So this was the desert. She pictured it
different. Sand dunes, cactus with arms like a man, coyotes and
cowboys on horseback. There was none of that. It wasn't even flat;
distant mountains and constant canyons; wounds carved into the earth
with God's angry plow, bizarre red rock formations rose from the
earth like giant sculptures. The land was spotted with small bushes
that looked dry and dead. It went on forever it seemed. The little
Model-T chugged on, hour after hot miserable hour.
Ruby sat unrestrained between Caleb and
Ester Huette. The gaping vastness of the Utah desert was all the rope
and gag they needed to keep their young captive at hand. Each mile
the overloaded Model-T chugged further into the desert, she knew she
was further lost from Billy or a chance of escape.
The expectation of seeing her brother
had slipped from a hope to a hint of doubt. Would she ever see him
again? No matter how hard she threw it away, the nagging thought
returned to her like a boomerang, again and again.
They nearly missed the small wooden
sign read “Heaven” in faded white paint. Caleb turned off the
dirt highway onto a set a tracks that snaked off into the horizon.
The rough road caused two flat tires in the next hours. One more and
they would have to stop for the night while Caleb built a fire to
vulcanize an inner tube, there were no more spares.
Even for Ruby it was a welcome thing to
finally see the compound, at first a set of white specks in a
sprawling valley. It slowly came into focus, not quite a town, a
dozen or so plain buildings in two rows forming a short street with a
larger structure at the end.
All the buildings looked like a
construction collage assembled from various abandoned houses and
barns. At the end of the rows the street dead-ended at a larger
house. Ruby thought maybe it was a church. It was as plain and ugly
as the others, just biggerand in a position of prominence, like a
father at the end of a dining table.
The Model-T rattled and snorted between
the houses. A woman tending a sorry-looking garden, a toddler sitting
in the dirt nearby, two women lugging a huge basket of laundry, a
group a children playing behind the houses, several men talking in a
circle; all stopped and stared at the new arrivals.
There were no smiles.
Caleb shut off the engine to a hollow
silence. A door opened to the large building they had stopped in
front of. A fat balding man wearing a white robe walked down the
steps towards them.
“Brother Caleb I trust,” the man
said.
“Brother Tobias!” Caleb kneeled and
bowed his head. Brother Tobias placed his hands on Caleb's head and
said something Ruby couldn't hear. Caleb returned to his feet.
“You must be tired and hungry.”
Brother Tobias said. “You're just in time for our evening meal.”
The main floor of the big house was a
large room. Mismatched chairs were arranged in rows like a church.
Women and girls were moving them, bringing in tables and arranging
the chairs at them. Only one chair, a large heavy one of carved wood
and faded velvet, was set at the end of a table.
Caleb was given a place of honor near
the head of the table where Brother Tobias sat in his velvet thrown.
Other men, Deacons of some sort flanked him directly.
The man spoke like he was reading aloud
from a book about himself. The deacons nodded more than spoke. Caleb
was like a small child meeting Santa Claus.
There was little mention of God, no one
at all spoke of Jesus.
The food was plain and colorless. Limp
greens and a yellow meal mush served with glasses of cloudy water.
Ruby looked around to see if anyone shared her expression of disgust,
no one, except Ester, did.
Children sat at a separated table.
Their relative silence was disconcerting. Women were mostly silent as
well. As Ruby looked around the room she noticed there weren't no
boys or men from her age to 'bout the age of thirty.
“You did not mentioned that you had a
daughter.” Brother Tobias said.
“She's not a daughter. She joined us
along the way. A bit willful, but I think, with some corrective
teaching, she will make a fine wife.”
“She's very lovely. With some
instruction she will do very nicely. Is she pure?”
Ruby turned bright red with anger and
embarrassment.
“Yes, I had my wife examine her.”
“Spendid, splendid!”
Brother Tobias rose from his half eaten
meal. Everyone in the room stood quickly as if a general had entered
the room. Caleb rose as soon as he realized, Ester followed soon
after. Ruby looked around at the glaring eyes and got up from her
chair.
“Ah, it would seem we do have some
work ahead of us.” Tobias walked around behind Ruby and placed his
hands on her shoulders. It made her shudder. She resisted the strong
urge to shrug off or bat away his touch. “Don't worry dear, you'll
soon get the hang of things.”
“Brother Caleb I am so glad to
finally meet you and have you in our congregation. I can tell you
will soon be a man of great standing here. Your contribution has
already impressed me greatly.
His hands squeezed her shoulders on the
word “contribution”. Ruby's mouth went dry.
Caleb looked pale. “Ah, um Brother
Tobias,” he stammered, “I did not mean for... that is to say the
young lady I intended for my... You see I...”
“Brother Caleb? You seem a bit lost,
but that's why you're here isn't, to find what is lost in your
spirit?”
“Y-yess, yes Brother Tobias, I am
grateful and blessed to be among your followers to be here as a
humble servant... I just thought...”
“Thinking: a instrument of doubt, a
lack of faith. You don't have a lack of faith do you? You don't have
a lack of fatih in me?”
No one spoke or moved a muscle. A child
coughed from an unseen corner of the room.
“No, no Brother Tobias, my faith is
not lacking.” Caleb's head lowered.
