Down from the Mountain (3 page)

It’s true. When Ezekiel announced that God wanted all the women to be his wives, Righteous Path went through a big test from God that ended in a great exodus. But while all this was happening, God gave us a wonderful gift. It turned out that Brother Paul’s parents had died and left the Colorado ranch to him. As soon as Paul got the paperwork, he signed it over to Ezekiel. God clearly wanted us to keep saving souls.

Ezekiel shepherded those of us who remained off the Arizona compound. We moved with whatever we could fit in the three vans and took off in the middle of the night for Colorado. This way, no one would know where we were. Those of us who remained are considered especially holy because we passed the hardest test God ever gave us.

I was eleven. It’s not like I had a real choice about staying or leaving. And Mother Martha was thrilled to marry Ezekiel. She saw it as such an honor that she could be that close to someone who was so special to God.

“I don’t worry about Rachel,” Annie says. “Her parents are dead and her aunt doesn’t care about her, so she’s safe from being kidnapped. Mother Esther is safe for the same reason, but you have a father out there somewhere. What if he tries to find you? You could be kidnapped,” Annie says.

“Oh, Annie, my father hasn’t cared about me since I was four years old. If he wanted to look for me, don’t you think he would have done it by now?”

Annie lies back and closes her eyes. I continue to watch her breathing and notice that it’s getting ragged again.

I pray that the attack will subside, but God doesn’t help. Maybe because he knows my prayer is partially selfish. I’ve told God that I’m tired and need to get some sleep. But it does hurt my heart that Annie has to struggle so often just to breathe.

There’s no point telling Mother Rose because she won’t even comfort Annie. In fact, she usually reminds Annie that God is punishing her for her sins and that she needs to pray for forgiveness. Mother Rose is Annie’s real mother, but she doesn’t show it in any way. She’s not the least bit affectionate with Annie, which makes her an obedient disciple. If Annie craves special attention, she’s never admitted it to me. But I would rather get in trouble for having a special relationship with Mother Martha than to have no special family at all.

“Eva … will you … tell me … a stor … y?”

“Sure,” I say, noticing how bad her breathing has become. I sit on the edge of her bed so she can hear my whispers and begin
The
story—the one that makes both of us feel better. It’s a story that takes Annie and me to a very different world. And when I tell it, she’s often sleeping peacefully before I’m halfway through.

“Once there was a little girl named Lucy. She was playing hide-and-seek with her brothers and sister, Edmund, Peter, and Susan, when she suddenly discovered that the wardrobe she’d hidden in went right outside to a strange world called Narnia. She couldn’t believe how beautiful this world was. But there was an evil ice queen who wanted to do her harm and a wonderful lion, Aslan, who helped her and made everything spring again.”

When the rhythm of Annie’s breathing tells me she’s asleep, I return to my bed and think about how much I love that story. I loved the story before I knew it was an allegory. I loved Aslan the lion who was powerful and strict and just, and kind and humble. The witch put a spell on Narnia, making it always winter and never Christmas and never spring. But Aslan prophesied that when four human children found their way into Narnia, he would return, and Narnia and everything would return to normal.

Ezekiel burned our books after God admonished him for letting us have too much contact with the heathens and with the heathen media. I was ten at the time. I can still hear Mother Grace, our teacher, making a case for keeping each book. When he picked up
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
, she got especially upset.

“This book is nothing but lies!” he’d said, holding it over the flames of the bonfire.

“It’s not lies,” Grace had said. “It’s fiction, fantasy. It isn’t supposed to be about facts. It’s an allegory about Jesus.” She explained that an allegory is like a parable. It’s a story that has meanings on more than one level.

“Jesus is never mentioned, but the story tells about Jesus and the crucifixion, and good and evil.

Ezekiel still looked puzzled.

He said that fantasy was the work of the devil and threw the book in the fire. I started to sob and clung to Mother Grace, who was crying too. She left after that.

Once, she even took us to a library. It was amazing. There were so many books that you couldn’t count them all. You can learn about everything in libraries. They don’t black out sentences or rip out pages. I have smidgeons of memory from before I was in Righteous Path. My parents loved to read me stories that I picked out when we went to the library. They read to me every single day.

Now I’m too wound up to be sleepy. I think about my strange meeting with Ezekiel. If I could just talk to Mother. She’s the only safe person I can talk to about what Ezekiel said and didn’t say. I want to tell her that he seemed to almost gloat when he told me I could no longer go to school, and that I got the impression he actually wanted me to argue with him. And that look he gave me. Like he was trying to tell me something.

