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

Dex tarried beyond that only long enough to tell us Libby and little Curtis were getting along fine. He wasn’t yet out of sight before I returned to breaking sod. Despite the interruption, Ethan and I made a good deal of progress even though the ground was not yet properly thawed. My companion had the same aversion to “scratching in the dirt” that every other Lakota of my acquaintance had, but he put his back to it because he was anxious to have done with it. He was looking forward to our trip.


Monday morning brought another interruption of a less welcome sort. I was in the forge making new horseshoes for the trace mare when Ethan whistled me outside. I glanced to where he was plowing one of the far fields to see him motioning down the wagon track leading to Yanube City.


Chapter 75