Shattered Dreams

by Irene Spencer

  I wouldn’t hear a word of it. I’d been called, and I’d been chosen. I’d also made a promise. Besides, as I’d thought about it, I decided I was thrilled to be moving down to Mexico. What a romantic image I had conjured in my mind. It would be a wonderful adventure.

  CHAPTER NINE

  I was going to be met in El Paso by two of Verlan’s older brothers, Joel and Floren, who were traveling the 185 rugged miles north by bus to the bustling Ciudad Juárez, just across the border. Joel registered in a cheap motel and was waiting there while Floren came to the bus station in El Paso to retrieve his young wife, Anna, her two small children, and me. Anna had been on my bus all the way from Salt Lake City, but we’d pretended not to know each other until we crossed into New Mexico. It had only been four weeks since the raid at Short Creek, so we took extra precautions just in case any of the authorities might be watching.

  As the bus eased into the El Paso terminal, I saw Floren standing there, scrutinizing each passenger climbing off. I’d met Floren a few times when he’d come to see Aunt Rhea’s older daughters. I was about ten at the time. I remembered him as a pleasant, fun-loving fellow, so I felt lucky to have him for a brother-in-law. Pushing my worn suitcase out the bus door before me, I threw myself into his arms. Anna was hugging him, too. He released his hold on me, kissed her warmly, and held her for another brief moment. After loving on the kids, he waved down a taxicab. It took us across the border into old Mexico.

  Joel met us in the lobby of Hotel Rivas. He was about six feet tall and had a medium build and straight blond hair. He was very congenial, his blue eyes conveying good humor as he talked. Joel reminded me so much of Verlan, I immediately liked him.

  After a hurried breakfast at a small café, we boarded a grimy Chihuahuense bus. I took a seat at the very rear of the dilapidated old vehicle, next to Joel. Nearby, Anna and Floren were cuddling and catching up after a nine-month separation. She was Floren’s only wife so far, but they had marital troubles while living in the States, where they met. She left him, and he’d gone home to Mexico. The needs of the children motivated her attempt to reconcile.

  I feared my clean dress would be soiled on the filthy, torn canvas seats, but I kept quiet about it. The large, rusty screws holding down the seats were almost vibrating out of the floor. The driver was trying to force the old bus into third gear, but it wouldn’t (or couldn’t) switch. He pumped the clutch like mad, grinding the gears, but still he couldn’t seem to gain any momentum. We bounced along ever so slowly. The alien landscape of sand and mesquites barely crawled past as we headed south along the dangerously narrow, potholed highway.

  It seemed as if we spent more time letting people on and off the bus than we did actually traveling. At the first stop, a weather-worn Mexican gentleman who I figured was about seventy boarded the bus. He was wearing crumpled white cotton trousers and a long-sleeved white shirt. What I noticed most was the wide red sash tied around his ample stomach. Since all the seats were taken, he stood with his back to us, clinging with one hand to the luggage rack above as the bus bounced along. As more and more people got on, he was forced to back up until he was standing directly in front of me. When he finally turned around, to my utter amazement, I found myself face to face with two live roosters tied by their legs to his big red sash. They looked as embarrassed about the whole thing as I was, but the old man never cracked a smile.

  Next, a round-faced Indian-looking woman with a long black braid down her back got on the bus. She disrespectfully shoved every-one out of her way, squeezing herself onto the already overcrowded seat next to me. With her bare feet, she held a squealing little pig under her seat. I’d never seen anything like it.

  In an effort not to gawk at the strange characters all around me, I asked Joel to translate the Spanish words I saw on two bold signs posted at the front of the bus. “NO BRINQUE EN LOS ASIENTOS,” he said, trying to hide a smile. “It means ‘don’t jump on the seats.’ ”

  I gasped, “What kind of place is this?”

  Joel laughed. “The other one says NO ESCUPE EN EL PISO. That means ‘don’t spit on the floor.’ ”

  Before I could stop myself, I blurted out, “In the States, they would junk this bus! Why do they even allow this old heap on the road?”

  “Well, it’s because we’re going second class,” Joel chuckled.

  “Second class!” I exclaimed in disbelief. “Why are we going second class?”

