The towns people ( Part three to the nameless man )

The town had been going down hill for a long time, men on horses always ransacking it scaring off what could be new community members. It seemed like every time an new feed store or parlor would open up to help make the town grow that blasting Jones would chase them off, never wanting interference that would hurt his businesses. He had raised prices so high now that it had gotten harder and harder to make a decent living here and many people were moving on to more prosperous towns. And if that were not enough to worry about he now was not giving as many coins for eggs and fruit as he once had. He knew he had the town in a corner that they next to none had a chance of escaping.

The heat had been blazing hot and gardens were drying up leaving people to worry of winter months and how they would pay there dues on their homesteads. Woman teared up to see their men come home heads bowed down, letting defeat take all their pride away. Knowing they could not support their families and get the necessities that were needed to make it through the winter had them taking spells of drunken nights in Jones taverns only to give him back the money he would spare for eggs and such, leaving a smile of trumpet on his cruel face. The hotter the sun blazed the more chances he had of owning everything around him. His dream was to buy out as many homesteads that he could to make his much bigger and giving him more room for his cattle to roam and breed. His dream was to have the biggest cattle ranch in the territory, that's where the money was and he planned on taking everything he could to have his dream be realized.

The town believed the old lady that lived in the old cabin behind the thousand year old willow trees to be a witch but she bothered no one and sometimes gave then good advice that would always get them out of binds when nothing else would work. Her name was Gretchen and she had the whitest hair that anyone had ever seen before and to the memory of all even years and years before she had always had that long white hair that you could see reflections of the blinding sun sparkle through giving more reason to believe she indeed was as told for so many years, a witch but a friendly one that loved her community.

Gretchen had visions of her beloved town becoming a prosperous and happy one to live in but only when the couple she dreams of makes it so. The problem of course was they had never meant but in their dreams and she could not make a meeting happen between the two or she would be defining fate and for that to happen would mean all would be lost so she had to wait for the time to come for the two to meet out of their visions. She knew the two people that would make life in her town a much better and peaceful place to live and had watched them grow from wee babies and had wondered how they had never meant. Maybe this was the way it was to be for now but she could not imagine how much more the town could take before the meeting would take place. She had faith in her visions of the two because she was never wrong in her visions but sometimes she lost faith in the two to ever meet and would sit on her porch on her old rickety rocker watching chaos take hold of her people and town. Life could get no worse than it had already gotten and something had to be changed before all would lose in this fight less battle.

Darkness had fallen and smoke could be smelled from miles away and the sky was turning redder with every passing minute sending people into a terrifying and uncontrollable frenzy. The towns people were running in all directions screaming out for their children and looking to the sky wondering were exactly the brush fire was, it was bound to happen with the heat the way it had been and having no rain for the past two months had only made its chances heighten. Gretchen knew where the brush fire was and a smile lite her face up because her visions were about to take place and fate was working it's magic. Now all she could do was sit back and see if Malory and Chance would take the bait and hope no one was hurt in the making of it.

Malory could not breath, her air was being taken from her lungs filling with the smoke that surrounded her cabin. Tears of true defeat were pouring from her lovely eyes, to see what her family had worked so hard for to be destroyed in a matter of minutes was more than she could bare and she wanted to escape as fast as her legs could take her for to see it all go down in flames would kill her spirit and crush her heart to pieces.

Chance could not believe his eyes, from his homestead it looked like the town was burning to the ground so he jumps on his horse and rushes to town as fast as he could willing to help whom ever needed it and hoping he was not to late. When he gets closer to town he realizes it is not in town but near the old cabin that he passes everyday on his way to the mill. He has never seen anyone there but decides he had best go check it out to make sure it is empty and not lived in. Chances horse stops not wanting to go any closer than it has already went, fright has made it stop dead it in tracks so Chance has to go afoot the rest of the way. When not seeing anyone he turns to leave before he is over taken by the flames, smoke engulfing his lungs. Chance has had to take another route than he came because the fire was to high killing all life around it, he stumbles on what felt like a humans body and adrenalin kicks in scoping the lifeless body up running out of harms way. He lays the girls body to the ground and checks her pulse to see if life still ran through her body. When he feels a pulse he starts to shake her to see if he can waken her, he stumbles back when she flutters her beautiful eyes open shock of what he sees takes his breath away. The color of sapphire eyes stare back at him with an innocence that could be no other than the nameless girl of his daydreams. She once again passes out from her ordeal so he takes her in his arms riding back to his homestead forgetting all else accept the girl with sapphire eyes and hair the color of the sun on it's brightest day.