A love between two very different men is put to the test. John Strobaw, a young mixed-blood, grows up in the relative security of a family farm after the Civil War. His mother raises her family as Americans, but his foster brother, Matthew Brandt feels his red blood more keenly and leaves to ride with Crazy Horse. John doesn’t understand the longing he feels for his absent companion until he has his first sexual experience with a man and he only thinks of Matthew. After the murder of Crazy Horse, Matthew makes his way back home. John fights hard against a growing lust for Matthew, but when he ultimately succumbs, he is lost to this handsome, dusky warrior. Just when the future looks bright, another suitor appears -- a handsome Cheyenne army scout, and trouble looms on the horizon.

Echoes of the Flute

He jerked the gun barrel to the sky. “Sorry. Thieves have been picking the place clean since…since…”


The sadness etched on Andre’s handsome features pleased me. Someone else cared for my friends. “I was looking for the place they hid their valuables.”


“It’s already emptied out. Everything’s at my cabin. I was afraid those whoresons would get it. You can have them anytime you want. There was quite a bit of gold and silver.”


“Was there a book bound in buffalo hide?”


“Your grandfather’s journal? I got it hid away.”


“Good. Leave it where it is. I’ll pick it up later. Right now, I have to go take care of Otter’s body.”


Andre, a man in his mid-thirties, said he’d already done that. “I couldn’t let him just lie there. I claimed him and buried him where I know he’d want to be buried. I can show you.”


Some emotion I didn’t recognize choked me up. Here was a man decent enough to do what I’d come to do. “I know where. In the glen north of here.”


Chapter 26