My Story (20 page)

Which left very few options.

Cold winter … lots of snow … no food … nowhere to live? What was the answer?

To go somewhere warm, of course.

*

Before we could decide where to go, we needed to do a little research. We needed to do some reading and study some maps.

The next day we headed down from the lower camp and went straight to the Salt Lake City Public Library. Walking through the front doors, I stopped to look around. It was the first time that I had ever been there, and I didn’t know where to go. Mitchell seemed to hesitate as well. I glanced toward the ladies at the checkout counter. They tried not to stare, but it was difficult, and it took them a few seconds before they finally turned away.

A man was sitting at a table near the entrance. He stared at us as well. He looked to be in his mid-thirties, just a normal-looking guy. Looking at me, he pulled out his cell phone and walked out of the library to make a call. I don’t know if he was the one who called the police, but I have always thought it was.

Mitchell led us up the stairway to the second floor. He got us settled at a table that was out of the way, then went to work gathering up a series of maps and books for us to study. The library wasn’t busy and it was very quiet. A few people climbed up and down the stairs. A young Asian girl, probably a university student, was the only other person in the map section and she paid us no attention once she got past her initial shock at our appearance.

Mitchell spread out a large map of California. Holding the corners, he studied it, moving his finger down the coastline, passing over one city and then another. He talked about each city as he moved his finger south. San Francisco. Sacramento. L.A. San Diego. He spouted a bunch of facts about each of the cities, but I don’t know if he really knew what he was talking about. He studied the map a few more minutes, then tapped on San Diego. “Here,” he announced. “This will be our new home.”

I looked up to see a man approaching us. He was dressed in casual clothes and I thought he was a visitor to the library who was coming to ask a question. “Do you know where the bathroom is?” I expected him to ask.

But he didn’t. Drawing closer, he pulled out a badge. “I am a homicide detective. I have a few questions for you,” he said to Mitchell.

I thought my heart was going to explode. I turned to him and stared. I started shaking. My head was spinning. I was dizzy with hope and anticipation and gut-wrenching fear. Mitchell’s words started screaming in my head.
I’ll kill you and your family. I will cut them with my knife!
His threats were the only thing that I could think about, the only thing inside my head.

The officer glanced at me but kept most of his attention on Mitchell. “We’ve received a few phone calls suggesting this girl might be someone who has disappeared. If you could just allow me to remove the veil and see her face, then we can clear this up. That way, if we get any other calls, we can tell them we have already checked you out.”

I felt a surge of joy so powerful I thought that I would cry. I wanted to stand up and run toward the officer. I wanted to jump into his arms. I wanted to rip my veil off and cry upon his shoulders. But I couldn’t! I couldn’t!

But it didn’t matter anyway. He was here. He was strong. He knew what he was doing. He was going to save me now!

I kept my eyes upon the officer. This is it! I thought. Nobody is going to hurt me! No one is going to hurt my family! I didn’t say anything. I didn’t
do
anything. I’ve been quiet. I’ve been good. Mitchell has no reason to blame me. It’s over! It’s over! I’m going home!

Then I felt a hand clamp down on my leg, the dirty nails digging into my thigh. It felt as cold and hard and powerful as a metal vise.

Feeling Barzee’s hand upon my leg made my heart stop. It was like I was instantly transported back in time. Every moment, every detail, of the past ten weeks flooded into my mind. The night that I had been kidnapped. Walking up the mountain. The first time that Mitchell raped me. Being chained up. Sitting on the bucket and crying until Mitchell finally screamed at me to stop. Hearing my uncle’s voice calling my name. The helicopter above the trees. Ice-cold water being dumped on my head. Mitchell going down to kidnap my cousin. The taste of beer. The fog of alcohol. The threats against my family or anyone who tried to rescue me. Days of waiting. Days of praying. Months of indoctrination, being told that I came from a wicked and sinful world. Being told my family was paving their own paths to hell. Being told that I should consider myself lucky that I had been chosen to be his wife.

