Chris Drnaso

A Prairie Fortnight Chris Drnaso

The word ABDUCTION sent waves of fear throughout northern Illinois and beyond. Tension was already high following Black Hawk's routing of the state's militia at Stillman's Creek. Now, right on the heels of that calamity, word circulated of the massacre at Indian Creek. The settler population barely had time to absorb this second tragedy before learning that the attacking Indians had carried off two young girls. (Excerpt from Chapter Twenty) The beautiful and bountiful lands of northern Illinois in 1832 create the backdrop for a story of broken promises, deceit, and mounting hostilities between colonizing settlers and an embedded Indian population. The warrior Black Hawk has returned to Illinois from his exile in Iowa with the dream of once again living on the ancestral lands of his boyhood. Fear has gripped the pioneers, who demand a swift and powerful military response to this incursion. With so many bent on war, two men; one white and the other red, strive for some semblance of peace in an ever more antagonistic world. Twelve miles north of Ottawa, at a small enclave along Indian Creek, the building of a dam, a seemingly benign act, has started a chain of events that will place the homesteaders on a collision course with horror and heartbreak. Metaphorically, storms more powerful and destructive than any hurricane are beginning to swirl across the prairies of Illinois.