Desert Wives (9781615952267)

by Webb, Betty

  I grinned, not faulting their taste. Despite his age, Saul was a fine-looking man and a kind one besides. The women could do worse, such as with that pimply-faced Noah Heaton. I wondered if the widows Prophet Davis planned to give Noah were the same ones who had expressed an interest in Saul. Shivering, I looked up at the sun for warmth, but a dark bank of clouds had blown down from the north. After the midday heat, the freshening wind felt almost too cool for comfort. A hawk soared overhead, something struggling in its claws. The same hawk I’d seen during my morning run? Or a different hawk, different victim?

  I tried to joke my sudden apprehension away. “Saul, Saul. Hugh Hefner has nothing on you.”

  He blushed and cleared his throat, started to say something, then stopped. At first I thought his discomfort came from my crack about his popularity among the compound’s women. When he eventually spoke, though, he proved me wrong. “That, ah, brings me to the second thing I need to talk to you about. Ruby has been pretty nosey about your, um, monthlies.”

  “Monthlies?”

  “You know. Your curse.”

  “Oh, you mean my menstrual cycle. What about it?”

  His blush deepened. “She says, ah, that she hasn’t found any indication that you are, ah…”

  “Tell her I use tampons. And that I flush them.”

  He shook his head. “She knows better than that. She says you’re just using your, um, period as an excuse to avoid sex with me. And that if you keep doing that, she’s going to tell Prophet Davis and the Circle of Elders and they’ll refuse to sanctify our marriage. Then you’ll be out. Or maybe pawned off on some other man.”

  I groaned. “Damn, Saul. The woman’s a jealous bitch.”

  Saul’s glare reminded me that Ruby was still his wife. “Maybe she is a bitch, maybe she isn’t. If you’d gone through what she’s gone through…Ah, forget that. It’s beside the point. But we’re going to have to put on some kind of act if this thing is going to work. Tonight you come along to my room. Here’s how we’ll handle it. Before I moved down here from Salt Lake I saw this cute movie with Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal. They were in some restaurant and she, um…”

  “She faked an orgasm. Right there among the Caesar salads.”

  He grinned. “That’s the movie, all right. I hope you can make it sound as authentic as Meg did.”

  I grinned back. “Oh, don’t worry, husband. I’ll make you sound like the stud of the year. Which reminds me. Ruby’s your wife, your real wife, so what’s the problem between you two? If she’s so interested in me carrying out my wifely duties, why isn’t she doing anything about hers? I didn’t hear her trooping down the hall to your room last night.”

  Saul looked up at the glowering sky, perhaps searching for the hawk that had caught my eye earlier. It had vanished, and only scuttling clouds filled the gray vacuum which remained. When he found nothing there, he lowered his eyes to the compound, where several men had gathered in the dirt circle and stood chatting by a rusting Mercury. Every now and then a sentence, carried by the wind, reached me. They were talking about butchering goats.

  “Hey, husband. I asked you a question.”

  Saul continued to pretend fascination with the bib-overalled men. “Question? Oh. Yeah, you did, but the problem between Ruby and me doesn’t concern you.”

  “In a murder investigation, you never know what’s going to turn out to be important. So tell me. What’s up with Ruby?”

  Saul finally stopped staring at the men and after heaving a big sigh, told me everything I wanted to know. As with most troubled relationships, his and Ruby’s problems had begun long before they even met. Ruby’s dead husband had been forty years older than she when he “married” her at the age of thirteen. He had been brutal, too, turning her wedding night into little more than rape. The next morning she’d gone for comfort to her sister wives but found none. Instead, they told her it was a woman’s lot in life to submit to her husband’s demands, that a woman’s hard life was God’s curse for the sins of Eve. Impregnation was a duty, not a pleasure.

  I watched several little girls playing hopscotch near the junked cars in Prophet’s Park, their long dresses billowing in the wind. Was it my imagination or were some of the oldest girls trying to keep out of the men’s line of sight? Maybe their own mothers had told them stories about God’s curse.

  “Ruby told me that she eventually figured out that her husband didn’t like skinny women, so she learned not to eat,” Saul continued. “She ate so little that she used to have fainting fits. He finally lost interest in her, but not before he’d soured her on sex forever.”

