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

“And the same thing could happen to me.”


“If it does, it won’t be because of me. I respect you too much to decry you to anyone.”


“I wasn’t sure. We’ve crossed swords before,” I reminded him.


“We look at things from different perspectives, that’s true. I don’t know about you, but I’ve learned from that.”


“You gave me my name and my reputation, you know.”


“Back in ‘83, I repeated what you told me about those unusual sunsets and blue moons and lavender suns caused by the eruption of Krakatoa over on the other side of the world. The tribesmen I was talking to instantly named me Medicine Hair and declared me a shaman.” I laughed with a trace of irony. “I told them I learned those things from the army’s telegraph, but they decided I had medicine, anyway.”


“Be damned. Didn’t know. Hope you don’t blame me for…?”


Chapter 6