LITMIR.BIZ

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them . . . ”

      I spun my tale for her, then said, “Hell’s breakfast, Ada, did you take us to some apostate church?”

      “No, honey dear, worse. Apostate church, political rebellion and literary gadflies—all three in one. You genuinely think you’re better off knowing all of this?”

      “I am nine-tenths ears.”

      Ada sipped her tea. “Well, some folk, much as they love the Church, cannot sit by and be dictated to, dominated like they was children. William—that man has traveled the world, has a business mind to rival any, educated and forward looking. Well, he’d lost several fortunes following the Church lock step for twenty-odd years, and then it settled on him, knelt on his chest like a fiend: he could go on casting his fate to the steerage of others, or he could stop and speak for himself.

      “So William did speak, in respectful tones, but he spoke what he believed, his very own views on doctrine and labor and wages. That was the Utah Magazine. William loves a free press. The Prophet, you may know, feels otherwise. William Godbe was excommunicated. And he lost his fortune, yet again.”

      “How so?”

      “When a man is cut off from the Church, Clair, his earthly goods are up for the taking, fair gain for any Brethren who can get their hands on them.”

      Spiritual death involved a physical death, too. It chilled my bones. “But he survived it. What happened to his two friends?”

      “Excommunicated. For refusing to believe God Almighty intended the Priesthood do their thinking for them. Brigham and the Brethren had a heyday at that council meeting, feasting on three carcasses at once.”

      “You haven’t made mention of their church.”

      “Well, William talked with angels. For three nights, he asked them questions and garnered guidance. Providence, he was given to know, would demolish the worst of the Prophet’s work so that the best might be preserved. And that was the start of Godbeism.”

      “It sounds like blasphemy, I have to say, Ada, friends of yours or no.”

      “Only shows how far this Church has shifted on its base-stone. Hardly find the man any more has visitations, or the grandmother blessed with second sight. That was the early fire fueled this people: personal communion with Heaven, angels and spirits among us in the Latter Days.”

      “I can’t believe William Godbe talked with angels.”

      “We all did. And still do.”

      She appeared not to be joking. Which raised in me a protective concern. “So, tell, are you in danger, that the Brethren watch your moves?”

      “They suspicion me of every evil. Catching me at a Godbeite gathering would have locked up me and my future. I’ve brought you in too close. Forgive me, Clair.”

      “The Elders took my story. For the while, I think you’re safe.”

      Ada pulled a small sage bundle from a basket near the door. She lit it and waved the pungent smoke all over us. “Shoshone custom. Sage clears the pain from the pure. May we be blessed.” Then she rapped the table and offered to fix a meal. She sifted flour into a pile on the board and cracked eggs in a bowl, humming in her loose-cocked way.

      “You fond of William Godbe, Ada? He surely had a shine for you.”

      She whipped the contents of the bowl till her hair flew into a trot. “He’s married. Two times over.”

      “He’s a polygamist!”

      “Must trouble him, nights, him and his drive for equality—those duplicate wives.”

      “And you claim no interest of your own?”

      She let the spoon float free and gave me all her attention. “I admire his mind, I’ll confess it. I believe he approves of my strength and daring. You seem awful attentive, Clair dear, to the winds of court and spark.”

      “You were the one held hands with William Godbe in the parlor. I only marked the holding. Did you hear, Ada, that Bishop Olsen’s taking himself another bride?” I couldn’t help but tell it. The news made me feel mean. “It’s Jensine Waylet. We sat school together. Jensine and me were baptized the same day. You know who did it, who dunked us? The Bishop, only he wasn’t Bishop then, he was Elder Olsen. He baptized her and now he’ll marry her. Must be thirty years her elder. Tom Dean’ll be pleased—he’s only been courting Jensine since Florrie left.”

      Ada flipped the cakes on the griddle. “I guess Sister Olsen will be as well satisfied with one sixth of a husband as with one fifth.”

      I shoved the bench back. “How is that fair? Tell me how that is right. Taking young girls off to do your pleasure while the young boys have no chance, not an earthly claim to offer in compare.”

      “You think it’s pleasure, pleasure they’re after? God in Heaven, honey dear, Mormon men aren’t lechers. Most don’t have the imagination!”

      I saw Inger, that white head, that lank body standing to one side watching his new mother Jensine with a look wouldn’t be found out, as quiet as a beast blended in with its surroundings—hungry heavy beasts parading as men. “Tell Jensine Waylet that in Bishop Olsen’s house!”

      Ada shook me as the tears spilled out, then shook me again when I would not speak. “What is it?” she said. “Tell it, Clair! You tell me what has poisoned your heart. Tell me who, and tell me when.”

      I pulled the old scab off. It bled.

      “Well you was raped, sure enough, by that sneaking

       pusillanimous pup, but not in full, not according to the letter of the law. Did you know his rod? His penis-bone, honey, I’m sorry to be so blunt. Was it naked in you? In between your legs? You’d a known it.”

      Inger had raked my bosom, he’d pinned me to him with the broom, he’d banged on me and bit down on my skin, but never was he once between my legs, never once, I felt quite certain.

      I told her I thought no.

      “The sniveling runt. He’d better sing low and keep out of my path.”

      “So, Ada, I’m still virgin?”

      “Honey, yes.”

      This cruelty carved deeper, that I had suffered so from an unfounded fear. The Saints did not give comfort or help to a daughter in need. They offered haughty self-delinquent mothering tyranny!

      “How did you stand it, Ada? Stand the nights when you lived with your husband?”

      “You mean the loving, the mating up? Every sweet has its bitter. You got the bitter alone.”

      “What sweet? I saw Florrie Gradon, last week, on her first trip home. She took my arm—my dear married friend—and whispered, ‘It is a mean thing. Quick and mean. Consummation it is called, and they consume you!’ Her words gripped like spoiled food in my belly. Inger hurt me once. That ache, that brutality, now it’s Florrie’s daily bread.”

      “You’ve had a bad introduction, a poor start into the pleasures of things, that’s all. I could have told you Lester Madsen had a kink in his bridle. My guess is his daddy set the crimp. As for Inger—” She covered my hand with hers. We smelled cakes burning. “Someday, Clair, someday when you’re at hand’s grips with love, he’ll just be a memory, like offal, like smoke.”

      “You sure there’s a sweet as well as bitter?” I asked, though I knew it for myself. Sweet sat on Ada’s mantel in the parlor. Every time I stole a glance at the photograph of her son Stephen on that massive horse, my heart burst open like a rangy sunflower. Jensine had chosen age and the comforts of the fold over untested youth. I wished her well. I doubted, when it came to love, that I would be so tractable.

      CHAPTER 7

      Strange to be smitten by a thing so small: the little gold frame all by itself on the mantel above Ada’s

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