Down from the Mountain (16 page)

Twenty-Five

Rachel is late picking me up. Really late. I have looked at every jewelry magazine in Beads Galore for the last two hours, and she’s still not here. Not that I’ve been paying any attention to the magazines. I have way too much on my mind for that. What I learned about my father is foremost on my mind. He’s tried to find me for years. Mother must have lied when she said he never sent a letter or tried to call.

I lock myself in the store bathroom for the third time since I’ve been in the store. The privacy is an amazing luxury that I cherish, almost as much as the article that I read over and over. When we narrowed the search to Charles Wells in Chicago, up popped an article from the
Chicago Tribune
.

Four-Year Search For Missing Daughter Yields Nothing

University of Chicago professor Charles Wells last saw his daughter, Lily, four years ago on her fifth birthday. In what Wells describes as a “contentious divorce,” he and former wife, Margaret (Lang), were granted shared legal custody. Mrs. Wells was to maintain physical custody for the next two years while Dr. Wells took a sabbatical to do research in China.

“My former wife and I agreed that I could speak with Lily weekly while I was in China, but when I made those calls, she never once allowed me to speak with my daughter. I sent letters weekly as well. I have no idea if my daughter ever received them.”

Wells reports that the phone was disconnected the third month he was away. At the time Wells was convinced that his wife changed the number to a private one out of spite but remained confident that his ex-wife had remained in the Hyde Park home.

“That’s when I made the biggest mistake of my life. Instead of returning home immediately, I redoubled my efforts to complete the research early. I returned after thirteen months to find that the house with all of the furniture had been sold in a cash deal and that Lily was long gone with her mother.”

Wells reports that he instantly began a search but that no one, not neighbors or friends, had information about his ex-wife’s or daughter’s whereabouts.

I jump when I hear a knock on the bathroom door, sure that it’s Rachel at last. “Just a minute,” I say. I fold the article in quarters, hug it against my heart, and hide it in my skirt, next to my library card.

When I leave the bathroom, a lady holding the hand of a very uncomfortable-looking little girl rushes her inside.

“I’m sorry I took so long,” I say.

“Don’t worry about it,” the lady says. “Small bladders, you know.”

I decide to leave the store and sit on the little bench two stores down. I take out the copy and finish reading it. The rest of the article describes Dad’s efforts to find me through a detective, a website, an email address, and a phone number. There’s a picture of Mother and another of me blowing out candles on my birthday cake. I looked adorable back then—certainly not the tall, nearly bald, almost fifteen-year-old that I am now. My heart sinks. Maybe he wouldn’t like the me that I am now.

But maybe he’d want me and Mother too. Maybe he’d forgive her for her lies and we could be a family. I picture the three of us having lunch in a restaurant. We’re laughing and having a great time.

It’s like I’ve been under some kind of spell all these years and am just now waking up. I should be furious with Mother for lying to me, but I’m too worried about her to be mad.

Part of me thinks,
Of course he loves me. Of course he wants me in his life
. I had to bury that hope deep inside all these years because it wasn’t safe to hope, not safe to love someone I was told was evil. But I don’t think I ever really closed the door to him. It never made sense that he would go from adoring me to nothing.

It’s a little after five p.m., and Rachel’s still not here. Something is wrong.

I decide to walk the two short blocks to the parking lot Rachel would most likely use since there’s never any street parking. There’s a van parked near the front that looks like ours, but I don’t see Rachel. Maybe we walked past each other and now she’s at the bead store. But something tells me to check the van out first.

As I approach, I have no question that it is ours because of the distinctive dent on the driver’s side that Ezekiel never got fixed. We were never told how it happened.

On the front seat is a note with my name on it. She left me a note? My heart begins to race. Surprisingly the door is unlocked. Even before I read the note I know. Rachel is gone. My shaky hands make it harder to read her writing.

Eva,

I’m sorry. I can’t go back. I just can’t. Ezekiel may try to look for me. He shouldn’t. I’ll be long gone by the time he realizes that I’m missing.

I love you and everyone at Righteous Path. But this is what I have to do. I’m so sorry to leave you to make it home yourself, but I know how capable you are and that you’ll be fine.

