'Prairie Fire' - Part 1

The tired wind howled over the vast and lonesome prairie. It slapped the grasses against each other and bent sunflower heads to the ground. As it raced along, the wind was suddenly stopped by a single house crouched in the miserable barrenness.

By Amelia Conrad

The tired wind howled over the vast and lonesome prairie. It slapped the grasses against each other and bent sunflower heads to the ground. As it raced along, the wind was suddenly stopped by a single house crouched in the miserable barrenness.

Inside the house, a woman sat in the dim light of a fire. She was a pretty woman quickly approaching middle age. Her thin face had started to show the years in the faint lines around her mouth and eyes. Her chestnut hair was pulled into a severe bun at the nape of her neck. As she sat, she worriedly worked on a thick scarf.

The woman's name was Caroline Fletcher. She was a cultured woman, brought up in the high society of New York City. In her day, she had been quite a belle with more suitors than she had time to see. An outsider might wonder how she had come to live in this godforsaken prairie. She often wondered herself.

      Her knitting needles clacked together as she remembered. She was sixteen when she first met Mr. Fletcher. He was tall and grizzled-looking with a sharp, jutting chin and broad shoulders. Caroline had been drawn to his adventurous spirit. She had followed him all the way to Iowa in a wagon that exposed her to both the best and worst of a Midwestern summer.

      They had come full of dreams and promises, but the prairie had not been kind, Years of back-breaking labor had gone into the cruel soil and still there was no crop. The horrible wind and three stillborn babies had changed Caroline. No one in New York would recognize her, Caroline realized. She was no longer delicate and gentle. She had become as strong and coarse as a mule or ox.

      Now it was spring again; a time that had always filled the prairie with hope. This year, however, Caroline couldn't bring herself to enjoy the sun and the wildflowers. She stayed in the two room shack knitting a never-ending scarf.

      As she considered her miserableness, Caroline thought she heard footsteps but the wind was too overpowering to hear anything clearly. The black and white dog lying by the fire raised its haunches and let out an uneasy growl. The sheriff had come by the house a few days ago to warn about a string of robberies nearer to town. With her husband away, the woman was feeling apprehensive. She peered out the window into the misty darkness hoping to dispel her fears. The windows were too wet, though, and the wild prairie was obscured in the blackness.

      The dog sat by the door whimpering in fear. Caroline could now hear definite footsteps approaching the house. The wind seemed to scream a warning at her. She reached for the heavy wooden mallet that hung beside the stove and waited.

      When the sheriff arrived the next morning, the scene seemed obvious. A woman and her husband lay dead, a wooden mallet and a revolver between them. It could have been a lover's spat, the sheriff reasoned, but somehow he doubted it.

      The robberies had been occurring for more than a month, frightening the locals and frustrating the authorities. Now he's gone too far, the sheriff thought with a smile. Two murders would certainly send the burglar to jail and end his crime spree.

      It looked as though the robber had gotten more than he bargained for in this sad little house. The revolver, of course, would be his and the mallet could have been the weapon that the Fletchers used to defend themselves. The sheriff glanced at the little dog in the corner as if seeking an affirmation of his theory. The dog gave him a disapproving glare.

      The sheriff examined the inside of the house. Nothing seemed to be missing or out of place. It was a tidy house and it was pretty in a simple, empty way. The sheriff could find nothing to support his theory and walked outside despondently.

      He scoured the soggy ground, certain that he would find a mysterious set of footprints in the mud. The only prints he found matched Jim Fletcher's boots. The idea of a robber was beginning to look far-fetched, even to the gullible mind of the sheriff.

      Later that afternoon, the sheriff examined the two bodies in hopes of discovering a new lead. Mr. Fletcher had been hit with the mallet multiple times. More times than it took to kill him, the sheriff realized. Mr. Fletcher appeared to have fallen where he lay now; the murderer hadn't moved him.

      At his waist, Mr. Fletcher had an empty gun holster. Picking up the revolver, the sheriff could see that it would easily slide into the small leather pouch. A bag to the side of the body bulged slightly and the sheriff peered inside. Hundred dollar bills spilled onto the floor as he lifted it onto the table. Either the robber left this as a parting gift or the husband had a lucrative second job, the sheriff mused as he counted the money.

