Ordinary Soil
“The soil you see is not ordinary soil—it is the dust of the blood, the flesh, and the bones of our ancestors . . . You will have to dig down through the surface before you find nature’s earth.”
—Ashishishe (c. 1856–1923), Crow Nation Warrior
Terrorized by a shadow from the past, an afflicted farmer attempts suicide under a rotting burial elm, inadvertently unearthing a dark ancestral history and exposing diseased generational roots of abandonment and abuse. But a secret also waits to be discovered, deep in the ordinary soil of the Oklahoma Panhandle, that holds the redemptive power to save both the man and the land.
—Ashishishe (c. 1856–1923), Crow Nation Warrior
Terrorized by a shadow from the past, an afflicted farmer attempts suicide under a rotting burial elm, inadvertently unearthing a dark ancestral history and exposing diseased generational roots of abandonment and abuse. But a secret also waits to be discovered, deep in the ordinary soil of the Oklahoma Panhandle, that holds the redemptive power to save both the man and the land.