Love, Rachel

My tears splatter the ink on the note, but I don’t care. Her note is almost illegible by the time I crumple it into a little ball and throw it on the passenger seat.

Reality sets in slowly. Rachel ran away. She’s not coming back. She left me! She left Ezekiel, and she said she loved him. Now I have to make it back to Righteous Path by myself. Now I have to face Ezekiel alone. How could she do this to me? I would never have left her alone like this.

In spite of how angry I am at her, I miss her already and I’m a little awed that she’s made herself free. Rachel is free! She’s free of Ezekiel telling us what to think and feel and act. What to believe. She can do whatever, be whatever, believe whatever she wants now.

Her reaction to the gun really was because she disagreed with Righteous Path having guns. She should have told me. She should have trusted me.

And something else—her bag was so full and she wouldn’t let me go through it.

It’s almost dark. The only time I’ve driven in the dark was that time Rachel was so sick, and it was light out until just before Grand Hill. I don’t have a driver’s license. If I get stopped by a cop—the very idea sends shivers down my spine—he’d lock me up and I’d be forced to tell him about Righteous Path. And it would be my fault when the police were gunned down by everyone.

“You can leave any time,” Trevor had said to me.

I
could
leave. I could go back into the library and borrow the phone again to call Trevor. But then I’d end up living with a stranger and I couldn’t help my mother. I could call my dad too, but then everything would change, and again, I’d be abandoning Mother Martha.

I consider calling Ezekiel. That way he might come and get me, and I wouldn’t have to take the treacherous journey back up the mountain by myself. But he’d bring other members to start searching for Rachel, and then she wouldn’t be free. She might even end up dead.

No matter how I look at it, the conclusion is the same: I have to go back. I have to be there for Mother. I may not be able to do a thing to help her, but at least I’ll be with her and she’ll know I care.

The keys are tucked under the seat, just as I suspected they’d be. I fiddle around with the buttons and, after three or four tries, manage to find the lights.

As I pull out of the parking lot, I notice that the van clock reads 5:16. Everyone will be sitting in the dining room right now. They’ll all be anxious because no one knows where Rachel and I are. Maybe, if Ezekiel is upset enough, he’ll make everyone skip dinner and pray in the chapel until we’re home safely. Jacob will surely be on horseback near the entrance to the compound so that he can signal everyone as soon as he sees the van.

The drive home is every bit as hard as I imagined. Thankfully, a man in a pickup truck pulls in front of me on the west side of Boulder. His lights give me more light and I am able to literally follow in his tracks up the mountain. But when I’m about halfway home, he turns into a drive and I’m suddenly on my own.

It’s actually harder than the last time I drove this because there’s much more ice. I clutch the steering wheel at every curve, and when my headlights shine on a steep drop, I’m careful not to look at anything but the road ahead.

My attention is completely on the road except for brief moments when I worry about how Ezekiel will react. He’ll be shocked about Rachel and probably crushed. But he’ll also be angry with me, especially if he realizes that we broke the rule of two by doing our chores separately.

I’m only going about twenty miles an hour when I take an icy curve and the van starts sliding. I slam on the brakes, forgetting I’m not supposed to do that, and the van spins, getting closer and closer to the drop-off.
God save me! I’ll follow your will, I’ll do anything, but please save me.

The van stops. I’m turned in the opposite direction from the one I was traveling, but for the moment, I’m safe.

It’s probably ten minutes before I’m able to move, and then I only do because a car can’t get by. The owner of that vehicle gets out and guides my turn.

“I’m going to Grand Hill,” he says. “How about you?”

“A little farther,” I say.

“Do you want me to follow you or drive ahead of you? I’ll do whatever is most helpful.”

“Oh, thank you,” I say. “Please drive ahead of me.”

“Okay, good luck!” he says.

Here it is again. Another so-called heathen acting out of kindness.

I drive very slowly and manage to make it, first to Grand Hill, where I wave good-bye to the good man, and finally to the ranch. But I take little comfort because of what I know will come next.

