He's still looking up at this stranger, kind stranger, but stranger still. Does it still make him a stranger if he knows his name? Sure they had been introduced, Texas this man says his name is. Texas, just a name, but Below didn't know anything about this guy. Did it matter? Probably not. He was surely better off with him than he was here, laying around in a bramble trying to keep warm.
"Well sir, I don't know, ain't talk to many strangers. Are we still strangers, you an' me?" He wonders how that all worked, his mother had never gone into the specifics. He wondered why, shouldn't she have? it would have made the whole situation less confusing, less awkward. He wondered now just how much she had left out, how much knowledge she had not shared with him. She was turning out to be a rather rotten mother, was she not?
"I guessin' she did. Said she'd be back, ain't seen her since this morning." He frowned feeling rejected, but he was in every sense of the word. It was obvious he was hurt, angry even. However, he was collected when he spoke, not the usual bawling mess one might find. His jaw remained tight, grinding his teeth in frustration. "Is that why you're here? Did your momma leave you here too? Is this where we stay?" He looked around disappointed with that thought, he couldn't possibly stay here.
BELOW