Lena Jones 02 - Desert Wives

the least rundown houses were situated on the Utah side of the border, the poorest houses in Arizona. Also in Utah stood the large schoolhouse and next to it, a two-story, warehouse-sized building whose wooden sign bragged “Purity Health Clinic.” Fifty miles was too far to drive when a child needed immediate care, so this made sense. Still, what kind of medical care could the clinic really offer? I doubted the compound had its own doctor.
    While I stared at the clinic, which was really no more elegant than the usual Purity Garbage Dump Modern, a man exited and walked briskly toward a gabled house that peeked through a stand of cottonwood and mesquite on the edge of the canyon. What I could see of the house looked almost elegant, but then so did the man. In his prime, the man stood well over six feet tall and had the broad shoulders of a movie idol. His pale blond hair, glossy as corn silk, revealed the same Nordic ancestors as the Valkyrie’s, as did his eyes, which were the color of sky-reflecting fjords. His blue eyes perfectly matched his bright, high-neck shirt, making me suspect there might be a touch of vanity there. If so, he came by it honestly, because I’d never seen such a good-looking man, and I’d seen plenty in my time.
    “That’s Prophet Davis,” a girl’s voice said. “Handsome, isn’t he?”
    I turned to see a girl of around fifteen, her own considerable looks undiminished by her red-rimmed eyes and stained apron. Like other teenaged girls who’d drifted into Prophet’s Park, she held a struggling toddler by the hand.
    “He’s a hunk!” I blurted, then slapped my hand over my mouth. Busted again.
    The girl just smiled. “We’re not supposed to notice a man’s appearance. The body is just the physical casing for the soul. That’s what the Gospel According to Solomon says, anyway. But the girls still stare.” As she bent to pick up the toddler, a book fell out of her apron.
    Since her arms were full of wriggling two-year-old, I reached down and retrieved it. A new paperback copy of E. L. Doctorow’s
Ragtime
.
    “You’re studying this in school?” I asked, surprised. Wait a minute. She wasn’t
in
school. Neither were any of the other teenagers in the park. Then I remembered Saul telling me the compound’s girls weren’t expected to attend school after the age of fourteen because they were needed as babysitters or wives. Sometimes they received their G.E.D., but usually not.
    She grabbed the book and stuffed it back into her apron pocket. “Please don’t tell anyone you saw this, okay? Brother Saul picks these up when he’s in town, but we have to keep it a secret. Mom would have a fit if she knew I read such nasty books.”
    Nasty books?
Doctorow?
Well, of course. A community which didn’t let its women and children watch television certainly wouldn’t allow free access to literature. But I simply said, “Doctorow’s not that all that racy.”
    Her eyes lit up. “You’ve actually read Doctorow?”
    “Sure. We studied him in my American Lit class. My favorite was
The Book of Daniel
, but I liked
Ragtime
, too, even though the lack of dialogue just about drove me crazy. By the way, I’m Lena…uh, Sister Lena. And you are…?”
    Her face, rapt while listening to my discussion of Doctorow, flushed. “Oh, gosh, I’m sorry. I’m Sister Cynthia. Brother Davis is my brother, my blood brother. Half-brother, anyway. We have the same father.”
    That explained her red eyes. “Then you’re Prophet Solomon’s daughter.”
    More gunfire, followed by a shout. Some poor bunny rabbit just bought the farm. But this time I was ready for the noise and hardly reacted.
    “One of his daughters,” Cynthia said. “I have forty-eight sisters and fifty-four brothers.”
    Somehow I kept my eyes from popping out of my head. The dead Prophet had been a randy old sod, but judging from the three offspring I’d seen, he’d either been a good-looking man himself or married the most beautiful women in the compound. Probably the latter, I decided. Like rock stars, prophets attracted the prettiest groupies.
    “I’m very sorry about your father.”
    She nodded. “Thank you.”
    “I met your other brother a few minutes ago, and he’s taking it pretty rough.” Then I remembered her dozens of brothers. “I’m talking about Meade.”
    Her eyes looked away from mine, and she plucked at the plastic buttons on the bodice of her pale pink granny dress. “We have different mothers. Meade