Lena Jones 02 - Desert Wives

days on the compound had made me distrust most males. I looked around for a hiding place and soon found a shallow indentation in the canyon wall, half-hidden by a creosote bush and blooming snakeweed. Trying to keep my feet from kicking up any loose rocks, I hustled over there and squeezed myself into the shallow cave.
    Just in time.
    Jacob Waldman and Meade Royal rounded the bend in the canyon, deep in conversation. Meade carried a small rifle, and had two dead rabbits slung over his shoulder.
    “Uncle Jacob, you must not blame yourself for anything that has happened. Some of these events must be left to God and his justice.” Meade sounded wise for his years, even though during each sentence, his voice wobbled from tenor to baritone and back again.
    “It is a father’s duty to make his daughter obey!” the old man argued. “If I’d tried harder, I could have stopped Esther and Abel from leaving the compound. Then Rebecca would have been born here, under my protection, and none of this would have happened!”
    Interesting. Old Brother Jacob was apparently having one of his more lucid moments, but time had taught me not to read too much into one sentence. As the two passed me and rounded another bend in the canyon, their voices began to fade. If I wanted to hear the rest of their conversation, I’d have to follow. I snatched up some of the yellow snakeweed blooms at my feet, hoping they would provide me with a good excuse for being in the canyon if the two became aware of my presence. As I hurried after them, trying to keep from dislodging any rocks, their conversation continued to intrigue.
    “God is punishing me because I loved her so,” Jacob said, his voice catching.
    “Fathers are supposed to love their daughters,” Meade’s voice soothed. “There’s no sin in that.”
    Suddenly Jacob’s voice changed in timbre, assuming the eerie conviction of an Old Testament prophet. “There is if the daughter is Satan’s whore!”
    He was losing it again, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t hear anything illuminating. Just the contrary. Under certain circumstances, even the ravings of madmen could be helpful.
    More soothing sounds from Meade, tinged with an edge of fear, and I realized for the first time that the boy was afraid of his uncle.
    “Uncle Jacob, God will punish Sister Esther for leaving us. You don’t have to…”
    “You are wrong, boy!” Jacob roared. “It is a father’s duty to punish a wicked daughter, just as it is to punish a wicked son. The Old Testament in its wisdom talks about stoning disobedient children to death. God demands blood atonement! Only blood atonement can wash away the stains of evil! Without it we would
all
wind up in Hell, not just the sinner!”
    “Please, Uncle Jacob…”
    Now Meade sounded downright terrified and his voice broke on every other word. I patted my thigh to make certain my .38 hadn’t dislodged as I scrambled through the canyon. Still there. Relieved, I continued to eavesdrop on Jacob’s ravings.
    “I meted out blood atonement to the other one and it freed her soul, so why was I so lax with Esther? Why did I allow her rebellion to continue?”
    The other one?
    “Sin is a virus which infects us all!” Jacob’s rachety old voice rose to a screech, and I wondered if they could hear him all the way back at the compound. “The prophet himself, our own holy prophet! He was blinded by her beauty, blinded by her sin!”
    Wait a minute. Who was he talking about now? Esther? Rebecca? Or someone else?
    As quickly as Jacob’s voice had risen, it lowered. Soon I had to strain to hear him.
    “That’s when our prophet gave in to sin himself, you know, and joined the ranks of Satan. If he hadn’t sinned, he would have lived forever!”
    “Uncle Jacob…” Meade’s voice rose into falsetto. “You can’t…”
    “But unlike the prophet, I was wise to Satan’s lures. I took the vengeance of God into my hands and washed her sins away in her own blood. The blood, the very color of the blood…”
    “Uncle Jacob, please don’t let anybody hear you talk like that! It, it could be taken all wrong!”
    I killed her, I washed her sins away in her own blood.
Had Jacob actually killed someone, and if so, who? Or was the murder merely a figment of his increasing dementia?
    “Why, Meade! What are we doing here in the canyon?” Jacob’s voice again, but this time calm. In the bizarre pattern of Alzheimer’s, the old man’s dementia had cleared,