Favorite Wife (44 page)

Amid Grandma's protests, we walked her to her bedroom. Esther turned down her bed and I helped her into her nightgown. “I'll stay with her awhile, dear,” Esther said. “You must be exhausted. Verlan sent word he would be here soon. Mother has the corner room ready for you. Make yourself at home.”

It was an hour before Verlan crawled into bed next to me. He was beyond exhaustion, and regardless of his deep sorrow, began snoring immediately.

The scorching, August sun was well into the sky before Verlan's stifled sobs woke me. I wrapped my arms around him, reliving the horror of the past few hours. His body was rigid with grief and hot as fire. As I kissed his wet cheek, my exhausted brain searched for words of comfort. But they wouldn't come. I couldn't find the words. So I patted him and kissed him and said, “Shush, shush, it's okay, honey. It's okay.”

“He was my brother,” Verlan moaned, shuddering. “He was my brother, my precious brother. Oh, Susan, how can we go on without Joel?”

The brethren decided that conference should proceed as scheduled. The timing of Joel's murder left little doubt that the Ervilites anticipated enough turmoil that conference would be canceled. We couldn't allow them to defeat us. First, we would have Joel's funeral, followed immediately by the scheduled, three-day event.

Joel really, truly was dead. No hoax, no misunderstanding. Family members had hastened to the mortuary where Joel's body lay and verified that the Prophet had been shot in the head.

Phone calls from members in San Diego flooded the message phone in our neighboring village of Galeana. The calls related that Joel and his wives, Jeannine and Kathy, along with several of his children, Ivan included, had stopped in Ensenada to pick up an old car of Joel's that was parked in front of the home of Benjamin Zarate. Somehow the keys to the car had been left at another residence across town, so Joel sent his wives, along with Benjamin's son, Andres, to locate the keys. All the children rode with them except Ivan, who had remained behind to help Joel work on the car.

Meanwhile, Ervil's follower, Gamaliel Rios, had showed up, approached Joel, and said that he and Dan Jordan had questions of a religious nature for him. So Joel and Gamaliel walked inside the Zarate house and visited while waiting for Dan to arrive. Outside, Ivan, patiently awaiting his father, climbed into the front seat of the old car they had been working on. Its dusty windshield hid his small, slumped figure from Dan Jordan's view as he approached the house. Ivan witnessed Dan shake hands with Joel through the open living room window, then enter the front door. Within minutes Ivan heard raised voices, sounds of a scuffle, a window breaking, and gunshots. Immediately Gamaliel Rios jumped out an open side window and Dan walked out the front door of the house. Both men fled down the street.

Meantime, Jeannine and Kathy had been sent on a wild-goose chase. Andres Zarate led them across town to where the elusive key supposedly was—only to be told that Andres's brother had it and had gone to a swap meet. They drove to the swap meet, where Andres left them to locate his brother. The women waited for more than an hour, becoming annoyed and mystified. Andres had disappeared! Finally they decided to leave, return to the Zarate house, and tell Joel what had happened.

As they approached the house they became alarmed. Crowds hovered on the sidewalk and people peered in the windows. Neither Joel nor Ivan could be seen. Kathy and the children waited in the pickup and Jeannine entered the house and called for Joel. No one answered. Blood was all over the floor! Jeannine frantically questioned a bystander and was told that a tall, blond man had been shot. “Who did it?” she choked.

“Daniel,” a Mexican man answered. “Daniel Jordan.”

Jeannine and Kathy raced to the police station. When they entered the building, Ivan ran to Jeannine, sobbing, “They killed Daddy!” When she asked him who had done it, he answered, “It was Dan.”

That same afternoon Ervil's son Arthur, along with one of Anna Mae's boys, Eddie Marston, went to Los Molinos looking for Verlan. But he, James, and I were en route to Colonia LeBaron.

