Show of Evil

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The town of Gideon, Illinois, biblical of name and temperament, squats near the juncture of Kentucky and Indiana at the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains. A trickle of a river called the Wahoo forms the western boundary of the town, while Appalachian foothills etch its southern and eastern parameters. It was founded in the mid 1800s by a handful of farmers driven south by encroaching midwestern cities, by railroads, and by brutal winters. They were followed soon afterwards by a fire-eyed reader of the Church of Latter-Day Saints named Abraham Gideon, who had split from Brigham Young and led a small troop of followers towards the southern mountains. They had blundered onto the fledgling village, liked what they'd seen, and settled down there. It was Gideon who gave the town its name and a strict moral code that has persisted for nearly one hundred and fifty years.

Inhabited by two thousand and some citizens, most of them hardworking conservatives and many of Mormon descent, it is a town that takes care of itself and minds its own business. Its architecture is stern and simple; its streets paved only when necessity demands; its town core a collection of indispensable businesses without frills or fancies; its town meetings held at the Baptist church, the largest building in town.

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