*
We started making regular trips down to Salt Lake. Sometimes we’d go every day. Sometimes a couple days would pass. Every trip was pretty much the same: drinking, plundering, walking down to either Liberty Park or the Artesian Well to eat whatever we had stolen and then hiking back to the lower camp again.
Every trip pretty much took all day. We were always on foot and even from the lower camp it was a long hike. Occasionally we would ride the bus once we got into the city but we almost always walked, which meant we were walking many miles.
Sometimes Mitchell would preach enough to get a little money. Almost all of it was spent on alcohol and dope, but there were a couple times that he let us go out to eat; once at Chuck-A-Rama, once at the Souper! Salad!, and once at a hamburger and ice-cream place called the Iceberg Drive Inn. I loved being able to go in and eat some real food. Something warm. Something that didn’t come out of a cardboard box or a tin can. It was more wonderful than I can explain. But I hated the way that people looked at us; Mitchell in his wild beard and dirty robe, Barzee and me with our white head coverings that entirely hid our hair, our eyes peering above the veils, nothing but our hands exposed. Everyone thought that we were crazy, and they treated us that way. And how could you blame them? This was Utah, not Afghanistan.
Once or twice, someone would come up and ask what religion we belonged to. Mitchell always did the talking. A few of these people would look at me much longer than they looked at Mitchell or Barzee. When they did, I would stare back into their eyes, trying to communicate with them. Yes! You are right. I am Elizabeth Smart! But that is as far as it would ever go. Stares. Brief conversations. Nothing more.
Near the end of August, Mitchell started to talk about what we would do for the coming winter. He had started to build a dugout, but it was far from being ready and he didn’t work on it any longer. Too much plundering, raping, and drinking to do. We knew we couldn’t stay on the mountain. We didn’t have any supplies. We didn’t live day-to-day, we lived meal-to-meal; there was no way we could survive the winter in the unfinished dugout. No way we could hike up and down the trail every day for food. We didn’t have any warm clothes, no winter supplies, no source of heat besides a fire. Utah winters were always brutal, with lots of snow and constant freezing temperatures, especially in the mountains.
Knowing we’d have to make a move before winter set in, Mitchell started talking about the options. He talked about renting an apartment. Wasn’t going to happen. No money. And he wasn’t going to get a job. He talked about going back to stay with a family whom they had lived with before, one of his friends who had taught him about the medical use of herbs, but quickly realized that wasn’t going to work. Even if his friends didn’t recognize me, how was he going to explain a fourteen-year-old wife? So he kept working on the problem.
“I thought you said the Lord would provide,” I asked him as he debated all his options.
“Oh, He will,” Mitchell shot back, “but He expects me to do everything I can to protect myself.”
Which was kind of interesting. Mitchell relied completely upon the Lord for the things we needed to survive. Well, the Lord, and a little luck. And a lot of begging. And a lot of stealing. But when it came to any chance of getting arrested or having me taken from him, he wasn’t quite as ready to rely upon the Lord.
Which left very few options.
Cold winter … lots of snow … no food … nowhere to live? What was the answer?
To go somewhere warm, of course.
*
Before we could decide where to go, we needed to do a little research. We needed to do some reading and study some maps.
The next day we headed down from the lower camp and went straight to the Salt Lake City Public Library. Walking through the front doors, I stopped to look around. It was the first time that I had ever been there, and I didn’t know where to go. Mitchell seemed to hesitate as well. I glanced toward the ladies at the checkout counter. They tried not to stare, but it was difficult, and it took them a few seconds before they finally turned away.
A man was sitting at a table near the entrance. He stared at us as well. He looked to be in his mid-thirties, just a normal-looking guy. Looking at me, he pulled out his cell phone and walked out of the library to make a call. I don’t know if he was the one who called the police, but I have always thought it was.