James Smith - Hybrid

But what would the law do? Where was her evidence? She was the one who had trespassed on someone else’s property. She knew what a jury of her peers in the Gallatin County would say to that.

The yapping of Toby and Big Mac brought the Judge wheeling into the room.

“Just visitors,” she said softly. “I’ll handle it.” She flicked her wrist for him to scat. He didn’t need to hear what they would be talking about and especially what she had to say.

When she opened the door, Katherine Belle looked her straight in the eye and spoke. “I know what you must think of us, Miss Schoonover.”

No, you don’t. Otherwise you’d both be running for your friggin’ lives back down the steps. “I take it you don’t have visitors at your ranch very often?” Molly asked. Without waiting on an answer she invited the two women in, motioned for them to take a seat in the living room, and quickly excused herself to prepare fresh coffee over their mild protest. She didn’t give a damn what they thought or what they wanted or didn’t want. Maybe they were nervous that she might be going after her shotgun. They were on her property now and she would make up the rules as she went along. In truth, she needed time to cogitate how to best deal with the sudden turn of events.

After a few minutes she returned and poured steaming coffee for each into fine china cups on a silver tray etched around the border with a soft floral design. She sipped her beverage slowly. They left theirs untouched and sat stiffly, avoiding placing their backs against the chairs as if needles might be poking through the fabric. Both wore dresses of pastel blue reaching to their ankles and wrists; their look, a plain vanilla quality, a disturbing cardboard veneer.

Molly spoke first. “Could you give me one good reason why I shouldn’t call the sheriff on the both of you right now?”

The Loudermilks remained as rigid as the log fence at their ranch and glanced at each other. Katherine Belle then leaned forward. “We were afraid you may call on the law. So, we thought it best to call on you.” Her voice had a pleasant timbre, close to a southern drawl. “We were hoping that maybe we could chat and explain some things about us.”

“We know people talk,” Marilee said with a voice that grated like rusty hinges on a gate. “We try to be good neighbors by offering our services from time to time.” Fingernails on a chalkboard.

“What the Judge and I have heard about you and your family is rather hard to believe,” Molly said. “Some people say that… I’m not exactly sure how to best put it.”

“That we’re a polygamist clan?” Katherine Belle blurted. “Miss Schoonover, may I speak in confidence?”

Molly’s fingers played with her flushed neckline as Katherine Belle told her story. She spoke in an evangelical cadence, as if reading from a script. Her chin high and her back arched, she spoke of growing up in southern Utah, the oldest daughter among fourteen children. A domineering father had taken five “sister wives.” She left public school at age twelve. By age thirteen, she cooked for her entire family and became a midwife for the deliveries of the rest of her siblings.

When she was fifteen, her father arranged her marriage to Joseph Vincent Loudermilk. His grandmother was Elizabeth Jennings Owen, a member of the well-known and respected Owen clan of polygamists from Utah. She knew Joseph Vincent, who was a bishop in the local Fundamentalist Church. But she didn’t know he would be her husband until her wedding day. All she remembered about that day and night was the time she spent crying. Everyone thought her tears were tears of joy.

Molly sat spellbound. “Are you Mormons?”

“Heavens, no! The Mormons are the Latter Day Saints,” Katherine Belle replied. “But we belong to the Fundamentalist LDS Church. The Mormon Church was founded by Joseph Smith. He surrendered his beliefs to man.”

She called their lifestyle the Celestial Principle, a divine tenet handed down from God. “We believe plural marriage is a protected freedom. The laws of man can’t prohibit that. It would violate our constitutional right and our freedom of religion. Our lives are dictated by a higher authority, Miss Schoonover.”

Interesting term, Molly thought. Plural marriage. Sounded innocent, like a plural noun. “So how did you and your family get here?”

Katherine Belle said they lived in Colorado, in a town called Short Creek. After a year of their marriage, Joseph Vincent fell out with the church elders and decided to leave the church and move away. Far away. Montana was their first and only stop.

After a month they met Marilee. At first, she just wanted to make extra money by helping out with the farm chores and their six children. “But it wasn’t long,” Katherine Belle said, “before God chose Marilee to be Joseph Vincent’s second wife.” She placed her hand on Marilee’s arm.

“And you didn’t have a problem with that?” Molly asked.

“I certainly did not. The Lord visited Joseph Vincent in a dream and revealed His desire.”

“But… it’s against the law,” Molly said, realizing immediately how silly the comment was.

“Against the law only in the eyes of man,” Katherine Belle replied. “I am Joseph Vincent’s wife of record in the court of law. Marilee is his wife also but only in the eyes of the Lord. That’s what matters, isn’t it?”

Molly shifted her weight. She wanted to be careful how to select her words. “And what about your other sister-wife?”

“Joseph Vincent found Charlene hitchhiking on the highway two years ago,” said Katherine Belle. “She was running away from her family in Rigby with a newborn son in her arms. She needed a caring family so desperately. After a few months, we realized God sent Charlene to us.”

“Joseph Vincent had another dream?”

“No,” Katherine Belle said. She looked perturbed by the sassy nature of the question. “The Lord spoke to me one evening and He—”

“It was your idea that your husband take another wife?”

“I would give full credit to the Lord. Joseph Vincent hesitated at first to accept the notion.”

I bet he did, Molly thought. His pecker was probably so hard he could’ve driven it through sheetrock. “But why in the world would Marilee or Charlene marry a man who already had a wife?”

“I had no other prospects!” Marilee said. “What’s a woman to do? Stay single all her life?” She spat out single with a hiss.

“What would be so terribly wrong if you’re a single woman?”

“Cause a single woman cain’t enter the Kingdom of God. When Jesus returns to earth the man introduces his wives to Him.”

“We are sisters in the Lord,” Katherine Belle interrupted. “All of us belong to Joseph Vincent Loudermilk.”

Molly took a gulp of coffee then positioned the cup and saucer on the edge of the side table. While the women waited on her to respond, she smoothed out the doily beneath the saucer. “Don’t you really mean the three of you share one penis?”

Marilee brought her hands to her cheeks and Katherine Belle raised her eyebrows.

“I presume,” Molly continued, “that Charlene is taking care of all the children today?”

“Charlene is gone,” Katherine Belle replied, after collecting herself. “We are concerned, of course, but she has done this before.”

“What about her son?”

“You mean her children.”

“She had another child by your husband?”

“A beautiful daughter,” Katherine Belle said. “Only five months old now.”

Marilee spoke up. “And that’s not—”

She tried to hide the hand she pressed against Marilee’s knee. “You should know something,” Katherine Belle said. “It angers us that Charlene leaves her very own children behind on these excursions of hers.”