Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. Original OC's and plots are the property of the author. No copyright infringement is intended.
Prologue
The two young girls were excited. The carnival only came to Virginia City once a year and offered a welcome diversion from fall harvest. The air was chill but torches lit the areas and there were so many people walking the narrow lanes between attractions, talking, laughing, eating and pointing out games or oddities such as the goat-footed boy that it seemed almost warm. The large tents blocked any possible breeze but when one came to the end of the tents, the wind whipped up and cut to the bone like a sharp knife.
"Look! The Fattest Woman in the World! Let's go see her!' The girl with the red curls pointed to the flapping canvas on which was painted an image of a grotesquely fat woman. The girls held each other's hand as they managed to move through the crowds between the attractions.
"I'm not wasting a nickel on that," the blonde girl said, "when every Sunday for free we can see Reverend Packer's wife. She's the fattest woman in the world." The two girls giggled. "Can you imagine," the blonde said in a lowered voice, "how they manage to…you know…do it?" and the two girls laughed at their naughtiness.
"Guess that's why they don't have any children," the one with the red curls said and they laughed again.
"Oh look," the blonde said, only this time she pointed. "Adam Cartwright is coming out of that tent!"
"And Hoss and Joe, his brothers—if you believe they're brothers. My ma says that it's funny they look nothing alike—I mean they had the same pa and all and then there's like six or seven years between them. Why Adam's maybe 24 or so." The redhead's brow furrowed with concern. Her parents talked more than they should about the Cartwrights, mainly because they were such a powerful and wealthy family but they were interesting-and a bit mysterious as the wealthy always were.
"Maybe so but I'd sure like to marry Little Joe one day. He asked if he could copy my sums before school yesterday and told me my hair was the color of sunshine."
"Did you let him copy them?" The redhead eagerly asked.
"Yeah, and he kissed me for it!" The two lovely girls giggled again. "This is the last year he has to go to school. I bet Joe won't stay on after 8th grade graduation."
"I guess not. Then I'll never see him except for church." She stopped as the three Cartwright's walked in the other direction. "Look, that's the fortune teller's tent they left—Madam Tomescu: She sees all, knows all—at least that's what it says."
The two girls stood outside the tent. Unlike the other attractions, no one was outside hawking Madam Tomescu's immense, otherworldly talents. The tent canvas showed a painted picture of an old woman in a turban looking into a crystal ball, her gnarled hands surrounding it, her eyes open in surprise at what she apparently saw in its crystalline depths. Surrounding her were swirling images of happy people. One man reveled in gold coins showering down on him, a man and a woman kissed in a lover's embrace, a mother smiled down at the infant in her arms and a man stood facing a vista that held a mansion and fertile fields of grain.
"C'mon, Amy," the girl with red hair said. "Let's go have our fortunes told. It's only a nickel. C'mon!"
"I don't know," Amy said. "My ma always says that things like fortune tellers are evil; the Bible preaches against them."
"The Cartwright boys were just there so there's nothing wrong with it. C'mon, Amy. We can ask who we're going to marry. Maybe it'll be Little Joe!"
"I don't know, Bethy. Besides, we can't both marry Little Joe."
"I'll marry him first, leave him, and then you can, okay? But you'll have to give him back again." Bethy smiled and Amy laughed. "Now, c'mon." Bethy tugged on Amy's hand and the two girls giggled again and entered the tent.
An old woman sat at a round table, a candle in the middle and a deck of cards before her; there were three other chairs waiting. Other chairs were around the periphery of the small tent for anyone who had to wait but there was no one else inside or so it seemed, and the tent was surprisingly quiet, almost removed from the carnival and all its merriments. A brazier supplied the heat and it was almost suffocating hot. Bethy and Amy stood together, holding each other's hands. A voice came from a dark corner of the tent causing the girls to startle. "Do you have your nickels?" A tall, dark-haired, young woman stepped into the light.
