Authors: Elissa Wall
I once again took to sleeping in my truck, only now that it was November, it was much more difficult. Fearful of being turned over to Uncle Warren by the police, I began to drive out of the FLDS community at night and park my truck in the desert. I equipped my vehicle with everything I would need to pass the night—a fuzzy blanket, a small pillow, a cooler filled with drinks, granola bars, and a small heater that I could plug in to my lighter. The desert gets cold fast at night, and with no cement to hold in the heat, I felt the chill of the autumn air. I’d purchased a small CD player to distract myself. My mind would just go insane if it was quiet. I was trying to be this tough girl, but inside I felt lost in the dark. Once I awoke to find a family of coyotes surrounding my truck. We’d long been told that the lands surrounding the Creek were haunted by the spirits of those who’d once walked “here” back in biblical days. The area had once been a thriving city, and God had destroyed it to cleanse the land. But the possibility of being confronted by a spirit was just another terrifying thought that permeated my imagination as I reclined in the driver’s seat and tried to settle in for the night. While the eerie sounds of the coyotes and other nocturnal creatures frightened me, I preferred them to being at home with my husband. Part of the problem though was that I kept having to move farther into the desert because the Colorado City police kept finding me. Where once I’d been just on the edge of the barren lands, now I was deep into them, nearly two miles outside of town.
I would usually stay out there until 5:00
A.M.
, when I would slowly make my way back to the trailer, hoping that Allen would be gone to work for the day. He was working his same job at Reliance and had to leave early in the mornings. Once inside, I’d shower and then fall asleep until my next work shift. It had gotten to the point where I was spending just one or two nights a week with my husband. But even these brief times together landed me in trouble.
By mid-November our relationship had reached a new low. He was particularly upset with how much I was away from the trailer in light of the fact that I’d just gotten home from Oregon. I was already more than two months pregnant, but he still had no idea. After one argument in which he hit me, I began to feel that familiar cramping in my abdomen. Fearing the worst, I raced to the bathroom and was greeted by the worrisome sign of a miscarriage: I was bleeding. Desperate to get away from Allen, I ran out of the trailer without even stopping to grab a pair of shoes or my coat. Jumping into my truck, I headed for the desert. I was cramping so badly I had to stop at the gas station on the edge of town to use the facilities. I was passing blood clots, but with nowhere to go, I had to ride out the miscarriage in the restroom. A knock on the door startled me, and I was horrified when a man’s voice informed me that the station was closing up for the night.
I cleaned up as best I could, got back into my truck, and headed for my usual spot in the desert. My truck slid to and fro as I tried to maneuver it up the small hill off the dirt road where I’d been parking at night. It had been raining for nearly a week, and the parched land had turned into a carpet of mud.
I tried to steer past a juniper tree when my tires began to sink into the wet terrain. It started to snow, and I could barely see where I was going. I pressed hard on the gas, but the truck wasn’t moving. Not only was it muddy, I now had a flat tire.
Exasperated and in pain, I climbed out of the truck and reached into the back for my jack. I’d been on my own for some time and was familiar with changing tires, but I felt weak as I attempted to raise the front of the truck. Suddenly, I felt it slipping, and the next thing I remember I was lying on the ground beside the front fender.
That was when I saw the pair of headlights.
I immediately assumed it was the police. I was freezing, in the middle of a miscarriage, and I didn’t even have shoes on. Now there was the possibility that I was going to be arrested for being out past curfew.
“Is everything all right?” I heard a man’s voice ring out through the darkness.
All I could see was the outline of a person standing over me. “I’m fine,” I blurted out, hoping that whoever it was would just go away.
“You don’t look fine,” the man pressed, moving in closer to where I lay covered in mud. I could tell by the way he stared down at me that he didn’t believe me.
“Here, let me help you with that tire,” he said gently. I hovered over him as he worked to put the front end of my Ford Ranger back on the jack. My body involuntarily shivered as I stood watching him. “You’re freezing,” he said. “Why don’t you just go and sit in my truck while I fix your tire?”
“I can do it myself,” I insisted, not wanting to put him out and involve him in my predicament.
