This is a true story. All names have been changed. Place names and dates remain factual.

The place. Main roads, the state highways and large county roads make little concession to the northern

Indiana prairie.

They zip north, south, or east-west across the sun's sparkle land.

On smaller local roads, you feel the contour of the terrain, the gentle swell and dip

past innumerable kettle lakes, the drainage

ditches, and the creeks that veined this country. You smell the lush, loamy soil, but above all,

the ever-changing sky. This is a rich country and people have lived here for thousands of years. At a creek rock bar,

you may be surprised how easy it is to find Indian arrowheads and pieces of pottery.

The archaic and woodland people settled here after the last glacier retreated 15,000 years ago.

Glacial melts left behind moraines, lakes, and the lazy meandering Kankakee River Basin

with its chaotic half-million-acre wet woodland known as the Great Kankakee Marsh.

Around the time of Christ, the Miami and the Potawatomi Indians settled this area.

The Manitow protected their dark forests.

At night, the spirits of men hunted the spirits of animals.

The myline demons dwelt under the earth. The first white men here were French

voyagers intent on fur harvest. They left behind only place names like La Crosse, Laporte,

La Paz. Later, real settlers, American sodbusters, began the epic transformation of the Midwest wilderness

into the agricultural heartland of the continent. The Potawatomi were driven out in the 1830s.

The Grand Marsh resisted the plow for hundreds of years. Too wet to cultivate, too thick to navigate,

the marsh and the woodlands sang with life. This was the largest inland wetland in North America.

It was a paradise for waterfowl, hunting flourished. Early railroads lay down short sidings,

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