But above all else, I knew the hard grip was Barzee’s way of telling me,
It doesn’t matter what you say or don’t say, it doesn’t matter what you do or don’t do, if we are captured, we will kill you. We will get you in the end.

Another painful scene unfolded in my head. I flashed back to the first time that I had met her, the image playing in slow motion in my mind. The silver morning sky. The mountain air, heavy with the smell of pine. My red pajamas hanging at my feet. My heart beating like a hummingbird’s. Barzee knew that her husband was about to rape me and yet she didn’t care. She had walked up and put her arms around me, her hot breath against my ear. She had held me like a daughter. She knew that I was not a young woman. She knew that I was just a child! But still, she held me tight. And it was not an embrace of warmth or kindness. It was a wrap of power, its only purpose to instill a sense of dominance.

Reliving these emotions, I was overcome with fear.
I will kill you! I’ll kill your family.
The words rolled around and around inside my head.

So I lowered my eyes and stared down at the table, never daring to look up at the officer again.

Every particle of my being was on edge. Could the officer protect me from my captors? Could he keep my family safe? I didn’t know. I really didn’t. He was just one guy against an evil man who seemed to have more power of deception than any other man in the world.

“All I’m asking is that you let me see her face,” the homicide officer was saying.

“This is my daughter,” Mitchell answered. “I can’t allow you to do that. It is strictly forbidden by our religion. It would be against everything that we believe in.”

The officer was silent as he thought. I felt his eyes boring into me. Though I kept my eyes down, my ears were fixed on every word he said.

“She is pure now,” Mitchell went on. “She is innocent. That is important. Please, I know this must be new to you, but you must try to understand.” I quickly glanced toward Mitchell. He was looking straight into the officer’s eyes. His voice was calm. Tranquil. Pleasant. He was pleading in great humility. He was gracious to the core.

The officer seemed to be perplexed. “Could I convert to your religion just long enough to see her face?”

“No. It is impossible.”

“We’ve had reports that she might be someone we are looking for.”

“I assure you, sir, she is my daughter. I love her very much. I only want to protect her. I only want to keep her safe and pure.”

Barzee kept her vise grip upon my thigh, her fingers biting into my flesh. I kept my eyes down, praying the officer would come and rescue me from the hell I had been living every day.

“Let me ask again. I could convert to your religion. All I want to do is to see her face.”

I could hear Mitchell move toward me as if he was trying to protect me. “Even if you could convert, that wouldn’t be enough. Only her family and her husband will ever see her face. And our religion is not something you can convert to in an hour. Our faith takes a lifelong conversion. Every day we are trying to do better, trying to be more humble and obedient. I am sorry, but your request is impossible.”

“You have to understand. We are looking for someone—”

“But officer, if she were the person you were looking for, why would she just sit there?”

The officer paused. It was an impossible question to answer.

I was screaming in my mind:
Because I am completely overwhelmed with fear! Because I have to protect my family! Because I am nothing but an empty shell who can do nothing but what they tell me to!

Later, there were times when I was angry with myself for succumbing to that fear. But those with shattered souls find it very difficult to speak.

They talked for maybe fifteen minutes. To me, it seemed like fifteen years. The detective asked a few more questions about who we were and what we believed in. Mitchell answered without any hesitation. He was a wonderful missionary to his own religion when he wanted to be. If he was hiding something, he certainly didn’t show it. He was open and sincere and appeared to be without guile. I couldn’t believe it! This was the man who raped me every day! The man who stole me from my bedroom. The man who constantly threatened to kill my family. He was as evil and coldhearted as any man in the world. Now he appeared to be as harmless as a puppy, a simple man who was trying to live his religion in a threatening and judgmental world.

Eventually, the officer ran out of questions. He hesitated a long moment. It seemed he was unsure. Then he turned around and walked away, leaving me with the two monsters who had ripped my life apart.