“I’m sure you can,” the man said, smiling, as he led me to his truck.
I felt so foolish sitting in the passenger seat as this stranger set about changing my tire. The air blowing from the car’s heater began to warm me, and I tried to calm myself down. I grew worried as the man lowered my truck to the earth and then turned to get in beside me.
“Why are you out here?” he asked. His face looked remotely familiar, but I couldn’t place it. He was not much older than Allen, maybe about twenty-five or so. I knew he was just trying to be kind, but I could get into a heap of trouble even talking to a strange man. All I could think of was getting out of there and fast. I knew he was waiting for an answer to his question, and I provided none.
“Are you okay?” he continued. “It looks like you have a black eye.”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I quickly replied, looking down at my feet. I felt embarrassed that he had noticed my bruise from a recent argument with Allen.
“I’m Lamont Barlow,” he told me. At that moment, I realized how I knew him. He was a friend of Meg’s sister and for a while Meg had had a crush on him. She’d even borrowed his four-wheeler a couple of times that past summer.
“Oh,” I replied, unwilling to tell him my name. After a few minutes, it became clear that I wasn’t going to offer any more information.
“Well, here’s my phone number,” Lamont said, handing me a piece of paper he’d torn from a pad. “If you ever need anything—”
“I don’t think I will,” I cut in politely, and reaching for the door handle I climbed out of his truck. I felt incredibly weak, and the cramping in my stomach was intense. But I put on my best face and started toward my truck. “Thanks a bunch for helping me,” I said, waving and straining to smile.
“Do you need a ride home? I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to drive,” Lamont yelled after me.
“No,” I shouted back, assuring him I was fine. Home was the last place I wanted to go at that moment. “Well, I’m just gonna follow you out to make sure you’re okay. You have my cell number if you feel dizzy or can’t drive. Call me and I’ll pull over.”
I watched in my rearview mirror as we crawled along in the muck toward the highway. As soon as I hit the paved road, I floored it. I didn’t want him to know anything about me. I was certain he was going to turn me in to Uncle Warren.
I could not have been more wrong.
Trust in God. He works in mysterious ways.
—
SHARON WALL
D
ay was breaking as I steered my truck back toward town. All I could think of was getting to my mother. Pulling up in front of Uncle Fred’s, I called up to my mom’s room to have her buzz open the gate. Through the large windows of the back door, I could see my mother in her bathrobe, hurrying down the stairs toward me. Her face grew flushed with concern when she took in my mud-streaked clothes and my wet hair that was plastered to my tired face.
“Lesie!” she gasped. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m having a miscarriage, Mom,” I said in a lifeless voice, the words barely audible from my stooped position.
A pained look spread across Mom’s face as she placed an arm around my shoulders, leading me upstairs to her new room in the north wing of the house.
“Do you need to see the midwives?” she asked.
“No! That’s the last thing I want to do now,” I told her. She was worried, but I was too delirious to care about anything.
“I am sorry this is happening again,” Mom said with a mix of anger and sadness in her voice. “It’s going to be okay.”
My mother’s reassuring words were the final thing I heard as I dozed off in her comfortable queen bed that morning. Over the next few days, Mom watched over me, which set my mind at ease. Her tenderness filled me with nostalgia; I was catapulted back to childhood, when skinned knees and bruises could be magically healed by my mom’s touch. It felt so good to finally let her in after trying to keep my pain from her for so long. In this moment, I could be the little girl and let my Mom share some of the burden I’d been carrying alone. At least I wouldn’t have to deal with Allen in this condition. My body was so worn out. Between my nights with Allen and in my truck, I’d barely been getting sleep. That exhaustion, combined with the physical trauma of yet another failed pregnancy, had taken its toll on me.
By this point, Allen didn’t have much contact with my mother, but when he phoned to find out if I was there, I overheard Mom telling him that I was really sick. The tone in her voice telegraphed her anger. She also called the restaurant to alert my manager that I would be out for a few days. It was a relief to be back under Mom’s protective wing, and I snuggled deep under the covers content to be free of Allen for the moment. But periodically, one worry would surface in my mind: the stranger who had helped me with my tire. I worried about who he would tell and what they would say. With paranoia so rampant in our community, I knew he would say something. It was only a matter of time.
