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

When a burning cinder from the engine’s stack nearly caught me in the eye, I prudently withdrew into the interior of the car. As amazing as the train itself, was the number of farms and small ranches dotting the valley floor. And people claimed this was the case all the way to Fort Ramson some a hundred fifty miles to the east. The last time I’d passed this way on horseback there had been few homesteads in the valley.


After I settled back onto my bench seat, a blonde girl a little older than Ides plucked up the courage to wander back and brace me.


I smiled. “Yes, I am.” I didn’t confuse her with the fact that half my blood was Scandinavian. “Haven’t you ever seen an Indian before?”


She nodded. “Uh huh, but I’ve never talked to one. You talk just like me.”


“So I do, but I also talk like this.” I proceeded to tell her how pretty she was in Lakota.


Chapter 42