Twilight gathered, thickening the shadows that shrouded the trees. The moon had already risen, a bright silver crescent riding beneath a faded blue sphere. He loved the magic of the night, loved watching the moon and stars appear in the sky almost as much as he loved the swamp. The wetlands pulsed with life all night long. The darkness coupled with the still, watery landscape settled a protective blanket of solitude around him. In the dense, liquid world beneath him and the forest around his home, all manner of life co-existed in a delicate balance. He likened the swamp’s dance of life and death to the way good and evil existed together in the world of men beyond its boundaries. This shadowy place was his universe, his sanctuary. He savored its peace, was used to it after having grown up in almost complete isolation with his mother, a reclusive Cherokee woman who had left her people behind when she chose to settle in far-off Kentucky with his father, a French Canadian fur trapper named Gerard LeCroix.
