“Please, just love me, Susan,” he’d whispered. “Just be patient and have faith in me. Oh, I’m sick that you’ve been so unhappy! I’m so sorry! I’ll do anything I can to make it up to you, anything you ask. But just give Nicaragua a chance. I promise I’ll be here as much, just as much as I can. Please say you’ll stay!”
“Verlan, I hate it here and I want to go home! I need my family around me.”
He buried his face in my neck and sighed, “I adore you, Susan. I know that once you have your own place here, you’ll see that it’s not so bad, and you’ll start to feel at home. Please, just be patient and give me a chance.”
I finally insisted that he go, before Charlotte came looking for him, but he refused to leave until I promised that I would try to love him again. He cried when I finally agreed to try, and he begged me to let him stay the night. I had to push him out the door.
I was still in bed the next morning when Verlan stopped by again. “I’ve thought all night long about you, my love,” he whispered as he sat beside me on the bed. “I’ve decided to build your house while I’m here. I want you settled in before the baby’s born, so I’ll need to get started right away. I’m going to move heaven and earth to make you happy, Susan.”
I sat up, pushing my hair out of my eyes. “Can’t you understand, Verlan, I don’t want a house,” I said impatiently. “I just want to go back to Colonia LeBaron. Now.”
He patted me and stood up. “Remember that you promised to love me and be patient with me. Just let me get you into your own little house. We’ll fix it up real nice, and you’ll see that Nicaragua is a wonderful place to live. We’ll enjoy life together in this beautiful countryside. You’ll see.” He dashed out, waving my angry protests away.
And now Irene refused to speak to me, and although Lucy spoke, she wouldn’t look at me. Charlotte still treated me civilly, but then, she already had her own house.
Verlan and his older boys worked steadily from first light until it was too dark to see, and the wood house out back had sprung up at an incredible pace. I couldn’t bear to look at it, and I’d spent most of my time for the past two days holed up in my shack.
I couldn’t fathom how Verlan was able to ignore all the tension. He was acting as if everything was just fine, and he’d ordered this special family meal to celebrate his homecoming. Except for working with frenzy on the new house, and hollering even more that usual at the big boys to stop fooling around and keep busy, he’d taken Irene’s haranguing, and Lucy’s aloofness, right in stride.
I washed up my kids, and we walked to the barn for supper. Charlotte and her family had already arrived, and everyone was seated and waiting on us for the prayer. I sat my older children down on the floor with the younger ones, then I put Forrest into the high chair, and I hurried to the end of the table and squeezed onto the bench.
“Susan, sweetheart, come sit here beside me. I saved you a seat,” Verlan called over the din caused by twenty-seven children. He patted the empty spot next to him.
“No, no. I’m fine right here,” my face flamed with instant exasperation and embarrassment. Irene groaned her annoyance, and Charlotte hastily slipped off her end of the bench and busied herself at the stove.
Verlan stood up and strode toward me. “Okay,” he said cheerfully, “Then I’ll just have to come over by you. Kaylen, trade me places, would you?”
As the boy stood to obey, Irene jumped up and shouted at Verlan. “I’ve got a great idea! Why don’t you two lovebirds just take your food over to Susan’s new house, where you can have a romantic little dinner without having to be disturbed by the rest of us! Go ahead, we won’t care!”
The din around us became instant silence. The children stared at their father, then at Irene, then at me. “Okay, Irene, that’ll be about enough,” Verlan snapped. “You’re making a scene. Now, sit down and behave yourself, and let’s have prayer. Why don’t you say it; maybe it’ll make you feel better.”
“No, I’ll say it,” I said swiftly. I stood up and bowed my head. “Heavenly Father,” I loudly began before I could get an argument, “Thank you for this food, and for our many blessings. Please, dear Lord—be with each of us here. Help us to be friends and treat each other with respect. Please, bless each child in this family and each adult. Thank you, Lord, that Verlan can be here with us, and please, please help him to finish Irene’s new house swiftly, so that he can take my children and me back to Colonia LeBaron before my baby’s born. If he does this, we won’t be forced to hitchhike. This I pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.”
