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

My first instinct was to go to Caleb Brown. The merchant had wide contacts and was well-respected, but on sober though, I headed straight for Richard Bacon’s office a couple of blocks south of the Emporium. Lawyer Bacon, as he was commonly known in town, had helped me once or twice before. Most notably, when Matthew was arrested in 1879 and hauled in a jail wagon to Fort Robinson down in Nebraska. Raven Longbow denounced him as a fugitive follower of the murdered Crazy Horse. Before I went in pursuit of my mate, Bacon prepared an identification packet for me so that I could not be falsely saddled with someone else’s identity during that troubled time.


The man, now somewhere near his fiftieth year, rose from behind his desk, his spare, six-foot-one frame towering above me. After shaking hands in the American way, I introduced Ethan. Once Bacon had examined the sign plucked from the south bank of Turtle Crick, we sat in chairs near his desk and discussed the situation.


Chapter 45