Rustled (12 page)

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, Russ 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?”