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

The Oglala peered through the gloom of the little brush shelter at my older nephew and confirmed Plenty Horses’ anointment of Ides. “Do you suppose Blue Eyes here will grow up to have medicine like you do?” Without waiting for an answer, he addressed the boy. “Do you speak Lakota?”


“Hau, Thunkashila,” Ides politely addressed the older man as Grandfather.


“Then your uncle is raising you well.”


Conversation turned to the difficult conditions on the reservations. The entire countryside had suffered a series of harsh winters, dry summers, prairie fires, grasshopper hordes and poor crops. None of which made life easier on the tribesmen. Before we left to go plunge into the cool waters of Turtle Crick to wash away the purifying sweat raised by the heated stones, I gave the chief my price for the cattle.


Chapter 17