Lena Jones 02 - Desert Wives

talked to him three times yesterday and twice today. He’d discovered who had been stealing microchips from a Scottsdale plant, had cleared several applicants for jobs in the high tech industry, and gone to Miles Alder’s funeral, where he’d helped comfort Miles’ grieving father. In short, during my absence from Desert Investigations he’d kept the money rolling in.
    What I needed to know, though, was how Jimmy’s love life was doing.
    “How’s Jimmy? Uh, how would I know? I haven’t seen him since they extradited me to Utah. I, uh, I’ve talked to him on the phone some, though.”
    But Esther’s blush answered my unasked question.
    We finished loading the big U-Haul just before sunset. Virginia’s husband would drive the U-Haul and Saul would ride along with him, leaving the rest of us to ride in the ranch’s van. We were just about to climb in when we heard someone yell.
    “Wait! Wait for me!” It was Sissy Royal, dragging two suitcases. “I want to leave, too!”
    Davis, obviously as surprised as the rest of us, stepped away from the shade of a rusting car and started toward her. “Sissy! What do you think you’re doing?”
    She wouldn’t look at him, just kept her eyes on us, just kept dragging those suitcases across Prophet’s Park. When the Circle of Elders parted to let her through, I couldn’t help but notice a smirk on Earl Graff’s face.
    “Sissy! You come back here!” Davis began to run toward her.
    I saw the fear on her face. Sissy knew Davis better than I did, knew what he was capable of.
    I reached Sissy before Davis did, and grabbed the suitcases slowing her down. “Head for the van, Sissy.”
    She looked at me, gave one last quick glance at Davis, then hitched up her skirts and ran toward the van.
    Davis stopped about ten feet from me. The look on his face made him almost appear ugly. “Bitch,” he said.
    I smiled. “Thank you for the compliment, Brother Davis.” Still smiling, I picked up Sissy’s suitcases and took them to the van.
    “Okay, Virginia, let’s blow this joint,” I said, as I helped Sissy inside.
    “Consider it blown.” She stomped down on the accelerator, making the van kick up a cloud of dust as we barreled toward the gate.
    As we streaked past the school yard, I could see Cora—the inadvertent cause of so much unhappiness—swinging blissfully on the swing set. Her long white dress swirled around her like a swan’s wing, and the setting sun touched her yellow hair with fire.
    But her eyes, like those of so many children I’d seen in the Purity Clinic, remained vacant.

Author’s Note
    Polygamy in Arizona and Utah is very much a reality, and authorities estimate the numbers of polygamists at between 30,000 and 50,000. Most of their compounds, such as those in Hildale and Colorado City, straddle the Arizona/Utah border, thus muddying each state’s jurisdiction issues. Some polygamists, though, live openly in larger cities such as Phoenix and Salt Lake City (Associated Press, May 22, 2001).
    POLYGAMY’S HISTORY : Utah (and much of Arizona) was founded by Mormon pioneers who practiced polygamy. Although this practice was officially disavowed by the Mormon Church in 1890, and was outlawed in 1896 as a condition of the territory joining the United States, it remained very much alive in outlying desert communities. However, in 1953, the Arizona National Guard raided a large polygamy compound at Short Creek, Arizona, (now named Colorado City) on the instructions of Arizona Gov. Howard Pyle (Utah authorities had declined to take part in the raid). The adult polygamist males were briefly jailed, but because the women—who had been trained to obey the men’s every command—refused to testify against them, prosecution failed. The women also protested that without the males, they would have no means of support. Photographs of these impoverished women, surrounded by large numbers of children, ran in newspapers across the United States. Readers, mostly unaware of the serious abuses of polygamy toward women and children, saw Pyle as the hard-hearted destroyer of families. His political career was effectively ruined. The polygamist males were eventually released from custody and returned to their polygamist lifestyles. Since 1953, there have been no more raids into the polygamy compounds. No politician wants to lose his job, as did Pyle, who then sank into obscurity.
    CRIMES ASSOCIATED WITH POLYGAMY : What few prosecutions have taken place in the past