Mitchell made me scrape off the nail polish that Mary Katherine had painted on my toes a few days before I had been captured. There wasn’t much left, but he didn’t want to take any chances. While I scraped the last of the blue polish off, he and Barzee worked together to sew veils that could be buttoned onto the sides of our headdresses. The veils were made of thick, white material and reached from just below our eyes to halfway down our necks, leaving very little of our faces exposed. After they were finished, Mitchell made me put the veil on so he could inspect me. Nodding in approval, he turned and started down the hill.
We made our way down the side of the mountain until we got to the trail, then turned west and started hiking down the canyon. Mitchell led the way, his two green sacks tied across his back. I followed immediately behind him. Barzee walked right behind me. My captors were never more than a few feet away. So close that I could smell them. So close that I could always hear them breathing. So close that, even if I had gathered up the courage, I could not have run away. It was hot, the sun beating through the branches on the trees. I felt like I was suffocating, the thick veil making it very hard to breathe. The heavy robe swished around my feet, kicking up dust that stuck to my clothes. The farther down we hiked, the clearer the trail became.
Crossing over two outcroppings of fractured rocks, Mitchell suddenly turned to the right. “Stay!” he commanded. Climbing to the top of a dirt embankment, he pushed a couple branches out of the way, revealing the “shoe tree.” Hidden in a hole in the tree was a pair of sandals for him and a pair for Barzee. (Prophets didn’t wander around in hiking boots, don’t you know. They had to wear sandals to match their robes.) He and Barzee put on their prophet shoes, then he gave me Barzee’s hiking boots and commanded me to put them on. Hiding his boots in the hollow tree, he covered the opening with the rotten sticks and we headed down again.
The canyon began to open up and the trail became well used and clear. Soon it intersected with the main path that ran along the foothills at the bottom of the canyon. This was Dry Creek, a very popular jogging and biking trail. We turned left and kept on walking. Parts of Salt Lake City came into view. My heart jumped in my throat. I was less than a mile from my home! Around a bend in the trail, a jogger emerged, running right toward me. Look at me! I was screaming in my mind. Look at me! Don’t you recognize me? Don’t you know who I am? Of course he didn’t. He could only see my eyes. To him, we were just a couple of odd ducks dressed in old gray robes and veils. Not the kind of thing one expected to see on the mountain trail, but the scene didn’t scream kidnapping! by any means.
The jogger drew closer. I stared at him, never taking my eyes off his face. Look at me! I kept praying in my head. Think about what you’re seeing! How many times have you seen this? Two women walking on a trail in Salt Lake City, their faces covered with veils. Look at me. Think about this! Look into my eyes!
The jogger passed within a few feet of me then moved on, his attention always focused on the trail.
I felt myself deflate, the hope seeping out of my body.
A biker then emerged a little farther down the trail. Look at me! I screamed in my mind again. But he didn’t. He kept his head down. The only time he even seemed to notice me was when he glanced up to maneuver his bike around us as he passed. He was so close I could have touched him as he rode by. But of course he didn’t recognize me. I was nothing but a walking sheet and two eyes above a veil.
Up till that point, I’d had this fantasy that someone was going to see me and immediately scream out my name. Someone was going to rescue me. A cop was going to recognize me and come over and arrest Mitchell without me even saying anything. But I realized now that wasn’t going to happen. No one was going to recognize me. No one was going to stop and talk to me. I might as well have been chained up back at camp as walking around, hidden underneath the veil.
As I looked at my captors, it hit me. Our appearance—the robes, Mitchell’s wild beard, the veils—invited distance and mistrust. It demanded that we be given a wide berth. Everything about us begged to be ignored.
A little less than half a mile later, the trail broke into the open. The University of Utah campus lay before us. The hospitals and medical center were on our left. Downtown Salt Lake City was on our right. The Jewish Center was in front of us. We hiked through the center’s parking lot toward the bus stop, where we caught the first bus and rode it downtown to 400 South. Climbing off the bus, I felt ridiculous. People acted like we were radioactive, staying as far away from us as possible. I shook with frustration. I was back in the city! This was my home. Didn’t anyone recognize me? Didn’t anyone remember all the posters with my face?
Mitchell stopped and leaned toward me as the bus pulled away. “I will kill you,” he sneered as he stared into my eyes. “Remember that, Esther. I will kill your entire family! Your mom. Your dad. Your brothers and little sister. I will kill them all, slicing them with my knife. I will kill them if you try to get away.”
Barzee moved so she could whisper in my ear. “He will do it!” she hissed. “You can’t stop him. He is Immanuel.”
They waited for me to acknowledge them.
Mitchell leaned forward once again. “I will chain you up forever if you don’t do everything I say.”