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

I shook my head, although moon glow was so faint, he likely didn’t see it. “They’re gone. And that means one of the men on the ground behind us must be Landreth. He wouldn’t be driven off so easily.”


“Medicine Hair! Are you all right?”


I made out the form of Ethan standing on uncertain legs behind me. His rifle was almost too much of a load for him to bear.


“I’m not hurt. And the sheriff’s men are gone.”


“They’ll be back in the morning in greater force,” Gideon warned.


“You want me to go for more men, Cap’n?” Wales had a hopeful note to his voice.


“No. That might just provoke a battle between the military and the civilian authorities.”


“As opposed to the slaughter of a couple of Indians. Four if they count your son and wife.” I returned to what mattered to me most at the moment. “Your rifle may be needed when they show up again, Ethan. Go back to the cabin and rest up for what is coming.”


“Wales, give him a hand back to the cabin.”


Chapter 95