Abstract:
Generations of farmers planted their grain on aboriginal battlefields like Rein Hillman did. Decades of spring plowings saw aboriginal weapons spring from the earth, long before an archaeologist came to identify them. Legends about shamans’ ghosts were whispered around Indians’ fires before they were written into books; and mysterious misfortunes still lurk unexplained in the haymows and attics of old farms. Somewhere, an orphan boy still asks the shaman’s ghost, “Will there really be a Last Great Battle.” Knowing what I know about the Hillman Farm, I wonder too.