“Yes, I suppose I am.”
“Let’s not worry about it, then,” he said, with more satisfaction than I thought appropriate. “I like it better this way anyway.”
To tell the truth, so did I. I did a little math, concluded that I was safe, since my period was due in barely a week, and relaxed. After that, the grand tour was a bit anti-climactic, but I understood why he always joined me in my bedroom when he finally showed me his. The monk-like single bed would never have accommodated our antics together.
That had been on Friday, and the next day the storm still raged, so we stayed in my bed for half the morning, playing, laughing, whispering and making love. On the Sunday, the storm broke and Russ decided it was time to have a serious talk before he called his lawyer the next day.
“Now Kitten,” he said. “I really believe it’s going to be in your best interest to call authorities in Arizona, or rather let a lawyer do it for you, and find out what’s happening down there. Will you accept my help, and my lawyer’s recommendation of someone to represent you?” I didn’t see that I had much choice, and said so.
“Good. We’re going to shoot for no charges, under the circumstances. You acted in self-defense by fleeing. That’s our story.”
“It isn’t just a story, Russ,” I complained.
“I know that, sweetheart. It was just an expression. ‘That’s our story and we’re stickin’ to it.’” Oh, he was quoting a country-western song. Striving for a bit of fun, I crooned, “And my dog done died and my pickup’s broke, beat my ass and tell me a joke.” Russ threw his head back and laughed, to my delight.
“Honey, you’d better keep your day job, because you’re never gonna make a career in country.”
Laughing with him, my retort was, “What day job?”
§
The following morning, Russ put in a call to his attorney, leaving a message when he was informed that the man was in court that morning. Though the day was brilliantly sunny, the temperatures were near zero, and I was glad to curl up in the library with my latest book. Russ had business with the hands and then would be back in to take the call from his attorney when the court broke for lunch.
Once again I reflected on his confidence, at his young age, that an important man like a lawyer would miss his lunch to give Russ a call back. However, Russ wasn’t disappointed. The phone rang at ten minutes past noon, just as we were about to step into the hands’ dining room to have lunch with them. Russ waved me on. I counted on him to give the attorney a balanced account of everything that had happened, and went obediently.
Russ came in a few minutes later, winked at me and sat down next to me. He entered the conversation easily, the hands giving him an update on the condition of the animals they had been able to gather into the nearby corrals to weather the storm by combining their warmth. Most had done fine, although the twenty head that they had been seeking when Russ found me were still missing.
After lunch, I went back to the library, and Russ went into his office to take care of other matters that he didn’t share with me. About an hour later, I was startled by the sound of a gong. I sat up quickly, in time to see Janet hurry from the kitchen toward the front door. Though I was curious, I considered it none of my business, until Janet’s agitated tone caught my ear as she called out, “Boss! You’d better come here.”
Fearing bad news about his parents, I huddled in the library, hoping against hope that Janet’s agitation had another cause, one that I couldn’t guess at. In fact, it did. Angry voices rose from the front of the house, and I heard Russ say, “How dare you accuse me of lying! Get off my property.” My blood froze at the next voice, that of my father. “You’ll regret it if you’re hiding her, mister.” Russ was silent, and I imagined his implacable look as he drew himself up to his full six-foot four. The next thing I heard was his footsteps making for the library with a firm stride. I flew up and into his arms as he entered.
“Oh, my god, Russ! That was my dad!” His face was grim, as he answered.
“I had a feeling one of them might be.”
“I have to leave! What if they come back with a search warrant?” The panic I felt bled into my voice, but Russ squeezed me tighter and spoke calmly.
“Kitten, they’re not coming back with a search warrant. Unless it’s to search the property near where they found the car. They have nothing except an empty car in a ditch. Anyone could have picked you up and driven you on your way, or you could have wandered into the arroyo and frozen to death. They can’t know which.
