My Story (12 page)

Then my heart seemed to jump with a terrifying thought. What if he did get caught? What if he didn’t come back? He had the key to the lock on my cable. No key, no freedom. I’d be trapped forever. If he got caught and didn’t come back, what would Barzee do? She’d take off and leave me, that’s what she’d do! She’d run as far and as fast as she could go if that’s what it took to protect herself. She’d leave me there, cabled to the trees in the middle of the mountains. I would die, alone, starving, and out of water. It was a terrifying thought.

As he got ready to go down into the city, he talked excitedly to himself. For someone who was convinced the world was nothing but a den of sinners, he sure seemed to be in a good mood. Then it occurred to me that he was planning on doing a little “descending below all things” of his own. Maybe even a lot of descending. He was going down to eat and drink and party, leaving me cabled to the trees.

*

Mitchell was gone all day. It got hot. A little bit of water for lunch was all we had. The sun moved toward the western horizon. I was getting pretty good at estimating the time by watching as it marched across the tops of the trees. The mountain shadows were growing long. The sun faded behind the highest ridge line and evening came on. It started to get cooler. I started to wonder how Mitchell was going to get us any food. He didn’t have any money. Nothing he could trade for. He might be able to steal a pocketful of something, but how could he possibly get enough to feed us all? What if he came back with nothing? Then I started to get angry. He’d been gone a long, long time. What if he was down there eating and came back with nothing for the rest of us to eat?

I kept looking down the mountain, expecting him to walk out of the shadows of the trees. I listened carefully for the sound of branches snapping or the crunch of boots upon the leaves. I was getting really hungry. I couldn’t wait for his return!
Come on … come on,
I was praying inside my head.

It grew dark. We waited in the darkness. No fire. No flashlights. It grew colder. Finally, Barzee said it was time to go to bed. We climbed into the tent. I tried to sleep, but I couldn’t. I was too hungry. And I was worried now that he was not coming back. But Barzee seemed unconcerned. She knew how far it was down into the city. She knew it was a long and tiring hike. But I had also seen the way she kept her eyes toward the canyon, the way she listened too, hoping to hear the sound of his footsteps across the dry leaves.

After a while I feel asleep.

Around eleven, I felt her shaking me on the shoulder. He was back.

We scrambled out of the tent. I was so excited to see what he had brought. He pointed his flashlight at the sacks of food as he placed them on the ground, then set the flashlight on a limb so it would shine between us. He seemed very pleased with himself. The great hunter-gatherer had returned. Barzee seemed very pleased as well. Her husband had provided. What more could she ask? Now it was time for the women to stand in gratefulness and awe.

Truth was, I would have kissed the ground he walked on if he would have given me something to eat. I mean, talk about the natural animal coming out! “Where’s the food?” is all I could think about.

The grocery sacks were from an expensive boutique food store on the east side of the city. How could he possibly have afforded it? “How did you get this?” I asked.

“I ministered and plundered for it.”

“What does that mean?”

Stupid of me to ask a question. With Mitchell there were plenty of simple questions, but no such thing as a simple answer. He started to explain, telling me how in the Old Testament the Lord would lead the children of Israel into battle and then tell them that they could take whatever they had conquered as a reward for the fight. If they wanted it, they could take it. But only the Lord could designate when and where they were allowed to take from others, it could never come from man. So when you’re fighting for a righteous cause, and when the Lord commands you to take something, that is plunder. It isn’t stealing. It is different, because you’re doing it for God. And the Lord had commanded him to plunder. And obeying was how we showed faith in Him. He was only doing God’s will when he stole from the grocery store.

Okay. I got it. Plundering was stealing. I really didn’t care. All I knew was, I was hungry. But I was also curious. “What do you do when you are ministering, then?”

He smiled. This was his territory and he was happy to explain. “When I’m on the street, in a store, wherever the Lord may take me, the true disciples of Christ recognize me as their true prophet. When they do, they give me money. That is how God provided for us.”

I thought back on the first time I had seen him, that long-ago November afternoon in downtown Salt Lake City. So he called it ministering when he was panhandling (which was where he got most of the money we needed to buy food). His elaborate explanation didn’t change how I felt. He was a panhandler then and was still a beggar now.

