Following is the opening scene from a short story I am writing:
A man holding an arm across his face leaned into the wind and struggled to walk across the parade ground. The blinding dust storm darkened the sky and caused him to trip over something that moved and groaned when his toe jabbed it. Private Eassom, the doctor's assistant, with nowhere else to go, lay there on the ground waiting for the wind to die. He shouted above the wind, "Hey, what the hell! Oh, I'm sorry Captain Crossman, sir, I didn't know who..."
"As you were, Eassom, I'm trying to find my way to the hospital tent and can't see a thing!"
"Sir, the tent blew down, stakes and all, and them burnt Indians is all inside underneath the canvas. We can't get at 'em til the wind dies down. They're right over there."
Crossman crouched low and fought his way forward the next few feet and, more by feeling than seeing, found the rumpled mass of canvas and heard moans and screams coming from under it. These people needed help, but he felt helpless knowing nothing could be done until the wind stopped and the tent was set upright again. He searched the canvas with his hands until he found a loose door flap and lifted it to peer inside. The only thing he saw in the opening was a girl, lying motionless, who no longer could feel pain.
... ... ... ... ... ...
In 1867 the installation of Fort Ransom had been authorized and work had just started when a huge prairie fire swept across the prairie. A band of Indians, encamped there to trade with the fort trader, suffered the worst of it when twenty of them burned to death in the fire. It so happened that after the fire passed by, a strong straight-line wind buffeted the area for several hours, thus the setting the the story.
