Lena Jones 02 - Desert Wives

fooling around with a seven-year-old girl. In my experience, child molesters’ wives usually covered for them.
    I shook my head. “Thanks for the offer, Meade, but I’m persona non grata over at Ermaline’s these days.”
    “Sona non gratis?”
    Of course. Latin was hardly a required subject at Purity School. “An unwelcome person,” I translated.
    “Oh, that’s no problem, then. Sister Ermaline has to do whatever I say, so if you want to pray with us, you just come on. I know that you and your husband have to leave Purity tomorrow, and I’m figuring you need the solace of prayer more than ever.”
    What a sweet boy. But something he’d just said intrigued me. “Brother Meade, what do you mean, Sister Ermaline has to do whatever you tell her to do?”
    His smile didn’t change. “Because I’m a man, and Sister Ermaline is just a woman.”
    Not such a sweet boy. “Yeah, well, that’s all very nice, kid, but I think exercise will do me a lot more good than your sexist prayers.”
    With that, I hitched up my skirt in front of his horrified eyes, and began jogging down the muddy track that led toward the graveyard. I looked back once to see Meade still standing in the dirt circle, staring after me in disbelief.
    Once out of the compound, however, I felt a pang of guilt over my behavior. Why blame the kid for his goofy beliefs? He’d been brainwashed, too, and in a way was as much a victim as anyone else. Then I remembered Cynthia’s battered body. No, not quite as much as everyone.
    As I splashed along the road near Paiute Canyon, I heard the roar of the water. Two days of rain had funneled through the Vermillion Cliffs, creating one of the area’s notorious flash floods, so I made certain not to go too near the edge while I ran. After an hour, I decided to take a short break. I slowed to a walk, and moseyed over to the rim, gazing into the canyon as untold tons of muddy water foamed toward the Colorado River. Small trees, ripped loose from their precarious hold on the canyon’s walls, bounced along the torrent like daredevil surfers. I even saw a dead antelope borne along in the wake of a mesquite, its head bobbing loosely in the current. I hoped its death had been quick.
    Other small corpses floated past, animals too small or frail to escape from the flood. Rabbits. Quail. Unidentifiable bits of feathers and fur.
    I don’t know how long I stood there watching water and death flow by, hoping those tiny deaths might lead me to understanding. But I when I finally turned away, I found myself no closer to solving Prophet Solomon’s murder than before.

Chapter 22
    When I entered the compound, I noticed most of the older children had already made it to the school, leaving only a few stragglers to wend their way through the rusting pickup trucks in Prophet’s Park. Cynthia herded Cora and several younger children along, so intent upon watching them that she actually ran into me. The impact dislodged a small paperback from her apron pocket.
    I retrieved it, but not before reading the title.
The Mayor of Casterbridge,
by Thomas Hardy, the story of a man who sold his wife and child and lived to regret it.
    “Interesting choice,” I said. “But whatever you do, don’t let anyone here see you reading this.”
    She looked around nervously, then hurriedly stuffed the novel back into her apron pocket. “Saul once brought me something that listed the two thousand most important books ever written, so I’ve been working my way through them. I think I’ve got about nineteen hundred left.” She paused, and her voice sounded heavy. “I guess I’ll have to make the Hardy last until Mother lets me go to my aunt’s house in Salt Lake.”
    Until? I didn’t like the sound of that. “Come with us tomorrow,” I urged. “I’ll drive you to your aunt’s. Why wait?”
    She looked down at the children clustered around her feet, her sisters and brothers. When she finally met my eyes, she whispered, “Oh, Lena. How can I leave them?”
    I understood. For years escape to Salt Lake City and the University of Utah had been her dream, and dreams were safe. Now, on the brink of freedom, those dreams looked scary.
    Inspired, I bent down and picked up one of the children, a little girl of about four who so closely resembled Cynthia that she could have been her full, biological sister. As I kissed the child’s blond head, I asked “Think she’ll wind up marrying Earl Graff?”
    Cynthia gasped.
    Even Cora screwed up