He then explained why it had taken him so long. The ministering hadn’t gone as well as he had hoped it would. Not so many folks, apparently, recognized him as the prophet he really was. The good news was that the plundering had gone a little better. But after all the ministering and plundering, he had to go down to Pioneer Park, where some of his people liked to hang out, so he could rest awhile. Which meant he had to drink a little, smoke a little, whatever it took to gather up his strength for the long hike back up the mountain.

Turns out he had spent most of the afternoon drinking, then had to sleep it off before he had the energy to make it back to camp.

“Guess what I saw down there,” Mitchell then announced with great pride.

I didn’t really care. All I wanted was the food.

“You should see it.” He moved so close that I could smell the tang of sweat and the alcohol on his breath. “I saw my sweet Shearjashub’s face plastered all over the city. It’s in every store, on every lamppost, posters of her absolutely everywhere. And blue ribbons. Thousands of blue ribbons. And the whole time I was walking around the city, seeing Shearjashub’s sweet face looking down on me, you want to know what I thought?” He moved even closer in the darkness. “I thought to myself, I got the real McCoy. I get the most beautiful girl in the city. And that kind of makes me proud.”

I stared at him, dumbfounded, trying to take in what he had said. Posters of me. All over the city. That meant that people were still looking. They hadn’t given up. And it wasn’t just my family. Other people were looking for me too?

“Beautiful posters everywhere,” Mitchell seemed to sing, so proud of what he’d done. So proud of what he’d captured. So proud of what he owned. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. Holding it up to the light, I saw my smiling face. My name. A description and a hotline number.

My heart raced with anticipation. They were still looking for me! They hadn’t given up yet. Maybe there was still hope.

I tried not to smile as my hopelessness was chased away. Mitchell watched me carefully, his eyes filled with lust and pride. Then he pulled out the food. Cheese and crackers. More raisins, carrots, and mayonnaise. There were even a couple sacks of cookies, something that was very appealing to a fourteen-year-old girl. It seemed like a massive amount of food. I realize now that it couldn’t have fed us for more than a few days, but at the time it seemed like more food than we could eat in a year. I waited, my mouth watering, my instincts for survival kicking into high gear. I had to fight myself not to pounce on it, for I had already learned a hard lesson about patience and food. One morning, I had woken up and eaten a crust of bread before they had taken out the plates and blessed it. I had been severely chastised. Big trouble had come my way. So I knew I couldn’t eat anything until they said the prayer. But sometimes Mitchell would pray for forty minutes. No way I was going to make it that long!

Mitchell laid out the food, arranging it carefully for us to see. The last thing he pulled out was a bottle of wine. I paid it no attention. I was focused on the food. “Can we eat?” I begged.

“Oh, you’ll eat,” Mitchell answered. “In fact, you can eat whatever you want. But first we’re going to have the sacrament. We haven’t had the sacrament for too long.”

I glanced at him. A religious ceremony, up here, in the mountains, in the middle of the night, over a bunch of store-bought food … Okay. Whatever. As long as we got to eat.

He opened the wine and filled a pewter mug. The liquid reflected deep red, almost black, in the shadows of the flashlight. I smelled it and pulled away. This was the first time I had ever smelled alcohol. I remembered the label was a Merlot. He also had a bottle of white, Sauvignon Blanc.

After pouring the wine, he put the glass before him, took a slice of bread and broke off three small pieces, and placed them on a plate. He took out the scriptures and read a section that talked about the sacrament, then said a prayer. After all of this preparation, he passed me the bread. I took a piece of crust and ate it. It tasted so good. My mouth watered. I wanted more! He took the cup of wine and drank some, then passed it to Barzee, who took a drink as well. Then he passed the cup to me.

“I’m not going to drink it,” I said.

The light was dim, the night dark, but I could see that Mitchell was smiling.
Not going to drink it? We’ll see,
his dark eyes seemed to say.

“Drink it,” he said.

“Drink it,” Barzee urged impatiently. The last thing she wanted was to fuss about some wine.

“I won’t do it,” I said. “I can’t. I won’t.”