The following evening, a large group gathered at the airport in the colony's neighboring city of Casas Grandes. It seemed the whole town was here; everyone desired to be present for the arrival of our leader's body. Fear for my husband clutched me as I waited with the silent crowd. I could see Verlan, his bodyguards hovering close.

I'd ridden to the airport with Jay and Carmela. The men surrounding Verlan refused to let me near. Though I understood their actions, I was angry. He was my husband; he needed me, and I needed him even more now. I felt ill with worry as the details of Joel's murder came to light. Verlan was in grave danger, and I couldn't bear to be parted from him. But my pleading was of no avail. Floren and Sigfried surrounded him, and they treated me like an annoying fly and shooed me away if I got too close.

The men's meetings had been interminable since we'd arrived at the colony, and were only now interrupted as we watched the black sky for the plane lights. Jay had been included in the meetings, and I'd only gotten to see him tonight, when he and Carmela, Fara, and Mona, had picked me up at Grandma's for the forty-mile ride to the airport. Our usual, joyful greetings had been subdued, our whispered visiting during the long ride minimal. Keen shock and vague unease hovered over us. The question on everyone's mind seemed to be, what now? Is this the end of the world as we know it?

Standing behind me, quietly scanning the sky, I suddenly recognized Joel's seventh wife—his last—Priscilla, a half-sister to Lane Stubbs, my old flame. She stood a bit apart from the rest of us. I stared, my heart breaking for her. By the dim light of the overhead flood lamps, I studied her lovely face, surprised at how calm and collected she seemed. She was awaiting the body of her slain husband, yet her eyes held no tears and her features appeared normal. And here I was, my own husband nearby, alive and well, and I was trembling with fear for him and shock for us all. How did Priscilla control her emotions so well?

I hastened to her side and kissed her cheek, and she gave me a small, tremulous smile. “Oh, Priscilla, how can you stand this?” I blurted. “How can you be so strong?” I dabbed at my eyes and squeezed her cold hand.

“I don't know, I guess his death hasn't hit me yet,” her graceful shoulders raised in a slight shrug. “I'm just numb right now. I don't want to feel yet.”

I nodded and squeezed her hand again. How did you express your sympathy when there were no adequate words?

Magdalena, Joel's first wife, and her family waited next to the gate. The plane was landing now, then taxiing toward us. When it stopped, Joel Jr., Magdalena's and Joel's eldest son, was the first to step out. Even at this distance I could see his thin, solemn face scanning the crowd. Some of the men rushed forward, and soon they were carrying the gold casket toward us. They placed it into the back of Ossmen's pickup, and we all crowded silently around as Joel Jr. hugged and wept with his mother, brothers, and sisters. Jeannine had come on the plane, too. I wanted to get to her, hug her, and to ask her about Ivan and Lillie, but the crowd was too dense.

We formed a long, mournful caravan behind Ossmen's pickup, the slow, sedate trip back to the colony taking two hours. Little was said. Fara and Mona sat on either side of me in Jay's backseat, our arms around each other. They missed our mother so much, and I was the next best thing. Dad would be here in the morning. Somehow we all had to survive one more night.

Charlotte, Irene, Lillie, and Beverly had all come from Los Molinos for Joel's funeral. To my horror, I learned from Irene that my little Melanie had been in Ensenada with Joel, Jeannine, and Kathy, along with Ivan and several of their children, the day Joel had been shot. Irene, much to my dismay, was the wife Verlan had left behind in order to take me with him to conference. Irene was furious at Verlan, first for leaving her, then for pawning Melanie on her as well. She had finally rebelled.

Learning that Jeannine planned to go with Joel to conference, Irene had coaxed them into taking Melanie along. In her slow-boiling anger, she knew sending Melanie to me would get her scathing message across loud and clear. Consequently, my precious little daughter had been taken to San Diego and was being cared for by church members there. Irene coolly told me all this. In spite of the distressing reason for her ensuing trip to Colonia LeBaron, her hostility toward me increased. For the first time in our relationship as sister-wives, Irene viewed me as a conniving, self-serving scoundrel.