  “Because there’s no third,” he answered, straight-faced.

  Just then, Floren got my attention. “Hey look, quick!” He pointed to a crude adobe (mud-brick) house with a flat dirt roof. “That’s exactly like the house you’re going to live in.”

  I laughed out loud. “You and Joel sure have a good sense of humor. I can see I’m going to survive in Mexico after all!”

  Two hours later, we got off the bus at a completely isolated junction called Sueco. Other than the road, I saw nothing in any direction except sagebrush and mesquite bushes. The crumbling asphalt pavement ended thirty feet or so away, where a dirt road took over, winding off to the west toward a range of mountains.

  The hot August sun beat down unmercifully. Neither Floren nor Joel seemed to mind it in the least. The brothers were too involved batting at one another with paddle balls—small red balls attached to paddles by rubber cords. Soon the balls at the end of their cords got all tangled up, so Anna demanded they put them away “before they’re ruined for the kids.”

  Joel pretended he didn’t hear her as he whacked Floren on the head. They both giggled like little boys.

  Anna and I sat on our dusty suitcases, wondering why it was taking so long for the next bus to come by. Two hours passed. I was anxious to get to my new home. Finally I asked Joel when the next bus was due.

  He never cracked a smile. “Tomorrow morning at nine,” he said.

  “Don’t tease me, Joel. I want to get to the ranch.”

  “Really, the next bus won’t come till the morning. But we’ll hitch a ride on the first truck headed in our direction.”

  One by one, cars came and went along the highway, but none of them turned toward our dirt road. The broiling sun kept beating down, and I perspired heavily. Finally Joel saw a gray Dodge pickup approaching. Recognizing it, he hailed it down when it turned our way. The driver agreed to give us all a ride, so Joel and Floren shouted for Anna, the kids, and me to get into the cab of the truck. Laughing, they threw our suitcases into the back and jumped in behind them. They seemed to be having a grand old time.

  I sat next to the driver, feeling very nervous—a well-to-do Mexican decked out in western attire. Since he spoke no English and I spoke no Spanish, we rode in awkward silence. At least it was awkward for me. An hour crawled by while choking, hot dust whirled in through the open windows. At one point, Anna and I turned to look at each other, and we both burst into hysterical laughter. We were so covered with white dust, we looked like we had on powdered wigs and white mascara. The driver stared at us like we’d taken leave of our senses, but he never said a word.

  We finally came to a little town that we learned was called El Valle, the valley, officially known as San Buenaventura. It was a typical small town founded by ranchers and farmers—not much more than a wide place in the road where a few small buildings and adobe houses had been thrown up. The driver slammed on his brakes, and we skidded to the left, coming to a precarious stop in front of a moss green–colored store facing the roadway.

  Joel hopped out of the truck and rattled away plaintively in Spanish to the driver, who eventually yielded to his request. What luck! Joel had talked him into going an hour out of his way to take us on to the ranch, some dozen miles further.

  The closer we got, the greater my anticipation at finally getting to see the beautiful ranch that would be my new home. I fully expected the earthiness and poverty and oddity I’d seen of Mexico so far to all simply disappear at the LeBarons’ gate. My apprehensions had only to do with seeing Verlan and Charlotte again, Verlan bec
ause he was the husband I still barely knew, and Charlotte . . . well, for obvious reasons.

  Half an hour later, with no warning, the truck lurched off the dirt road through large mesquites, bouncing over what seemed to be no more than a cow trail and scattering chickens in its wake. Joel and Floren stood up in the bed of the truck, hollering and waving their arms. “Welcome home, ladies! Welcome home!”

  Excitedly, I challenged Anna, “Let’s see who spots the ranch house first.” We both leaned forward, peering through the powdery windshield. The truck slowly came to a halt in front of a large corral.

  Verlan and his brother Ervil were milking cows when they heard the truck approaching. They stopped and jumped over the corral fence in their excitement to greet us. Verlan ran past Ervil, yanked open the truck door, and greeted Anna warmly. Reaching out his long arms, he helped me down next, laughing when he saw his dust-covered young bride.

  As he gave me a little hug, he whispered in my ear. “Nobody here knows we’re married except Joel and Floren. Remember, you’re just my sister-in-law.”