  Poor Ruby. No wonder she was a grump. I shivered again, but this time it had nothing to do with the lowering temperature.

  “If Ruby’s husband was so bad, and apparently the other wives thought he was, too, why didn’t anyone do anything about him? These are supposed to be God-fearing people. Surely not even polygamists condone sadism.”

  Saul looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. “You’re right. They’re not all sadists, not by a long shot. Some of the guys around here are fairly good to their families. But you’re forgetting that little human mind game called denial. People don’t see what they don’t want to see. But even if they did, there’s no battered women’s shelters in Purity.”

  “Battering? Is that common here, too?” I remembered Sister Hanna, the crying woman I’d seen limping from the Purity Clinic. Had she been beaten?

  “Battering’s as common as dirt in Prophet’s Park,” Saul answered. “It’s how a lot of these guys keep their families in line.”

  “Then why don’t the women leave?”

  “C’mon, Lena, think about it. The women who’ve been raised here, they believe it’s like this on the Outside, too, only worse. Remember, they don’t watch TV, listen to the radio, or read magazines, so all they know about marriage is what they see right here.”

  His voice rose, and the men by the Mercury turned toward us. I recognized Earl Graff. Putting my hand on Saul’s knee, I said quietly, “Husband, we have an audience.”

  When Saul spoke again, he’d lowered his voice but not lost his edge. “You have the same mind-set as most Outsiders. You think these women can just pick up and leave, but how can they do that? Most of them never learned to drive, and even if they did know how, their husbands hold the car keys. They have a bunch of kids, so what are they going to do? Carry a dozen kids twenty miles down that damned road to get help they don’t even know exists? If they did manage to do that, where would they get the money for a divorce? None of these women has a dime.

  “But let’s say some benefactor gives them enough money for a divorce. It’s happened. Groups like Tapestry Against Polygamy are always trying to help, but they’re like David up against Goliath. Not only does the Purity Fellowship Foundation have a big bankroll, but it has a slew of attorneys in Zion City and Salt Lake on retainer. Some of those attorneys grew up in polygamy compounds. Hell, Purity’s put six boys through law school. You think the women can compete with that? Oh, word gets around. The women are always hearing how the court took some jobless, homeless runaway’s children away from her and sent them back to the compounds and their ‘gainfully employed’ fathers. So you tell me, Lena, what woman is going to allow herself to be separated from her children?”

  I wanted to scream at him, My own mother!

  But I didn’t. I remembered Esther and her fight for her child. I forced my voice not to catch on my own memories. “You’re right. Most women would die before they’d allow themselves to be separated from their children.”

  He nodded. “Until the authorities get off their butts and do something about these guys, the women’s situation is hopeless.”

  I finally understood why some of Purity’s women accepted polygamy even when they hated it. For a woman who still had some kind of normal feelings, anything was preferable to losing her children.

  But in his summing up of the situation, Saul had neglected s
omething.

  “It’s not hopeless,” I said. “You’ve already helped two girls escape.”

  He looked glum. “Two unmarried girls with nothing to lose, not battered women with kids they couldn’t bear to leave behind.”

  Depressed, I watched the men by the Mercury watch us. While I knew they couldn’t hear us, their presence reminded me to always be on guard. And never more so than when I started my cooking lessons with Prophet Solomon’s widow.

  “What time am I expected over at Sister Ermaline’s?” I asked Saul, deciding that it was time to change the subject before we both began to cry in frustration.

  He looked relieved. “Five in the morning. Now let’s get back into the house and pretend to be a happy married couple. And Lena? Try to look romantic.”

  Romantic. That was a good one. But then I envisioned Dusty’s muscular arms wrapped around me, his thighs enveloping mine. Dusty might have been a couple hundred miles away but his memory was right here in my head. Oh, yes, I could manage to look romantic.

  To Ruby’s astonishment, I was holding Saul’s hand when we entered the house.

