Dear Sirs:
I can’t believe you’d try to rip me off. Last week I complied with your request to leave the apartment empty for the day while they sprayed for cockroaches. They were not beatles! You can’t charge me for carpenters because there was only one, and the doors you fixed were the manager’s responsibility. I could’ve glued and nailed those boards under the sink myself! It was supposed to be done for free. Next time you try to take advantage of me, think twice, because I think you’re downright stupid! I know, because I’ve never bought bread through the mail before. I’ve made twelve loaves of homemade bread every other day for most of my life. Seeing that you’re trying to swindle me, I don’t ever want to hear from you again.
Signed, Susan Ray
When Susan returned, I told her she was right about the crooks. I began telling her about these guys trying to rip her off and the letter I sent them in her defense. She laughed between tears. “Irene, those were cassette tapes I ordered. Haven’t you heard of the Beatles, the Carpenters, and Bread?” I hadn’t. It was all news to me!
Our Dallas experience came to an abrupt end, like most everything else Verlan got us into. He suddenly came with overnight orders for us to pack what would fit into his pickup. The fact was he thought we were becoming too independent. His excuse was that he could no longer leave the three of us out in the wicked world, where sharks were lurking.
I had furnished my apartment from garage sales and now had the best beds and furniture I’d ever owned. Damn! It was so exasperating to have to leave all our worldly possessions behind for the umpteenth time. But the outcome was worth it, since I got to live in Las Vegas with my sister Becky for a while. I also took a step toward fulfilling one of my lifelong dreams. With Verlan’s permission, and with Barbara and Lucy watching all but my youngest two kids, I took a six-week creative writing course at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. Becky offered to let me take her car to and from my classes. She was shocked when I admitted I’d never had a driver’s license.
“How did you drive all the kids to school in Mexico?” Becky asked.
“Oh, that was just on dirt roads, with no traffic lights or signs, just out in the middle of nowhere.”
“Well, I’m going to see that you get your license immediately,” she assured me. She became my driving instructor. One Monday, she informed me I would take my driving test on Friday. I did, but with much trepidation because it was the first time I had ever used my husband’s last name for an official purpose. I also doubted myself, worrying I wouldn’t be able to pass the driving test because I’d been sheltered so long. When André heard I’d received my driver’s license at forty, he bought me a used, yellow Honeybee Datsun—the first vehicle I ever owned.
Shortly after I finished my studies, Verlan insisted I return to Colonia LeBaron, where he purchased a three-room adobe house for me and my younger kids. It had electricity, running water, and an indoor toilet. Other than the bathroom and one bedroom, however, there were no partitions in the unfinished house. Still, I was immensely thankful just to have electricity. The government had finally fulfilled its promise to extend power to the LeBaron Colony.
Meanwhile, Ervil’s violent havoc within the Church of the Firstborn was escalating. His power to intimidate and control came home to me personally in a terrible way. On May 10, 1977, I was walking down the gravel road in Colonia LeBaron, drinking a Coke and laughing with Linda, when a pickup truck raced up beside us. Verlan’s anxious shouting surprised me. “Irene! They’ve killed your Uncle Rulon in Salt Lake City! Ervil had it done; I’m sure of it.”
I was stunned for a moment, and then I started weeping. My dear uncle, who had been my one constant father figure since childhood, was dead.
“Come, get in with me, Irene. I want to spend a few minutes with you before I leave town,” Verlan urged.
As we hurried home, he admitted to me fearfully, “I know if I’m not careful, I might be next. Ervil’s on his worst rampage. He’s still madly jealous over Joel making me the patriarch and president of the church. I’m afraid he’s out to kill us all. I’m really sorry to have to leave town before I can stay with you, but I have to go into hiding and somehow attend Uncle Rulon’s funeral as well.”
From that time on, Verlan slept with his clothes on and a pistol by his side, ready to defend himself in an emergency. When he traveled, he generally went with other elders in the church, and they were careful to lay low. He felt safer being away from his wives so Ervil’s people wouldn’t know his routine. When he was with us, he refused to follow any organized rotation list. We never knew whose night it would be, what to expect, or even when he was coming to town. Understandably, we were always relieved to see him back after he’d been gone.
