Lena Jones 02 - Desert Wives

pointed out, but it did little to erase everyone’s stunned expressions, especially the men’s. They looked like they’d just seen a rabbit transmogrify into a wolf.
    “Sister Lena!” Ermaline was the first person to find her voice. “Go home to your husband right now! We’ll take care of Brother Earl
and
Cynthia ourselves. You’re no longer welcome in this house.”
    As I started for the door, the men and women huddled around the moaning Earl. All except for Ermaline, who studied me with narrowed eyes.
    “Just who
are
you?”
    I left the house without answering.

Chapter 14
    “So you smacked the sonofabitch?” Saul asked, as he applied an ice pack to my face.
    His expression made me suspect that given the right circumstances, he just might be capable of murder. I looked around and didn’t see Ruby, but that was no guarantee she wasn’t listening somewhere, so I kept my voice low.
    “I did it without even thinking. I’m not used to being hit.” At least not since I’d graduated from Arizona’s foster care system, I could have added. But there was no point in burdening Saul with horror stories of my past.
    “That eye’s going to turn black,” he said.
    It wouldn’t be my first black eye, so that didn’t bother me. What did bother me was knowing Ermaline would turn her daughter over to the man who’d hit me—and he was probably a lot angrier at Cynthia than he even was at me. She had not only rejected him, but done it in such a public way that the entire compound and the authorities knew. How would he make her pay for such humiliation?
    “As soon as I fix you up, I’m going to go over to Ermaline’s and finish what you started,” Saul muttered. “Damn creep’s not going to go beating on
my
wife.”
    “I’m not your wife. And I took care of the problem, at least the immediate problem. If you pop Earl one, the rest of them will probably drop-kick both our butts out of here tomorrow even without a court order. So please calm down. Cynthia’s the one who needs help, not me. Somehow we’ve got to stop that marriage.”
    He dabbed at my eye again, shaking his head. “How do you propose we do that, Miss Tough Nuts? You now see that our local sheriff won’t do anything about it. Hell, Howard Benson’s own family tree is filled with polygamists, so he’s not going to get all hot and bothered over this deal. All he saw today was a runaway minor who needed to be returned to her parents.”
    “But Saul, she doesn’t want to marry Earl Graff! It would be nothing more than rape.”
    “I know, I know. But there really isn’t anything we can do about it now, is there? Not without blowing your cover even further than it’s already blown. I’d grab the girl myself and drive her off to Zion City in my pickup if I thought I could get through the compound with her, but haven’t you noticed how carefully they watch me every time I leave? For months now they’ve been afraid I’ll do something like that, so they do everything but frisk me.”
    I tried again. “It’s not a real marriage. The man already has a pile of wives.”
    He eased up with the ice pack for a moment and stared me straight in the eyes. “As far as these people are concerned, including Sheriff Benson, it
is
a real marriage.”
    My heart ached in admission that Saul was right. No wonder the law never prosecuted the polygamists. Too many of the law officers in Utah sympathized with them and looked the other way while they did their thing. With no cooperation from the law
or
her mother, Cynthia was doomed.
    “Saul, there’s something else I don’t understand. Why did the Circle of Elders give Cynthia to Earl Graff? She’s the daughter of the last prophet, and if I’ve been able to figure out the pecking order here, she should have been destined for a better marriage. Besides, Prophet Davis said that he wasn’t going to allow them to force girls into marriage anymore.”
    His laugh was ironic. “Looks like a coup d’etat might be shaping up, doesn’t it? Davis might be popular with the ladies, but you’ve seen what the Circle of Elders thinks about him. If you want the truth, I think they did it just to spite him. Cynthia is just the opening shot in a full scale war.”
    That sounded probable to me, too. I decided to think about that later. For now, I closed my eyes and let him continue attending to me.
    I had almost fallen asleep under his tender ministrations when I heard him say, “Think you can remember how to