Afterward, the sheriff assembled all his posse members for an update. Evidence was turned over to the forensic unit or noted where it could be found, and the men were broken down into new teams. Some would remain at the compound to question cult members and complete the investigation. Another group consisting of Abe, Will, Hosteen, and the K-9 trainer with his dog made up part of the search party for Emily. The remaining Navajo men were staying at the compound with the sheriff and three state troopers to continue their quest. The fathers of the two girls felt convinced their daughters were hidden somewhere on the ranch, and they were more determined than ever not to leave until they found them.
Each member of the search party was issued a canteen of water, a flashlight, and a walkie-talkie. Spike sniffed Emily’s dress until the trooper felt sure he had the scent and led the dog outside, under the window where Emily had made her initial jump. The dog immediately picked up the trail, and the men were ordered to fan out in the direction of his pursuit. When Abe spotted a single boot print in an apple orchard, and Spike barked verification, his adrenaline kicked in. He felt they were getting close, and the trail was easy to follow—until they reached Navajo Wash. Spike raced up and down the banks of the waterway, nose glued to the ground. After several minutes, the dog stopped and barked, looking at the other side.
“She crossed the wash,” Abe said to Will. “She didn’t want to walk on the road and be spotted, so she headed this way.”
Will’s slight nod showed his agreement. He gazed in all directions—at the mountains to the north, those in the west. Then he squatted down and picked up a handful of soil, rubbed it between his fingers, and smelled it. “This is the ancestral land of my people, the Diné,” he said. “Emily would know; she’d recognize the sacred mountains and find her way home. She must have crossed there, where the dog lost the scent.”
“Let’s go,” said Abe. He found a pile of rocks in the wash that acted as stepping-stones and waded through the swiftly moving current. Some parts had deep holes, but Abe reasoned last night’s full moon had provided enough light for Emily to find the best crossing.
The other members of the group, including the dog, followed his lead. Once on the other side, Spike shook, and immediately put his nose to the ground again. The wash cut a twisting path through the bottom of a steep-sided ravine lined with slickrock and shale. Abe wondered how Emily could have managed the climb, even in the moonlight. And then he heard Spike barking.
The dog had picked up the scent and was climbing the side of the ravine, but he stopped midway and came back down. Spike sniffed excitedly at a rocky spot near the bottom of the ravine. Abe ran to where the dog stood and looked around. At first he saw nothing, but after a closer examination of the rocks and soil, he spotted the blood. His heart sank.
What happened? Did she fall? If she fell and hurt herself, where is she? Could a mountain lion or a bear take her? No.
He knew he couldn’t think in those terms.
She scratched herself on some branches and bled before she moved on. She’s okay, finding her way home, he silently told himself.
But he didn’t feel reassured.
Abe saw the screwdriver under a salt cedar bush. “Will!” he yelled. “Over here. I found something. Emily must have dropped it.”
Will stared at the screwdriver and the bloodstains. “Don’t touch anything, Abe. They will need to dust it for prints—make sure Emily dropped it, and that this is her blood,” he added in a quiet voice.
Although Will’s expression remained neutral, Abe recognized the tightness in his voice, the tension in his body, as a sign of worry, the same concern he had.
What happened to Emily? And where is she now?
He left the screwdriver and summoned the state trooper.
To the search party’s consternation, Spike lost the scent. He repeatedly ran to the midway point on the side of the ravine before returning to the bottom where the blood and screwdriver had been found. To make matters worse, a late-afternoon thunderstorm brewing in the west came crashing down with a driving force, obliterating any signs of the direction Emily might have gone beyond that point.
The men hunkered down under hats and raincoats to wait the storm out. Early April weather could be extremely fickle, ranging from warmth one day to an icy wind often bringing snow the next. There was a chill in this west wind, giving Abe goose bumps. Or was it the thought of Emily—out there, hurt and bleeding, cold and alone? He shook his head and told himself again she was all right, that they would find her. He could not sit still and wait. He noticed Will pacing along the edge of the wash, now transformed into a brown torrent strewn with branches and other debris. The water had begun to rise at a rapid rate. The other men scrambled to their feet.
