Still, of the two evils, I’d take Barzee over Mitchell any day.
And anyone who suggests that I became a victim of Stockholm syndrome by developing any feelings of sympathy toward my captors simply has no idea what was going on inside my head. I never once—not for a single moment—developed a shred of affection or empathy for either one of them. There was no traumatic bonding. No emotional ties. The only thing there ever was was fear, and never anything else. That’s the only emotion I ever felt toward them.
*
Sometime during the first week in September, the skies started to grow cloudy. It took a couple of hours for the billowing clouds to build, but they did, growing dark and menacing in the west. A cold wind suddenly blew down the canyon, bringing an instant chill. The clouds grew darker as they started to climb the mountain. The sky was shrouded in mist and the wind began to howl. Evening was coming quickly and the shadows were growing thick and full. Then it hit. Flashes of light. Deep thunder, the air shattered from its power. A hint of rain. And then the hail. Cold, hard, irregular chunks of ice falling from the sky. We ran into our tent for shelter. It was coming down so hard, I wondered if the hail was going to rip the tent apart. We huddled, the tent bent toward the ground, the hail beating down around us.
Once the storm passed, we climbed out of the tent. The mountain was white with a thin layer of hail, and the ground was wet and slippery underneath. And it was cold. It was as if nature had announced the end of summer with a single blow.
Mitchell looked at the sky. “We’ve got to leave for California soon,” he said.
My heart sank, a crushing weight seeming to settle on my shoulders. I had been foolish enough to think that the time to leave for California wouldn’t actually come. But it was here now. Soon we would be gone.
San Diego, California. Eight hundred miles from my home. It might as well have been in another universe. I’d be forever lost in California. No one had been able to save me when I was just a few miles from my home. What chance did I have once Mitchell had dragged me off to San Diego? I would lose all hope.
*
It took us a couple of days to get ready. There was a surprising number of things to do. First, we had to decide what we wanted to take with us and organize it for the trip. Everything we were going to take to California had to be packed in Mitchell’s nasty green bags, including our bedding, clothing, the tent, the tarps, all of our food, utensils, and his books. It was not an easy thing to do. Then, once we had decided what to bring, we hiked back and forth between the upper and lower camp, storing all of the other stuff inside the half-finished dugout, trying to hide it from anyone who might happen upon the camp. We also had to protect it against the animals that would be digging around. Finally, we had to wipe away any of the signs that we had been in the camp.
As I watched Mitchell bury the last of our gear deep inside the dugout, I had to wonder, would I ever come back to Salt Lake City? Would he allow us to come back in the spring, or was he hiding all the gear because he knew he would never be back again? Was he hiding all the gear because he didn’t want to leave a trail? Because he knew that he would never need it? Would I ever see these mountains or my hometown again?
That afternoon, Barzee and I had our final bath, Mitchell pouring bucket after bucket of freezing water over our heads. We washed our grungy robes in the stream, beating them upon the rocks to get them as clean as we could, then headed back to camp. We were working in the tarped area outside the tent when we suddenly heard voices. They were above us, a little higher on the mountain. And they were walking toward the bowl that hid our camp. Mitchell froze. Barzee’s eyes went as wide as saucers. I didn’t know what to do. I was so hopeless at this point, so far removed from thinking that I was ever going to escape, that I didn’t even think about calling out.