The children began to eat. Charlotte sat down again, and without a word, the food was passed around the table. Verlan didn’t look at me, but I could sense his angry resignation. The special dinner of roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy, salad, and biscuits was consumed mostly in silence. There was no pie for dessert, since that was Irene’s specialty, and she’d been too mad to help cook. But as she and I cleared the dishes after the meal, her damp eyes, penitent demeanor, and soft touch on my arm assured me that she loved me and that she was sorry.
CHAPTER FORTY
As Verlan skillfully drove the narrow, winding roads back through the mountainous terrain of Central America, my bold, persistent questioning of our church’s doctrinal beliefs had him upset and defensive, and finally he admitted that he had no real, solid answers for me. He became evasive, and hesitant, and was insistent that we had to have faith in Joel’s teachings, regardless of the conflict in scripture about polygamy. Would I please just stop worrying about things I didn’t understand? I should be willing to trust his judgment, and know that we were on the only true path to the Celestial Kingdom.
“Well, what about the fact that we have no living prophet now that Joel’s gone? Doesn’t this worry you? Because it sure worries me, and it would even more if I were in your shoes!” I snapped.
“Sure, I have questions. But I trust that the Lord’s in control, and when the time is right, someone will step forward. Meanwhile, you’re worrying about things that you don’t need to worry about. There’s no other answer out there, Susan. Surely you agree with me that the LDS church is off track, and I’m entirely confident that most of the basic Christian churches are just a moneymaking sham. We alone have the fullness of the gospel! So we just need to practice faith and endurance, and be willing to sacrifice.”
I finally gave up and stopped heckling him. He didn’t know what to say to me, and I was beginning to feel guilty for being so disagreeable. In Verlan’s eyes I was treading upon the brink of apostasy, and the only thread of hope for my sad state was to bind me tightly with his love and forbearance.
As the seven days and nights of border crossings and fussing children, gas stations, and potty stops wore on, he showed unaccustomed patience with the kids and constant concern for my needs. He knew what a chance he was taking by traveling such a great distance with an imminently due, pregnant wife, and he was frantic that he might have to deliver the baby himself en route. This had been his major argument against my unreasonable demand to leave immediately for the colony.
“In the first place, it won’t happen,” I’d assured him. “And in the second place, I’d rather have my baby in back of this pickup with you in attendance, than in that damp, muddy, fly-infested house you threw together, with your angry wives playing midwife.” I hadn’t really meant it, but he’d seemed impressed.
In spite of my firm resolve while in Nicaragua to keep my emotional distance from Verlan, he’d been so considerate the whole trip, and so anxious to please me, that once again I’d found myself sucked into the bottomless quicksand of loving him. I became captivated by his desperation to keep me—and in spite of my shaken beliefs, my parched soul shamelessly sopped up the tenderness and attention he offered. For the first time in our marriage I felt as though we were a real family, and I realized the closeness and dependency that monog
amous couples took for granted.
The cooler temperatures of the northern Mexican states began to replace the tropical climates of Yucatán and Jalisco. At last, the lights of Chihuahua City loomed on the horizon and were soon far behind us. Finally the sleepy little pueblo of my childhood, surrounded by hills covered in frozen cactus and mesquite bushes, came into view, just as I remembered it from pre-Ervilite times. There were no guards at the entrances, no watchful men on horseback patrolling the streets. Bundled children ran skipping and playing on their way to school, and women sauntered to Jensen’s little grocery store for their mail and supplies as though they hadn’t a single care.
Verlan drove us directly to my sister Fara’s adobe house where she gleefully welcomed us and insisted she had plenty of room, and we should stay for as long as we needed to. She bustled around making us breakfast and catching me up with her life. She’d remarried while I was away—she was now the second wife to a young convert from Yakima, Washington. He was presently in the States working. Although she was dealing with an extremely jealous first wife, Fara insisted that she was happy and truly in love.