MEANWHILE, JUST AS VERLAN FEARED, Susan’s time in Dallas convinced her she could make it on her own. A few months after Uncle Rulon’s death, she left Verlan and moved with her five children to Cedar City, Utah, to live around her brothers. Her leaving affected Verlan as though she’d died. He neglected his other wives while he mourned her and tried to win her back with songs and poetry he composed himself. But nothing he said or did persuaded her to return.
I remember accompanying Verlan on a thirteen-hour trip to San Diego after one of his long absences. The despair was written plainly on his face as he told me how lost he felt without Susan.
“Forgive me for using you as a sounding board, Irene. None of my other wives want to hear a word about her. I appreciate you listening to me, because a part of me is dying. I love her so.”
I was trying to understand his pain, but I also hoped he’d try to comprehend mine. Wanting reassurance he hadn’t canceled out his love for me, I said, “Verlan, I know you love all of your wives. It’s evident you have tried to be fair by treating us all the same. Even though you say you do love us, I feel that Susan is the only woman you have ever really been in love with.”
Wanting desperately for him to deny it, I watched the tears forming in his blue eyes. “You know what?” he said. “You’re right! I hate to admit it because I don’t want to hurt you, but I’ve never loved another woman as much as I love Susan.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Priscilla (at whose home Verlan proposed to Helen a few years earlier) was Joel LeBaron’s widow. She’d been married two other times as well, but she divorced both men. Priscilla was thin, cute, and had an air of arrogance about her.
Verlan tried in vain to persuade her to marry him when she was only sixteen. I remember my resentment when they sat in his truck most of the night in front of my bedroom window. He felt I had no right to feel bad. After all, they were both in plain sight. He admitted to me later how he stole her first kisses. Before the night was over, she promised to marry him, but two months later she secretly married a younger man, becoming his plural wife without the knowledge of his first one. That union lasted only six months.
Verlan got all excited after her failed marriage, hoping she realized what a good position he was in to exalt her. But Priscilla wanted prestige and the highest glory she could obtain in exchange for her sacrifices. She snubbed Verlan again and instead asked Joel, our self-proclaimed prophet, if she could become his seventh wife. He gladly agreed, and she gave birth to three daughters in rapid succession. Then Ervil had Joel brutally murdered.
Verlan was sick over his brother’s untimely death, but he felt certain Priscilla would now consent to marry him. The Old Testament says that if a man dies, his brother should marry his widow and raise up seed unto his dead brother. Perhaps that’s all Verlan was proposing. He took every opportunity to reaffirm his love and devotion to Priscilla. Well, scripture or no scripture, this time Priscilla chose to become the second wife of a good-looking convert named Bruce. She gave him a daughter as well, but then divorced him when he wanted to move her to the States. She believed in the prophecies of her dead husband that the United States would soon be destroyed.
Verlan pled with Priscilla to become his wife before and after each of her thre
e marriages, and it seemed to me he should’ve taken no for an answer already. How much more battering could his ego take from the same woman?
I’d agonized over Priscilla for years. The more Verlan desired her, the more determined I was to see he didn’t get her. I tried not to be jealous, but I wanted to be the one he pursued, the one he needed and desired. Instead, I usually felt like a number, merely a tool by which he hoped to fulfill his dreams for eternity.
In late August, about a year after Susan left, my fourteen-year-old son, Kaylen, woke me up from a deep sleep. “Mom, why did Daddy go into Priscilla’s bedroom, and then all the lights went off in her house?”
Although I was still exhausted from hoeing tomatoes for ten hours that day in the hot sun, I dressed in a flash and almost ran to the corner. Then I crossed the street and walked right up to the back of Priscilla’s house. Every step I took was familiar. On many an evening, I’d let myself in her back door and gone down to her room, where we talked, read poetry, and shared our intimate feelings.
