by Rose Beecham
“Wake up.” Thankful shook her. “You have to come with me.”
“Come? Where?”
Loudly, Thankful said, “We are going to a different room where we will not be in the way. Can’t you see, Sister, that there are more important things going on than your childbirth?”
Summer blinked and gazed over toward the window where several men stood with Fawn Dew. All around them, on the floor, rifles were stacked.
Fawn Dew turned and said, “Good idea. You can put her in Naoma’s room until Nathaniel is ready to deal with her.”
“Thank you, Sister.” Thankful slid her arms beneath Summer’s shoulders and lifted her. “Swing your legs over and get up.”
“I can’t.” She had barely uttered the protest when Thankful slapped her face, earning an approving look from Fawn Dew.
Thankful’s low, urgent voice hissed in Summer’s ear. “Listen to me. Once all this shooting is over, they are going to exorcise you to get rid of your demons, then cut your throat. You need to come with me now or you will die and so will your baby.”
As Summer started to speak, Thankful placed a washcloth over her mouth and hauled her to her feet. Arms through Summer’s, she half dragged her from the room and they shuffled down the hall until they reached the walkway that led to some half-built rooms at the back of the house. Thankful rushed Summer even faster along the unfinished wood floor until they came to a room at the far end, blocked off by a large timber board. Only then did Thankful release her and ease her to the floor.
Gasping for breath, Summer wailed, “What are you doing?”
“Be quiet,” Thankful said.
With a stifled grunt, she lifted the large board and propped it against the wall, then she hurriedly pulled Summer inside and deposited her on the floor. The room was without drywall or glass panes in the windows, and in the corner nearest the window frame, Thankful’s children sat in a tight little knot, their arms around one another, big frightened eyes gazing from pale faces. Fawn Dew’s son, Jareph, peered out from behind the oldest girl.
After Thankful had dragged the board in front of the doorway once more, she summoned a couple of the children, saying, “Each of you pick up a leg and I’ll take the other end.” Between them they carried Summer to a quilt on the floor below the window.
Summer felt strangely cold and her heart was beating so fast she thought she was going to pass out. “Why are the children here?” she asked.
“Because we’re all leaving.”
“What?” Fear clamped her throat together.
“You heard me. I’m not letting our husband kill my children so he can get his picture in the newspaper.”
Shaking violently, Summer grabbed Thankful’s skirt. “No! We can’t. We will be cast out. We will reap eternal damnation.”
Thankful dropped to her knees and seized Summer by the shoulders. “I trust in the Heavenly Father, and he sent me a vision last night. In it, my children and I were safe and I saw this house. It was lifted up and sitting in the palm of the devil’s hand.”
“What if that’s a false vision? What if it’s Satan, testing your faith?”
Thankful brushed tears away. “What’s happening here is not about faith. I’ve taken all I’m going to take, Summer. This is just too much.”
“They’ll come after us. We’ll never get out of here. Remember what they did to Diantha?”
“Do you think God wants you dead?” Thankful shook Summer hard and gestured toward her kids. “Do you think he wants them dead? They’re just babies.”
“I don’t know.”
“He doesn’t. And that’s why He is going to lead us out of here.”
“I can’t do this. I’m in so much pain.” Summer buried her face in Thankful’s large bosom. “Go without me. I’ll only hold you back.”
“You’re coming.” Thankful let go of Summer and moved to the window, standing to one side and peering out. “I think they’re going to be shooting out front for a while. The prophet wants them to keep the government agents pinned down until the Colorado City militia gets here.”
“Is this Armageddon?” Summer asked, stunned by her bad luck.
Of all the days to have been found lacking, why did it have to be the day of Christ’s return? There was still time for her to repent and be purified. The prophet said if a women told her priesthood head—her husband—everything, and he forgave them and punished them as he saw fit, they would be resurrected and live forever as his celestial wife on a far-off planet.
Thankful snorted. “Let me tell you something. If the prophet says this is going to be the last day, then we know for sure it isn’t, since that’s one prediction those idiots get wrong every time.”
Summer did not get a chance to react to this heresy. She clutched her lower body and moaned in pain as a powerful contraction tore through her.
Thankful squatted next to her and took her hand, signaling the children to draw closer. Once everyone was in a tight huddle, she said, “Listen carefully. As soon as I tell you, we’re going out that window and we’re running. There’s a white minivan not too far from the house. Run to it and hide behind it. Everyone understand?” Thankful tapped her oldest daughter on the shoulder and said, “You’re in charge of Jareph.”
“Are we going to live among the gentiles?” The girl seemed mortified.
“We can worry about that later. Right now, all I want you to do is get to the white van. Okay?”
The children nodded and Thankful hugged each one. “I love you very much, and one day all of you will tell your children about this,” she said. “Now let’s pray.”
*
If anyone wanted to know where the middle of nowhere was, this was it, Chastity thought. No one gets to Hildale and Colorado City by accident. It’s not on the way to some bigger, better place, unless you wanted to count heaven like the locals did.