"Yes," Bethy almost whispered. She and Amy exchanged looks and then each pulled a nickel out of their coat pockets and put it in the woman's hand. She smiled as she pocketed the money in her apron and then told them to sit. The girls exchanged glances again and then sat down, pulling their chairs closer to each other while the woman went to stand behind Madam Tomescu..
The old woman spoke with a heavy European accent. "You want to know the unknown. You want to know your futures." The girls nodded. "Is there a special question? Do you want to know if you will have wealth, many children, a castle, happiness beyond human ken?"
"Who am I going to marry? Can you tell me who I'm going to marry?" Amy asked and held tighter to Bethy's hand.
Without saying anything, Madame Tomescu shuffled a deck of cards and laid out a few on them. The girls had never seen cards like them; they held odd and frightening pictures.
"I thought you used a crystal ball," Bethy said.
"No, my young one, the cards talk to me—they tell me all I need to know." The fortuneteller stared at the lay-out and then scooped up the cards and shuffled them. She smiled at Amy. "You will marry the man of your greatest desire. He will be kind and good and wealthy. You and he will have a great many children and grandchildren and find much happiness. You will live to an old age."
"Will he be handsome?" Amy asked.
"Yes, my child. He will be beautiful."
"Did you hear that, Bethy? The man of my desires—my greatest desire—and handsome. It has to be Joe!"
"How about me, now?" Bethy asked. "What do the cards tell me about getting married?"
The cards were again laid out and this time, Madame Tomescu stared at them longer. Then she said, "You will marry at a late age and find that love is not found easily and then kept—love for you will die early but you will find some joy from your only child."
"What about money? Will I be a wealthy woman too?" Bethy waited, barely breathing.
"No, you will not be wealthy but you will not be so poor that you must beg." Madam Tomescu gathered the cards again. "If you want more readings, you will have to pay another nickel."
"Oh, let's go, Amy. I don't think she can see the future at all. It's like all the other shows—a cheat—like that giraffe man. He just had blotchy skin, not a long neck like in the picture."
Madam Tomescu said nothing as the two girls rose and walked out the tent together.
"Did you hear what she said?" Amy said, giggling. "I've got a wonderful life ahead and I just know that I'm going to marry Joe. I know it!"
"Oh, Amy! Madam Tomescu just has stupid cards. If she'd had a crystal ball, I might believe what she said." But Bethy did believe it; she was going to have an ordinary life and marry an ordinary man and she would never know love, at least not in the way her young heart longed to know.
Back in the tent, the standing woman put a gentle hand on Madam Tomescu's shoulder. "You were being kind, weren't you?"
"I could not tell that lovely girl that she will never marry—that the cards showed nothing for her future but a sudden and violent death." Madam Tomescu closed her eyes. The man with the dark hair and handsome features who had been accompanied by his brothers and left before the girls came into the tent—him she had told the truth—he was not one to whom a person lied but she knew he would not believe her. And he hadn't and not only that, he denigrated the readings she had given the other two, accused them of gullibility. But Madam Tomescu knew.
Two weeks after the carnival had moved on, young Amy Forrester's partially-naked body was found half-in and half-out of a small creek near the edge of the Ponderosa by Ben and his eldest son Adam Cartwright who were out checking line, her hair and small arms floating on the top of the rushing water, her blank eyes staring up at the blue sky. She had been assaulted and throttled and left in the wilderness-by whom, no one ever knew.
Amy Forrester was the first victim of an unknown killer—the first of seven females, some as young as Amy. One victim, Gwen Tucker, a local rancher's wife was in her forties and found half-in and half-out of the lake on their property. Her clothing had been ripped off, some fabric still clinging to her arms. All seven murders occurred over the next seven months—all the same—once a month-all the victims partially in water, the lower torso lying on the ground, the head and upper arms in the water-and then the deaths suddenly stopped. But for months afterward, even up to two years afterwards, mothers warned their daughters—"Remember what happened to….be wary." And women were always hesitant whenever they were out alone whether it be in town or on their own property. One never knew if the killings would suddenly start up again. One never knew.