      When he had finished stacking the bills in neat piles on the table, the sheriff bent down to look at the body of Mr. Fletcher's wife. She had been killed with a single bullet to the head. Her bun was still perfectly nestled atop her head and her lifeless hands lay gracefully by her side. The sheriff picked up a ring that had apparently fallen from the woman's finger. It was an unusually ornate ring for a country woman living in hard times. The sheriff laid the ring beside the money and sat down to think.

      Caroline could hear the man climbing the steps slowly as if he were very tired. The dog glanced pleadingly at his mistress and then slunk into the back room. Caroline listened apprehensively as the door knob turned, hearing the familiar click as the door refused to open. The door did not hold the man out for long, however. Her visitor was very adept at picking locks.

      In the quietness, Caroline could hear her heart pounding nervously inside her. She gripped the heavy mallet in her right hand and prayed that she wouldn't have to use it. She toyed with the ring on her finger for a moment and then pulled it off. The tiny clink as it hit the floor was imperceptible as the door creaked open. Breathing a deep sigh, Caroline steadied her hands, lifted the mallet, and turned to face the intruder.

      The sheriff breathed a weary sigh as he contemplated the tragic murder. He thought back to the day he had first met Mr. Fletcher and his pretty young wife. The sheriff had been shocked by Mrs. Fletcher's beauty, almost to the point of rudeness, but Mr. Fletcher's rugged, sensible attitude had soon earned the sheriff's respect. The sheriff only knew bits and pieces of the Fletchers' past life and these he pondered, attempting to find some noble way in which these people might have died. Finding no logical connection between what he knew of the Fletchers' life in New York and their murders on this desolate prairie, the sheriff gave up and began to daydream.

      Although she had known the face of this stranger as long as she could remember and known that this would be the face entering through her door, Caroline could not help but gasp as she dropped the mallet on the burglar. Once she had heaved that initial blow, Mrs. Fletcher continued to beat her intruder until he no longer cried out, until he no longer whispered her name. She knelt beside the man, weeping at the sight of his broken body, and felt around his waist until she found the revolver that she knew would be there. Her husband had taught her to use it only the week before. Carefully, for she knew she mustn't make a mistake, Caroline lifted the revolver, suddenly heavy, to her temple and then paused. Her life did not pass before her eyes as she had heard it would, but, in her mind, she replayed the chain of events that had led her to this lonely house on this bleak prairie.

      She had always been attractive and, whether for her looks or for her family's money, she attracted many suitors. When she was only sixteen, a wealthy banker, a widower three times her age, had asked for her hand in marriage. Engaged to this revolting man, Caroline had become depressed, rebellious, and angry. When Mr. Fletcher, a man much traveled and an exciting change from her balding fiancé, appeared, she had been more than happy to accept his proposal of a pilgrimage to Iowa. He had been too surprised by her compliance to question the results and, without alerting any family member to her sudden change of plans, Caroline had set out on her great journey.

      Arriving with hopes and dreams and promises, the Fletchers had been eager to work hard and to care for the land. However, the drought, the bugs, and the stillborn children had quickly crushed Caroline's spirit. She began to wonder whether she might not have enjoyed being a banker's wife and Mr. Fletcher blamed himself for her unhappiness. Recently, he had made rash promises of wealth, vowing to get her off the miserable land. When her husband began bringing home greater and greater sums of money and then the terrible ring, Caroline had become suspicious of his good fortune. Surely selling seeds could not be so profitable. When word of a local thief began to spread, Caroline watched her husband closer. At last, when her suspicions seemed unquestionably confirmed, Caroline could bear it no longer.

      Tonight, she was determined to end the burglar's spree of crime. She knew, however, that she was not blameless. It was she who had created the motive and the opportunity for this robber's crime and, therefore she determined, she also must die. The gun's muzzle was cold against her temple. Gathering the last of her courage, Caroline whispered a prayer and pulled the trigger.

      The sheriff leapt up at this revelation. Hurrying out the door to find his deputy, the sheriff was startled to see the local bank president running awkwardly toward him. The sheriff glanced anxiously about and then rushed to meet the banker on the road.

      "Sheriff!" the man called breathlessly, his voice tight and nervous. "Sheriff, there's been another robbery! Our main safe has been looted!" The sheriff looked in disbelief at the banker and then, with a sudden thought, he raced toward the house. By the time the banker reached the front porch, the sheriff was cursing. Glancing inside, the banker saw the two bodies, a burlap bag, and an empty table.