As I watched him go down the stairs, every ray of hope that I had ever felt was instantly wiped away. Every ray of hope that I had for my future was swallowed up by an opaque blackness. I couldn’t move. I felt I couldn’t breathe. I felt as if every last shred of light had been sucked from my world.

Mitchell stuffed the map of San Diego into one of his terrible green bags, placed the other maps back on the shelf, then rushed us from the library, holding me with a steel grip.

If the officer had stayed around to watch us leave the building, he would have known. If he had seen the way Mitchell jerked me along, treating me like a slave and not a daughter, it would have been obvious. But he was gone. I was alone.

We walked back to camp without stopping to rest. All the way, Mitchell never stopped talking, his voice oozing with pride. “The Lord surely has protected me,” he said. “He utterly blinded that officer’s eyes.”

I kept my mouth shut and kept on walking.

“This thin veil was all it took to hide my Esther.” He laughed, flicking the veil before my face. “I am so smart. I am so clever. I told the officer that your husband is the only man who will ever see your face. But the funny thing is, it
was
your husband who told him that.”

The farther away we got from the city, the more confident Mitchell became. “I stood face-to-face with a homicide detective,” he sneered. “He is trained to look for signs of lying and deception. Yet he believed everything I told him. He looked into my eyes and I convinced him that you were not who they were looking for. I convinced him of that
while you were sitting there
. God has provided another miracle! And why did he do it? Because no one else will ever see my Esther’s face until the Lord has called Hephzibah and my seven wives to testify unto a wicked world. Then I will call them to repentance! And that day is very near!”

Then he suddenly fell silent. We walked a few minutes in quiet as he thought. His mood seemed to shift. He was more sullen. He could bask in his own glory only for so long before it hit him. He was a breath away from having lost me. He was a breath away from having been arrested, a breath away from having to spend the rest of his life in prison. The reality seemed to sober him, crushing his mood. “What happened in the library had to be a message,” he said. “Surely the Lord is telling me that the world is not yet ready to receive the light in my Esther’s eyes. No, we can’t take any more chances. We can’t do anything so dangerous!” He turned and glared at Barzee, as if it were somehow her fault. “Hephzibah, from now on you and Esther have to stay in camp. No more going into the city. You have to stay up on the mountain until we move to San Diego.”

Barzee grunted. She didn’t like it, but she knew it had to be that way.

At that moment, I didn’t care about anything anymore.

I felt like I was moving through a blur. Though I was walking through my own neighborhood, I saw none of it anymore. The things that used to make me happy, things that used to give me hope, all of these things were invisible to me now. The streets I used to walk on, cars like my family used to drive, flowers that reminded me of my mom … all of these things seemed to melt from my sight. I no longer kept an eye out for an opportunity to escape. I didn’t even think about it anymore.

I felt nothing but misery. It was maybe the lowest that I had ever felt.

How could the officer have turned around and walked away? How could he not have known that I was the one he was looking for? How could I have been left to live with the devil and hell’s mistress?

Hiking up the main trail, I felt like a prisoner walking back to her cell. I was in solitary confinement, with only my guards for company. And I was innocent.
I was innocent!
But no one seemed to care.

After the crisis at the library, Mitchell seemed to hunker down. Though his initial reaction had been an explosion of pride in his ability to manipulate law enforcement, as well as the realization that there was a certain sensitivity to people’s religious customs that would allow him to hide me in plain sight, the reality quickly set in:
He had almost been caught.
Like the hit of a drug, the effect of manipulating the officer quickly wore off, leaving him paranoid and all the more anxious to get out of Salt Lake.

No more was I allowed to go down with him into the city. Neither was Barzee. She had to stay with me all the time, my personal prison guard. But Mitchell didn’t back off on the frequency of his own trips into the city. He still had to plunder and minister for food. And he was working hard—okay, he was begging hard—to get enough money for the bus tickets to California. Plus there was the constant demand for alcohol. A few bags of dope from the generous grocer. Pornography. A certain amount of daily needs he had to fulfill.