Lena Jones 02 - Desert Wives

remembered our nights together, the way his hands slid along…
    The temperature in the kitchen rose considerably, so I opened the back door to let in a breeze, which worked all too well. The pile of red dust my broom had swept lifted off the floor and dispersed itself once again around the room. In disgust I threw down the broom. Thirty minutes of housework was enough for any woman, and I needed some real exercise. Back in Scottsdale I ran almost every day, but since arriving in Utah I’d been a sloth, and I could feel my muscles atrophying. I called to Ruby that I’d be back shortly, and without waiting for her answer, hurried out the door.
    As I crossed the dirt circle of Prophet’s Park into Utah, I noted that the compound seemed almost deserted again. Then I heard children’s voices coming from the school. One of the most decrepit buildings in the settlement, the school looked like it had been patched together with throwaway lumber. The three-story structure didn’t sit quite square on its cracked foundation, but unlike most of the buildings in Purity, the school at least had windows—such as they were. Sheets of clear plastic substituted for glass, and all the windows were open to the heat of the day. I glanced up at the roof and saw a profusion of missing shingles but no air conditioner. Did they close the school when the temperature rose above one hundred? If so, they’d probably close it within minutes. Or maybe the kids would just swelter.
    Maybe things would improve at the school when Prophet Davis initiated his reforms. A bitter chuckle at my own foolish hopes slipped out of my mouth before I could stop it. I began to hurry past the building, but as I slipped by one of the open windows, I heard something that stopped me in my tracks.
    “The Great Mother is the mother most beloved by our Great Father,” piped a child’s innocent voice. “Because of the Great Mother’s earthly sacrifice for her community, He allows her to ascend to the highest level of Heaven.”
    I raised my eyebrows. Religious instruction in a public school? Then I remembered. For the past few years, the polygamists had operated their own school system.
    My urge to flee squelched, I stood on tiptoe and peeked in the window. The children, an almost equal mixture of girls and boys, appeared to be seven or eight years old. The teacher, an elderly woman with Coke-bottle bifocals, wore the compound’s
de rigueur
faded ankle-length dress. It looked a hundred years old, but then again, so did she.
    “How does the Great Mother earn her title, Sylvia?” the teacher asked.
    “By giving birth to as many souls as possible,” little Sylvia answered. With her blond hair, big blue eyes, and almost albino-pale skin, she could have been the clone of at least ninety percent of her schoolmates.
    The teacher’s smile took in the entire room. “Excellent, Sylvia. I am certain all you little girls will grow up to become Great Mother, assuring your places in Highest Heaven. Remember the law of God: no children, no Heaven. And you boys, you must do your part to enable these little ladies to enter Highest Heaven, because without your seed, Satan will find them and carry them away to the Underworld, where they’ll burn forever in the Eternal Fire with all the other sinful, childless women.”
    Seed? Eternal Fire? Sinful, childless women? Holy literal shit!
    “Boys, will you do your part?” the teacher asked again.
    The boys responded enthusiastically. They yelled “Yes, ma’am!” and stomped their feet. Suddenly, the schoolroom full of innocents sounded like a troop ship nearing some sleazy third-world port. My stomach lurched. Those children were too young to truly understand what they were being taught but they weren’t too young to be brainwashed.
    My original idea had been to jog along the dirt road that led north through the fields, but after what I’d just heard I wanted cover. So I left the road and headed into the canyon as fast as I could, and didn’t relax until its high walls rose above me, effectively shutting Purity out.
    The rough path Rebecca and I had taken during our escape lay to the southeast, paralleling the dirt road to Zion City. When the compound had originally built the road, they had merely dumped the debris of rocks, boulders and dirt down into the canyon. The litter there made running difficult, but the northern branch of the canyon remained relatively smooth. As I walked along, the terrain flattened enough so