“You will,” Mitchell answered in deep anger. His voice was hard. Violent. Any good mood at the success of his plunder had been instantly wiped away. He reached over and filled the cup completely. “You will drink it all and you will drink it right now. You’re not going to eat until you do. You’re not going to move. You can’t go to bed. You do this, or you do nothing. You can sit here all night. You can sit here all day tomorrow and the next day, but you’re going to drink it, and you will.”

I stared at the cup of wine, feeling sick. He knew what he was doing. He knew how I felt about drinking. Mormons don’t drink alcohol. This was a big deal to me. It was important.

He sat there and stared. “No food. No water. No sleep. Nothing until you drink it. You will do what I say, do you understand that, Esther? Drink. Work. Think. Sex. You will do everything I say. If I tell you to drink, you’re going to drink it. Now, do you understand?”

I shivered as he spoke. There were so many reasons that I didn’t want to do it. One of them was religious. I believed that my body was a temple and I didn’t want to harm it. Part of it was the fact that I had made a promise to myself that drinking was something that I would never do. I didn’t need it. I wouldn’t do it. He was asking me to betray everything that I held dear. Finally, I was repulsed by the fact that it was bad for me. That wasn’t anything based on religion, that was just a fact.

Now, I know that might seem a bit ridiculous, considering the circumstances I was in. I was being raped every day, sometimes multiple times a day, by a dirty old man who had only showered once in two weeks. I was going days without food. My water was being rationed. I had to wash my hands in a bowl of water that was so dirty it was as brown as earth. My only shower had been a thirty-second wash-down with a single gallon of water from the stream. I was sleeping in a tent. I spent my days cabled between two trees. None of this was what you would consider a healthy lifestyle. There were lots of reasons why it was silly to worry about the unhealthy effects of drinking a glass of wine. But of all of those things that were happening to me, I couldn’t control a single one. But I thought I could control the things I ate and drank.

It turned out that I was wrong.

I sat there, defiant. He stared back at me.
As long as it takes,
the fierce look on his face seemed to say. Minutes went by, the two of us staring at each other. Five minutes. Ten.

Throughout this time, one thought kept rolling around in my mind:
Whatever it takes to survive.

I wanted to live. I wanted to get back to my family. I wanted to be rescued. And one day I might be. But he wasn’t going to let me eat or drink or sleep until I’d drunk the wine.

And so I drank it. And to this day, the smell of wine will almost instantly make me sick.

I sipped the cup and tried to pass it on, but Mitchell would have none of that. I had to drink the whole thing. And so I forced it down. I thought it tasted terrible. I gagged a bit, but finished the cup. He filled it up again. “This too!” he commanded. I forced it down as well. He filled it once again. I was forced to drink it down.

He knew that was enough. So he finally let me eat.

I dove in. I was so hungry. But the fog inside my mind was growing thicker. I was getting slower. A few minutes later, a little mouse snuck around the corner of the tent, casting a flickering shadow in the dim light. All of us turned to watch him. Mitchell picked up a piece of cheese and threw it to him. The little mouse cautiously approached it, sniffed, then picked it up and scampered back into the shadows. I felt angry. This was
our
food! I didn’t want to waste it. I didn’t want to go hungry ever again.

After eating, I felt exhausted. My belly was full of food and my blood was full of wine. I was so tired. I moved slowly toward the tent. The moment I lay down, I was asleep.

Soon after, Mitchell came in to rape me. I woke up and tried to fight him, but I was barely even conscious. I wanted desperately to stay within myself, to stay in my right mind, but it was too late, and he did what he did.

After, I lay on the mattress, feeling as low as I had ever felt. I felt terrible about the wine. I felt terrible about the rape. And as I lay there, I began to understand why some people might start to drink.

Although the days began to run together, I never lost count of them. The fourth day. The fifth. A week. The second week. I was aware of every minute, every hour, every sunrise and sunset. In some ways, it never really hit me that time was starting to pass by. Emotionally, I was in it for the long haul. Thirty years until he dies, was what I kept thinking at the time. Every day was long and painful. I was bored. I was scared. I was humiliated, homesick, and lonely.