“I’m a relatively prominent man in these parts, and they’ll have to have more than that to get a search warrant for my house. Calm down, I’m going to call the sheriff and warn him that some hotheads may be coming his way.”
I listened as he explained to the sheriff that some people had just come by the house, talking wildly about a car in a ditch and a missing girl. Then he offered his hands’ help in searching his property near the accident. When he was finished with the call, he said, “That ought to do it. Stay here, sweetheart. I’m going to let the men know what’s going on and send a few of them out to look like they’re searching. You’ll be fine right here. Let Janet answer the door or any phone calls and sit tight.”
I marveled at how far Russ was prepared to go to protect me. Too agitated to read, I went to the kitchen to talk to Janet. She gave me a cup of tea and a plate of cookies to work on while I waited for Russ to come back.
“What’s going on?” Janet asked.
“Those were the men I’ve been expecting to chase me down,” I replied. “Including my father.”
“And the boss ran them off?” Grinning at the image of my dad and the dignified elders of the RALDS community skedaddling down the driveway, I nodded.
“Sounded like it. Is he always so commanding?”
“Oh, yes, honey. That’s why I never could understand Miss Denise leavin’ ‘im. She used to chafe somethin’ terrible when he’d tell her what she could and couldn’t do. Why she’d wanta go off and get involved with one ‘a them polygamists never made any sense. Ain’t they even worse?”
“Well, they keep women down,” I answered cautiously. “But I don’t know how badly Russ bossed his ex-wife. He seems to be confident that he knows what he’s doing, but he never came out and said I couldn’t do something. Except he won’t lend me the money to get home.”
“He’s mighty taken with you, little girl. But he is a smart man. You should listen to him, do as he says. He won’t steer ya wrong.” Why did everyone insist on calling me little girl?
When Russ returned, he was in high spirits. “The guys will lead your father and his henchmen around in circles,” he said, “and enjoy it. By the time they’re through with them, those men won’t know which way’s up.” I laughed nervously at his evident glee.
“What shall I do in the meanwhile?” I asked.
“You can go back to your reading. Or you can come into my office. I’m going to put another call through to my lawyer, see what he’s found out.” I elected to listen in on that conversation, since I didn’t think I could concentrate on reading.
Russ was put right through to his lawyer, and put him on speaker so I could listen. “There are no arrest warrants out for her, yet. I floated an idea as a hypothetical, asked the county District Attorney whether a young girl seeking escape from that place could get amnesty after borrowing a car without authorization, if in turn she could give them information about underage brides, name names and so on. I recommend that you take her to the county seat in Kingman and let her turn herself in, on condition of no charges against her.”
My eyes were wide as I contemplated this frightening scenario. Nothing good had ever happened to me in Arizona, and I couldn’t visualize it happening now. For the first time, my preference was to stay here with Russ and simply hide from the world, but he was saying that he’d take me there if his attorney would pave the way and make certain I wouldn’t be arrested on sight.
After he hung up, R
uss asked me how much I could give the authorities on the Prophet and patriarchs. He also asked if I knew that a trustee had been appointed to re-distribute the land among the families living there, since the Prophet had claimed it all for the Church and seized it with the cooperation of the Council of Twelve. No, I told him, I thought that was a neighboring sect.
We were the Reformed Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, though we maintained good relations with the other two sects, or splinter groups if the truth be known, from the mainstream LDS Church. He seemed disappointed, but brightened when I told him I knew of more than a dozen girls who had been married with or without their consent at sixteen or younger, and had been impregnated almost immediately. Yes, I could give their names, as well as those of the older men who had taken them as brides and bedded them before the age of consent. But only if I was assured that the children wouldn’t suffer as they had in East Texas when a polygamist compound was raided, and all the children scattered to foster homes, away from their families and their innocent, sometimes underage, mothers. It was heartbreaking for the innocent kids, and so wrong.
