Lena Jones 02 - Desert Wives

himself?” I asked Saul, who couldn’t seem to stop rolling his eyes at the prospect of me as a schoolteacher.
    “Yep, his own royal self. I must say, Lena, he really seems to be hot about this upcoming marriage of yours.”
    “And me not even related to him. Just goes to show you, some acorns do fall far from the tree.”
    Saul looked baffled. “What the hell are you talking about?”
    Ruby entered the room lugging a laundry basket, so I waved his question away. “I’ll talk to you later. Right now I’d better go over to the school. Don’t want to disappoint my fiancé, do I?”
    I didn’t want to lose my temper further, so I avoided the class being taught by the evil old harridan who I’d heard conducting the frightening lesson on “seed.” I wandered the halls until I found the seventh graders, but this class, taught from battered, forty-year-old textbooks, appeared little better. These teens would never learn about Vietnam, Panama, the fall of Communism, or the rise of terrorism. In fact, the only new books in the room were amateurishly bound copies of Solomon Royal’s own religious ramblings. The teacher, a prim, elderly old woman with a skirt that literally dragged the floor, appeared dispirited. She’d apparently abandoned world history and opted for religious history instead.
    As I dutifully took my notes, the teacher called on Meade. She asked him if he remembered the name of Hagar’s son.
    Meade remembered. “Ishmael,” he said, standing up.
    Could have fooled me. I’d always thought Ishmael was the narrator in
Moby Dick.
    Surprisingly, Cora sat near Meade, although it was obvious she understood nothing being said. Maybe the teachers just allowed her to wander the school at will, like Mary’s little lamb. Once again I admired her beauty. On her, the compound’s pale looks seemed transformed. Her skin was tinged with pink, her eyes deepened to a cerulean blue. Her glossy blond hair cascaded down to her waist in a white river. Her beauty wasn’t lost on her classmates, either. The boys gazed at her with rapt faces while the girls sulked. Watching this display, Meade scowled.
    What a little prig.
    Rebecca, sitting next to Meade, winked. Like me, she had been less than impressed by the history lesson.
    After class, I returned to Saul’s to find him preparing to leave for his attorney’s office.
    “Court case comes up tomorrow.” His face was stiff, but I could tell from the tone in his voice that he was depressed. “The whole thing’s probably going to be a slam dunk, but I might as well go down fighting. Do you need anything from Zion City?”
    I wanted to talk to Jimmy, and I couldn’t do it here. “I need a ton of stuff, husband,” I brayed, loud enough for Ruby to hear, wherever she lurked. “Can I ride along with you?”
    He took his own turn at yelling. “Sister Ruby? You need anything from Zion? Laundry detergent? Bleach?”
    A door opened, closed. I heard footsteps in the hall. Finally Ruby appeared, looking disheveled. She’d probably been listening in the hall in the first place, then scuttled back to her room to make it sound like she’d just emerged.
    “No, nothing,” she said.
    Saul hooked his arm around mine. “Come along, wife.”
    Ruby grimaced with poorly concealed jealousy as we exited the house.
    Neither Saul nor I said much on the trip to Virginia’s, and the expression on his face when he dropped me off at West Wind Ranch was glum. As I stood watching him drive off, I felt the same way.
    I climbed the steps into the ranch house to find Virginia and Ray holding court with a room full of Germans dressed in leather chaps and expensive cowboy boots. Yahoo, mein herr. Virginia jerked her head toward the stairs, and taking the hint, I hurried up to Number Eight.
    Making the easiest call first, I punched in Tony Lomahguahu’s number. No luck. The Paiute’s daughter told me he was out hunting in the canyon, so I left a message for him to meet me at the graveyard at noon the next day. She assured me she’d tell him so I hung up and made the next call. Jimmy picked up on the first ring.
    “It’s me,” I said. “Guess who just showed up at the compound?”
    “Rebecca.” Jimmy’s concern was obvious. “My cousin tried to talk her out of calling her father but in the end, there was nothing he could do. The kid was convinced she was doing the right thing. I didn’t tell Esther, though. She’s got enough to worry about.”
    So Jimmy had visited her