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 battle ended quickly after the escape of some of the gang. We gingerly edged into the clearing to find a half dozen bandits with their hands raised. The posse and the squad of military men soon had them trussed up.


“Damn,” Lieutenant Edge said after making a round of the clearing. “The colonel got away.”


“No,” I said. “He’s in the trees over there. He’s not going anywhere.”


Edge raced in the direction I’d indicated.


“Don’t see Gilroy nowhere. You sure he was here?” Landreth asked.


“He was here,” I said. “Either he left after warning them we were on the way or he’s one of the six or so who got away.”


“John winged one of them,” Bird said. “But he stayed in the saddle.”


Landreth took off his hat and scratched his thick mustache. “Shit, I wish we’d of killed him.”


The sheriff’s mean eyes settled on me like twin bores of a shotgun.


Chapter 23