Desert Wives (9781615952267) (11 page)

With that, Prophet Davis went into the house and like good little Christian soldiers, we all trooped into the living room after him, the rest of the women following three paces behind. Muted children's voices could be heard somewhere toward the back of the house, but none, not even their toys, were evident in the startling sight that lay before me.

Davis Royal's huge, three-story living room looked like something out of the pages of
Architectural Digest
. A solid glass wall, which I hadn't been able to see from the road, offered a stunning view of the Vermillion Cliffs, and the cliff's colors had obviously inspired the room's decoration. Groupings of oxblood leather sofas and chairs hunkered on jewel-colored Persian carpets, which in turn topped what seemed to be acres of expensive oak flooring. Tropical fans dangled from the lofty, wood-beamed ceiling and stirred the ferns and palms placed around the room. I'd known billionaires with shabbier houses.

Virginia and Leo had been right. Regardless of the poverty most of Purity's inhabitants appeared to live in, the prophets themselves had access to plenty of money. Why did the Circle of Elders allow such disparity in lifestyle to continue? Religious intimidation—or something else?

But not everything in the room was elegant, such as the rows of folding chairs which faced the lectern at the end of the room. While people jockeyed for positions near the front, Saul and I found seats at the back, the better to watch the others while being less noticeable ourselves.

As I settled into my chair, Saul leaned over and whispered, “I think Davis is looking for a new wife, at least that's the buzz. Once the family situation over at Solomon's gets cleared up, he'll probably move over there. The house isn't as pretty, but it's a lot bigger.”

Davis wove between the chairs, greeting each man personally, slapping him on the back, sharing brief comments. He didn't ignore the women, either. Each woman, even the oldest, homeliest, and most pregnant received that seductive two-handed greeting he'd given me. What a politician!

Saul nudged me. “Lena, didn't you hear me?”

“Sorry. What were you saying?” I watched Prophet Davis bend over a plain, dark-haired girl who looked much too young to be pregnant. When he patted her on her monstrous belly she looked up at him with adoration.

“I'm trying to tell you about Solomon's widows.” Saul kept his voice low as the seats around us began to fill.

“Wait a minute. That girl Davis is talking to, she looks too young to be pregnant. What is she, all of fourteen?”

“That's Rosalinda and she looks younger than she is. She's sixteen. You've already had the non-pleasure of meeting her husband, Earl Graff. But please quit ogling our handsome prophet and listen to me. All of Solomon's widows are here, and I want you to pay real close attention to them. People say they weren't all that crazy about Solomon while he was alive, but they look plenty miserable now.” He waved toward a group of silent women ranging from young teens to elderly grandmothers, sitting together in the middle rows. Like the women I'd seen earlier on the portch, their teeth were marred by untreated cavities and cheap bridgework.

“What do you mean?” I stopped watching Davis's meet-and-greet routine. Earl Graff's head suddenly turned toward us and I realized I'd spoken too loudly. I lowered my voice again. “Why are Solomon's widows so unhappy?” Toothaches?

“Because the Circle of Elders plans to divvy them and their kids up between other men,” he whispered. “Martha Royal, his first wife, was the first to get a new husband, and from the way that's turned out, it's made the others plenty nervous. Vern Leonard, that's Martha's proud groom, is nobody's idea of a hottie.”

I struggled to keep my voice down. “You mean the Circle of Elders is just
giving
the widows away like hand-me-down clothing?”

“It's usually about favors, not money. The Circle was probably in debt to Vern for something. Or maybe one of the Circle was pissed at Martha and figured this was a great way to get even.”

“That's slavery!” My outrage made it difficult to keep my voice down.

Saul put his finger to his lips. “Careful.”

I bit my lip, and to get my mind off the terrified widows, scanned the crowd. Approximately one hundred and fifty people had now filed into the room and taken their seats, and as I studied them, I noticed something odd. Almost all were blonds. In fact, so many blue-eyed blonds populated the room that it could have passed for an Aryan Brotherhood meeting. Then I remembered something I'd learned at ASU while studying the history of the Southwest. After the Mormons started their missionary work in other countries, they made many converts in Scandinavia. Many of those converts moved to Salt Lake city, which at this point was probably the blondest city in the U.S. In Purity, that tendency to blondness had magnified. No wonder Prophet Davis had looked upon me with such approval. Except for my green eyes, I fit right in.