I couldn’t imagine a more traumatic event for the small kids, and wanted them kept with their mothers, even if the women were still children themselves. Russ promised to have his attorney write up an affidavit before we left, with my input, and to take it personally to the district attorney while leaving me somewhere secure until an arrangement for my freedom was negotiated. He wanted to leave the following day, Tuesday.
§
That night, Russ just held me. I was worn out from the emotions of the past week, frightened for my future, and even worried that I would never be able to reconcile with my dad. In fact, my testimony might put him behind bars. Russ promised to do what he could for him, but didn’t understand my ambivalent feelings.
“I hate what he has become, Russ, and that he has been brainwashed into believing their screwed-up religion. But, he’s still my dad. I love him, too.” To his credit, Russ didn’t try to talk me out of either of the contradictory thoughts. Instead, he rocked me in his arms and crooned a tuneless lullaby, until I fell asleep.
The following morning, Russ woke me at six and rushed me out of bed. “Hurry and grab some things for about a week. If I have anything to say about it, it will be shorter, but might as well be prepared.”
I selected several pairs of jeans, underwear, some shirts, and one nice dress and a matching pair of pumps that I would wear for my interview with the district attorney, assuming it happened. Russ had found a nice suitcase for me, with a smaller matching toiletries case, into which we packed everything.
He repeated the process in his room, and then we were in a nice Lexus SUV I hadn’t seen before, heading toward Rawlins and his attorney’s office before retracing the route I had taken from Bethel City, at least as far as Salt Lake City. Russ thought we might go down I15 to St. George instead of taking the older and slower US 6 and 50 down the eastern side of the state, which I had driven north on my flight.
Russ introduced me to his attorney, a pleasant older man who seemed unaccountably nervous around Russ. Russ treated him with respect, though, and asked him to draw up the affidavit. When I had recounted my history and why I ran away, he led me through remembering a list of about fifteen girls, some now women, who had been married in the eyes of the Church at sixteen or younger, the men whose households they had joined, and their children’s names and ages as far as I could remember. It was easier than I thought.
When we were done, the secretary typed it up and gave us a printout as well as the file on a flash drive. Then we headed out, hoping to make at least Park City by lunch time. There weren’t many choices after Rock Springs, which we would reach too early for lunch.
The almost straight, flat road across Wyoming was a less boring prospect with Russ to talk to. I plied him with questions about his childhood, entertained by his wild tales. Not that I believed them, but they were entertaining, at least. I had nothing so fun to tell him, but he seemed to want to know about my teen years, the ‘wild child’ years as I called them.
Mom and Dad divorced when I was thirteen, after he joined the Church. Mom hated moving to Bethel City and had a hissy fit when Dad started talking about plural marriage. When he tried to put his foot down, she left, taking me with her. I thought it would be fine; the vibe in Bethel City was weird in the extreme, with the boys and young men afraid to talk to me, but older men sizing me up like a heifer. I had a nice figure already, and my curly red hair was beginning to get long because Dad had asked me not to cut it.
But Mom put an end to that time by moving to St. Louis where her brother had settled after getting out of the Army. Since the attention from men twice my age or more creeped me out, I was happy enough to be away from there.
I did miss my dad, though. I had always been a Daddy’s girl, and now there was no one to spoil me and coddle me. Mom was busy trying to make a living with no real skills, and I got left alone for hours after school. My uncle was a strict disciplinarian with my cousins, who were younger than I was, and tried to exert the same discipline on me. I chafed under his interference.
I began to stay away from home, and by the time I was fifteen, had succumbed to the charms of a few of the boys from high school, juniors and seniors who must have spread the word that I could be had. I got a bit of a reputation, that eventually found its way back to my mom, who freaked out when she caught me. By this time, I was sixteen and had a birthday coming soon, so she sent me to Dad to ‘straighten me out’. And the rest Russ already knew.