Just as Kaylen said, I didn’t see a flicker of light on anywhere in the house. It was dark, but it wasn’t silent. With my heart in my throat, I approached Priscilla’s outside bedroom door. Once I calmed my breath, I could clearly hear their playful giggles on the other side. I raised my hand to knock, but their sudden laughter restrained me. Resolving to put a stop to it, I pounded violently on the door. Their laughter hung in midair. Then silence.
When I realized they didn’t intend to answer, I called loudly, “Priscilla?”
“It’s late,” she said, “I’m in bed. Can’t you come back tomorrow?”
“No,” I insisted. “I need to come in now.”
“What do you want?” she asked, perturbed.
“My husband!” I shouted.
Immediately the light went on. Verlan opened her bedroom door just wide enough to make his exit. He grabbed me and forced me out the wrought-iron gate as I fought to go back inside Priscilla’s house and give her a piece of my mind. He overpowered me and led me down the gravel road, insisting I cut out my nonsense. “I’m ashamed of you, Irene! Why don’t you mind your own business?”
“You, ashamed of me?” I cut in. “How do you justify this? Why are you sneaking behind my back? You know there’s no reason for it. Why try and hide the fact that you’re seeing Priscilla?”
“I didn’t want to hurt you. I figured I’d mention it to you later when I knew for sure what her decision would be. But don’t worry, she’ll probably ignore me after your scene just now.”
Making sure I got into my bed, Verlan shut my door and quietly left. It was almost midnight, and Elizabeth was supposedly waiting for him to spend the night with her. I was furious when I found out later that both Elizabeth and Lucy forfeited the first parts of their evenings with Verlan so he could court Priscilla.
Too angry to sleep, I lay awake instead and tried to make sense of Verlan’s strange behavior. For the most part, I thought, I’d upheld him in living the Principle. I’d even supported him courting one or two of his wives. When I hadn’t been quite so supportive, he’d charged right on anyway, telling me all the while that I ought to be happy God was continuing to shower us with such blessings. So why was he trying to hide Priscilla from me?
As I mulled it over, it came to me. All summer long, I’d been taking twelve to fifteen of Verlan’s kids to the tomato fields each day to hoe weeds with me from dawn until dark. At about 9 A.M., I’d take the crew to my house for hotcakes, and then we’d return to our hoeing until about 2 P.M. By then the burning sun made it impossible to continue, but at five in the afternoon, I’d force the tired group to resume work.
I did it because I thought Verlan needed the help to feed his giant families. Happy to help ease his burdens, I’d slaved away, uncomplaining, while he was supposedly busy with other important matters. Now I saw just what those matters were.
But my nights with Verlan were too few and far between to ruin things by fighting with him. By the time it was my turn again, I’d repented of my anger and jealousy, and we made up. Hoping to snuggle up to him, I awoke earlier than usual, needing his touch. “What are your plans for today?” I asked, knowing it was my turn to enjoy it with him.
“I’m going to Casas on business,” he said, then quickly added, “but you need to get all the kids and finish weeding the tomato field.”
“It’s my turn! I’m taking the day off so I can go with you.”
“No. I really can’t let you go this time. The kids won’t work if you’re not there.”
My daughter Connie came late to the field. She stayed behind to clean the house for me. “Mama, Priscilla’s girl said that Daddy is taking her mom to Casas with him. I thought it was your turn to go.”
Irate, I left the kids hoeing, and I drove like mad over the bumpy road in my yellow Datsun. When I turned the corner, sure enough, there was Verlan’s gray truck in front of Priscilla’s house. I came to a stop five feet in front of his vehicle, facing it.
Out came Verlan with Priscilla at his side, all smiles until they glanced up and realized they’d been caught. Ignoring me, Priscilla jumped into his truck and slammed the door as if to show me who was boss. Verlan waved to me as he walked between our vehicles. With no explanation at all, he slid into the driver’s seat beside Priscilla.
What I did next, I did by pure instinct. My intellectual self just looked on, amazed, as I started my little car and drove head-on into Verlan’s truck. The sound of crunching metal and breaking glass was awful. I remember congratulating myself that I’d finally made an impression on them. I’d put a nice big dent in their day.
