The Gates of Babylon (18 page)

“Or look into our hearts and call out our sins. My father can do that, you know.”

“If Elder Smoot could read minds,” Fernie said in a gentle tone, “wouldn’t he have used it to catch the Kimballs last time they attacked?”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Lillian said.

Eliza was concerned at Lillian’s worry. They needed to be strong and united or Smoot would win this confrontation and Blister Creek would starve.

They stopped before crossing Third South to let Brother Peter Potts and two sons pass on horseback, driving bellowing, jostling steers down the road. A towering column of dust rose on the far eastern edge of the valley, near Stephen Paul Young’s compound, where men had been gathering all afternoon to begin the cattle drive. Wet cow pats splattered by the hundreds down Third South, churned into a foul mud when the pavement ended. The women went two blocks out of their way to avoid crossing the muck.

At last they approached the Smoot compound. It was a two-story colonial-style house with not one, but two oversized wings grafted on like giant limbs. The yard was tidy, with nearly an acre of freshly mowed grass, even though someone must have done it with an old-fashioned push mower, gas and oil being too precious for lawns these days. The shade trees were freshly pruned, and the vegetable beds in front of the house cleared and covered in mulch in preparation for winter.

Two boys sat on the porch, putting together what looked like a rabbit snare. They paid little attention while the women were still on the sidewalk, but the instant Eliza and her companions started up toward the house, they jumped to their feet and ran inside, snare abandoned.

Eliza and Lillian lifted Fernie’s chair to the porch.

Lillian hesitated at the door. “Oh, geez, I’m not ready for this.”

“Don’t let him bully you,” Eliza said. “He’s only one man.”

“Easy for you to say,” Sister Lillian said. “He’s not your father.”

“You don’t live under his roof anymore. Remember that.”

“That’s true,” she said tentatively.

After all Lillian had survived, it was strange that her own father should scare her so much. Married as a teenager, her husband Aaron Young had joined the Kimball cult, and she’d endured wilderness living, isolation in an underground bunker, and the abuse of the doomsday sect as they’d thrown themselves eagerly into their own final destruction. A young woman who could survive those circumstances with her sanity intact should be able to stand up to one gruff, patronizing father.

As Lillian opened the door, her mother appeared. The woman embraced her daughter then shook hands with the other sisters. Donna Lyn Smoot was the second of five wives, and shared her daughter’s corn-silk hair in the same knotted braid style, even if she was thicker around the middle and bust after giving birth to nine children, the youngest of whom were still toddlers. She was flushed with excitement, no doubt thrilled by the prospect of marriage for a daughter she’d begun to think of as damaged goods.

Two more sister wives joined Donna Lyn in welcoming the women into the parlor, which had that mid-twentieth-century feel, with a piano and floral-print furniture. One of Lillian’s teenage sisters, a girl named Jenny, was allowed to join the women. Jenny was sixteen, already included in marriage discussions around town, much as Eliza had been at that age.

The women jumped into the kind of conversation that sent Eliza’s mind wandering: childbirths, illnesses, how to substitute this ingredient for that. Marriages. Marriage troubles. Lillian and Fernie joined in sociably, but Eliza found herself thinking about Steve again. Had he reached Las Vegas yet?

“Go ahead,” Donna Lyn said loudly, which jarred Eliza back into the conversation. “Play us ‘Hungarian Dance.’”

“Come on, Mom,” Lillian said. “I’m not twelve anymore.”

“You’ve got a gift,” her mother insisted. “Go ahead, show them.”

Lillian was squirming, and her younger sister Jenny looked horrified.

Eliza said, “I’ve heard her play at the house. Very talented. Anyone would be impressed, but—”

“Have you heard her play Brahms?”

“No, but she doesn’t need to perform. Really, it’s okay.”

“See, Mom, Sister Eliza doesn’t want a recital.”

“That’s called being polite, dear. Of course she wants to hear. Have you played for Brother David yet?”

“I’m not auditioning for concert pianist.”

“A man these days wants more than a pretty face. He wants a well-educated woman, with talents. Someone to soothe him after a long day. To teach his children. With your somewhat colorful…
background,
you need to show your qualities. The Lord has blessed you with a wonderful gift—don’t hide your light under a bushel.”

“Sister Donna Lyn,” Fernie said. Her chair sat next to Lillian on the love seat, and she rested a comforting hand on the younger woman’s wrist. “Can’t you see your daughter is mortified?”