The minute I see the property, I see Jacob on horseback. He sits rod-straight, shoots the 42-caliber pistol once in the air to let everyone know that I’m home, and then approaches the car. He motions me to roll down the window and I do.

“Where’s Rachel?” he barks.

It seems ridiculous for him to talk to me this way, like he’s a soldier for God who is going to find and destroy all that is evil.

“She’s not here,” I say. I don’t owe him an explanation.

“Where’s Rachel?” he screams louder.

I hit the gas pedal and swerve around him. I drive straight toward Ezekiel and everyone else gathered in the common area. The way Ezekiel looks surprises me. He seems a little hunched over and tired.

I know that my best course of action is to avoid being defensive. “I’m home. I’m finally home,” I say as I get out of the van. My attitude seems to throw Ezekiel off balance for a minute.

“Where have you been? Where’s Rachel? What happened?” Ezekiel shoots the questions, leaving no time for me to respond.

I hand him the crumpled note Rachel left for me.

“This isn’t for me. She wrote this note to you. This is all blurred like it got wet. I can’t even read it.” His voice sounds puzzled, hurt. “Why? Why would she do this?”

He looks at the note. Suddenly his face contorts and his shock turns into rage. He steps within inches of me. “How did this happen?”

“I don’t know,” I say.

“Where were you when she left?”

A whimper from the back of the group draws everyone’s attention to Mother Martha. She’s leaning against the door to the dining room. Under the stark light from the single bulb above her head, she looks deathly white; even her lips are pale. Esther and Alice each take an arm and help her inside. Ezekiel follows them into the dining room where they help Mother into the closest chair.

Everyone else remains where they are standing, but the door is wide open and we can hear Ezekiel ask Mother Martha if she’s in labor. His voice is gentle and loving, and I am washed in guilt because I want so badly to leave him.

“I don’t think so,” she says. “I’m just overwrought. Rachel has left us. But, thank God, Eva is safe and remains righteous.”

Ezekiel tells Mother Esther to bring Mother Martha some tea, and she toddles off to the kitchen. He whispers something in Mother Martha’s ear. Whatever it is, the words make her eyes well up with tears.

“To the chapel,” he commands, gesturing to the rest of us.

I bite the insides of my mouth. His interrogations could break anybody down.

“Brother Paul and I could go look for Rachel,” Jacob offers on the way into the chapel. But Ezekiel holds up a hand in dismissal.

This surprises me. I had expected him to start looking immediately. But since it’s been several hours, maybe he has no idea where to begin.

He fires questions at me, and I lie my way through them. I say that Rachel and I had just gotten to Costco when she said she had to go to the bathroom. We were in a hurry so I continued picking out produce instead of going with her. I say I got so absorbed in getting the stuff on the list that it took me fifteen minutes or so before I realized that she hadn’t returned. I say that even then I figured she was just in a different section of the store. I looked and looked for her, I say, and after an hour or so, I realized she was gone. I left when I couldn’t find her.

“You left without the groceries?”

“Yes. She had the money.” Immediately I realize my mistake. I never checked the back of the vehicle to see if there were groceries. I assumed Rachel never went to Costco, that she just left the note and took off. The fear in my eyes must show because Ezekiel looks at me suspiciously. He directs Brother Paul to look in the van.

My heart beats practically out of my chest while waiting for Brother Paul to return. Ezekiel paces back and forth until Brother Paul announces that there are no groceries.

I’m weak with relief.

“So she not only left me, she stole money from me as well,” Ezekiel says bitterly.

The word “me” shoots fire through my body. “She stole money from
me
,” he said. Never mind that the cupboards will be bare for a week and every one of us will go hungry—even the little kids and Mother Martha. Ezekiel sees it as an offense against him, and only him. Rachel has hurt his pride, pride that would be punished if anyone else showed it.

“You had no right to let her go to the restroom by herself,” Ezekiel barks. My eye catches Annie’s. She looks away. My throat tightens with unshed tears.

When I look back up at Ezekiel, I see that he is clearly in a rage. The next thing I know, my head is hitting the base of the altar and the pain above my right eye is so sharp I can barely breathe.