I don’t know what she’d say about the way he looked at me, but she’d probably say that the school thing was Ezekiel testing me to see if I was getting better at unquestioning obedience.

When I remember the look I saw in Mother’s eyes last night, and how sick she’s been lately, I feel guilty for wanting to burden her with my problems. She wasn’t at dinner tonight or at the evening prayer service. When I do get to talk to her, I won’t burden her with my problems. I’ll just talk to her about the baby and how she really feels about it.

Just as I’m finally drifting off to sleep, I remember Ezekiel pointing a gun at me and Rachel. I thought it was wrong to shoot people.
Please God, please help me understand why you want
Ezekiel
to have guns.

Four

The whole time Annie and Jacob and I are doing chores, I think about how Mother was not at breakfast again this morning. Going to town with Rachel is great, but mostly I wish I could talk to Mother, or at least get a glimpse of her to see if she’s okay.

I hear someone call my name. It sounds like it’s coming from right outside the barn. Mother Esther? I put down the scoop of chicken feed I’m holding and run to the door.

“How long until you get done with your chores?” Mother Esther asks. “We need to get going so we don’t have to take those treacherous roads after dark.”

My heart sinks. I had no idea that Esther would be coming with us. I turn toward Annie and Jacob, who’ve followed and are peering at me. Jacob’s look is unreadable. He hasn’t said a word about my new position, and I suspect he’s a little jealous that I get to go into town.

“I–I don’t know. A while, I think.”

“No,” Annie says. “You go ahead. Jacob and I can finish the chores.”

Jacob nods silently.

“Thank you, children,” Mother Esther says and pulls my arm forward.

I turn again to Annie and Jacob, raise my shoulders, and put a what-can-I-do? look on my face.

“Are you ready to venture into town?” Esther asks as we walk.

“Yes,” I say. I don’t dare admit that I’m excited. She’ll think I don’t realize all the dangers. I do, but I’m curious about seeing new things. And my faith is strong. I’m not about to let anyone or anything pollute me.

She leads me to the kitchen where Rachel has bread and peanut butter on the counter.

“Lunches,” Rachel says. She motions to me with a bread knife. “Why don’t you get three apples from the pantry?”

“I bet this is the first time you’ve been off the compound since we moved here,” Esther says.

“Yes, it is,” I say, careful to keep my words even.

“Wow,” Rachel says. “I guess I’m lucky to be one of the drivers because I’d go stir-crazy if I never got off the compound.”

“Hmph, it’s probably good you feel that way,” Esther says. “With Mother Martha pregnant, you may be the only driver, not counting Reverend Ezekiel, of course. But, as for me, I don’t need to leave the compound.” She turns her head from side to side. “I have no use for the heathens and their materialistic ways. Besides, I hate to be in public when we could still be in danger from the traitors who left.”

“I truly don’t understand all this fear,” Rachel says. “But then I wasn’t here during the Big Test.”

“No you weren’t, and I can assure you, you’d feel differently if you had been,” Esther says.

“I was there,” I add. “Ezekiel said it was a test of faith, and anyone who left failed the test.”

“I can imagine,” Rachel says. “It must have been so weird seeing people defy Ezekiel.”

I think about hearing a couple of the men sob at night. We didn’t have trailers in Arizona. We had lots of little cabins. Suddenly the women had to sleep in the cabins without their husbands, and the men slept in tents next to the children’s cabins. Ezekiel had told them that they were no longer married to their wives. One by one, the women became married to Ezekiel, according to God’s will.

“I think what hurt the men so much was that most of their wives had little trouble accepting God’s plan,” Esther says. She laughs. “Except me. I was Ezekiel’s only wife for thirty years before this, you know. And I suddenly had to share him.” She throws up her hands. “But God’s will is God’s will. I understood, though, why his new wives felt honored and important. You can’t help feeling like you’re more important when you’re married to someone who hears God’s voice.”

“Ezekiel makes you feel that way too,” Rachel says. “He
told
me that I’d have a higher place in heaven by marrying him.”

“Let your faith be strengthened by this test,” Ezekiel had said in Arizona. We were in the chapel when he told us. But instead of strengthening faith, it broke the faith of many.

“I am humbled by God’s will,” he told us that hot night. But the next time we were in chapel, Jacob’s dad told Ezekiel that he didn’t think Ezekiel was a bit humbled. Mother Sarah rushed us kids out of there and back to our cabins right away. But even though our cabins were the farthest ones from the chapel, we could still hear the yelling. So Mother Sarah had us sing songs.