But Lillian was already rising to her feet. That bit about her background—code for “not a virgin”—seemed to horrify her more than the thought of performing. Maybe playing the blasted piano on command would shut the woman up.

Lillian pulled back the fallboard and rested her fingers on the keys. Her discomfort faded into a look of concentration. Out came Brahms. Lillian’s hands danced across the keys. It was entrancing. Eliza had been too much of a tomboy to practice her scales—preferring to fish, catch lizards, and scour the desert for arrowheads with her brothers—and the blur of Lillian’s fingers up and down the keyboard looked almost like magic, her fluency with the instrument like a gift from God that one was either born with or not. That apparent ease belied what must have been hundreds of hours of practice.

The young woman was finishing the song when a girl of about thirteen, figure starting to fill out, came to stand in the doorway to the parlor with her hands held demurely in front of her. She gave Sister Donna Lyn a significant look. The sister wives and young Jenny Smoot rose the instant Lillian finished.

“Elder Smoot should be here any minute,” Donna Lyn said. “We’ll leave you to your meeting. Lillian, come help with the pies, please.”

“Lillian can stay,” Eliza said.

“Better she come with me. My husband doesn’t like to discuss marriage in front of the girls. They get romantic notions, when it needs to be a clearheaded, logical decision.”

Eliza fought to keep her eyebrows from shooting up at this. “My brother gave me strict instructions. He wants Lillian present when Elder Smoot makes his decision.”

“Your brother? Do you mean David? Or Brother Jacob?”

“Jacob.”

“Oh,” she said. “I see.”

Her lips drew into a thin line. She looked at Lillian, as if about to say something else, perhaps to insist out of pure desire to show off an obedient daughter, but the younger woman stared down at the keyboard. Then Donna Lyn and the other Smoot women left the parlor. Eliza shut the door behind them.

Lillian rose from the bench, looked down at the piano, and sighed.

“Go ahead and play something else,” Eliza said with a smile. “Don’t hide your light under a bushel.”

Lillian smiled. “I’ll bring out my light, all right. I’ll bring it out, smash this piano to kindling, and send it up in flames.”

“You don’t care for the piano?” Fernie asked. “You play beautifully.”

“No, I don’t care for it. Never have.” Lillian closed the fallboard. “What I wanted was to play the violin.”

“Your mother wouldn’t let you do it?” Eliza asked.

Lillian shrugged.

“The violin seems respectable. It’s not like you were asking to play the electric guitar, or the drums.”

“Maybe it was all those scales and finger exercises,” Lillian said. “But I feel like I’m working on a machine. Like typing. When I pick up a bow, it’s different, it’s like—I don’t know—a part of my arm.”

“So what did your mother say when you asked?” Eliza said. “What was her reasoning?”

Lillian looked down. “I never asked.”

Neither of the other two spoke, and Lillian lifted her gaze to glance at Fernie and Eliza in turn. “You’re right,” she added. “What’s wrong with me?”

“We didn’t say anything,” Fernie said. “And you did what you had to.”

Eliza patted the empty chair next to hers. “Sit here. If your father pulls any garbage, let one of us defend you. You defend us, not yourself. Understand?”

Lillian nodded.

“It won’t be easy,” Eliza said. “He’ll be like your mother, only with priesthood indignation.”

“I know.”

“So if he tries any of that mind-reading crap, ignore it.”

“Okay.”

The front door opened and banged shut, and a moment later Elder Smoot shouldered open the door to the parlor. Sweat streaked the dust on his face, and red mud caked his boots. He mopped at the back of his neck with a handkerchief. He stood on the threshold rather than enter the parlor.

He eyed the women with skepticism etched on his face. “So the hens want to choose the roosters now, do they?”

Eliza rose. She didn’t know if she should offer to shake one of his dirty hands. “Do you want to get washed up so we can talk?”

“So I can sit with my legs crossed and my hands in my lap, while you blather on about some gossipy nonsense or other? No, thanks. What do you need, my permission? Fine, you’ve got it.”

He turned to go.

“Wait!” Eliza said. “That’s it? No discussion?”

“I’m a practical man. And I see what’s going on here. If Jacob wants to play this game, I won’t fight it, I’ll take what I’m given.”

“Elder Smoot,” Fernie said, “what in heaven’s name are you talking about?”

