Desert Wives (9781615952267)

by Webb, Betty

  “Gee, thanks.” I gave a bitter laugh, then told him about my latest misadventures with Earl Graff. “So you can see that I’m not at the top of the Polygamy Pop Charts right now. Except for Davis and a few women, hardly anyone is talking to me, let alone telling me their deepest secrets.”

  Jimmy moaned. “Maybe you should come back. We might be able to figure out some other way to help Esther.” His voice carried no conviction.

  “No can do. I’m here for the duration.” I was just about to hang up, when he stopped me.

  “Lena, there’s something…There’s something…”

  More bad news, I was sure. “What?”

  “Remember you told me to keep an eye on that South Mountain Citizens for Clean Air case?”

  “Yeah, I remember. So how’s my favorite firebug? Still in business?” In my concern over Rebecca, I’d almost forgotten about that case, but now Miles Alder’s face rose up before me like the Ghost of Christmas Past.

  “No, he’s not still in business.”

  I didn’t like Jimmy’s tone. “What do you mean? Did he get picked up again?”

  “Lena.”

  Then I knew. “Miles is dead, isn’t he?”

  A pause, then, “Yeah.”

  “Oh.” The room blurred momentarily. How strange. I’d thought I hated the spoiled creep. But for all the grief he caused the world, he’d been little more than a kid.

  While I collected myself, Jimmy filled me in. “From what the Phoenix P.D. could tell me, Miles tried to start another fire in the storage yard. He got a pretty good one going, but then something happened. By the time the firefighters got there, the kid had third degree burns over eighty percent of his body. He lasted two days.”

  With great effort, I held my voice steady. “How’s his father doing?”

  “That’s the really weird part, Lena. Dwayne Alder acts like it’s all the police department’s fault, that if they’d done their job, none of this would have happened.”

  I wasn’t surprised. Like most parents, Dwayne Alder couldn’t admit the role he’d played in creating such a troubled child. And Miles himself, with the usual teen’s belief that he would live forever, had been incapable of foreseeing the consequences of his own actions. As Jimmy gave me details I didn’t want to hear, I thought back over my own troubled teenage years. The shoplifting, the promiscuity, the anger. It was a miracle I’d survived.

  “Poor Dwayne,” I said, breaking into Jimmy’s description of Miles’s melted face.

  “Poor Dwayne? That man could see a chicken and say ‘cat.’”

  “Denial. After all, it’s probably rough realizing your kid might still be alive if you hadn’t stuck your head in the sand.”

  “I guess.”

  We chatted a little more about other doomed kids we’d known, and finally hung up, each as depressed as the other. I needed to make another phone call, but I didn’t like my luck so far. So I sat there just staring at the phone for a few minutes, part of me nagging to make the next call, the other part holding back. The nagger won. I punched in one more number.

  “Happy Trails Dude Ranch,” Slim Papadopolus answered.

  I forced cheer into my voice. “Hi, you sexy thing. It’s Lena. Dusty back from his little sojourn in Vegas yet?”

  The long pause should have told me everything I needed to know, but like someone with a hangnail, I couldn’t stop picking at it. “Spit it out, Slim.”

  “Lena, you know Dusty.”

  “Yes, I do. And that’s why I’m asking you straight out. What’s going on?”

  “I promised I wouldn’t tell.”

  “Sure you did. Give it up?”

  A sigh. “If you make a promise under duress, is it still a promise?”

  “Of course not. Where is he?”

  Another sigh. “Hell. I hate to be put in the middle of these things, but this just isn’t right. You’ve been awful decent to me in the past. Too decent for me to let this go on.”

  By “the past,” Slim was referring to the time I’d proved his son had been innocent of the hit-and-run that killed a toddler. He’d been foolish enough to loan his car to a drug-addicted friend, but his foolishness didn’t add up to manslaughter. “I can take it, Slim. Tell me.”

  Another pause. “Well, I told you he was in Vegas.”

  “Yeah, but I noticed you didn’t say he was alone, either. Who’s he with?”

  “Some hottie from New York he met here on the ranch.”

