Through A Glass, Darkly (The Assassins of Youth MC #1)(43)
His jaw dropped.
“Yeah. People have been overhearing things around here. Men have been vanishing. I know it’s not your usual thing to dig for.”
“To say the least.”
“And it’s asking a lot. Let’s just say that being in on the founding of a new chapter has a lot of messy requirements. If you don’t want the job, just say so. I’ll do it myself later, when I can.”
“No. You obviously need this information now. I’ll do it. Can I rest my case when I’ve found just one?”
“Well, more would be better. But yeah. One would confirm my suspicions. Keep it to yourself, of course. And can you go back downtown and check Breakiron out of his hotel room? Tell the hotel manager he was sent on a run or something—that sort of shit happens all the time—and put his personal effects in a closet at my house in case a relative pops up who wants his smelly old clothes. We’ll let the club take his scoot later on, when I’m ready to hash all this out with Papa Ewey.” Although not an MC member, Dust Bunny had his own scoot. He’d ridden all over the country with Sax for a few years.
“All right. And someone named Parley Pipkin came over to the mine. He wants me to get the men to work four hundred man hours and only get paid two hundred. Is this normal?”
“Yeah. He wants them to donate the work hours to his church. Happens all the time. It’s their way of tithing when they have no extra money to give. Just do it and shut up.” That procedure had irked me, as a member of the United Mine Workers of America. “Let’s not draw attention to ourselves.”
“Right. Don’t rock the boat.”
Dust Bunny seemed to understand then that I wanted to be alone. He stood. He was a shortish guy with an Afro of blond curls and a Van Dyke beard—the ultimate science dork, but Sax had vouched for his loyalty. “You know, I’m glad what you’re doing for these women. I’m more than glad to help. Women are better than men in so many ways. I was raised with women—all sisters. ‘You educate a man, you educate a man. You educate a woman, you educate a generation.”
I frowned. “Martin Luther King?”
“Brigham Young.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
MAHALIA
It was my day to take the children out to Jeffersonian Butte, a craggy pinnacle of stunning limestone and sandstone, fiery fingers of the glory of nature that, revelation said, would lift us into heaven.
It was my opinion that Gideon was well enough to leave the cottage and get some air and I wanted to take him with me, but Allred didn’t allow that sort of liberty. No, he wanted to take Gideon with him to a couple business meetings. Maybe he thought he was gaining a new convert, not losing several.
I still wouldn’t believe we were being spied on, although Dingo told us how easy it would be to put a camera like a baby monitor in the cottage. Gideon hadn’t toyed with me again after that bathtub day, and I was somewhat despondent about it. Was he satisfied now that I’d jacked his dick? Did that tide him over until he could get on the outside and find another “lamb”? I’d found out that was what they called their women before they became old ladies—because sheep weren’t as easy to mold as lambs.
But just yesterday Gideon had mentioned again spiriting Vonda and me away. He didn’t seem to have a clear picture of exactly what we’d do, though. If we just went to his house, it would be simple for Allred to send some men to drag us back the second Gideon went to work—if he’d even have that job after pulling that stunt.
So everything was up in the air as I ferried seven squalling children in my king cab truck. Picnic stuff was in the back, and I had planned to take them up a trail to a waterfall none of them had ever seen, with a swimming hole they could frolic in, and a hanging garden to shelter them. I could tell them about the erosion of the freestanding natural arch on the way. My sister-wife Tazmin followed with a similar load of kids.
I lolled under a cottonwood just breathing in the beauty of the day. I was reading my favorite Langston Hughes poem, To Artina. He wrote, I will be God when it comes to you. I had to read the poem several times to let it soak in. He was obviously deeply in love to be playing God like that.
I couldn’t get over that Gideon wasn’t gone at the Altar of Sacrifice Mine like he normally was—he was sleeping soundly in my own backyard. Was it selfish of me to wish things could stay like this eternally? Things weren’t so bad there in the compound, when Allred wasn’t calling for me, whipping me with his belt or whatever handy item happened to be sitting there. I loved my sister-wives and their children and I was certainly never lonely. Aside from that unearthly desolation, that separation from my maker.
I knew that by binding with Gideon, I was buffering myself against this birthright of loneliness. Was I cheating God, taking away what he intended for us? Maybe eternal desolation wasn’t our birthright. Maybe consummating our love was.
For I was certain Gideon loved me as I loved him. He just had to, to spirit away an old woman like me and her child! With this in mind, I lifted my red dress over my head. I wore a modest one piece bathing suit underneath, more than I normally had been wearing, and I was dying to get into the water.
Tazmin and I couldn’t get our hair wet, so I did the breast stroke around the cool hole for awhile.
“Some of us have been talking,” Tazmin said, paddling in place next to me.