Then a few days later, Annie and I were crouched in the garden picking tomatoes while Brother Ralph and Jacob’s father were slowly walking the path nearby. “I can’t believe in this anymore,” Jacob’s father said. “I’m out of here!”

Brother Ralph began sobbing. “I know.”

Mother Esther pulls the wax paper out of a drawer and begins wrapping the sandwiches as Rachel finishes them. She lets out a long sigh. “I still have images of Brother Ralph dragging Mother MaryAnne by the hair when he insisted they leave Righteous Path. She screamed and begged for him to let go. ‘You’re forcing me to disobey. You’re damning my soul!’ she cried. ‘Please don’t make me come with you!’ But eventually she caved in and left with him.”

Rachel stops in the middle of cutting a sandwich. “But MaryAnne is still here.”

“Yup,” I say. “She managed to get away from him three days later. She came back to the compound.” I remember her showing up at the gates, dirty, hungry, and exhausted. “And then there was Brother Jay, Jacob’s father. Did you know that he knocked out Jacob’s two front teeth?”

“I heard about that,” Rachel says.

That was my hardest memory of the Big Test. “I was on my way to the barn for chores when Jacob’s father practically ran me over to get to Mother Helen. The next thing I knew, he’d hit her in the face. Then he dragged her by the hair.

“Then Jacob got involved. He couldn’t stand seeing his mom treated that way, so he tried to protect her. He got between them and grabbed his father’s arm. But Brother Jay was stronger. He threw Jacob to the ground and hit him three times in the face. Jacob swallowed one tooth and spit out the other.”

I can feel my voice shaking. It’s still hard to talk about this. “The worst was what Brother Jay said to Jacob. He stuck his finger in Jacob’s bleeding face and said, ‘I wash my hands of you. I don’t ever want to see you again.’”

Rachel takes the bag I hand her and wipes away a tear. “Oh Lord! What a terrible thing to say to a son. I’m glad Mother Helen stayed.” She grabs a tissue from the counter and blows her nose. “I knew it turned into a big exodus, but I didn’t know the specifics. But that was in Arizona. The traitors don’t know that you moved to Colorado, do they?”

“I don’t think so,” Mother Esther says.

We left the Arizona compound without telling a soul where we were going or even that we were leaving.

“We had thirty-five members before, but in three short months, only sixteen of us were left. Seventeen since you came. Now it’s all women and children except for Brother Paul.

“When the dust was beginning to settle and it looked like everybody who wanted to leave had left, Brother Paul gave Ezekiel a timely gift. Two weeks earlier, he had learned that his father died. He’d lost his mother several years earlier. They left him the Colorado ranch, along with two horses, three cows, and forty-seven chickens. Ezekiel saw it as a clear gift from God. Brother Paul signed the property over to Ezekiel and we moved right away.”

We head to the van. Rachel carries a small box of jewelry that will serve as samples so we can get more of the same beads and findings.

I sit in the back and start getting sleepy before we even get off our property. I’ve always done that. Mother says that they used to put me in a car when I was colicky as a baby because the car’s motion always put me to sleep. Plus I’ve had precious little sleep the last couple of nights. But I force myself to stay awake. I want to see everything.

The road is unpaved and narrow. When a tractor-trailer passes us, we have to hug the side of a cliff and barely miss hitting him. All I can see, at first, are pine trees, but here and there, I see a small clearing, usually punctuated by a mailbox. Once in a while I can peer down the clearing far enough to see a house. But they’re few and far between.

My stomach leaps because of the hairpin curve Rachel takes. “Wow, Rachel, I’m impressed. I could never drive a road like this!” I say, looking down a steep incline on this narrow mountain road.

Rachel laughs. “Sure you could. I’m a great teacher, and I may need you if Mother Martha can’t help.”

“No. Eva can’t drive,” Mother Esther says. “She’s too young. We don’t want to ask for trouble with the law.”

“Ezekiel didn’t worry about the law when he married me at sixteen,” Rachel says.

Esther takes in a sharp breath. Rachel’s comment borders on heresy.

“That’s different!” Esther says. “We’ll always follow God’s will before the laws made by man. Your marriage, like all the marriages to Reverend Ezekiel, came from a direct command from God. But God hasn’t given an edict about driving, so we follow the law with licenses and insurance to avoid trouble. Any mistake Eva made could get her in trouble with the police and draw attention to Righteous Path. Then the heathens would end up at our gate, nosing around.”

