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

Surprisingly, the first thing the boy wanted was a sweat bath in the okinare.I agreed but only if he built the fire, heated the rocks, and made the little brush and canvas shelter ready. As Otter had done with me, I wanted him to understand the rituals of our people. When Ides called me from the forge, I joined him on the south side of the crick, stripped, and entered the enclosure. The boy, as naked as he had been born, followed. Then we settled down to allow sweat to purge the poisons accumulated in our systems.


Ides was a chatterbox, and his talk that afternoon tended to test some of his recent school lessons against my thinking on the subjects. I saw no cause to undermine his classroom teachers even though I had different ideas on certain things. Talk soon turned to Ethan. The boy’s fondness for my mate was obvious and reassuring.


Chapter 84