Chapter 24

“Hau, Missy Wallace,” Tatanka continued.

“She have face like prune,” chimed in Sleeps With Dog. “And nose like beak of hawk!”

“Here, now,” corrected Lee, “None of that…show respect.” But a feeling of apprehension flooded him. “What’d she want?”

“She say she hear that orfang live here.”

“A what?” Lee furrowed his brow.

“Orphan,” Nate said.

“Hau, yes, ‘orphan,’” Tatanka corrected himself. “She tell us that she come to take Sleeps With Dog to safe place.”

“What!” Lee’s earlier feelings of apprehension were realized.

“Easy there,” Nate said in a calm voice. “We set’er straight. We told her Tanka was the boy’s daddy, that he weren’t no orphan. She kind o’ thinks Tanka here is his natural dad.”

“She still want to take me to church school!” Sleeps With Dog moaned.

Lee looked at him with compassion. He remembered how he hated school as a boy and how he had spent more energy getting out of going than he would if he had just gone.