This was her second visit in as many weeks. She’d hired an attorney the day after the Flemings took Adeline, paying a lot of money to find out that there was nothing she could do. Adeline was only fourteen. If Chastity wanted guardianship she would have to go before a judge and prove her sister and brother-in-law were unfit parents. If she took Adeline against their wishes, she would be breaking the law, no matter what her niece wanted. It went without saying that an arrest would not help her cause.
The attorney had advised her to wait until Adeline was forced into the marriage, then report the case to Child Services so she could be legally removed from her home. She would have to testify against all the adults involved. He didn’t think much of their chances. The authorities in Utah had spent fifty years ignoring the activities of their polygamist hatchlings.
Frustrated, Chastity drove to Hildale with all her savings—twenty thousand dollars—in a locked briefcase. This she’d offered to Tucker in exchange for legal guardianship of Adeline. All he and Vonda had to do was sign the papers she’d brought with her.
She could tell he was tempted, but in the end he backed off, claiming the marriage was God’s will. The One Mighty and Strong had spoken and Tucker had to show his allegiance. Adeline had already been taken to the home of her chosen husband. Tucker wouldn’t give the groom’s name and after Vonda had refused to see her, Chastity had returned home, afraid to be gone too long in case Adeline tried to contact her.
She shifted in her seat, impatient with the cars in front of her. Everyone had slowed down to drive through the town of Hurricane, a small hamlet that felt like the last outpost of modern civilization before the steep two-lane highway overshadowed by the cliffs of Canaan Mountain. The route was like a passage to another world, another time. Chastity had never been on drugs but she thought it probably felt like this—weirdly disorienting. Every time she came here she worried that she might somehow be sucked into the vortex of irrationality and doomsday thinking that kept her sister blindly obedient to an amoral dictator.
It astounded her that no one seemed to reevaluate their beliefs in the face of reality, as she had after
her divorce. For as long as she could remember, Tucker and Vonda had cited the immortality of the last prophet, Rulon Jeffs, as proof that theirs was the one true faith. Jeffs had claimed not only that he would he never die, but he would live to see the return of Christ. He had picked various dates for the lifting up, none of which came to pass. Undeterred, he gathered his flock in a field in the year 2000 to await the parting of the clouds. When Jesus stood them up yet again, Jeffs blamed lack of faith, the usual explanation for prophecies that failed to transpire. He died two years later, not immortal after all.
Chastity could not understand how anyone could still believe the various FLDS prophets were the mouthpieces of God when none had turned out to be immortal and their most lofty prophecies were nonevents. Was the Heavenly Father really so quixotic and petty-minded that He would plan to end the world, inform His elect of the date and time, then change His mind on the day because a few individuals didn’t feel that burning in the bosom? It made no sense.
She had tried to have this discussion with Vonda, pointing out that Jeffs was just another emperor with no clothes. But her sister clung to the fairy tale that justified her painful existence. The prophet had to be right and her beliefs had to be true or that made her a gullible fool who had thrown her life away on a scam. Impossible. Chastity supposed ego had to play a role in such determined self-deceit. True believers would rather ignore reality than accept they were wrong. Some people called this “having the courage of their convictions.” Chastity thought it was cowardice. How any mother could sell her own children down the river for the sake of a senseless and evil mutation of religion was beyond her comprehension.
Hildale and Colorado City loomed ahead and Chastity slowed down to take in the depressing sight of the strangely barnlike half-built plywood houses and unpaved streets, and the dull sienna pall that hung over the town from the wood-burning stoves. High above this, plumes of black smoke rose from the asphalt plant that employed the last vestige of child labor in the country.
She would never change Vonda’s mind, she thought sadly. Obeying rules and not thinking for herself was easier than having to take full responsibility for her life. Cults counted on people like her, and certainly the FLDS would disintegrate if women began to question their indoctrination. That’s why they pulled girls out of school before eighth grade, if they ever went at all, and prevented their members having radio, TV, the Internet, and any books other than scripture and doctrine.
It was amazing that Adeline had still had a functioning mind at eleven, she reflected. She doubted that her niece would have run away had she not known there was a bigger world out there, one that offered so much more than the circumscribed existence FLDS girls endured. Adeline knew she would not be denied salvation simply because she chose a different path from her mother. She had discovered that her dreams and hopes were nourished by the so-called Babylon her church decried, and she’d discovered how it felt to be happy. She would never surrender that willingly.
It had taken Chastity herself a long time to accept that the sky would not fall if she stopped going to temple, to step back from the beliefs she took for granted and examine them for what they were—religion. No better or worse than any other, but no substitute for life in the real world with all its joys, risks, and uncertainties. She could never go back, and she knew it would be the same for Adeline.
Once in Colorado City, she headed for the supermarket. Of all the places in town, this was virtually a male-free zone and the one where she would be most likely to overhear useful gossip. A runaway wife was hot news, and if it had reached anyone in the town, the women shopping for groceries would be talking about it. Chastity straightened her headscarf and practiced the look of dopey innocence Vonda wore perpetually. Lowering her head, she followed a woman through the entrance doors, picked up a shopping basket, and wandered past bulk containers of beans and dried apple.