Priscilla looked daggers at me. Verlan tried backing up his truck so he could pull away. Again I stepped on the gas, lunging forward and smashing his headlights. Verlan was clearly shocked. I’d never been a violent wife. Perhaps he would think I was possessed again.
The third time Verlan tried backing up, his rear tires fell into the irrigation ditch behind his truck. I could see him getting angrier as his wheels spun in the mud. He motioned for me to leave them alone, but I didn’t give a damn by then. I charged forward again, banging his truck for all it was worth.
Verlan jumped out and walked briskly over to my open window. “Are you crazy?”
“About you!” I screamed. “You take that bitch to town on my day, and you’ll never see me again.” I hoped Priscilla would realize how ungodly I was and refuse to become a part of our family kingdom.
Exasperated, Verlan returned to his truck, determined to leave. After several tries, he backed through the ditch, splashing water all over the dirt road as they took off. With hatred and disgust, I watched him zoom away with his new love in flagrant preference over me. I drove home so hysterical, I could hardly see the road. Dejected and furious, I decided what I had to do. A polygamous husband wasn’t supposed to marry without his wives’ consent, and for the first time in our marriage, I wasn’t going to give mine.
When my fifteen-year-old son, Brent, saw my suffering, he got so angry, he jumped into my car, flew over the dirt roads to the paved highway, and drove at top speed until he caught up with his father. He came up beside Verlan’s truck, honking for him to stop. Verlan angrily refused, so Brent pulled ahead, hollering for him to pull over.
Verlan finally did. “What do you want?” he yelled out his window at Brent.
“Please, Daddy, come here for a minute.”
Verlan refused. “If you want to talk to me, be decent enough to come over here.”
Trembling with anger, hardly able to speak, Brent went over to Verlan’s truck and blurted out right in front of Priscilla, “If you take that woman to town, you’ll never see us again!”
“Just mind your own business and go home!”
“I mean it. We’ll be gone by the time you get back.”
Verlan drove off, leaving Brent standing there alone on the road.
Hours later, I woke up with Verlan trying to kiss me. “Hey, Priscilla and I broke up. She decided she
didn’t want to be part of such a family after the way you and Brent acted. See what you’ve done?
“But don’t feel too bad. I guess I shouldn’t have been courting her without at least telling you. Looks like we’ll both have to pay for our mistakes. I want you to apologize in the morning and tell her how sorry you are that you banged my truck. That was absolutely uncalled for!”
“Who owes whom an apology? I’ll never apologize! I can’t understand you, Verlan. It’s wrong for me to bang your damn truck, but it’s not wrong for you to want to bang her!?”
VERLAN PLANNED FOR ME to go pine-nut picking in the Sierra Nevada with him and his older children, as we’d done several times before. First we would set up our tent camp, where I’d do all the cooking for fifteen to thirty people. I always got up at dawn, then got busy making a fire between three big rocks on which I’d set a round barrel lid and make breakfast, usually consisting of fried potatoes, eggs, and pancakes along with oat or wheat cereal. While the group ate, I’d pack everyone’s lunch.
As soon as the crowd left each day, I would do the breakfast dishes, clean camp, and wash any dirty clothes left by the crew. Then I’d start in on supper. The famished pickers usually loved the hot soups, chicken, potatoes, gravy, and vegetables I made for them. I always had a carrot salad or coleslaw and hot biscuits. This rich diet was a rare treat for us. Verlan supplied all the scrumptious food because he wanted the children to keep animated while working the long hours.
Except for the baking, I did all the cooking over the campfire. For the baking, we set up an apartment-size gas stove in an improvised kitchen Verlan made by wrapping black plastic around four upright posts, then covering the top. There I would bake twelve loaves of bread almost every day. When the family came home, starved from working hard, they’d often find I’d made twenty-five pies at a whack. I would also make applesauce and carrot and gingerbread cakes, and I’d set big pans of Jell-O in the cold creek to make fruit Jell-O for salad. We never ate better than we did on those trips.
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