Author's Note: "The Young Riders" is property of Ed Spielman and the others who created it. I don't own any of the characters, just borrowing them. The words to "Prayer of the Children" were written by Kurt Bestor. The words to "There Is Sunshine in My Soul Today" are by Eliza E. Hewitt. Neither of them are my creations, I'm only quoting them. I'm also aware that they're not time-period correct, but they conveyed the message I wanted, so I used them. My thanks to the wonderful authors for their beautiful and inspiring words.

Summary: This was written a long time ago for a friend's challenge. When boys signed up for the Pony Express they were given $25 and a Bible. She challenged writers to take their favorite character and write a story either showing how they used that Bible, or use a scripture somewhere in the story. I know it has a rather religious overtone, but Ike was raised in a Catholic mission school, so I felt it was fitting.

Reaching Hands

Can you hear the prayer of the children
on bended knee, in the shadow of an unknown room?
Empty eyes with no more tears to cry,
turning heavenward toward the light.
Crying Jesus help me to see the morning light of one more day,
but if I should die before I wake, I pray my soul to take.

Can you feel the hearts of the children
aching for home, for something of their very own?
Reaching hands with nothing to hold on to
but hope for a better day, a better day.
Crying Jesus help me to feel the love again in my own land,
but if unknown roads lead away from home, give me loving arms, away from harm.

Can you hear the voice of the children
softly pleading for silence in a shattered world?
Angry guns preach a gospel full of hate,
blood of the innocent on their hands.
Crying Jesus help me to feel the sun again upon my face,
for when darkness clears, I know you're near, bringing peace again.

Can you hear the prayer of the children?

- Kurt Bestor

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There are different types of silence. There's the silence that comes just before a summer shower, the moment the earth holds its breath, everything waiting for the cool drops to fall. There's the silence of a crystal clear winter day, the hush of early morning, the quiet of a newborn baby in its mother's arms, or the solemn stillness of the grave. Then there's my kind of silence; the kind that can eat your soul. The kind that twists inside you, making you choke. The kind that can imprison better than a thousand armies or smother better than the darkest night.

Silence has been in my life for almost as long as I can remember. I've grown accustomed to it; it's a part of me. But sometimes that's still not enough. Sometimes, my selective hearing and protective walls just aren't strong enough to block out the cries of "dummy" or "freak." Sometimes, the desire to join the cheerful banter of my friends fills me with a longing so deep it almost makes me sick. And sometimes, as I sit in the midst of my family with my "Ike-is-a-good-listener" look pasted on, I wonder what everyone would think if they could really know what I say in my head; if they could truly hear my words as I think them, not as they sound through someone else. They're my friends – no my family – and they mean more to me than the world, but there are times when even they don't understand. They don't know what it's like to have a question and have to wait to be seen to ask it. They can't comprehend how it feels to always be in the background, to have to stop what you're doing to "speak," to pause mid-sentence because your hands don't have the word your mind does, to have your intelligence measured not by your knowledge but by your silence. They don't realize that sometimes the smile stitched across my face is the only way to hide the pain that's cutting apart my insides. They can't understand what it's like to be truly alone, so alone that no one can even hear your screams, not even yourself. But I do. I do because I've been there.

Even now, as I sit here in the warm glow of the fireplace surrounded by people I'd give my life for and know they would do the same for me, it still scares me to look back. I close my eyes and it frightens me how quickly I can be drowning in the panic and frustration again, how the years can instantly melt away and I become the same scarred, frantic, trapped child. No one in their right mind would purposely lock a child in a cage, but not all cages are as recognizable as others, and not all jailers know they posses keys.

There was a time in my life when I thought for sure my "voice" would never be heard again, and I was equally certain no one would even care. I screamed so loud as I watched my family die that it echoed off the insides of my skull, but not a sound escaped to disturb the dust of the shed. I cried out every night for them as I lay in my narrow cot at the mission, but silence was the only noise. I shouted in pain and frustration at my tormentors in the school yard, but no one ever knew. And I begged for a friend, for someone to understand me, but no one was listening. Then I stopped trying. I was stuck in a deep, dark, pit of never-ending silence and everyday the walls got steeper and the top farther away. The sisters weren't purposefully cruel, they were just over-stretched, hard-working women with too much to do and not enough to do it with. I'm sure they really did have good hearts buried under the layers of rules and orders, but I still always knew I was like the dirt that gets swept under the cupboard; you know it's there, but as long as it's out of sight, you can pretend to forget. And everyone does it, no matter how clean a house they keep.

I was sinking, drowning in my own thoughts, my own tongue acting as a dam holding them in. All day long the walls around me echoed with voices, children laughing, nuns singing, lessons being recited. With all my heart I longed to join in, especially in the lessons. Somehow, I knew there was a key to my prison in those classrooms, but for me, the doors remained shut tight, the very reason I needed them so badly keeping me out: my silence.