We’re all silent but the tension is thick. After a few minutes Esther continues.

“Also, we don’t have to worry about trouble with a so-called ‘underage marriage’ because outsiders won’t know unless someone from the compound tells them. And who would do that?”

Esther gives Rachel a significant look. I can feel the threat of a Community Concerns Meeting in the air. Ezekiel wouldn’t just be angry about the conversation; he’d be disappointed that Rachel questioned their marriage.

“You make a good point,” Rachel adds almost too hastily. “What happens in Righteous Path stays in Righteous Path. God’s holy will be done.”

I begin to breathe easier. But I can’t help wondering how Rachel feels about her marriage.

Outside, the landscape is suddenly changing. We must be in Boulder because the road has become a street with a neat row of houses lining one side and rows of small buildings on the other side. I feel almost dizzy from turning my head back and forth and trying to take it all in. So much is happening at the same time. Cars and people are everywhere—backing out of driveways, speeding through intersections, suddenly stopping at red lights. I can’t imagine how Rachel can navigate through all of this, but she seems confident and relaxed.

“See over there,” she points to the buildings on our right. “That’s Pearl Street Mall. It’s an outside mall. Keep your eyes open for a parking spot.”

The cars make me nervous backing up, squeezing into little places that seemed too small for them to fit. But it’s the place Rachel referred to as an outside mall that grabs my attention. There’s so much to look at that I make myself dizzy trying to take it all in.

Two giant black dogs practically drag their walker—a man wearing an orange cap and mittens that say “Broncos” on them. He waves to someone on the mall, and the dogs escape with their leashes and run straight at her. She backs up against a storefront as they leap and lick her. Watching people like this is like seeing lots of little stories unfold. A four- or five-year-old girl steals her little brother’s ice cream cone. An elderly woman nudges several people with her cane when they don’t move out of her way fast enough.

Rachel backs into a parking space. “Here we go,” she says. “You two gawkers have been no help at all.” She chuckles. “We’ve got about two blocks to walk. Can you handle it with your arthritis, Mother Esther?”

“I’m fine,” she says dismissively.

It takes Mother Esther forever to get out of the van, but I’m so mesmerized by everything around me that I don’t even think to offer her help. Two girls around eighteen or nineteen, Rachel’s age, look the three of us up and down as they pass by. One whispers something to the other. They both laugh. I look at the three of us, dressed identically in drab gray skirts and blouses, no makeup or jewelry, and I want to hide.

All around me is an explosion of color. I can’t believe what these heathens wear. A tall girl wears a red skirt so short that it barely covers her bottom. Under that, she’s dressed in something that’s a cross between tights and pants. Whatever it is, it only goes to her knees. She wears a sparkly red jacket that barely touches her waist. Both girls wear pointy high-heeled shoes and lots of face paint. I know that I should turn away but I can’t—especially when I see the most remarkable thing of all. One of the girls has a diamond in her belly button!

Ezekiel told us about harlots, but I never thought I’d get to see one, much less two.

Mother Esther does not seem to notice the women who are now moving on. Rachel has her arm, but Esther is so stiff that she moves slowly. I ease in behind them so they don’t watch me watching everyone and everything around me.

I notice that it’s not just the harlots who wear jewelry in odd places on their bodies. And not just women, but men! One guy has seven stones in his earlobe; another has four earrings in his nose.

A woman wearing fingerless mittens and a multicolored skirt leans against a tree playing her guitar and singing in a lilting voice, high and pure. She sounds the way I imagine an angel would sound. Her voice is beautiful, and without realizing it, I pause to listen. Other people stop too. Someone throws a few coins in her guitar case.

The singer sees me watching and faces me, her smile as angelic as her voice. Is it possible that a woman who sings like an angel could be damned for all eternity because she doesn’t follow Ezekiel? “Vermin,” Ezekiel would say. “They’re nothing more than vermin, and God will destroy them all so that we, the pure, may begin a new civilization.”

The singer opens her mouth to hit a big note and I see it: a stone inside her mouth. In her
tongue
?

This is too much. Still, her voice is beautiful.

“Hey, keep up,” Rachel calls from ahead of me. I can see by her smile that she’s amused by how I’m reacting to all this.

I hurry to catch up. “Did you hear that woman sing?” I blurt out.

Mother Esther stops and turns on her heels. “She may sound beautiful to you, but that woman could be the devil in disguise wanting to tear you off the path.” I nod. I hadn’t thought of that.