Lena Jones 02 - Desert Wives

between you and me, I think Brother Earl wanted to be prophet himself, but knew he wasn’t popular enough.”
    Like his half-sister, Meade was no dummy. He’d probably guessed that Earl would use him as a figurehead only, and didn’t want any part of it. Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.
    An hour later the last of the children had eaten and it was time for me to return home. “It’s seven o’clock,” I announced, slipping off the apron Jean had loaned me. “My husband must be starving.”
    “Oh, and how is Brother Saul?” Sister Jean asked, straightening her own apron. “You two getting along okay?”
    “Sure, other than his complaints about my cooking.”
    She shoved a tinfoil-wrapped plate into my hands. “Here are some sausage, eggs and biscuits to take to Brother Saul, but by the end of the week you should be able to put together a decent breakfast for him.”
    I doubted that.
    Keeping a humble expression on my face, I hurried the plate back to Saul’s house so he could eat Ermaline’s biscuits while they were still warm.
    Ruby snatched the plate from me as soon as I entered the house. “It’s about time,” she snapped. Her eyes were red from lack of sleep, reminding me of my noisy performance the previous night. “It’s a disgrace to make your husband wait so long for his breakfast.”
    Amused, I trailed after her. As I entered the kitchen, which now seemed tiny compared to Ermaline’s, I saw Saul, freshly shaved, sitting at the table wolfing down a big bowl of Cheerios. An apple core and banana skin lay beside the bowl. I allowed myself a moment of housewifely pride. Maybe I couldn’t cook, but I could sure write a mean shopping list.
    “I actually helped make a couple of those biscuits,” I said, as Ruby set the plate in front of him.
    “The flat ones, probably,” she grumped.
    “Ladies, ladies, don’t fight,” Saul said, shoving aside his Cheerios and popping a butter-drenched biscuit into his mouth. “Sister Lena, this flat little biscuit tastes like heaven on earth. I can’t wait to see what pleasures your lunch lesson will bring us.”
    Ruby said nothing, but I noticed that she ate as many biscuits as Saul.
    After breakfast was over, Saul and I left an infuriated Ruby to the washing up and strolled onto the porch and out of earshot.
    “Do you think it’s going to work?” he said, as we sat down together in the porch swing.
    “Learning how to cook or finding out more about Prophet Solomon’s death?”
    “Lena.”
    I grimaced. “Sorry. The stress of slaving over a hot stove must be getting to me. But in answer to your question, it’s too early to tell.” I gave him a brief rundown of the morning’s activities, going into detail about the book incident. “By the way, I didn’t know you were Purity’s official book-smuggler.”
    “Oh, that. I’ve been doing it for years,” he said. “Once Cynthia gets through reading them, she gives them back to me and I take them to the Salvation Army in Zion City so nobody’ll spot things like
War and Peace
lying around on the dump. That Cynthia, she’s a real bright girl and I’d like to see her make something of herself. She was talking about being a doctor there for a while, and I think she could manage it, too.”
    “She won’t if Ermaline has anything to do with it.”
    He made a face. “Ermaline’s got an attitude, but she makes a fine biscuit.” He smacked his lips at the memory.
    “Jean seems to look out for Cynthia.”
    “Poor Jean. She’s never been happy up at that house. I think she used to be sweet on Davis Royal but then she had to marry his daddy.”
    “Had to?” I raised my eyebrows.
    He chuckled. “Get your mind out of the gutter, girl. Jean didn’t get pregnant out of wedlock or anything like that. That sort of thing doesn’t happen much in Purity because the girls are usually married off as soon as they start their monthlies. No, what I meant was that some kind of deal went down having to do with a tractor her father wanted but didn’t have the money to buy. But he got the tractor anyway and right after it was delivered, Solomon got Jean.”
    “That’s terrible!”
    “It was a nice tractor.”
    I gave him a look.
    “The point is, Jean never could stand Solomon, so I don’t think she was all that broken up over his death.”
    “Interesting.”
    “Don’t go getting ideas about Jean. She’s not the violent type.”
    “Lizzie Borden’s neighbors used to say that about her,