Smoot fixed her with a raised eyebrow. “Jacob didn’t send his baby sister and his wife because he’s offering me a good deal. I’m not such a fool as to believe that. And why should I expect any different? Lillian’s a good girl, does what she’s told. But she’s secondhand goods, now, and a man has to take what a man can get.”

“This isn’t about getting,” Eliza said, “this is about a good marriage for Lillian and for my brother David.”

“Fine, fine.”

“We want the Smoot family to support this marriage.”

“Of course I will. Getting her hitched to the prophet’s brother is good enough for me, and that’s good enough for her mother.”

“But what about—?”

“I told you I didn’t want to get into gossipy lady nonsense,” Smoot interrupted. “Now, if you’re done, I’m going to wash up so those women will hurry up with my supper. My boys and I have been splitting logs all blasted day and we’re tired and hungry. Good luck, Lillian. Give me lots of grandsons.”

Eliza wanted to grab him as he turned to leave. She couldn’t let him off now, or she’d never get anywhere with the real business of the night and that grain would disappear, setting off a conflict with Chip Malloy and his men. Jacob would return to Blister Creek to find the town in shambles. But Eliza had no idea what else to say.

“Elder Smoot!” Fernie said, her typically soft voice sharp as a cactus spine. “You will not walk away from here until we are done.”

Smoot turned, mouth open. “Excuse me?”

“You will come in here, and you will talk to us like human beings.”

The man blinked twice then took two steps into the parlor. Eliza sprang to her feet and grabbed Smoot’s arm to drag him onto the rug while shutting the door with her other hand.

“But my wife’s furniture. Look at me, I’m filthy and I—”

Fernie pointed at the empty seat farthest from the door as if Smoot was a dog. “Sit!” When he obeyed, she said, “You should be ashamed of yourself. Afraid of two women and your own daughter.”

“I’m not afraid, I’m disinterested. We discussed it, I agreed. Lillian can marry your brother. Squabble over the details on your own time.”

“That’s not what this is about,” Eliza said. “We have Women’s Council business to discuss.”

He snorted. “That has nothing to do with me.”

“It absolutely does. Jacob left me in charge. That’s right,
me
. And with me, the Women’s Council. Now you will sit there and listen to what I have to say. If you don’t, you’ll be in direct defiance of the prophet.”

“Who do you think you are?” Smoot said. “I don’t have to sit here and take this.”

“Fernie, call your husband,” Eliza said. “Tell him Elder Smoot is in apostasy. Jacob will turn around and excommunicate this man.”

“Liar,” he said. “When I tell him—”

“Tell him what?” Fernie said. “I’m his wife. This is his sister. Who is he going to believe?”

“My daughter will tell them the truth.” He gave a definitive nod of the head. “She’s a good girl, she knows where her loyalties lie. Isn’t that right, girl?”

Lillian looked down at her hands.

“Lillian!” he said.

“I do know, Father,” she said. A tremor touched her voice, but her words were clear, and slowly spoken. “My loyalties are with the people who rescued me from the Kimballs.” She pointed at Eliza. “This woman saved my life. No Smoot man could be bothered.”

“Why, you—”

“Leave her alone,” Eliza said, cutting off Smoot’s sputtering anger. “We’re not here to argue what has already been decided. We’re here to enforce the law of Blister Creek and the Church of the Anointing.”

“What law?” He looked doubly confused now.

“The law you broke when you made a secret deal to break Jacob’s truce with the Department of Agriculture. When you arranged to sell our wheat, rice, and beans to an enemy of the church.”

Smoot stared. His mouth closed and opened again, like a fish on the riverbank, gasping for air. He stood abruptly, turned on his heel, and left the parlor in three long strides. He slammed the door. The women stared after him.

Fernie cleared her throat. “That answers one question.”

“What?” Eliza said.

“Elder Smoot is not a mind reader.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

In spite of the earlier fight, dinner at the Smoot compound started smoothly enough. Elder Smoot sat on one end of a banquet-sized table in the dining room, with Elder Johnson, Smoot’s father-in-law and a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, on the opposite end. Smoot’s five wives, two oldest sons, and the three visiting women sat along the sides.

Teenage girls brought out two huge roasts, corn on the cob, loaves of warm bread, mashed potatoes cooked with garlic and cream, and crocks of gravy and churned butter. Younger children set two large tables in the kitchen. A steady hum of conversation, laughter, and bickering came from the other room and Smoot hollered at them to keep it down. They obeyed.