I was at my mother’s for several days before I finally had the strength to get up, and I knew I needed to get back to work. Looking in the mirror I saw that my eye was still bruised, but luckily I’d perfected the art of concealing my bruises with makeup, even though we weren’t supposed to have it.
Meg had been worried about me and was happy to see me back at the restaurant. I’d barely made it through the door before she rushed over to find out how I was doing. I’d told her about the miscarriage, my tire, and the man who’d helped me on the dirt road in the desert that night. Meg assured me that Lamont Barlow wouldn’t tattle on me to Warren. She’d known him for a while and believed that he was a good guy.
My friend had her own pent-up drama from her days without me, and it came spilling out once she was sure that I was okay. For the last several months she had been in love with a boy from Short Creek named Jason, and they’d been sneaking off together until he left the FLDS. It was a risky situation, but she was worried that he’d forget her now that he was gone for good. I could tell that she really liked him, and often when we were driving together, she’d beg me to circle the block around his house, hoping to catch a glimpse of him. We acted so silly, giggling when we saw him out on the lawn or through a front window. We’d always duck down, hoping that he wouldn’t see us. At night sometimes I’d drive her to secret rendezvous points where they could steal a few minutes together while I waited in the car.
A part of me worried that she would find herself in a situation much like my stepsister Lily’s. I didn’t want her to end up in a loveless marriage like mine, but I didn’t really know what to say to her to make her feel better. As long as she was a member of the FLDS, she could never live out her dream of being with Jason.
It didn’t take long for the lunch rush to hit. I was taking an order when I heard the bell on the front door ring, alerting us to more customers. Glancing over at the entrance, I spotted the sandy brown hair and the toothy smile of Lamont Barlow, the young man who’d helped me in the desert. He was there with several other men waiting to be seated. I quickly finished taking orders and dashed back into the kitchen to avoid being seen by him. Peering out from behind a corner, I watched as the hostess led his group to a table in my section. I raced back to the kitchen to talk to Meg, who was the cook. Even though it had been pitch-black and lightly snowing that night, I was certain that he would immediately recognize me if I waited on him. Though Meg assured me he wouldn’t turn me over to Warren, I couldn’t be sure. I begged the other waitress on duty to take my table. But she was already overloaded with customers.
I began to panic. “Meg,” I whispered over the sizzle of burgers on the grill. “Help! I can’t go back out there. The guy from the desert is here.”
Peeking into the main dining area, she let out a giggle. “I’ve already told you, nothing is going to happen. He won’t tell on you,” she assured.
“I know, I know,” I said in a low tone, wishing that he would just get up and leave. I was also feeling guilty that he’d given me his phone number. It was highly improper for me to have the number of a man other than my priesthood husband.
I walked shyly over to the corner booth, where he sat engaged in conversation with his friends. Pulling out my order pad, I greeted them, told them about our lunch specials, and asked, “What can I get for you today?” With my eyes fixed on my notepad, I tried not to look up for fear of making eye contact with him. It seemed like the longest shift of my life, but I managed to make it through without ever meeting Lamont’s gaze.
Later on, I was at the register cashing out another customer when I felt someone staring at me. “I won’t tell if you won’t,” I heard a man’s voice whisper. I glanced up to see Lamont standing before me with his lunch check. Ordinarily that would not be enough to make me trust someone—such was the hysteria that Warren had introduced to all of us. But there was something in his smile that set me at ease. I smiled back at him as he settled his bill, but I didn’t want to tell him anything about me.
Lamont turned up at Mark Twain’s several more times that week. I didn’t know how to react then or later when he came in having secured a job as a cook. I had no idea that Lamont had begun to ask questions about me. After our meeting in the desert, he was curious about me and began investigating. He knew I was Meg’s friend, and he tried to find out from her why I had a black eye. It infuriated him to think that someone would strike a woman, and he grew even more upset when he heard that I was in an unhappy marriage.