Before I went to sleep that night, I pulled a wide, flat box from underneath my bed. I lifted a few papers, award certificates from school, and random photos off the top to reveal a book I’d first read three years before. I don’t remember how I came to possess Prophet of Blood, but I was fascinated that it was about people in my family. The revelations that journalists Ben Bradlee and Dale Van Atta had uncovered startled me.
The authors gave an in-depth account of what they depicted as my father’s calculated violence against members of his own family who tried to expose his church and his teachings. According to the book, Ed Marston and Mark —yes, Lillian’s Mark —along with Duane and Rena Chynoweth —the same Rena who had so thoughtfully cared for me in Calería, Mexico —had obediently carried out several of those murders, including the elimination of one of my half-sisters, Rebecca. Mentally unstable, probably from years of abuse and mind games at the hands of cult members, Rebecca threatened to flee the church and spouted off about going to the police. Exposing the family’s activities, including the practices of underage polygamy and blood atonement, to the police and the FBI would also mean exposing my father for the monster he was.
The first time I saw Mark’s name connected with these events was beyond disturbing. As unnerved as I was, and as much as I wanted to ask him questions about what he had done, I had learned long ago in our family that “don’t ask, don’t tell” was our mantra. So I tried my best to dismiss what I read, believing that at the time Mark couldn’t do anything but obey my father.
At times I wanted to burn the book or rip out its pages one by one, and yet I couldn’t deny the research behind the journalists’ assertions. They had interviewed hundreds of people, including former cult members and law enforcement. Like someone unable to look away from a horrible car accident, I devoured the book, equally mesmerized and terrified, reading it several times. My stomach was always in knots as I read about my dad’s violent nature, and yet I felt compelled to continue.
Within its pages, so many things were brought to light. Suddenly, so many mysteries made sense. Questions swirling about our time in Mexico, our repeated moves, the quick exits from houses where we’d barely had time to unpack our meager belongings, the fact that we weren’t allowed to make friends with kids outside the group —in context, they now held significance.
The fall and winter at the beach house with Ramona and her girls wasn’t a vacation for them. Ramona and the other adults had been in hiding for exacting the blood covenant on the heads of rival cult leaders and others who dared to leave. It was hard for me to imagine that sweet Ramona had been involved in any of that.
I trembled uncontrollably, the adrenaline coursing through my veins as I read about the murders said to have been carried out in cold blood by people I knew and loved dearly, family members I ate dinner with each night. I wondered how my dad could be that evil and exert that kind of dominance over his followers.
Every time I read Prophet of Blood, I feared for my life. And now, the blood covenant had come full circle —Mark had a price on his head.
No one ever talked about blood atonement when we were younger. At least they never talked about it with me. When I was young, I do remember one of the sister-wives saying, “If you live by the sword, you die by the sword,” which meant nothing to me until now. The phrase “hot lead, cold steel, and a one-way ticket to hell” finally had context.
I closed the book and returned it to its hiding place under my bed. I fought sleep that entire night as visions of Dan Jordan being gunned down replayed again and again. Thoughts of masked gunmen entering our home here and shooting Mark and Lillian and anyone else they felt deserved blood atonement tormented me.
We didn’t go to Dan’s funeral in Denver, but my mom and some of my siblings who lived there represented our family. Though Mark, Lillian, Brandon, and I tried to act as if things were normal in the aftermath of Dan’s murder, for weeks we lived on high alert and, on occasion, borderline panic. But as time passed, things slowly returned to normal. After all, we lived nearly a thousand miles —seventeen or eighteen hours by car —from Denver, where Dan’s family resided. Our fear lessened and our anxiety lifted more and more with each passing day, until finally we began to live more relaxed and unguarded lives.
I LOVED MY JOB with the younger students at the school, and I especially relished being recognized in the church as one of the adults. I knew I could handle whatever responsibilities were sent my way.
In early 1988, I developed a cough that wouldn’t go away and began to become easily fatigued, but I kept plugging away at both my jobs as best I could. I knew better than to use an inconvenient illness as an excuse to slow down.
After all, Lillian didn’t slow down. Ever. When she was pregnant, she worked just as hard as she always did. If she picked up an illness from one of the kids, she powered through with over-the-counter medications. I tried to follow her lead, and usually managed to work almost as hard as she did, until my cough developed into walking pneumonia. When I didn’t get better, Lillian suggested I make an appointment to see our family doctor, which I drove myself to.
During my initial visit, the doctor prescribed medications and instructed me to rest —an impossible task with my morning job at the school, my responsibilities with Lillian’s children, and my afternoon job with Reliance Appliance. A few weeks later I was still dragging, so I made another doctor’s appointment. Once again, he emphasized the need for rest and handed me a prescription for an even stronger antibiotic.
The school year ended and so did my job, but I quickly filled those hours working at Reliance or shuttling the kids to their various activities. A few weeks later, I returned to the doctor and left with more meds. Since I’d never had to purchase prescription medications before, I didn’t realize how much they cost. If I hadn’t seen my savings account dwindling, I might have kept up the doctor-prescription-wait pattern even longer, until I needed to be hospitalized. But my desperation to hold on to my hard-earned money motivated me to try to get well.
I definitely wasn’t improving; in fact, I felt more and more tired as time went on. I did my best to continue functioning at the level I maintained when I was healthy, but it was becoming increasingly difficult. Plus, continually taking time off work to go to doctor’s appointments affected my productivity.
One evening, after I finished folding the last load of laundry, I timidly approached my sister. “Will you please go with me to the doctor tomorrow? I’m not getting better, and I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m scared because I’m still so sick.”