Will and Abe might have been thinking the same thing. “Let’s go,” Abe said. “We can’t stay here, waiting. Emily knows the danger of a flash flood in sudden rainstorms. She must have climbed back up the ravine.”
A jagged bolt of lightning split the blackening sky, followed by a loud crash of thunder from the west. Torrential rains began to pelt the rocks and cliff sides, but Emily remained dry. She wondered why, then observed she had been lying under the overhanging lip of a shallow sandstone cave. The Ute woman reappeared and pulled the travois into the wickiup, which was at the back of the cave, completely hidden from view. The sudden movement sent spasms of pain through Emily’s leg, and she clamped her jaws to keep from screaming. Beads of perspiration ran down her face and between her breasts. Once the woman settled Emily in the small space, she sat on a mat on the opposite side of the shelter. Emily pleaded with her once again to seek help when the storm ended.
“Listen to me. You can take me outside, away from your camp, and leave me. I won’t tell anyone about you. Just let someone know where to find me. That’s all I ask.”
A stoic silence met her pleas.
“Who are you? I have to call you something,” Emily said.
The woman looked as though she would not answer, then exhaled a weary sigh. “You can call me Chipeta, even though it is not my real name. It’s the name of Chief Ouray’s wife, so if you must call me something, Chipeta’s good enough.” She fetched an earthen pot from the fire and poured a fragrant liquid into a smaller container. After helping Emily to a sitting position, she handed her the small bowl. “Drink this. It will lessen your pain and help prevent infection.”
Emily accepted the steaming cup. Though the aroma was familiar, she did not readily identify the herb. “What is it?” She felt light-headed and weak—as well as a bit suspicious—but it was a relief to be able to sit upright.
“Bear root. You know the bear is special to the Ute, and the root has potent healing properties.”
Yes, of course, Emily thought, sipping the familiar bitter tea. I should have known right away. Oshá, bear medicine, is often used by Grandfather. How could I have forgotten something so familiar?
She drank her tea, wondering how she could convince the woman to send for help. The tea alleviated her parched mouth and throat, but not her full bladder. “I need to pee.” She pushed the blanket off her legs but knew there was no way she would be able to stand on her splinted, broken leg.
Chipeta handed Emily a shallow crockery bowl. “You’ll have to use this to take care of business until you can stand with crutches. I’ll give you some privacy.” She stood, covered her head with a shawl made of animal pelt, and walked out of the wickiup into the pounding rain.
Emily, grimacing with the effort, slid the dish under her body. She flinched when she bumped her broken leg but sighed with relief when her bladder emptied. After cautiously removing the crockery and setting it beside her travois, she fell back onto the rabbit-pelt pillow and closed her eyes, letting sleep overcome her once again.
In the dream, the bear crouched at the entrance to her grandfather’s trailer. Emily wanted to go inside, but the bear blocked the door. Grandfather watched her from inside his old silver Airstream, waving his arms, cautioning her wi
th gestures to be careful.
The huge, shaggy bear, saliva dripping from its mouth, roared. “You have greatly disappointed me, stupid woman.” Emily shivered, cowering behind a juniper tree. “Haven’t I taught you anything?”
“I tried!” Emily cried. “I tried my best to save the girls.”
“You thought you could escape from me, but you have failed,” the bear roared. “Failure, failure, failure. You know the price for failing.” The huge bear stood on hind legs, saliva streaming from his open mouth, and lumbered toward her.
Emily tried to move, but in the dream she was still strapped in the travois, her broken leg, swollen to a grotesque size, oozing pus. “Please!” she cried. “Give me another chance. Tell me what I must do.”
“No more chances,” said the bear, moving closer and dropping back to all fours. “Now you pay.”