  “A redhead, right?”

  “Lena, you know Dusty’s got a thing about redheads. Anyway, they flew to Vegas a couple weeks ago and nobody’s seen him since. He hasn’t even called. If I don’t hear from him within the next week, I’ll have to give his job to someone else.”

  That wouldn’t bother Dusty. With his good looks and easy charm, he snap up another dude ranch job in a heartbeat. “Slim, do you think they got married?”

  “That’s what the rumors say. Nothing Dusty does surprises me anymore.”

  Or me. I thanked Slim for his honesty and hung up the phone with as much dignity as I could muster.

  But hey, what difference did it make, right? I’d never loved the man. Never.

  So why was I crying?

  The sun was setting as Saul and I arrived back at Purity, and as soon as I lit from the truck, I ran into the house, grabbed the notes I’d taken at the school, and headed for Davis’s house.

  It was Prayer Time. Davis, surrounded by his wives and a sea of his blond-haired children, sat in the chair in the living room, a big black book in his hand. Relieved, I identified the book as a standard-issue Bible, not Solomon’s screed, and took this as further proof of Davis’s reforms.

  “Sister Lena!” His handsome face beamed in delight as I joined Sissy on the sofa. She appeared less happy than he. Maybe she really loved him.

  “I’m finishing up here,” he said, leaning over to pat one child’s head.

  “I just dropped by to share my notes on the school with you,” I said.

  He stood up, tucked the Bible under his arm, and told me to follow him to his den, leaving Sissy looking more miserable than before.

  As soon as Davis and I settled onto his big leather sofa, I started in. “You need new textbooks. Those things the teachers are using are not only outdated, they’re falling apart. Not that it matters at this point, anyway. There’s so much religion being taught over there that there’s hardly any time left over for the supposed subject. It’s not history they’re teaching, Brother Davis, it’s Religion 101. Speaking as a future teacher of Purity’s children, I’d like to pull all the religious teachings out of the schoolroom and confine it to Prayer Time.”

  He crinkled his blue eyes and leaned toward me. “Actually, they’re teaching something more like Prophet Solomon 404. But I understand what you’re saying, and I agree with you.”

  “You do?” My entire body began to tingle. I tried to convince myself it had nothing to do with the warm hand he’d placed on my knee.

  Davis leaned even closer. “Oh, yes, Sister Lena. An uneducated compound is an unready compound, don’t you agree?” The hand began sliding up my thigh.

  “I agree.” My voice sounded choked. Soon the hand would enter forbidden territory.

  His voice purred. “Still, Sister Lena, Purity is a devout community so I can’t entertain the idea of erasing all religious instruction from the curriculum. But I’ve been reading up on the Catholic system, and I’ve begun to think we here at Purity might emulate some of their techniques. Have an entire class devoted solely to religious principles, but keep it out of the other classrooms.”

  “It sounds fine.” I could barely talk, I was so intent on what his hand was doing. I wished Dusty knew how much this gorgeous man wanted me.

  As Davis’s lips approached my ear, his voice grew huskier. Never had I felt so all a-quiver over educational reforms.

  “Sister Lena, I’m going to need your help if my plan is g
oing to work. I want you to go back to the school tomorrow, take some more notes, then report back to me. I’d do it myself, but, well, I’m in the middle of this big mess with the Circle of Elders. What happened to Sister Cynthia can’t be allowed to happen again. Marrying children is not only illegal, it’s grotesque. I have to prove to the Circle that even they are subservient to the Prophet of Purity.” In contrast to his soft, busy hand, his voice took on a harder edge. “And I’m the Prophet of Purity now, not my father.”

  His hand left my lower thigh, and a moment later, I felt fingers unbuttoning the front of my high-necked dress. For a brief second my treacherous mind gave me a vision of Dusty’s face, but after a brief hesitation, I willed the vision away.

  “Yes, Prophet Davis,” I whispered. I didn’t have to fake the passion in my voice.

