Thirty-two-year-old mixed blood John Strobaw, known to the Sioux as Medicine Hair, returns to his Turtle Crick Farm after a six-year exile on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Grief-stricken at the loss of his mate and lover Matthew Brand, known as Shambling Bear, at the Battle of Wounded Knee, he struggles to become a farmer again while fighting an internal battle to let go of the past and face his future. Will that future be with his best friend Winter Bird or with Pretty Face, an outrageous flirt who hasn’t yet decided who he is?<br><br>But before he can come to grips with this, John faces several battles. Will his former friends and neighbors accept him now the Indian War has come to an end? Can John forgive those same friends and neighbors after the murderous ambush of the Sioux by the 7th Cavalry at Wounded Knee? Or survive the hostility of an Indian-hating sheriff named Charles Landreth and protect himself against the mindless fear and loathing for Two Spirits, men who love men?

Wastelakapi…Beloved

Dexter was the son of the widowed Englishwoman Jane Appleton, who had worked with my mother at the Mead for as long as I could recall. Ma successfully plotted Dex and Libby’s wedding while I was away at Pine Ridge.


“They bought the old Stubblefield place about five miles up Turtle Crick shortly after I returned,” I said.


“Good. Then I won’t be turning anybody out. By the way, I have a money belt in my pack. Pa sent some gold and silver and a little copper from what you and Matthew stored there.”


Our family’s appreciation of precious metals stemmed from Billy Strobaw who had raised my orphaned father from his teens. I knew from reading Billy’s journal that he had come upon two murdered traders with Conestoga wagons filled with trading goods and weapons. He figured the pair had been dealing illicitly with renegades until things went wrong. He also found a canvas sack filled with gold and silver and paper money.


Chapter 4