Verlan’s immediate plan for the day was to locate a vacant home for me to move to, and to help me get settled once again before the baby came. He would stay in Colonia LeBaron with us for a month or more, he’d assured me, so that he could attend to my needs and be at the birth. I felt certain that he also planned to work on strengthening the frayed cord of my faith.
Helen Leany, the first widow Verlan married, had become disillusioned with his gadabout lifestyle over the past year and had finally left the family. But Elizabeth was here. Verlan needed to spend some time with her, and he also had plenty of church matters to deal with. He would be only too happy to settle down with us for a while and get some rest.
But Verlan hadn’t reckoned with Ervil in mind. Sigfried Widmar came looking for Verlan the moment he heard we were in town. He stomped into Fara’s living room and announced he had disturbing news. One of Ervil’s “soldiers,” a giant of a man named Dean Vest who had apparently attempted to defect from Ervil’s organization had just been found murdered in San Diego. Strong evidence pointed to Ervil’s wife, Vonda, because police had found blood spatters on her shoes and clothes. Sigfried was heading immediately for San Diego, and needed Verlan to accompany him.
“I’ve got to go,” Verlan whispered to me as Sigfried dashed out again. “Honey, you know that I can hardly bear to leave you, but I have no choice! Getting Vonda just may give us a real break where Ervil is concerned! I’ll be back to you as soon as I can. Hopefully before the baby’s born.”
I knew he would never be back in time. Feeling numb with resignation, I stood on Fara’s porch and watched him drive away. He would stop in to see Elizabeth and his mother for a few minutes, and then he would be on the highway again with Sigfried. I glanced at my watch. We’d been in the colony for exactly two hours. Just long enough to unpack my things from Verlan’s truck, stretch our cramped legs, and get a bite to eat. Verlan had driven all night and he was exhausted. I hoped he would sleep while Sigfried drove to San Diego.
I shivered against the chilly February wind and wiped my wet cheeks on my jacket sleeve. I felt angry with myself for crying. After all, I was used to this. Underneath the veneer of security Verlan’s presence had offered me the past week, I’d known that it was only temporary. His assertion of devotion to me was only a thin bandage for my battered heart. Life with Verlan would never be any different—there were too many things to come between us. My competitors for his time were his wives, the church, and Ervil, each a justified reason to leave me.
But now Verlan, too, had a rival. His contender for my allegiance was my ever-growing lack of trust in our doctrine. I wasn’t able to “just have faith.” The conflicting passages I’d found tormented my conscience, and I was certain that other issues would come to light once I continued my studies. What to do with this anguishing knowledge was the question.
A noise behind me pulled me out of my reverie. Fara had joined me on the porch, and she hugged me tight in an effort to console me. “Don’t worry, Sue,” her gray eyes were soft with sympathy. “I’ll be here, even if he doesn’t make it back in time. Mom’s here and Mona’s here, and we’ll celebrate your return from the wilds with a party! Do you have any idea how surprised and happy everyone will be to see you?”
Taking a shaky breath, I mentally shoved my despondency to the side. I couldn’t bear to deal with it all right now. For now, I needed to see the rest of my family and prepare for my baby’s birth.
During our long trip together, Verlan had told me what had been happening with Ervil. Charlotte’s mother, a woman named Rhea Kunz, had narrowly escaped an attempted kidnapping. Mrs. Kunz was a prominent member of a fundamentalist church in Salt Lake, and the sister of its leader. The police were convinced a kidnapping would have resulted in her death. That the Ervilites were the perpetrators was a certainty, since this group of fundamentalists had received some of Ervil’s threatening pamphlets. Next was the disappearance of a Utah man named Robert Simons, a self-styled polygamist from Grantsville. His family was claiming that one of Ervil’s henchmen had lured him from his home. Simons, also targeted by Ervil’s pamphlets, hadn’t been seen for over three weeks. Nothing could be proven, but it was believed he was dead.
