A Body On The Porch

The door opened at first light.

Wally Nelson had no reason to expect anything unusual on the morning of December 21, 1980.

He was a cattle rancher in the north-central flatlands of Minnesota, a man who lived by the rhythms of rural life and hard winters.

He had been to bed the night before.

He had slept through the night.

And now, in the gray morning light of a Minnesota December, he opened his front door.

He almost stepped on her.

The figure on his porch step was face-down and rigid.

It was a young woman — he recognized her, or thought he did, though in her current state she barely resembled the person he knew.

She was unresponsive.

Not moving.

Her skin, where he could see it around the edges of her winter coat, had gone a grayish, waxy color that he had never seen on a living person.

He bent down and tried to move her.

She was stiff — completely stiff.

Her limbs would not bend.

Her body had the unyielding quality of a piece of lumber.

He could not flex her fingers.