The bear ran toward Emily, snarling, gnashing its teeth. As it neared, it transformed into Coyote, then into the form of a tall man in a dark suit with piercing black eyes. A steady tic caused him to blink his left eye. The man fixed his eyes on hers and laughed. Emily thrashed from side to side in a futile attempt to escape, screaming, “No, no, no!”
Chipeta rushed into the wickiup, a concerned look on her face. “What is it?”
Sweat dripped from Emily’s forehead even though she could not stop her chattering teeth. “A dream.”
It was a dream, but it felt terrifyingly real—more real than her life the last two days.
Has it only been two days?
Emily realized she did not know how long she had been in that strange place or how she had managed to get there. Her last memory was of waking up and staring into the almond eyes of the goat. She had been taken captive on Wednesday, and on Friday escaped from the cult house.
“What day is this? How long have I been here?” she asked the Ute woman.
“I don’t keep track of the days of the week or time,” said Chipeta, “but you’ve been here two days, counting today. You were out of your mind most of the time, jabbering and not making any sense. It was partly due to the medicine I gave you so I could straighten and splint your leg. Peyote and datura. Guess you saw and heard things that only existed in your head.”
Emily looked at the rough buckskin dress covering her body. She saw her leg protruding from the dress, wrapped from her ankle to above her knee with a hard clay cast. “What happened to the clothes I was wearing?”
“They wouldn’t do. They were sopping wet, caked with mud, and all torn up. I had to take them off so I could fix your leg. Broke your tibia and your fibula—snapped them right in two. Don’t worry. I used to be a nurse’s aide and have watched the doctors set plenty of bones. It’s easy enough.”
Emily became aware of the aroma of something cooking, and in spite of her discomfiture, her stomach rumbled with hunger. She leaned back and closed her eyes, too weak to continue the conversation. Her head throbbed and her brain felt scrambled. “I have to go home so the cops can find those girls,” she said. “I’m begging you. Tell someone where I am.”
“You aren’t going anywhere, so just shut up and stop whining. I guess you’re well enough to eat something. You haven’t had nothing but broth and tea. I’ve got stew cooking in the pot.”
Emily opened her mouth to say more, but the Ute woman was gone. “Damn,” she muttered as another sharp jolt of pain shot through her leg.
Clouds clung to the night sky like a thick shroud, making visibility beyond the narrow beam of a flashlight impossible. The state trooper called off the search and told the men to head back to the compound. They would spend the night there and start fresh in the morning. The men were cold and had not eaten all day, except for water and granola bars the trooper had distributed. Discouragement showed in the faces and hunched shoulders of the men, none more so than Abe and Will. They had not been able to find a single clue as to where Emily had gone.
They trudged down the slippery ravine, barely speaking. Once the rains ended, the water in the channel subsided as quickly as it had risen, allowing them to cross in the same place as before. Small trees and shrubs, carried downstream by the force of the water, were jammed up against the rocks.
If Emily had been unconscious near the wash’s bank, she would have been swept away just as quickly as those bushes, Abe thought, as a chill ran through his body.
“I’ve got to get hold of Mom somehow—let her know what’s going on, tell her I’m staying here until we find Em,” Will said.
The men walked single file, heads bent toward the ground as they turned back to the compound through the apple orchard.
Abe caught up with Will. “There’s bound to be a phone somewhere you can use—one in the church office, for sure. I need to let Ellen know as well, but if she’s at my place, she can’t be reached by phone.”
“Mom can drive over to your place. Probably be good for her to have someone to talk to.”
They walked the rest of the way back to the ranch headquarters without further conversation, unable or unwilling to voice their worst fears.
Sheriff Turnbull stood in front of the temple, waiting for the men to return. After listening to their account of the day’s events, he reported that he hadn’t had any luck in finding the two Navajo girls either. “We’ll bunk out in this here church for the night and continue searching for those young ladies. If they’re around here, we’ll find them.”
He didn’t say out loud what Abe was thinking and what the sheriff must have suspected: Unless Langley took them with him on the plane.
