Lena Jones 02 - Desert Wives

find a chance to talk to them before they dispersed.
    A sharp movement caught my eye and I looked up again to see the red-tailed hawk plummeting toward the ground, its wings folded close to its body. As it dove into the canyon, I lost sight of it for a second, but then I heard a shriek, followed by sounds of a struggle behind a creosote bush. The hawk rose again, a bleeding prairie dog struggling in its claws.
    My own quest felt as hopeless as the prairie dog’s struggles. Given the difficulty of my task, there was a good chance that I might fail for the first time since opening Desert Investigations. But then I remembered Esther, the good mother, sitting in her cell while her daughter was in danger of being returned to the compound. Prophet Solomon might be dead, but I had no doubt that Abel Corbett, in exchange for some favor or other, would eventually hand her over to another old man. No matter how bleak my chances looked here, I couldn’t give up. I had to save Rebecca, and if possible, do something to help the other little girls in the compound.
    I was so deep in thought that I almost walked into Meade Royal.
    “Sister Lena?”
    My shriek sounded like the prairie dog’s as I jumped back from the concerned-looking teenage boy in front of me.
    “Sister Lena, are you all right?” In close up, Meade Royal’s blue eyes were even more startling, the resemblance to his beautiful mother more stunning. He had a small rifle nestled in his arms, but since I’d heard no shots, I guessed he had just begun his hunt. Good. I’d already seen enough blood for one day.
    I checked my dress quickly to make certain my skirts were all the way down and my buttons buttoned. Meade may have been little more than a child, but as I had seen, they started early here.
    “Just daydreaming, Brother Meade. By the way, I thought Prophet Davis locked up all the guns.”
    He tried to form a look of disapproval on his angelic face, but it didn’t work. Try as he might, he still looked like a Renaissance angel, albeit a disapproving one.
    “I told him I wanted to hunt some rabbits so he let me have this. Regardless of what the other people think, my brother’s a reasonable man. But what are
you
doing in the canyon? Have you no duties at home?”
    The real Lena Jones would have smarted off to him, metaphorically spanking his uppity butt, but I reminded myself that the real Lena Jones was on hiatus. I forced a subservient smile.
    “I finished the cleaning and cooking,” I lied. “But the dust…I needed some fresh air. I, uh, suffer from asthma.”
    The disapproval vanished from his sweet face, and the concern returned. “I’ll tell the Circle of Elders to pray for you. But the canyon’s a dangerous place for a woman to be alone in, and I don’t want you walking around down here by yourself. Come, let me take you home.”
    Before I could protest, he shifted his rifle onto his left arm, hooked my arm with his other, and began marching me back to the compound. Bemused, I allowed myself to be led. After all, this presented another interview opportunity. “Meade, why should it be dangerous now? Isn’t your father’s killer in custody?”
    He gripped my arm even tighter. “You’re not safe. There are, ah, other people about.”
    I raised my eyebrows. Did he mean whoever was gunning for Davis? “Oh?”
    I was wrong.
    “Indians,” he said.
    Purity’s casual racism had been apparent from the beginning. Many of the Arizona Strip’s polygamy compounds received an surge in population when the official Mormon Church changed its policy to admit African-American males to the priesthood, and Purity had been no exception. I wondered how Meade would feel if he knew that my partner and closest friend in the world was a full-blooded Pima Indian.
    “What Indians?” I asked.
    “Paiute. They’re not friendly.”
    I tried not to laugh. Most Native Americans were friendly enough once you took the trouble to know them, but they were very protective of children. I doubted they bore any more love for the polygamists than the polygamists did them.
    I gave Meade a grateful smile. “Thank you for the warning. I feel so safe with you! Perhaps you could tell me exactly where they live so I’ll be extra careful not to go near them?”
    He eased the pressure on my arm and slowed his step. “If you take the road northeast past the graveyard, and follow it for another four miles, you’ll eventually see their village. They’re in the canyon a