up “his girls” for the night. After scattering grain for their evening snack he reached into the nests for his two eggs, and found seven. He closed the hen house door and latched the chicken wire gate.

Walking to the spot where he left food each day, he found the bag of sandwiches and jug of water, undisturbed. Nick’s eyes searched the darkening woods and said, “Well, little guy, I wish you luck. Maybe I’ll see you next summer, but wherever you go, Vaya Con Dios!”