Do you know what it's like to be invisible? To know you could disappear tomorrow and no one would really notice? Do you know what it's like to have years of unanswered questions, unheard cries, unspoken pleas locked inside your head? Do you know how it feels to slowly go mad? I do, and I've never forgotten. After a while, I was so sure I was just a shadow, a living ghost, that I was terrified I'd wake up one morning to find I'd just vanished. I guess I reacted in the only way I knew how, the desperate act of a caged child trying to survive. I wasn't really wild. I didn't mean to cause problems; I only wanted to remind people that I was there, that I existed. Deep down, I knew it wouldn't work, but sometimes one has to clutch at straws, anything to stay afloat. I know from personal experience you can only tread water for so long before you go under, and then it takes another to save you.

Maybe it's because everything I saw or heard remained stuck in my head with no way to escape, but even today I remember those first few years at the mission as if they were just yesterday, the images painfully clear. I may not have been allowed in the classroom, but religion was a different matter. Every Sunday, the whole mission attended Mass and Bible study, right down to the School Freak. Perhaps they felt a little more apprehension at neglecting my soul than they did my mind, or perhaps they just reasoned it would be easier to keep an eye on me there, but whatever the motivation, I went. I was still a voiceless shadow in the corner, but even shadows have ears and I listened with a thirst for knowledge – any knowledge – that only a parched man can understand. It was in one of these classes that my eager ears caught the words that rocked my precarious world and sent me sliding toward the cliff.

My parents were God-fearing people who taught my sister and me that there was a God in Heaven and that the Bible was His word to us. I was very young when they died and try as I may, my memory of them is fading, but I still know this. I remember going to church every Sunday; I remember my mother singing to us and my father reading from the Bible. And young as I was, I knew the faith of the nuns at the mission was different from the religion I had been taught at home, but the image of God and the words of the Bible were the same, so I clung to them as to a life-preserver. Then my faith was shattered by the one thing I'd come to rely on. I was ten years old and blending into the woodwork of the corner, just like I always did in Bible class, but I was listening, and that's probably more than can be said for any of the other students in Sister Clara's class that day. I'll never forget the scripture she read to us that cloudy, winter evening, Exodus 22:22-23: "Ye shall not afflict any widow, or fatherless child. If thou afflict them in any wise, and they cry unto me, I will surely hear their cry."

I was stunned, the wind knocked completely out of my chest and an awful tide of despair replaced it. I'm sure Sister Clara read that scripture to give comfort and provide hope, but that's not how it affected me; I felt utterly betrayed. I was a fatherless child, I was afflicted. If the taunts and insults of the other children, the cruel tricks and awful names, the unintentional negligence of the sisters, and the closed doors of the classrooms weren't afflictions, I didn't know what was. For years I had wondered why God let all the bad things happen to me, why I got sick and lost my hair, why my parents and sister were killed, why my voice was taken from me, why people were continually allowed to hurt me, but my mother had taught me to have faith in God's will, so I tried to accept it and go on. To survive. But I still wondered, and now suddenly, I thought I knew why. The scripture had just said I must cry unto God and He would hear my cry, but how could I? I couldn't even hear my own voice, how could I ever, as a ten year old silent little boy, get it to reach all the way to the heavens? In that moment, I knew I was truly alone, because not even God could hear me to know I was alive.

That night was one of the longest, darkest nights of my life. The blackness was crushing in on me, the loneliness smothering me, and I just wanted God to make me die, too, so I could go to Heaven and be with people that loved me and wanted me again. I longed to scream out all the pain trapped inside of me, all the words and thoughts and anguished questions churning around my head, but I couldn't! For hours I lay there, great silent sobs wracking my body and tears streaming down my cheeks. Finally, I had no more tears left to cry, just burning eyes and a twisting mass of confusion and hurt in my captive heart. I didn't know what to do. I'd reached out for years with my hands, the only thing I had to reach with, but now I knew it wasn't enough.

In hopeless despair, I got out of my cot and wandered the cold, stone halls of the mission, this time really a silent shadow of the night. Somehow I ended up curled in a shivering heap in the chapel, staring at the images of the saints. In the darkness of the night, the statues and paintings appeared grotesque and frightening, almost mocking me and my silence, laughing at my captivity, and I cowered in fear. Moments from my life assaulted me, the sound of gunshots and my family falling, taunting children, shouts of "dummy" and "freak," and even the awful words of that scripture ran through my ears and I clamped my hands over them, begging for quiet. I just might have died there that cold, rainy night, of loneliness and a broken heart, if it hadn't been for a small miracle.

Angels come in many forms. Some are beautiful beyond description, wearing wings and glistening robes and crowned with golden curls. Others come with voices that can shake the earth, bold and full of power. My angel was neither of these. My angel was adorned in the stern black and white habit of a lowly nun, an ordinary woman, but she was an angel just the same. I don't know her name and I only saw her once, but she saved my life. Perhaps it was because she was younger and her heart hadn't yet built the survival shield that comes from witnessing suffering day after day. Perhaps it was because she was just stopping at the mission for a few days and so she hadn't learned to turn a blind eye to me. Or perhaps she was truly inspired from above, but whatever the reason, she saved me. She looked past my bald head and mute lips and gazed directly into my soul to find the frightened, aching child imprisoned there.