  We didn’t have sex, of course, although to judge from all the moaning and groaning and spring-squeaking that night, we sounded like the floor show at an orgy. I could sense Ruby’s ear pressed against the bedroom door as I jumped up and down on the bed, screaming, “Deeper, deeper, deeper!” while Saul sat in the corner chair trying not to laugh. After I had finally reached my Meg Ryan-inspired orgasm, he raised his voice for Ruby’s benefit. “Told you I was hot, didn’t I, wife?”

  I raised my voice, too. “Husband, you are such a stud!”

  A few seconds later, we heard Ruby’s door close.

  Saul used an old pile of blankets to make himself a nest on the floor, leaving the bed to me. Once I heard his snores, I allowed myself to fall asleep.

  But the night brought dreams. Of my mother.

  We rode in the big white bus and people were singing. My golden-haired mother, the woman who looked like me, raised her gun. She pointed it right at me.

  “I’ll kill her,” she said. “I’ll kill her.”

  “Mommy, no!”

  A loud noise. Searing pain in my head, then in my stomach. Another scream. Then I began to die.

  A sense of falling.

  Then nothing.

  “Jesus, Lena, you sound like Ruby used to. What the hell were you dreaming?” Saul stood over me, a concerned look on his face. It was still dark.

  “Just the usual, no big deal,” I said, glancing at the clock. Four-thirty a.m. Time to rise and shine.

  “But Lena…” He didn’t want to let it go.

  “See you after the cooking lesson.” With that, I slipped my housecoat over my pajamas and ran to the bathroom, where I showered away my memories.

  Minutes later, I crossed the dark compound to Prophet Solomon’s house. As I glanced over at the clinic, I wondered if Rosalinda had delivered her baby yet.

  It wasn’t quite five, but lights already blazed from Prophet Solomon’s immense brick home, which looked only slightly smaller than the church. I’d been told not to bother knocking, to just walk in, and as I entered the Persian-carpeted living room, I saw and heard gangs of sleepy children in various stages of getting dressed.

  The room, although obviously expensively furnished, was an environmentalist’s nightmare. An entire cattle herd had probably sacrificed its life for the many leather sofas, chairs and leather-topped tables I saw scattered around. The wood paneling alone could have taken out half the Sequoia National Forest. Photographs of children covered every available wall and table. I would have counted them to see how many the old prophet actually had sired, but I didn’t have the time. Maybe I’d try when I had a year or two to spare.

  I did have time, though, to count the crosses hanging on the walls. Ten. And each one of them bigger and gaudier than the last. A painting of the prophet, looking meaner than he’d looked as he lay dead in the canyon, hung above the big rock fireplace next to an embroidered sampler which read, “I, the Lord thy God am a jealous God and I will allow no other gods before me.” Remembering that Prophet Solomon frequently confused himself with the Deity, it creeped me out.

  The din in the room was awful as the older children helped the younger ones dress. Even though most of the clothes being brandished appeared mismatched, I noticed that Solomon’s children wore better clothes than the other children in the compound. I wondered how long that would last. Until the Circle of Elders parceled them out to new “fathers”?

  As I settled into an overstuffed leather chair to watch the show, a pregnant woman wearing a purple-flowered granny dress and a clashing yellow apron that made her look like a giant Easter egg emerged from the kitchen. She held out another apron to me. “I’m Sister Jean, and you must be Sister Lena. Better get moving before Ermaline sees you sitting around.”

  Stung, I heaved myself out of the chair, slipped the apron over my head, and trudged toward the kitchen, all the while thinking that if I had been back in Arizona, I would still be sleeping. But considering my dreams, maybe making biscuits was preferable.

  When I entered the kitchen, which was almost as large as the living room, the amount of activity so early in the morning amazed me. With its spotless ceramic tile floor and commercial-sized refrigerators, ranges and ovens, the kitchen looked like something you would see in a top Scottsdale restaurant, but the women preparing breakfast hardly looked like sous chefs. Most of Solomon’s widows were blonds, which didn’t surprise me, and they ranged in age from pubescent girls to grandmothers. Except for the very youngest and oldest, all were pregnant.

  They worked in concert, their movements as synchronized as those of a ballet troupe. A platinum blond removed items from the pantry, a honey blond carried dishes from another cupboard into the dining room, and yet another blond hovered by the sink, snatching at the dirty pots being passed to her.