While studying this profusion of blonds, I noticed Martha Royal sitting next to her new husband, his hand resting on her knee. If she leaned any farther away from him she'd topple off her chair.

Most of the other women in the room looked little happier than Martha but few displayed her utter disgust. Seeing this many women together, though, did make me finally put my finger on something that had nudged at me since I'd arrived in the compound. The women's granny dresses were sewn with various levels of competence. Some hems dangled and some showed the tracks of let-out seams. While clean, the fabrics were worn thin, with their former patterns faded into ghosts with repeated washings. Compared to these women, I was a virtual fashion statement.

“You'd think they'd at least dress up for the meeting,” I commented.

Saul took a quick look around. “They
are
dressed up. Remember, most of these women are on welfare.”

I bit my lip again to keep from saying more. One group of women, though, looked far from destitute. They stood in a little circle, chatting happily while waiting for the meeting to start. Their granny dresses glowed with bright colors and new fabric. While many of the other women were pale to the point of anemia, these women's faces radiated good health, and their teeth were as perfect as Davis'. As a group, they were the prettiest blonds in the room.

Saul saw me watching them. “Those are Prophet Davis's wives. Not bad, huh? He does have an eye for the ladies.”

Ah, the old rock star perk. I recognized one woman from earlier in the day. About twenty, she was a younger, even more beautiful version of Martha Royal. Martha's daughter, perhaps? She wore a bright blue-and-yellow calico that set off her pale hair and azure eyes.

Saul saw me watching her. “That's Sissy Royal, Davis's sixth wife. He married her just after she turned sixteen, but she hasn't given him any babies yet.”

I remembered that the more children a woman bore, the higher her family status appeared to be. Sissy, while beautiful, wore the strained expression of a woman who knows she's not measuring up.

“How many children does Davis have?”

Saul shrugged. “Around thirty, I think. Maybe more. Each of his other wives pops a baby out a year, and one of them even has two sets of twins. But I've got to say this for ol' Davis, his wives look a lot happier than the rest of the women around here. Even Ruby wanted a couple of her daughters to marry him, course that was mainly so they wouldn't have to marry guys living in some of the other compounds.”

“What happened?”

He shook his head. “They weren't pretty enough for him. They got shipped off to some old guy in Sunset, about sixty miles away, and Ruby's hated Davis ever since.” He jerked his head toward the lectern, where Prophet Davis, having finished the task of greeting everyone, rapped a small gavel on the lectern.

“Friends, before we begin today's meeting, let us pray,” he said, sounding more like a televangelist than ever.

It was all I could do not to groan but I stood obediently with the rest of the group. The prayer was long, calling for God's help bringing strength and endurance to the men, obedience and humility to the women. I'd heard it all before, which was why I'd shied away from church all my life, but toward the end, Prophet Davis interjected some intriguing new material.

“As it says in Prophet Solomon's Gospel, ‘For behold I reveal unto you a new covenant and unless ye adhere to this covenant, ye will never see Highest Heaven,'” Davis's voice rang out. “Our forefather Abraham received numerous concubines and they bore him many children, and therefore Abraham was seated by the Lord on the highest throne of Highest Heaven. Oh, children of Purity, that is our sacred commandment, to follow in Abraham's footsteps.”

As everyone said “Amen,” and sat down, I added a silent “Bullshit.”

The self-serving prayer out of the way, Davis got down to business.

“First, I want to issue one more call for the man who shot at me this morning to admit his mistake. I am ready to confer forgiveness upon the sinner.”

In the long pause that followed, I could hear people breathing. The silence must have continued for at least five minutes, but no one ever confessed.

“All right then,” Davis said. “Here's what I'm going to do about it. The guns have all been returned to the armory, correct?” He looked over at the Circle of Elders, where each of those worthies nodded in unison.

