*
I woke up to the sound of voices and a suffocating heat. Late-morning sun seeped through the tent, turning it into a greenhouse. It must have been a hundred degrees inside. I crawled out of the tent, stumbling with thirst. Mitchell and Barzee were talking in the center of the camp. I didn’t know it yet, but a decision had been made.
The following day, we hiked up to our campsite, gathered up most of the essential gear, and took it down to the lower camp. Though we would hike up to the springhead almost every day for water, from that day until we moved to California, we stayed at the lower camp.
I was never cabled to the trees again. There was no longer any need. I had reached the point where I was being held captive by Mitchell’s words.
25.
Too Scared to Speak
A couple of days passed after our first trip down into the city. We spent the first day recovering, then a day or two moving all of our gear down from the upper camp and setting things up in the new campsite. The new camp was much lower on the mountain—I guessed that it was maybe halfway between the city and the high camp—and it had a different feel. The trees were closer together and sometimes you could smell the salt that blew in from the lake. At night, you could see the city lights glow in the western sky and the wind was not quite as strong as it was up near the peaks.
For the first day or two in the lower camp, Mitchell seemed to be on edge, constantly looking down the canyon, his head cocked to listen against the wind. But after a while, he began to relax.
*
“The Lord had told me something,” he announced to us one morning.
I immediately turned to him, my chest growing tight. I felt the adrenaline shoot through my body and my hands begin to shake. Whenever Mitchell had an announcement, it turned out to be sickening news, and I braced myself for another catastrophe.
He took his time, letting the tension build. It was always the same. Whenever the prophet had received a revelation, it took a little effort to get it out.
I was sitting on the ground in the lower camp. We were sitting in a circle on gray tarp laid outside the tent door. It was midmorning and the sun was just beginning to warm where we sat in the trees. I didn’t have the cable around my ankle, and I was grateful for that, but that wasn’t enough to make me happy. I was still welded to Mitchell. I was anything but free. His words were stronger to me than any chains or cables ever could be.
While we waited for him to speak, I studied his face. His hair had much more gray in it. It was also growing thinner. So was his face. I turned to Barzee. Same thing. Strands of gray hair. Blotchy patches on her face. It was as if both of them were growing older right before my eyes.
Thirty years. I can outlive him.…
It was such a depressing thought.
Then I felt a shiver of warmth and heard a voice inside my head: No. It won’t be that long!
The feeling took me completely by surprise. And the shiver definitely wasn’t from something cold, but something warm. It seemed to seep into my soul, like warm water filling all of the emptiness that I had felt inside. I felt the power of my Heavenly Father near me. I almost started crying with relief.
It won’t be thirty years. Stay strong. I haven’t left you.
I closed my eyes, thinking back on the time I had stood in the middle of the water park and wished that my soul could slip away.
No. That’s not the answer. I will provide a way.
I kept my eyes closed, then took a deep breath. Turning back to Mitchell, I waited for his announcement with new resolve.
“The Lord has veiled the whole of the city’s eyes,” he finally said. “He wants us to go among the people now. We are free to walk among them. We will rely on the Lord to keep us safe. We’ll rely upon the Lord to take care of us and shield us from danger while He tests our faith.”
If Barzee had been told about the decision, she didn’t show it. In fact, she seemed to be a little surprised.
I stared at him. So he was going to allow me to go into the city all the time now? I almost shrugged. Stay here; go into the city; either way I couldn’t run.
I suppose I was a little happy not to have to stay in the camp all the time. It would relieve a little of the boredom. But I hated the thought of having to walk everywhere we went. I hated the thought of going down and getting drunk every day, or going to horrendous parties and dragging home as the sun was coming up.
Mitchell watched me carefully. “All right, then,” he said. “We are going down into the city. But you understand the rules, don’t you, Esther? I don’t have to review them for you, do I? I don’t have to talk about your life or the life of your family. You’re going to be a good wife, aren’t you, Esther?”
I looked at him with blank eyes but nodded silently.
Stay strong. I haven’t left you, seemed to roll in my head.