  Chapter 19

  Saul left for court the next morning the same time I left for school. My disgust at the weak curriculum only slightly eclipsed my self-disgust. How could I have responded to Prophet Davis’s caresses, even for a moment? Certainly the man was handsome, and certainly, he knew his way around a woman’s body, and certainly, it had been a long time since Dusty—that unfaithful devil—had touched me in the way Davis had. But damn!

  What would have happened if I hadn’t suddenly remembered the gun strapped to my other thigh and pulled out of his arms, making a fake-shy excuse? Worse yet, what would have happened if I hadn’t been wearing my gun at all? Would I, like the old Sinatra song put it, have gone all the way?

  I trotted across the compound amid a flock of giggling, long-skirted girls, cursing myself silently. Perhaps the stress of living at the compound had blurred the boundaries of my past and my present, sent me back to my lonely teenage years when I’d gone too far with too many high school boys just for the temporary ecstasy of feeling needed. Later, in an ASU psychology class, I’d learned sexually abused girls often became promiscuous, so I’d forgiven myself. But that was then and this was now. I was no longer a vulnerable teenager seeking acceptance in the sweaty back seats of muscle cars. I was a grown woman with better sense.

  Supposedly.

  I hurried to the first class. During the previous day, I’d recognized two teachers as Solomon’s widows. Hester, a thin-faced woman only slightly younger than Ermaline, taught math, and Desiree, a plump teenager little older than her students, taught English. I spent the morning taking notes in case Davis checked up on me, then sought out the two teachers during recess.

  We sat beneath the school yard’s only tree, a struggling cottonwood whose puny branches looked like they might fall on our heads any moment. The older children stood around talking, while the younger ones played on the swings and slides. Rebecca, bless her, never once looked my way.

  I broke the ice by asking about Rosalinda’s baby. “Just beautiful!” And Hanna’s baby? “Doing poorly.” Then, after making a few diplomatic comments about the school and expressing Davis’s interest in it, I began to draw the women out. They were Solomon’s widows, after all, and we’d cooked biscuits side by side.

  “Given the materials you have to work with, I think you women have done a fine job,” I said, holding up the ragged textbook I’d put aside to take to Davis. “I’m just surprised that Prophet Solomon, with all his resources, didn’t allot more money to the school. I mean, he seemed so concerned about every little thing here in Purity.”

  Hester gave me a sour look. “I wouldn’t say every little thing.”

  Some jealousy there, perhaps? I wondered how long it had been since Solomon had visited Hester’s bed. Not in years, I bet.

  “Well, you know what I mean. He really cared about the compound, so I’m sure he kept an eye to the future of its young people.”

  Hester shrugged, making the shoulder seam of her ill-made calico dress slip further down her arm. I wanted to tug it up, but refrained. “The only time we ever saw him was during meals and at Prayer Time. He didn’t really have a lot to say to us about anything. Except God and children, of course.”

  Desiree, younger and still willing to make allowances for neglectful behavior, nodded sympathetically.

  “But didn’t Prophet Solomon design the school’s syllabus?” I asked. “What could be taught and what couldn’t?”

  “Sure he did,” Hester said. “Problem was, he designed it around the things he found interesting, not the skills our young people might need as they established their own families. For instance, I wanted to take some of the children into town and teach them how to shop frugally, but he wouldn’t allow it. He didn’t want them out of the compound, not even for a minute.”

  “But Sister Hester, God told him the trip would be a waste of time!” Desiree protested.

  That sour look again. “Everything our husband said and did originated with God.”

  I wondered where Hester’s cynicism came from, and then I remembered. She’d probably attended public school, maybe even gone all the way through high school. Desiree had probably dropped out when she’d married, maybe even at fourteen. Cynical or not, though, Hester was right. The best way to strong-arm people into doing anything you wanted was by convincing them you spoke for God.

  Catching my expression, Hester added, “Once our husband made up his mind, he never changed it. A couple of years ago when we were allowed to watch certain TV programs, he decided that purple dinosaur, Barney, had been sent by Satan to tempt children into believing that their own feelings and ideas were important. It upset him so much he drove into town for a stuffed Barney toy, and had each child in Purity tell it, ‘Satan, I renounce you.’ It was all pretty silly, if you ask me, but he didn’t think so. After every child renounced Satan, he made Margaret, who was only three, burn it on the trash heap. The poor little thing just sobbed and sobbed because she’d believed Barney was her birthday present. I tried to tell him he was breaking her heart, but he didn’t care.”