  A severe gray-haired woman stationed at a tub-sized mixing bowl barked orders. “Get moving! You’re like molasses today!”

  None talked back. As they worked, I noticed that the women’s long dresses were in much better condition than those I’d seen at the community meeting, and their snowy aprons were ruffled and beribboned. At least Prophet Solomon dressed his wives well, even though their dental care had been neglected. Every now and then one of them would sniffle in an emotion I first believed was grief, but on closer inspection saw to be fear.

  The elderly woman at the mixing bowl looked up at me. “I’m Sister Ermaline, Prophet Solomon’s first wife. Get over here and watch what I’m doing.”

  I took note of the swiftness with which she’d established her superior position in the family’s pecking order. Although Saul had told me that Ermaline was in her mid-sixties, a life of hard work made her appear even older. She might once have been attractive but now her plump cheeks sagged into dewlaps and her pale eyes squinted through a pair of unadorned wire rim glasses.

  When I didn’t move quickly enough to suit her, she barked at me again. “Don’t stand there gawking, Sister Lena. I expect you to work.”

  Reluctantly, I moved forward.

  At one end of the long work table, Cynthia, the girl I’d met the day before, patiently instructed dull-eyed Cora how to roll out the biscuit dough. The task appeared to be more than Cora could manage, because she kept dropping the rolling pin, eliciting more fierce noises from Ermaline.

  “Stop dropping things, you clumsy girl!”

  Ermaline’s barks made Cora even more clumsy and she dropped the rolling pin again. When Cynthia bent over to pick it up for her, a book fell out of her apron. She tried to grab it, but Ermaline beat her to it.

  “What’s this? Gray’s Anatomy?” She flipped through it quickly, her dough-sticky hands soiling the pages. “Pictures of naked people! Just what you think you’re doin’, girl, reading this trash?”

  “It’s just a text book, Mother,” Cynthia said, reaching for th
e book. “I told you I was interested in medicine.”

  “It’s no text book your father ever approved! Your husband, if any man is foolish enough to ever want you, will teach you all you need to know about bodies. I’m throwin’ it out.”

  “No, Mother!”

  Ermaline slapped Cynthia’s outstretched hand. “Don’t you talk back to me.”

  Cynthia didn’t make a sound but Cora began to wail. “Cindy hit! Cindy hit!”

  This made Ermaline so angry she drew back her hand again, but before I could rush to the child’s rescue, Jean stepped in front of her. Taking the book out of the surprised older woman’s hand, she said, “Let me throw this thing in the dump where it belongs, Sister Ermaline. The longer it stays in here, the more minds it’ll corrupt.” She turned to Cynthia. “Apologize to your mother for reading this stuff.”

  For a moment I thought Cynthia would refuse, then she darted a quick look at Jean said quietly, “I apologize, Mother.” She kept her eyes averted from Ermaline, however.

  Jean then nudged Cora. “It’s your turn. Apologize to Sister Ermaline for dropping the rolling pin.”

  “I s-sorry, Mother.” Cora’s voice held no more inflection than it had the day before.

  “No, Cora,” Jean said. It’s ‘I’m sorry, Mother Ermaline.’ ”

  With Jean’s coaching, Cora eventually delivered her line correctly. My heart went out to her. The poor little thing was so beautiful. And so damaged.

  Ermaline growled, “What good are apologies when the rolling pin has to be washed again? And what good are apologies when a daughter reads trash instead of doin’ a woman’s rightful work? Sister Jean, on your way to the dump, why don’t you get Cora out of the kitchen before she sets somethin’ on fire and kills us all?”

  “Certainly, Sister Ermaline.” Jean whisked Cora away before she could enrage the older woman again.

  I hoped Ermaline couldn’t hear me grinding my teeth as I attempted to get my mind off the ugly scene by working out the compound’s convoluted family system. The fact that Cynthia had called Ermaline simply “Mother” without the attached honorific “Sister” told me that the elder woman was her biological mother, but I could see no resemblance between the two. Their extreme difference in age probably accounted for that. Some quick math revealed that Ermaline had probably given birth to Cynthia at midlife. Maybe that was why she was so cranky.