Numerous leading fundamentalists throughout Utah had received more written threats signed by Ervil’s group. These peace-loving people were again put under highest alert. Ervil’s blood-atonement warnings had escalated, and Verlan felt compelled to respond to Ervil with open letters of his own.
Would it never stop? How many people would Ervil kill to satisfy his bloodthirsty, power-crazed mind? Somewhere in California, my Chynoweth relatives, along with all the other Ervilites, were hiding from the law and plotting with their leader to commit even more atrocities in the name of God.
One thing I hadn’t taken into consideration before leaving Nicaragua was that Colonia LeBaron was still a target. With my stubborn decision to leave the jungle, I’d brought my children back to possible danger. It amazed me that the colony members were going on about their business as though everything was fine. Well, as I’d realized before, we couldn’t hide forever. In spite of Ervil and his Lambs of God, life had to go on.
My labor began on our fourth evening back from the South. My mother and Jay’s second wife, Karen, and Doris the midwife, and her teenage sister all arrived for the birth. Fara’s living room couch made down into a bed, and we had everything ready. Fara bought sodas, popped corn, and made caramels, and we all sat around the kitchen table, giggling and playing Scrabble while we timed the contractions. Just before midnight, I got down to the serious business of delivering a baby. I moved to the couch.
Forrest woke up with a howl and wandered into the living room just as the baby was crowning. None of the women could stand to leave the room at this exciting time, so my sixteen-month-old son became a fascinated member of the birthing party. He was among the first to welcome his new brother.
Never had a birth gone so smoothly for me. This had been a fun, relaxing way to have a baby! Fara and Mom pampered me and tended my children, and within three days I felt almost normal. Memories of the nightmare ordeal after Forrest was born flashed through my mind, and I shuddered and thanked God and my family for this new experience.
I’d been exhausted from the long trip and so frantic to prepare for a new baby, that I hadn’t made the rounds to see my friends. Jay and Carmela had been by to see us, as had Rose Ann and her children, and Mona and her two little boys. And Grandma LeBaron stopped by to meet her new grandson. Surprisingly, she didn’t inquire about my quick return from Nicaragua as everyone else had—doubtless Verlan had filled her in on my reasons. She didn’t approach the subject, and I gathered she was avoiding an uncomfortable discussion.
I’d explained to no one the real reason why I’d left Nicaragua. I’d only said
that I felt the kids and I would be better off living in the colony. They’d accepted this without question. I knew from my discussions with Irene and Verlan that I would get no sympathy for my scriptural discoveries. My family would consider me a faithless apostate, and our relationship would change. I couldn’t bear the thought.
The children and I plunged back into colony life. I entered Melanie in second grade and James in kindergarten. We attended church on Sunday and visited friends, and I shared a babysitter with Fara for the Saturday night dance.
Fara told me that Debbie Bateman was living back in the colony, in the basement of an old, unfinished house. Excited, I bundled up my three-week-old baby and hurried over to see her. I hadn’t talked to Debbie since that day in Los Molinos when she’d still been married to Ervil, and I was anxious to see for myself if she’d adjusted.
Two years had passed since she’d become Ritchie Stubbs’s third wife—Ritchie, Lane’s half-brother, and the handsome husband of one of my childhood friends. I gingerly descended the cement steps and knocked on Debbie’s door, which swung wide open. Her upturned hazel eyes and delighted smile welcomed me.
“Oh, Susan!” she squealed. “I heard you were here! Oh, wow, I’m so glad you came to see me!” Pulling me into the dark interior of her house, she took the baby from my arms and cooed over him a minute, then handing him back, she said, “This is just so awesome! Give me just a sec, Suze, while I take care of these kids. Come on in and sit down!”
My eyes had slowly adjusted to the poor light of her basement, and I looked around in dismay. Debbie was hugely pregnant. She wore a faded muumuu, and her bare feet were rough and splayed. Her four children sat at a table littered with bread crumbs and dirty dishes. They quietly ate their beans. The basement was scantily furnished, with unpainted cement walls and bare, cement floors, and so cold I couldn’t imagine how Debbie could stand to be barefoot.
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