Signs around the walls advertised fresh milk and various nutritional aid programs for women and children. Chastity paused at a vast assortment of lubricant jellies and pregnancy testing kits and listened carefully to a quiet conversation between two other women. As they spoke and herded their children, she lifted tubes of cream and read the ingredients as if engrossed.
“…I haven’t heard anything since yesterday,” one of the woman said.
“They’ll find her. Stupid girl.”
Chastity did not allow her head to pop up. Instead she dropped a pregnancy test into her basket, moved a pace closer to the women, and said in the most timorous tone she could muster, “My cousin says she ran off with a boy.”
The women stared at her for a moment and the older of the two said, “I haven’t seen you at a meeting.”
Chastity smiled guilelessly. “I came down from Bountiful with my husband only a few weeks ago, just before the prophet cancelled Sunday meetings.”
Their faces lifted. The younger one said, “Welcome. Will you be staying?”
“With the prophet’s permission.”
“Who are you visiting with?”
“Tucker Fleming,” Chastity lied. “His second wife is my double-cousin.” Lowering her voice to a fretful whisper, she added, “It’s difficult there right now…with the trouble. That girl’s embarrassed the whole family.”
This earnest disclosure was accorded sage nods. Eyes glinting, the older woman said, “My husband is going this morning to join the search.”
“I’m on my way over there now with some extra food.” Chastity heaved a sigh. “I’ll have to go back and ask my cousin for directions again. I don’t know this area.”
“Oh, Gathering for Zion is easy to find,” the older woman said. “Once you get through Rapture, there’s a right turn onto a one-lane road. The ranch is about two miles along. You can’t miss it. Just look for the sign.”
Chastity smiled. “Thank you. I’m sure I’ll see you both when meetings begin again.”
She headed for the counter where a notice at the register instructed shoppers to have their welfare cards ready. She paid in cash and brushed past a group of men gathered around a pickup truck not far from where she’d parked. Acting like she was fumbling around for her keys, she stopped a few feet away and tuned in to the raised voices.
“Only way past the roadblocks is on foot through the canyon,” one man said. “The area is swarming with the servants of Lucifer.”
“The day is upon us,” cried another.
“What does Uncle Elias say?” asked a young man carrying a shotgun.
“The prophet has spoken with God,” a man with a bushy salt and pepper beard answered. “We are commanded to organize. Your wives and children must remain in the home. Assemble every able-bodied man. This is the moment we have been awaiting. We will seize back the kingdom of God and avenge the blood of the prophets.”
No wonder laughter was forbidden for FLDS women, Chastity thought. If she had to listen to baloney like that all the time, she’d crack up. Head lowered, she moved past the men and got into her minivan. When she pulled away from the curb, she let her tires spin long enough to throw a cloud of red dust over the zealots.
*
Adeline buried herself in the cool sand in the shadow created by a north facing overhang in the canyon wall. It was slightly damp there, the rock wall at least thirty degrees cooler than the air. When you were stuck in a dangerous environment, the thing to do was watch how wildlife behaved. Small mammals didn’t try to move, they sought shadows, content to wait out the extreme heat in the middle of the day. To survive, Adeline knew she would have to do the same thing.
She spat the pebble she’d been sucking and took a small sip of water, then she gazed across the shimmering red desert to the Gathering for Zion Ranch and wished she’d stolen binoculars while she was in the house. There was no sign of a search party and she was beginning to think she’d made a terrible mistake leaving Daniel alone in the cave. She’d been traveling west, toward the area where they’d last seen the searchers, convinced they would not return to gr
ound already covered.
While she’d been hiking that morning, she’d seen helicopters land near the compound and she kept wondering when the police would start fanning out. She was so hungry and thirsty she almost wanted them to find her. Naoma could whip her all she wanted; she would escape again. She stared at the pale buildings glittering in the distance, still puzzled over the gunfire.
What if the police weren’t there because of her and Daniel? What if something else was going on? They would have phones. Maybe she could steal one while they weren’t looking. Adeline checked the level in her water bottle. She could make it to the ranch in about two hours if she started now. And if everyone was cooped up indoors because the police were parked outside, no one would notice her, and even if they did, she looked like a boy now.
The more she thought about it, the more it seemed like a good idea. Adeline was sure she didn’t have sunstroke or such bad dehydration her mind was affected and she was making a stupid decision. She felt okay. Taking her time, she wriggled back out of her damp sanctuary and scrambled to her feet. She was going to do it. She would find a phone, call Aunt Chastity, and she and Daniel would be saved.
Chapter Sixteen
“Holy cow!” Gossett swung around as a sleek red motorcycle emerged from the scrub northwest of their position. Ignoring the swarm of agents in assault gear who converged on it, the driver bounced up the steep slope and halted behind the police vehicles.
“Hold your fire,” Farrell commanded, as if anyone was doing more than stare in shock at the sight of a plyg woman, in Little House on the Prairie drag, climbing off a trail bike. She kicked out the side stand, propping the bike like she did it in her sleep.
“It’s one of them,” Gossett said as the young woman removed her helmet, hitched up her skirt, and strode purposefully past her stupefied audience, making a beeline for Farrell.
“Perhaps they’ve sent an emissary,” Farrell murmured.