Lena Jones 02 - Desert Wives

considered Original Sin on the compound, but human nature was human nature, especially in Purity, where the more attention from her “husband” a woman received, the more likely she was to become pregnant. The more children a woman had, the bigger her household would be and the more power she would wield in the family. Sister Ermaline might have walked ten paces behind her husband, but among the household’s women, she was top dog.
    Until she stopped having children and they continued.
    I wasn’t here to make enemies, so I gulped down the last of Sister Ermaline’s biscuit and gave her my brightest smile. “I know my past is cloudy, but I’m trying to be a good woman. Perhaps I can learn from your example, Sister Ermaline.”
    Mollified, she smiled for the first time. “See that you do. The Lord loves an obedient woman.”
    Oh, Saul, I’m going to kill you for this.
Hoping to turn the conversation to less biblical matters, I asked Jean, “How many children do you have, Je…I mean, Sister Jean?”
    “Three. This’ll be my fourth.”
    Four children to Sister Ermaline’s fifteen. That put her
way
down in the polygamy pecking order. Why so few children? Had Jean fallen out of favor with Solomon for some reason?
    As more biscuits emerged from the oven, I helped Cynthia, who had returned to the kitchen, take them to the tables. Cora, she told me, was no longer allowed to carry food because of her habit of dropping things. Instead, the little girl now made sure the salt and pepper containers were filled.
    “You should have been here the day she dropped the green bean casserole,” Cynthia said, apparently recovered from the loss of her anatomy book. “Beans everywhere, even on the ceiling. Cora’s a sweetie, but she has her limits.”
    With surprise, I saw Meade standing at the head of one of the tables, but when I said good morning to him, he hardly noticed. He was too busy holding a salt shaker steady so Cora could fill it. No matter where he positioned the shaker, the salt went elsewhere. To give the little tyrant his due, his voice expressed nothing but patience.
    When Cora finally managed to fill the shaker, he made a fist and gave the table three sharp raps. The chatter in the room ceased.
    “Brothers and sisters, it’s time for prayer.”
    The mystery of his presence in his old home was solved. As a male, albeit an unmarried one, he was qualified to lead the family in prayer. Women weren’t. Since the gigantic family ate in shifts, did he also pray in shifts?
    I bowed my head and ran through the alphabet several times before the long-winded Meade finally quit. But I’ll say this for him: he did manage to mention food a couple of times in between the Heavenly reminders of male superiority and female subservience. When we’d all muttered “Amen,” I walked with Cynthia back to the kitchen.
    “Does he do that every morning?” I asked her.
    “Every morning, lunch and dinner. Brother Meade is very devout. That’s why the Circle of Elders wanted to name him prophet, not Davis.”
    I stopped in my tracks. “You’re kidding, right? A fourteen-year-old boy?”
    She shrugged, stopping with me. “We believe a prophet is born, not made. After my father’s funeral, the Circle of Elders met all night and by morning, Brother Earl said he’d had a Revelation that the new prophet of Purity should be Brother Meade, but by then it was too late. The night before, Brother Davis had his own Revelation, and the other men in the compound, the ones that don’t like the Circle of Elders much, let him assume the title of prophet. Things were pretty ugly around here for a couple of days, but then they settled down. They always do.”
    I’ll bet. A good old-fashioned power struggle, with everyone involved claiming to act for God. I wondered if the potshots taken at Prophet Davis from the canyon were signs that Earl Graff had organized a counter-revolution. Not that I cared what those fools did to each other. Cynthia’s information did create a new suspect in the murder of Solomon Royal.
    “How did Brother Meade feel about getting edged out for the job of prophet?” Kids had killed before, for stranger reasons.
    Cynthia laughed. “The idea of being named prophet scared him to death, but he didn’t want anyone to know that, especially not Brother Earl. After Brother Davis was anointed prophet, though, Meade looked like a thousand pounds had just slid off his back.” She fell silent for a second. “Just