Lena Jones 02 - Desert Wives

as harsh as the desert surrounding Phoenix, it was harsh enough. A young girl could still easily die out here.
    I trembled, remembering my own near death on the desert. Was anyone praying for Cynthia? Or just seeking to capture her?
    We searched for hours but never found Cynthia. I comforted myself with the hope that perhaps she’d run to the Paiute and sought refuge with them. Or maybe, like so many other runaways before her, she’d headed toward West Wind Ranch. We drove halfway back to the ranch, scanning the sides of the blacktop for her, but we saw nothing to make us believe she’d passed that way. Eventually we realized she couldn’t possibly have made it to the blacktop already, so we turned around and headed back toward Purity again.
    “I should have realized something was wrong when I was at Ermaline’s house this morning,” I mourned. “But she didn’t tell me!”
    “Why should she?” Saul asked. “Remember, she thinks you’re just another sister wife. But she should have had enough sense to come to me. Surely she knew I’d help her.”
    “We were gone all day,” I said. “She didn’t have
anybody
to turn to!”
    Now that I’d had time to think, I could guess what happened. With Davis away, the Circle of Elders voted to hurry the marriage, figuring he wouldn’t bother to annul it once the dirty deed had been accomplished. Whatever their reasoning, it was time to contact the authorities. But when I asked Saul to pull into a gas station so I could call them, he balked.
    “I’m not sure you should drag the authorities into this,” he said. “It might be best to…”
    “To what? Just let her die in the desert?”
    He shook his head, but stopped at the station anyway and gave me change for the phone. “Go ahead, then. But things might not work out the way you think they will.”
    Saul proved to be right. The minute I told the sheriff’s dispatcher Cynthia was only fifteen and that I wasn’t her mother, he lost interest. “She’s a minor. If her parents are concerned about her, they’ll file a report themselves.”
    “Her father’s dead, and her mother, well…She, uh, she’s out looking for her,” I lied. “I imagine she was so worried that she didn’t stop to call you.”
    The dispatcher remained unimpressed. When I kept insisting that Cynthia was only fifteen and could be in danger, he told me to have Ermaline call Dispatch when she returned. Then he hung up.
    Fuming, I went back to the truck.
    “Told you,” Saul said.
    Cynthia still hadn’t been found when, several hours later, I walked to Ermaline’s to help with dinner. The girl’s absence was a good sign, I hoped. Maybe she’d already found help and was on her way to a new life. But just in case, I decided to skip my breakfast-fixing activities the next morning so I could look for her again.
    In the kitchen, I was surprised to see Ermaline working away as usual. The other wives, especially Jean, looked much more upset than she did.
    “Runaway girls are the men’s problem,” Ermaline said, kneading bread for what appeared to be a baker’s dozen loaves. “As will be her punishment when they find her.”
    Looking up from the mess I’d made in the bowl by slopping lumpy mashed potatoes over the edge and onto the table, I asked, “Punishment?”
    “Of course they’re gonna punish her. But whatever pain steers a sinful woman away from Satan’s gate is merciful in the end.” Ermaline’s voice was calm, her face severe. “The stupid girl’s risked hellfire by not marryin’ her God-chosen husband.”
    Appalled, I spoke before I thought. “God didn’t choose Earl Graff for her, the Circle of Elders did!”
    “Same thing.”
    I wiped my hands on my apron. “But Sister Ermaline, surely there are other prospective, ah, husbands who might be more to Cynthia’s liking. And that Brother Earl, well excuse me, but he comes across to me as just plain mean!”
    Ermaline’s hands, as big-boned as a man’s, I now noticed, kept kneading the dough until I thought it would scream for mercy. “Marriage is a covenant, Sister Lena, and covenants don’t have nothing to do with liking or not liking. The only thing important for a woman is bringing more souls into the world, and she can’t do that without getting married, can she?”
    I opened my mouth to protest again, but noticed Jean’s warning expression. “I guess I never thought of it that way.”
    Ermaline finally gave the bread dough a break and rested her