Ruby couldn't help but but smile. The
bastard finally got a beating himself. Her delight was short lived
though.
“You are new, so we will forgive your
misunderstanding. I'm sure my letters to you were very clear I'm
sure.” Brother Tobias glared at the deacon to his right.
“Very clear,” said the deacon.
“The shepard watches over his flock.
Unwed lambs need the closest and the most intimate of care.” His
fleshy hands on her shoulders gripped Ruby and swayed her to and fro
as he spoke. Fertile women are a gift Brother Caleb, and a privilege for
only the worthiest of men. Strong seeds make a strong forest, weak
seeds are of little use.
Because of the gift you have brought
me, you will keep your own wife for now, unless your faith proves to
be as weak in other matters as it seems to be in this one. Some who
arrive are not so in my favor.”
A murmur rose throughout the room, but
was silenced the moment Brother Tobias' looked up.
“Well Brother Caleb?”
“No, Brother Tobias my, my faith is
strong, my faith in you, praise be O Lord,” Caleb said.
“Excellent! As you grow in your
service to the shepard, you may become worthy. Your gift of this
young bride to me is a tremendous gesture Brother Caleb. In Fact, her
Tobian name will hereby be 'Kallah' in your honor.”
Ruby felt like a stone had just been
dropped in her stomach.
Brother Bressel, see that Brother
Huette and his wife are settled in and given proper clothes, Sister
Anne see to Kallah, prepare her.” His head moved close to Ruby's
side and he looked at her while still addressing the room. “She
will be have the honor of being my tenth wife in one week's time.”
“What's the occasion?”
“What?” I said.
“You don't usually stick around after
work,” said Robert.
He was right. It was the first time I
had joined the nightly gathering a waiters, kitchen maids and
bartenders after the country club had closed. I never understood it.
At the mill no one in there right mind would spend an extra minute
within the gates, yet here they spent hours at the bar every night
talking and drinking until the wee hours of the morning.
“I have a job early in the morning,”
I said, “before the street cars are running, no point in going
home.”
“That's rough. You back at the mill?”
I didn't answer.
When the last chair had been put up and
the lights had been turned off I cut across the links of the golf
course through the dark and headed for the Millard estate. It was
around 3AM. I found a tree across the street and leaned against it
hoping my silhouette would not show in the street lights. I braced
against the night cold of early spring and waited.
I did not mind the night without sleep.
I did not mind the cold or the hours of boredom while I waited. I
didn't know which window but I knew my Charlotte was asleep in the
mansion across the street. My heart knew I was close and beat
happily.
A bird's call jolted me awake. How long
had I slept? The sky was deep blue and glowing to the East. I looked
across the street at the estate. There was no one about. I cursed
silently. How could I have fallen asleep? How could I tell Charlotte
I'd failed our only chance for a month.
I heard the sound of a horse a wagon a
few streets over, probably Olaf and his father on their milk route.
Through the mist I saw a figure on the sidewalk on the other side of
the street; tall, deliberate in his motion, his hands hung motionless
at his sides. His feet made no sound on the slate sidewalk. I slid
around the tree to remain hidden. I peered carefully around when I
did not see him pass by the estate. He was headed up the long walk to
the front door. Beside the house he reached down into a bush and
pulled out an envelope, just like Olaf had said.
I ducked behind the tree again before
he turned. Someone that moved so silently probably had the ears of an
owl. I had to be careful, yessir.
He went back down the sidewalk the way
he came. I moved tree to tree, trying hard to be swift and quiet, His
long legged gate made it hard to keep up. On the bigger streets
following was both easier and harder. There was a few people about
and the odd wagon passing better covered the sound of my movement,
but there were no longer any trees to hide behind.
I saw the man disappear into an alley.
I followed. When I caught up he was gone. I had lost him!
I didn't know what hit me.
Darkness, strange dreams.
I was on the ground and my head hurt.
It was light and the city was in full swing. I sat against a pallet
with my head in my hands. I had failed. Not only had I lost track of
him, I had scared him from his routine and I wouldn't be able to
repeat a trail.
Then I saw it. Half in the mud. A
silver thimble. I picked it up. It was polished to a perfect shine on
the outside, but black with a sticky tar on the inside. I didn't know
what it meant, but it was all I had.
In front of the hall the Huette's
belongings had been unloaded from their truck arranged into a pile.
The congregation picked through it and took various items to their
huts for themselves. It was clear who the higher ranking members
were. Some waited they turn to select a chair or carpet. A few minor
tugs over some of the better items. One man was beaten down by
another for trying to overstep his order in the queue.
Caleb watched his possessions go into
the hands of strangers one by one. He knew better than to protest, or
to take anything for himself until the last member had gone through
the pile.
The truck itself was being pushed away
by two teenage boys shaved bald and dressed in rags. A third was
walking away with a gas can and a siphon hose towards a large tank
and a generator.
He and Ester picked up what was left,
just a box of photographs, a dented tea kettle and what was left of
their suitcases. They walked to a barn-like dormitory behind the row
of houses as they had been directed.
Caleb thought back to the day he had
told her of his plan to leave St. Louis and live in Brother Tobias'
fold, a place called “Heaven, Utah”.
“Listen, if we don't like it we can
just pick up and move on to California,” he had told her.
It seemed there would be no leaving
"Heaven".
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