“Good grief! That dates back way more than a hundred years,” I gasped.
“Yes, it does, but according to Preacher John, it would keep all our minds on the Holy Father during his sermons and away from lust. Then he took away the Sunday school classes. His theory was that the children should be made to sit still in services and learn obedience to their elders. Things went from bad to worse. But looking back, it all happened because we women were taught from childhood to be submissive wives. Fred and I had been married more than a decade when it all came to a head.” She paused again.
She had my absolute attention, and I had to know what happened next, but I waited. From the sadness in her eyes, I could tell that it was not an easy story. She probably would rather keep it buried rather than endure the pain that came along with telling it.
She took a deep breath and went on. “By then Fred was firmly under the preacher’s control. He was the head deacon and Preacher John’s best friend. They met in private at least twice a week to discuss things. Things between us changed so slowly that I didn’t realize it for a couple of years. But then he became verbally abusive, blaming me for being barren like some of the women in the Old Testament. He didn’t beat me, but nothing I did was right. Preacher John told him that God was punishing him for past sins for not giving him children and backed it up with scripture. According to Preacher John, Fred was entitled to have a wife who would produce sons for him. Didn’t Jacob in the Bible have two wives, and even a mistress or two?”
“Holy crap!” I whispered.
Rosie nodded in agreement. “That’s exactly what it was. Mind control and a bunch of crap. Preacher John had four wives by then. Our town was very small, with only the one church, so it became kind of like a commune of sorts. Maybe like that showSister Wivesin some respects, only on a bigger scale. When Fred came home from work one evening, he told me that he was taking another wife. Preacher John had picked out a woman for him that would give him sons to carry on his name.”
“What did you do?” I asked.
Rosie shrugged. “By what I’d been taught and then brainwashed to believe that was biblical, I should have kept my mouth shut and welcomed a younger woman into our house. But I did not do that. I told Fred that the only way he was moving another woman into the home was if he divorced me. That was the first time I had stood up to him, and he was furious. He screamed that Jesus spoke against divorce.”
I thought of what Scarlett had told me about her past. “Did he hit you?”
“Not at first, but when I argued that Preacher John jumped from the Old Testament to the New when it suited his needs and wants ...” Another long pause. “That’s when he jerked off his belt and taught me his form of submission.”
The truth is stranger than fictioncame to my mind. “Did you leave?”
“Not that time, but I asked for a special meeting with Preacher John, and I told him that I did not want another woman in my house,” she answered. “I’m not sure where he got his verses, but it was decided that I should be an example to the other women who didn’t want to ‘believe.’” More air quotes went around the last word.
“What happened?” I asked.
“I was taken out of town the next night after midnight and stoned by all the men in the congregation. They tied me to a chair and threw big heavy rocks at me until I died.”
I had lost my ability to read people for sure if I was to believe that story. She had pulled my leg long enough, and I didn’t want to hear any more of this fake tale of woe.
“Only,” she went on, “I wasn’t as dead as they thought I was. They left me tied to the chair, sitting there on the side of a seldom-used dirt road. I suppose they figured the coyotes and buzzards would take care of my dead body, but there was still a little life left in me. Have you ever read the story of the Good Samaritan?”
I was speechless that something like that could happen outside of a horror film. All I could do was nod.
“Well, I had one. A priest had been down that road to deliver last rites to an old woman who lived way back in the sticks. He stopped and loaded my nearly lifeless body into the back of his vehicle and took me to his church in another town. The nuns nursed me back to health. It took several months. During that time, Preacher John was arrested for fraud. He was using the money donated to the church for sex trafficking. I’m not sure how that worked, but I did remember him sending several young girls off to work in other places. I testified against him in court for trying to kill me. The nuns had the foresight to take pictures before they cleaned me up and called for help to mend all my broken bones and body.”
“Didn’t you go to the hospital?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I was too terrified to go, so a lady doctor who went to the Catholic church made house calls and took care of me. She called the police, and the rest is history.”
“You are in witness protection, then?”
“No,” she replied. “I was beaten to death and woke up a new woman. Ilene helped me change my name from Rita Marie Sanchez to Rosalie Smith, and I’ve been at the Tumbleweed ever since. Matilda, my priest, and Scarlett are the only people who knew or knows all that. Rita died in that chair. Rosalie was born when I looked up through a tiny slit in one bloody eye and realized that I was being treated by a couple of nuns. And now it is midnight, so it’s time for us to go get some sleep.”
“One more question, please?” I asked.
“Only one, and then that’s the last time I want to remember that part of my life.”
“Where did you learn to play poker?”
“Matilda had been a dealer at a casino in her past life.” Rosie chuckled. “When I first came to the Tumbleweed, I had horrible nightmares, and she taught me the game. The nights when I woke up crying or screaming, she would get out the cards and we would play until I could go back to sleep. I got addicted to the game and wanted to play every night, even after the dreams ended. We decided to give it up one year for Lent. It was only a game to Matilda, but I spent a miserable month going through withdrawal. I learned that the deck of cards was controlling me as much or even more so than Fred, so I never played again until we played for candy.”
“Did y’all play for money?”
“That’s two questions, but the answer is no, we did not. We bet with dried beans and macaroni. I threw away a gallon jar full when I quit playing, and I’ve never let anything else control me since then. No more questions, and good night.” She got up from her chair and disappeared down the hall.
She might have slept that night, but not me. I kept going back and forth over her story, then flipped to all the events of that evening. Would Julia talk Jackson out of ever seeing me again?
Anything worth having is worth fighting for.Ada Lou was back in my head.You have won bigger battles in the past. If you really like him, then put up your fists and fight.
