章 23: Chapter 23

“How long it take you to get a baby goin’?” Teddy asked.

“Uh…well, we adopted Sleep…ah, Sam,” Lee replied.

“Man, that is real good…real good. I admire you fer that. Ya started to say something about ‘sleep’. What was that about?”

Lee took a deep breath. Here was a chance to at least come clean with some of his story.

“Uh…well, Sam’s an Injun, a Dakota. S’real name’s Sleeps With Dog. He didn’t have no folks so me and Tatanka sorta took him in.”

Lee pretended to look hard at one of the strands of wire that he was working to fix. He breathed deeply again.

Teddy seemed to be considering this latest news. “From the sound a the name, seems like your wife’s an Injun, too?”

Lee nodded without looking up.

“Well, I’ll be,” said Teddy. “That takes a lot a courage out here. Gotta take ma hat off to ya, yes sir.”

Lee didn’t respond. He just raised his head and looked at Ted and smiled. Ted nodded and smiled back. So far so good, Lee thought.