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

Landreth leaned on his saddle horn. “Strobaw, you son of a bitch. You got me in a hell of a fix. If it wasn’t for Caleb Brown, I’d hightail it back home and leave you to clean up your own mess.”


“But you’re not going to do that, are you?”


Landreth ignored me. “Middleton’s a nasty bastard. Stays on the right side of the law when he can but cuts across it when it suits his purpose.”


“What do you think he’ll do next?”


The sheriff straightened up in the saddle. “Likely won’t do nothing more’n harass us till that army column gets here. Then he’ll let them stop us.”


“The army hasn’t been moving until now, and these men have been off the reserve for some time,” I said. “Let me tell you what I think happened. My brother-in-law, Captain Gideon Haleworthy, knows what’s going on and wired the Indian agent at Pine Ridge. The agent called in the army. I think he sent them to make sure Iron Head gets through with his cattle.”


Chapter 34