  I could not have been more crushed. I’d come over a thousand miles, the last hundred on washboard dirt roads, to escape this very thing. Verlan said we’d be free here to live our fundamentalist religion and be a family. I felt broadsided and minimized by this unexpected demand for further secrecy, just when I’d expected to finally be validated. For the time being, I couldn’t even question him about it. I had to play along.

  Verlan tapped my suitcase against the rocky path to shake loose some of the dust and said, “Come on, Irene, let’s walk home.” I followed him, still looking for the ranch house.

  As we walked along the dirt path, I told Verlan how worn out and dirty I felt from the long trip. All I wanted was a nice warm shower and a clean bed. That’s when I began to wonder just where my bed might be, now that I’d been labeled a mere sister-in-law. It had been almost five weeks since I’d slept with Verlan. Would we sleep together here if no one was supposed to know I was married to him? And what about Charlotte? Would I have to pretend to be but a guest in her home? I had just assumed all this time that I would have my own private quarters in the LeBaron ranch house.

  We’d only gone a few yards when Verlan stopped at a small adobe house exactly like the one Floren pointed out on the way down. It had a flat dirt roof, with uneven wooden frames for windows and gunnysacks rolled up at the top of the frames to keep out the dust and cold. I stood in front of it with my mouth hanging open, dimly aware that Verlan was speaking to me. I was turning to face him when I heard him drop my suitcase to the ground. Somewhat sheepishly, he said, “Welcome to the ranch, Irene. This is your new home.”

  Ranch? He called this a ranch? My cheeks flushed with sudden anger. Anyone with any brains at all knows that a ranch has a nice, framed white cottage with a neat picket fence and a large red barn. There had to be some rational explanation for all this. Verlan was surely kidding me, like his brothers had all the way here. But the look on his face told me it was no joke.

  Somehow I kept my cool and held back the gathering tears. With monumental restraint, I managed to say, “I just want to take a shower, Verlan. Would you please show me to the bathroom?”

  “Uh . . . er . . . wait right here!” he said. He dashed into the house and returned with a bar of coarse, homemade soap, a washcloth, and a ragged towel. Thrusting the soap into my hands, he raised the handle of the solid, cast iron pump next to the house and chirped, “We don’t have electricity, of course. But look here, we do have running water.” As he spoke, he forced a steady stream of water from the well with the strong pumping motion of his long arm.

  Ignoring this new revelation for the time being, I unbraided my thick, dusty blonde hair and held my head under the pump, gasping for breath as the cold water washed the dirt down the wooden trough. I rinsed the caked dust and grime off my arms and legs as best I could, standing first on one foot, then on the other. After that, I scrubbed my filthy feet. Wrapping my hair into a towel turban, I flipped my head back and followed Verlan into the house.

  Things went downhill from there. As Verlan pushed the crude, heavy front door open, it scraped the cement floor with a harsh grating sound. The first thing I noticed in the gloom was a wobbly wooden table in the center of the room. The only thing on it was a kerosene lamp. A pale yellow enameled cookstove with a rusty stovepipe protruding through the unfinished, wood-beamed ceiling squatted in the far corner. In another corner, a stack of unpainted orange crates were arranged into some semblance of shelving for cups and dishes. A galvanized, five-gallon bucket filled with well water stood next to a rough-hewn wooden washstand masquerading as a kitchen sink. A long, crooked counter of sorts stretched across one wall, its shelving partially covered by a piece of cloth. I saw no discernible food anywhere on these shelves, just a few mismatched canisters. There was no refrigerator in the room or other appliances of any kind. There were no knickknacks or pictures on the walls, no clock, no linoleum or rug on the floor—nothing that might help turn the simple shelter into a home. Through the kitchen window I could see a small wooden outhouse set some forty feet behind the house at the end of a dirt path.

  Here it was, 1953. How could people still be living like this? Immediately I prayed, Oh Lord, how long before I can get back to civilization?

  Charlotte appeared from one of the two bedrooms adjoining the primitive kitchen on opposite sides, and she welcomed me with a hug, asking if I was hungry after my long trip. Ten minutes earlier, I’d been starving, but now I had no appetite at all. “No thanks,” I answered, “I just need to brush out my hair.” I didn’t dare mention bed to her. I felt so disappointed and out of place, once again nothing but an intruder in my husband’s home. Miserable, I didn’t know where to turn.

