"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.