Lena Jones 02 - Desert Wives

didn’t sound convinced. Maybe she’d discovered other interpretations of life’s purpose in all those nasty Doctorow novels.
    “Sister Cynthia, don’t you think…”
    A woman screamed. Both Cynthia and I looked toward the mesquite grove where the sound seemed to have originated.
    The woman screamed again. Then a man shouted, “It’s Prophet Davis! He’s been shot!”
    After a quick glance toward the toddlers, who had already fled for the safety of closer girls, Cynthia, as pale as her apron, picked up her skirts and ran toward the canyon. I followed, soon passing her, even though my hip had stiffened through lack of exercise. When we reached the mesquite grove, we found a crowd gathered around an irate Prophet Davis, who, as it turned out, was fine. But his bright blue shirt hadn’t been so lucky.
    “This is inexcusable!” he snapped, fingering a bullet hole in his shirt sleeve. “I could have been killed! Who’s responsible for this?”
    No one came forward to admit culpability.
    “Come on, out with it! Which one of you was stupid enough to shoot
up
from the canyon, rather than along it?”
    The women stopped their twittering, the men their grumbling. Some, relieved that no blood had spilled, drifted away. I heard one hunter say to his companion, “Well, you gotta expect a bullet hole or two when you build your house so close to the brush. He’s the stupid one, if you ask me.”
    One of the women, yet another pretty blond, pulled at him. “Let me get you inside, make sure you’re okay.”
    He brushed her hand away, though not unkindly. “I’m fine, Sissy, but I’d better change my shirt. No point in showing up at the meeting looking like something left over from target practice.”
    Giving one last furious glance at the remaining crowd, he called out, “If I catch whoever did this, I’ll make sure his gun privileges are revoked for a month!”
    Cynthia shook her head. “He’s fine, so let’s get back to the park. I’ve already been away from those kids too long. Who knows what they’ve managed to do to themselves by now.”
    When we arrived back at Prophet’s Park, the other teenagers, less curious about Prophet Davis’s narrow escape, had taken up the slack. None of the children had sustained any more bumps or cuts.
    “Seems to me you should be able to build your house anywhere you want without getting shot at,” I said, as Cynthia picked up another toddler.
    “You’d sure think so, but this has happened before,” she answered, her face still pale.
    “Are you talking about your father?”
    She shook her head. “No, Brother Davis. Somebody just missed him the other day, too.”
    I stared at her. “You’re kidding.”
    “I’m not kidding. You know what I think?” Her eyes looked scared, and she lowered her voice to a whisper. “I think somebody’s trying to kill him.”
    When I returned to Saul’s, I found him sitting in the green recliner, hunched turtle-like into his shirt, tape recorder in hand. Someone, guess who, banged pots and pans in the kitchen.
    “Ruby want to know why you went out for a walk instead of making the beds,” Saul said. He wouldn’t meet my eyes.
    “I’m supposed to make beds?”
    “She wanted you to do the dishes, too. She even reminded me that one of the benefits of having sister wives was getting help with the housework.”
    I looked around. The house appeared perfectly clean to me, and I said so.
    He flicked a quick, guilty look at me. “Beds aren’t made, floors aren’t swept, toilets aren’t scrubbed…”
    I held up my hand. “Somebody just tried to shoot Prophet Davis.”
    The tape recorder fell to the floor.
“Again?”
    I nodded. “Again. What the hell’s going on around here? Why didn’t you tell me somebody’s trying to take out
all
the prophets?”
    Saul leaned over and picked up the recorder. He turned it on for a second, testing it, and I heard someone talking about life onboard ship in the Persian Gulf. Satisfied, he turned it off.
    “I never connected Solomon’s death with what happened to Davis, but maybe you’re right. Both men are, were, whatever, prophets of Purity. Hell and blazes.”
    “Please tell me someone’s talked to the authorities about this?”
    Saul gave a short, hard laugh. “You’re kidding, right? Lena, if there hadn’t been some poor woman handy to pin Prophet Solomon’s death on, nobody would have cooperated with the authorities over that, either. They settle their own scores around here