“Brothers, bring your keys to me.”

“What? What do you mean?” Earl Graff said. “The Circle of Elders has cared for the guns for a hundred years!”

“Not anymore.” Davis's voice was grim. “Bring those keys here now, Brother Graff. From now on, when anyone wants to go hunting, he'll have to come to me and I will personally take him over to the armory and hand him a rifle. I don't like being shot at twice in one week.”

Earl sputtered, as did the other members of the Circle, but in the end, they handed the keys over to Davis.

“The armory? Where's the armory?” I whispered to Saul.

“It's on the second floor of the clinic, where the Circle of Elders holds its monthly meeting. Like everything else around here, the guns are communally owned, but it sure looks like Davis is going to make it a lot less communal.”

Davis spoke again, his voice carrying beautifully, even in this large room. “As you all know, brothers and sisters, things have been pretty tense around Zion City since Prophet Solomon's murder. The anti-polygamy media is trying to stir up a witch hunt again, and they're making our friends in government nervous. When you take those runs into town to sign those welfare and SSI forms, keep your wives and children as much out of sight as possible.”

Noah Heaton, the dwarfish dog-shooter I'd met before the meeting, stood up. “Who cares what the Outside thinks? I'm more interested in what's going on right here in Purity. Maybe if things were a little fairer around here we wouldn't have so many problems. I mean, why should some men have ten wives while some of us still have none?”

Davis gave him a smile tainted with a trace of condescension. “Your point is well taken, Brother Noah, but this isn't really the time for such a discussion.”

Noah refused to drop his complaint. “I want a wife! But the Circle of Elders refuses to give me one!”

Some of the women in the room giggled, but they fell silent when their husbands glowered at them.

Davis sounded pained. “You were offered one of Prophet Solomon's widows. It isn't the Circle's fault you refused her.”

“But she, she…” His mongrel-thin face contorted in frustration. “She's too old to have any more children, so what good is she?”

Angry mutterings greeted this statement and one of the men near Noah shoved him back into his seat. Perhaps the men shared Noah's opinions about women's worth, but they still didn't like hearing them stated in such a bald fashion.

Davis's smile grew broader as he turned away from Noah and spoke to the rest of the group. “Actually, Brother Noah's comments give me an opportunity to bring up something else that's worried me.

“As we've seen with the firearms problem, the Circle of Elders has become slack,” he said. “Like it or not, we live in the twentieth century, and by continuing to sanction marriages with girls as young as thirteen, these godly but sometimes improvident men have exposed us to even more media attention. Why, just look at the mess my father visited upon us! Brothers and sisters, you all know that in 2001 the Utah state legislature raised the marriageable age to sixteen. I'm informing you that from now on, Purity will operate within those parameters, too. Regardless of what the Circle of Elders had done in the past, I will no longer sanction any marriage when the young lady involved is a day under sixteen.”

A chorus of male groans rose in the room. Davis had dealt a blow at the very heart of polygamy: child marriage.

He wasn't finished. “There's another problem we need to discuss. Of late, the Circle of Elders has also shown more interest than appropriate in the workings of the Purity Fellowship Foundation. This must stop. Just because you have a new prophet doesn't mean you have a weak prophet. I will continue the same strong financial leadership shown by my father, and I won't brook any interference from the Circle. Furthermore, if they continue to meddle in Purity's financial affairs, I'll disband the Circle completely.”

The previous groans gave rise to angry bellows from the Circle of Elders, making me wonder which bothered them most—lessened sexual access to children, or to money. In the midst of their outcries, a shaft of sunlight burst into the room, lending a glow to Davis's pale blond hair. He reminded me of the Pre-Raphaelite paintings I'd seen of medieval knights starting off on a holy quest. Maybe he even saw himself that way.

Now he stepped back from the lectern and opened his arms, as if embracing the group. “I've noted your concern over these proposed changes and I sympathize. But brothers and sisters, look at yourselves! Are you happy your wives dress in rags? Are you happy with their rotting teeth? Are you content to raise your children in slums?”