  Even Desiree looked uncomfortable at this, but true to her nature, she tried to explain it away. “Sometimes the Path of Faith is hard.”

  Hester vented a bitter laugh. “One of our husband’s favorite sayings. He used it to make us do things we didn’t want to do and threatened us with hellfire if we defied him.”

  In a flat voice, Desiree quoted someone, probably the Prophet. “A wife should be a willing servant to her husband, for he is her only pathway to God. Without her husband’s guidance, she will never find Heaven.’”

  Hester didn’t buy it. “Maybe that’s true, maybe not. He used that same argument with the Circle of Elders, too, when they wanted to take a different course than the one he’d ordered. In the end, I’m not sure they were convinced he spoke for God’s interests, either.”

  I had one more question. “I know the Circle is having trouble with Brother Davis, and I’ve got a pretty good idea how that’s going to turn out, so what happened when the Circle ran afoul of Prophet Solomon?”

  “They had to do what he ordered, of course,” Hester said. “After all, the Prophet is God’s mouthpiece. And you don’t go against God—until his mouthpiece gets assassinated, that is.”

  Desiree gasped.

  I almost did, too. “Sister Hester, are you telling me you think one of the Circle shot Solomon? And might now be after Davis?”

  She didn’t back down. “Do you really think that shot at Davis the other day came from some fool hunter? Our men handle guns better than that. I think Purity’s new prophet had better watch his step and stay away from that canyon. I also think he’d be smart to chop down that mesquite grove around his house so nobody can use the cover to sneak up on him.”

  Desiree looked appalled. “That’s a wicked thing to say!”

  Hester grunted. “Tell me that in a few months, dear, but you mark my words. Unless Davis drops his reforms, he’ll never live past Christmas.” Then, as if believing she’d gone too far, she made a big show of checking her watch. “We should go back in now. Recess is over.”

  As we herded the childre
n back into the classrooms, I reflected on what I’d just learned about Solomon. Take away the religious cant, and the portrait that emerged was that of a totally self-serving man. While I’d heard no tales of outright physical cruelty on Prophet Solomon’s part, he’d manipulated his wives and children, and the entire compound.

  But someone had seen through him.

  Just after recess it began raining steadily. While the parched kitchen gardens probably rejoiced, the rain increased the dangers of flash flooding. Saving myself about a half hour by taking Paiute Canyon’s dogleg to the graveyard was no longer wise, so I decided to leave earlier than planned. As soon I as noted Desiree didn’t know the difference between an adjective and an adverb, I excused myself from her English class and splashed across the muddy compound to Saul’s. I borrowed a raincoat and scarf from a suspicious Ruby and, telling her I loved walking in the rain, began the slow, wet slog across the desert.

  Although the nasty weather guaranteed there would be no hunters around to pry into my movements, the price for such privacy came high. The overland road to the graveyard added two miles to my journey, and before I’d even cleared the compound, mud caked my Reeboks, weighing me down. For a while, the road paralleled the canyon, so I listened to the music of water as it burbled along what was now little more than a tiny stream. How long before it turned into a torrent?

  After a half hour, the road hooked east along the dogleg and began a slow, gentle climb over a ridge dotted with desert rue. Here the road became rocky. Once the road topped the ridge, I paused to look back to see Purity in all its squalid splendor. From here the houses and trailers resembled a wagon train tightly circled to ward off foes. But this appearance deceived. Purity had no foes. The established Mormon Church, after expelling the polygamists, had washed its hands of the entire problem. Beehive County’s district attorney wouldn’t prosecute men like Prophet Solomon or Earl Graff, and even the county sheriff returned Purity’s runaways. There was nothing I could do except save one little girl: Rebecca.

  I turned my back on Purity and crossed the ridge to find the Paiute already waiting for me.