I huddled in that drafty room for ages, my sobs returning as my pain grew. I was a nobody, a voiceless freak whom no one loved, not even God. I was just about to close my eyes and stop fighting the cold and pain when a person appeared beside me: my angel. I don't know what she was doing up at that hour and I don't know how she ever found me, but that doesn't matter. What does matter is that she loved me. She knelt on the ground next to me and gathered me into her arms.

For a moment I was afraid! It had been over three years since anyone had held me like that, since anyone had rocked me and caressed my face or tried to sooth my tears, and I didn't know what to do! Then, I finally allowed all my protective walls to crumble and I melted into her embrace, soaking up her kindness.

"Hush, child, don't cry. The storm will pass soon," she said, thinking I'd been frightened by the thunder. "What are you doing here instead of in bed?"

I pulled away from her and looked down in sorrow and shame, words of a reply I could never give choking me, my hands unconsciously reaching out.

"Oh, you're the boy who does not speak, aren't you." It wasn't a question, but it wasn't an accusation either. Then she uttered words no one had ever said to me before. She reached out and gathered me back onto her lap, cradling my head to her and, with tears of her own flowing, softly spoke, "I'm so sorry." She didn't condemn me, she didn't ignore or shun me, and she didn't belittle me. Instead, she looked at the world, if only for a moment, through my eyes and she cried with me for what I'd lost. And then she gave me back my faith.

For a long time we sat there, me crying out the pain and she holding me close, rocking me in the solemn darkness. After a while, she started to softly sing. The words of several hymns floated to the ground around us, but I wasn't listening, preferring to just let the music wash over me, calming my terror and reassuring me that I wasn't alone any longer. Then suddenly, I heard words that spoke straight to my soul. My plain angel was singing a song about sunshine to brighten the dreary, wet night.

"There is sunshine in my soul today,
More glorious and bright
Than glows in any earthly sky,
For Jesus is my light..."

It was a different kind of song than the reverent, almost mournful singing I was accustomed to hearing from the sisters. It almost reminded me of the hymns my mother had once sung to me, but it was the second verse that touched my heart.

"There is music in my soul today,
A carol to my King,
And Jesus listening can hear
The songs I cannot sing..."

For the second time that day I was absolutely stunned, but this time it wasn't despair that coursed through me, but hope – beautiful, bright hope! That wonderful line repeated over and over in my mind. "Jesus listening can hear the songs I cannot sing!" With the simple logic of a child I realized that if Jesus, the Son of God, could hear my silent songs, surely His Father could, too. And if God could hear my wordless music, surly He must also hear my cries and prayers, my thoughts and dreams, and the voice trapped inside my head. I wasn't a forgotten shadow after all; God did hear my cries! For the first time in ages I felt a calmness creep over me as my wonderful angel held me close. She noticed my shaking lessen and smiled down at me, reading my thoughts with the motherly intuition given to all women if they'll listen.

"Yes, child, He can hear you. Even if no one else in this whole big world can, He hears and understands you. If He is mindful of all His creations, right down to the sparrow that flies and the ant that crawls, how could He overlook a child as precious as you?"

Not since my parents died had anyone called me precious and it warmed me all over. Then, as I relaxed in the safety of her tender arms, she quoted another scripture that I've never forgotten, from St. John: "I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you."

In a matter of moments my faith was restored, a faith my mother had planted and that I desperately needed to survive. I was still the silent freak of the orphanage, still an outcast in the world, this one night wouldn't change that, but I was not entirely alone. God could hear me and I had His promise to comfort me. Somehow, I knew that one day I would find my place, I would no longer be alone, and someday my "voice" would be heard again. In time, my reaching hands would finally be grasped by a friend and somehow I would find a key to unlock my cage. I didn't know when and I didn't know how, but I was sure it would happen.

I don't know how long I remained in that kind sister's arms, but I must have finally fallen asleep because I awoke the next morning in my cot and she was gone. Life went on as usual, with me on the outside looking in, but in the back of my mind I clung to the hope given me that black night by my angel. I never saw her again and I doubt she would even remember me or what she said that night, but I will never forget her.

A lot has changed in my life since that long ago winter night. I grew up. I'm no longer that frightened, trapped child, at least not during the day. Sometimes, I still wonder what it would be like to hear my own voice, to shout a greeting to a friend, or really tell my family how much they mean to me, but I also know it will never happen. Like I said before, my silence, both the good and the bad, is a part of me; it makes me who I am. When I feel the frustration building up again, I look around at the friends who've become my family and know that God did keep His promise, my "voice" is heard again and my hands aren't reaching anymore. When I have to endure the hurtful cruelty of people who refuse to listen with their hearts, I remind myself that there are still others out there like my angel who can look past appearances straight to the soul. And when things are the very darkest and I feel utterly alone, shunned by the world and always misunderstood, I know that there will always be One who can hear me, and He will not leave me comfortless. I know God can hear my cries, even if they are silent ones because I now understand that just as He created the sounds and music of life, He also created the silence, each and every kind, including mine.