I suppose I should have been embarrassed to recount this tawdry journey, but Russ kept asking me questions, and laughing where I was trying to be funny. Then he started teasing me about what I had and hadn’t done sexually. It was kind of a turn-on, talking about things like that with a man I had every reason to believe would teach me the things I didn’t know, hopefully tonight. At the same time, it made me feel seventeen again, instead of twenty. My inexperience was another thing that kept me thinking Russ would tire of me.
We passed through Rock Springs, stopping for gas and a restroom break, and Russ bought out huge cinnamon rolls and hot coffee. I didn’t know if I’d like coffee…hadn’t as a teen, but Russ insisted that cinnamon rolls required coffee to wash them down, so I diluted mine with sugar and creamer until it was nearly white, with Russ making fun of me.
If it hadn’t been for the scary meeting at the other end, I knew this would be the most fun I had ever had. I was still full of cinnamon roll washed down with luke-warm coffee-flavored creamer when we reached the exit to Park City. Russ asked if I wanted to eat there, and I told him Salt Lake would be better.
“Someday I’ll bring you skiing here,” he remarked. “Do you like to ski?”
Answering truthfully that I had never skied in my life, I was more interested in the ‘someday’ part of that remark. How much longer was ‘someday’? Would I still be with him in a week? A month? Dare I contemplate a year? It made me go quiet, and Russ looked over at me with concern.
“Are you okay, Kitten?”
“Yes, just thinking,” I replied.
“How many times do I have to tell you…”
“That will get you in trouble?” I finished his sentence with him. We both laughed, but I was still thinking.
§
We got to Salt Lake and stopped at a chain restaurant where I had what passed for Chinese food for the first time. Russ wasn’t impressed, and said so, but I thought it was delicious. When we were done, he reached for my hand.
“Kitten, the drive down the west side of Utah is beautiful, and I’m happy to drive it with you. But, if you want to get this over with, we could grab a plane to St. George and rent a car there for the rest of the trip. Which would you prefer?”
My one and only plane ride in my life had taken me from St. Louis to St. George and my father’s keeping. It wasn’t an experience I was interested in repeating, so we decided to drive. It was now nearly two
, and the drive to St. George would take four hours, with another three hours on to Kingman. Russ said if it was all the same to me, he’d like to show me a little of Salt Lake and finish our trip tomorrow, when we were fresh. That suited me fine; I wasn’t at all eager to enter the lion’s den.
Russ opened his laptop to see what might be fun to do here tonight. The mid-October afternoon was absolutely perfect, much warmer than Wyoming had been. We decided to walk around Temple Square and Russ wanted to take me shopping for some clothes of my own. Later, he had a surprise, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was.
I have to admit, I went crazy in ZCMI. Russ followed me, watching carefully what I touched, what I looked at with longing. Then he took me to a sales woman and told her to put me in a dressing room and have me try several things that he liked among those I had appeared interested in.
The fabrics were divine, soft, silky dresses that draped in such a way that my curves were emphasized, while my waist looked too tiny to be real in the mirror . Each outfit had to be tried on, a pair of shoes brought to complement it, and the look shown to Russ, who sat like a king and signaled which ones he liked. I thought we were just playing, but after the first session, at ZCMI, we had so many shopping bags that I wondered where I was going to put the clothes in my small suitcase.
When he ushered me into Macy’s, I told Russ that it was too much, and I didn’t want to do it again. He continued into the store without a word, purchased a matched set of luggage that would have accommodated a wardrobe for the Queen of England, and grinned at me unrepentantly when I scolded him. Then we visited the lingerie department, where he bought everything a girl’s heart could desire, including bras that fit me. At last, there would be no more stuffing myself into Denise’s smaller cups.
We checked into a nice downtown hotel, where he told me that the clothes I was wearing would be perfect for our evening. In keeping with the jeans and flannel shirt, he took me to a barbecue place for dinner, where there were buckets of peanuts on the tables, and shells on the floor. The food was delicious.
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