  By now it was dark. Verlan lit the lamp on the table. He opened the door to the second bedroom with his foot. I couldn’t help noticing that the hinges on the door were made from old tire treads simply nailed to the door frame. Motioning me inside, he placed the dim oil lamp on a white wooden chair next to the bed. He’d borrowed a clean sheet from Charlotte to cover us for the night. Before we lay down, he threw a handwoven serape blanket over the bare mesh metal springs.

  “Where’s the mattress?” I asked incredulously.

  “Oh, these bedsprings are woven,” he said. “With this blanket over them, you’ll never know the difference.” Kissing my cheek, he added, “I’ll be right back. I want to go tell Charlotte good night.”

  I assumed he just wanted to see if she was already in bed before he blew out the lamp. I slipped into my long nightgown, thinking how Charlotte made it especially for me and allowed me to marry her husband. Despite all the gospel teachings I’d received on being a faithful, compliant plural wife, a sudden surge of jealousy and resentment overwhelmed me. How could I have any privacy with nothing but a kitchen separating Charlotte and me? I was willing to share a husband, but I would not share a house. Tomorrow I would stomp my foot on the lousy cement floor and inform Verlan I wouldn’t be spending another night under her roof.

  Grudgingly, I climbed into the rickety bed. The rough weave of the wool blanket scratched me as I lay there, waiting for my husband to return. I looked around in the dim light at the bare, empty room. Its adobe walls weren’t painted or even plastered. It had no pictures, no closet, not even a dresser in which to unpack my meager belongings.

  Verlan finally came back in, carrying a white enamel chamber pot in his hand. He blushed as he said, “This will be under the bed if you need it.”

  It had only been a few weeks since I’d been too bashful to use the toilet with a door separating us. I told myself I’d bust before I used that thing in the same room with him. I was so embarrassed, I couldn’t speak.

  He bolted the back door that opened onto the bedroom. Crossing the room, he pushed another wooden bar into place, locking the door that went into the kitchen. “For privacy,” he said. Checking to see that his matches were handy for later, he cupped his hands abov
e the lamp’s glass chimney and blew out the dancing flame. I lay there in anticipation, waiting for my husband to get into bed and take me into his strong arms.

  In the darkness, Verlan peeled off his worn work clothes and put a pair of pajamas on over the thin cotton undergarments he’d received in the LDS temple a few years earlier, before he’d begun his life of polygamy. This white, one-piece knit bodysuit resembled a pair of long johns, only it had no buttons. It simply tied closed across the front with three strings. It covered Verlan from his neck to his wrists and ankles. Only Mormons in good standing could receive these holy garments, which were ceremonially awarded with a promise of protection and an explanation of their symbolic meaning. Except for Verlan to bathe, the garments never came off, not even during intimacy. That’s where the ties up the front came in.

  Verlan snuggled up to me and cooed in my ear, “You can keep these pajamas of mine in your room from now on. I’ve got another pair in Charlotte’s bedroom.” He could say the most devastating things without even realizing it. After asking about my trip and my family, he got busy trying to convince me he hadn’t actually lied to me about the ranch; he’d merely failed to tell me everything. I would eventually learn this was Verlan’s usual method of conflict resolution: he did what he wanted, and then he charmed the pants off whoever was unhappy about it.

  “Irene, you must be very cautious from now on,” he told me next. “You have two Mexican sisters-in-law, Luz and Delfina. They may not treat you right if they find out you’re actually my wife. We won’t lie to them. We just won’t tell them the whole truth. After all, you are my sister-in-law. You see, neither of them have the spirit of the gospel, like you do. We won’t tell them until we have to.”

  I later found out that these two wives were actually Catholic, and they had no desire to be plural wives or to have polygamy thrown in their faces. But I didn’t care about any of that now. I just wanted to be loved. I hadn’t traveled all the way to a foreign country to be lectured. I wanted to be held and kissed, to be assured of my husband’s love. But Verlan made no loving advances. As he talked, he kept his hand on my stomach, making damn sure not to touch my breasts.