This is the story of two friends chatting on the porch of a hardware store in Gorse, Nebraska on a summer evening in 1904. It is also a story about the lifetimes of the Hindu god Vishnu. It is a story about failure, remorse, love, and celebration.
August Altmann was the owner of the hardware store and the lay reader in the local Episcopal chapel, but he had never traveled and his education was indifferent. By contrast, Justus Fowler, was an attorney educated at Yale, who had studied Eastern Religions. Nevertheless, it was August who told Justus stories about the Hindu god, Vishnu. They were stories he had known since he was a child.
While Justus' reaction to what he was hearing ranged from disbelief to negative sarcasm, it turned out, much to his surprise, that for just about everyone else in town, the story was a reason to light a bonfire and spend the night dancing.