“I’ll round up some blankets and pillows. There’ll be more folks joining the search party tomorrow morning,” the sheriff continued. After noticing their muddy, sodden clothes, he added, “And I’ll have someone bring you all a fresh set of clothes—rain ponchos and socks, too. The women here, with some coaxing and a little down payment, of course, have reluctantly agreed to provide hot meals. I can’t say they are the friendliest bunch.” He looked at their drawn, dirty faces and said, “Go clean up before you eat. We’re using the ‘the Prophet’s’ bathroom—the son of a bitch. When you’re fed and rested, I’ll fill you in on what we did find.”
Abe, Will, and Hosteen sat at one end of a long table in the women’s compound. While they ate bowls of steaming beef stew and thick slices of homemade bread, Abe fired questions at Hosteen.
“What about those other two—Harris and Mackey? The ones who kidnapped the girls and Emily in the first place? Does anyone know their whereabouts?”
“We tracked down their wives and questioned each one,” Hosteen said. “They had three each, and between them, nine kids. The women were noncommittal. I don’t know if they were lying or didn’t know anything. All they said was their husbands were traveling, and they didn’t seem too sorry to see them gone. The sheriff is convinced they took off with Langley.”
Will heaved a heavy sigh. “Did they track the plane? Anybody find out where it was headed?”
“No,” said Hosteen. “The pilot didn’t file a flight plan. They could have landed at any number of small, clandestine landing fields. The FBI’s working on it. They’re looking into another religious community to see if there’s a connection.”
Abe cradled a coffee mug with both hands and looked at Hosteen. “We can’t let the bastards get away.”
“They won’t,” Hosteen said with finality. “If that girl dies, I’ll track them down and kill them.”
That night, as he bedded down on the hard surface of one of the temple’s pews, Abe stared at the ceiling. The clouds had cleared, and moonlight filtered through the tall stained-glass windows, casting eerie shadows on the prone bodies of the posse members. He kept going back over the events of the day and the sheriff’s words. While they ate, Turnbull had explained that the FBI had taken the secretary and the matron, along with four of her women associates, into their local office for further questioning. They hadn’t had any success in breaking their code of silence yet, as far as he knew. Betty Prescott was being held
at the sheriff’s office for her protection while they tried to locate her husband and son. Some of the other women at the compound admitted to having seen Emily and two younger Navajo girls, but they assumed the girls were runaways and had come voluntarily to serve their lord and master. They reported that one of the girls appeared sickly. None of them were allowed to speak to the girls or one another. Neither the Navajo men, the state troopers, nor the FBI had been able to find any trace of the missing girls, but they did find a vault with a cache of turquoise-and-silver jewelry and Native American ceremonial dress.
Will had called his mother from the secretary’s office. She broke down when she learned Emily had escaped. Bertha agreed to drive to Abe’s house and share the news with Ellen. Will told Abe his mother was already planning Emily’s homecoming celebration, so sure was she that her daughter would be found. Abe knew his friend had presented an optimistic picture to his mother. Not wanting to worry Bertha, Will had not mentioned the blood.
Abe couldn’t stop thinking about Emily. Are you hurt? Where could you have gone? Why haven’t you been able to contact anyone? Are you alive, Emily? Jesus Christ, if there is such a thing as God, if You exist at all, please help us find her.
The alienation he felt from God and his Jewish heritage was accentuated even more in this so-called place of worship.
A holy shrine dedicated to the evil nature of humanity.
Abe had already witnessed the suffering and untimely death of his first love, Sharon, and could not bear the thought of losing Emily as well. A wave of melancholy enveloped him.
He looked at Will, in the pew across the aisle. His eyes were closed, but Abe knew his friend wasn’t sleeping either. Maybe he was praying to his gods. Abe got up and carried his blanket and pillow outside. A few minutes later, Will, Hosteen, and the other Navajo men followed him. They spread their bedding on the grass under cover of a cloud-shadowed moon. Finally, one by one, the searchers dropped off to sleep.
Abducted Innocence (Emily Etcitty) Page 17