My Story (25 page)

January 4—the day of the appointed kidnapping—finally arrived. When I woke up that morning, I felt like Judgment Day had come. But then I realized that this was worse. This wasn’t a day to judge the guilty; this was a day for the innocent to get hurt.

Mitchell went through his normal routine, all the time trying to hide his excitement. Just like on the day he had prepared to go down to take my cousin, he put on an air of heaviness and persecution. So hard to be a prophet. Such a burden to carry out the work of the Lord. So difficult to be the Chosen. Glancing at Barzee, he tried to display a bit of sadness or hesitation. But none of it was real. He was nothing but excited. He was like an animal that was overcome by the smell of blood. He was driven by lust and nothing else.

He spent the day checking and double-checking the things he would need to capture his next victim. Then he made an important announcement. “My next wife will be called Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz Rebeckah Isaiah,” he said.

Holy cow, I thought. That’s a worse name than Shearjashub.

“Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz was a son of Isaiah,” he explained.

Another boy’s name for your new wife! I wanted to say. What is going on inside your head?

“It means ‘plunder speedeth, spoil hasteth.’”

No, it only means you’re stupid.

Mitchell waited as if he expected some kind of adulation for his excellent choice of names. Barzee didn’t say anything. I just shook my head.

Late that afternoon, Mitchell got dressed in the same clothes he had worn when he had gone to church on that Sunday morning back in November to identify his next victim. But he also spent a long time packing the disgusting green bags. Dark clothes. Rope. Duct tape. His long knife. Fingering the knife, he turned to me and smiled. “Shearjashub, do you remember this?” he asked with a sickening laugh, his voice low and gutteral.

Of course I recognized the knife! How many times had he flashed it as he threatened me? How many times had he stroked its edge as he reminded me what he was going to do to my family?

“Do you remember what I said to you that night I brought you away from your family?”

Of course I remembered what he had said:
I have a knife at your neck. Don’t make a sound! Get up and come with me.
They were the most terrifying words that I had ever heard.

He looked at me. I looked at him. He slipped the knife into his bag.

Evening was coming on and it was starting to get dark. A night breeze began to blow and the willows bent and swayed, their bony fingers lifting with the wind. It was a hot wind. Dry. I wiped a bit of sand out of my eyes.

Mitchell waited a few more minutes for darkness to completely settle, then, sighing wearily, got up and said good-bye.

Barzee and I settled down to do what we did most of the time now, which was wait. The evening passed so slowly. Then the night. It was vey dark. I remember the moon and stars were obscured by dust and clouds. We went to bed. I didn’t sleep. Hours passed. My stomach never settled. I was sick with dread. Then, very early in the morning, maybe just an hour or so before sunrise, we heard footsteps coming toward us. My heart beat wildly for a moment. What if Mitchell had been captured! What if he had told the police about me? What if I was being rescued?

The curtain parted and we saw Mitchell standing in the darkness. I quickly looked behind him. No one else was there.

“It is not time,” he said to announce his failure.

I almost laughed with joy. He had failed! He did not get her! I was giddy with relief.

“Just like with Abraham and Isaac, it was a trial of our faith,” he explained.

Barzee stood beside the tent, her face barely illuminated in the darkness. To me, she looked disappointed. She seemed to move toward him, but he walked past her and sat down. He placed his green bags on the ground and started pulling out some food. I was amazed. Every time I had food now, it felt like it was manna from heaven.

He placed a few sandwiches on the tarp. They were small and smashed from being stuffed in his bags. Looking at them, I knew they weren’t going to satisfy my hunger, but still, I was grateful for anything to eat. Barzee and I made a beeline for the food and started eating hungrily. While we ate, Mitchell talked.

“I made it to El Cajon and walked slowly to where she lives. It was very late by the time I got there. I circled around the house, looking for a way in. No open windows. No unlocked doors. But I continued searching, knowing that God would provide a way. Finally I found a sliding door around the back that was unlocked. I started to slide the door back. When I had opened it just a crack, I stopped to listen. I thought I heard something inside. I listened for a few seconds, but it was gone. Slowly, I continued to slide the door back. Once again, I heard the sound. A low rustle. I didn’t know what it was. But it went away again.

“I pushed the door back all the way and started to step inside. Suddenly, I froze. I realized what I was hearing. Snoring. A man was in the room! And he had to be a large man from the loud noise that he made.

“I realized I would never be able to find my new wife and get her past her father. So, knowing that God must have another plan”—and terrified at the thought of encountering a man much larger than you are, I thought—“I turned around and ran.

“But I didn’t want to come back empty-handed. I wanted you to know that I always think about you. So I stopped by an all-night grocery store, dug around to find enough change to buy some ham and mayo, then stopped by the church and got the last loaf of bread out of the box they keep in back.” He stopped and pointed proudly at the sandwiches.

I noticed there was not nearly a loaf of bread’s worth of sandwiches left. Which meant he hadn’t stopped to get us food because he was worried about us. He had stopped to get some food because
he
was hungry. And he’d eaten most of the sandwiches before he had come back to our camp.

“It is clear to me now,” he concluded. “California was supposed to be a test of our faithfulness. But the Lord has other plans in store for me now.”

God. Plan. Test of faithfulness.
The whole thing was absurd! God wasn’t testing his faith. There was no plan. There was no divine guidance or heavenly intervention. Mitchell was a dirty old man who wanted another child to satisfy him. That’s the only thing this was about. He knew it. Barzee knew it. There was no godly mystery here.

Still, I didn’t say anything. I was way beyond ever trying to talk to him, let alone ever trying to argue with him.

God bless that little girl
, was all I thought.

High Camp and
Hustler

For the next two weeks we did pretty much nothing but sit around being bored and hungry. I was only allowed to leave the fire swamp once a week. It was a miserable time, Mitchell always talking, Barzee always whining about being confined to the camp, a constant hot wind, the creepy trees above us, the musky smell of old blankets around us. I felt like I had been completely forgotten by the outside world.

Then one day someone walked into our camp.

It was late afternoon. All of us were sitting outside our tents when I heard the crunch of footsteps coming toward us. I scampered toward one of the musty blankets we used for a barrier and pushed the corner aside. Mitchell was immediately at my side, his bad breath on my neck. A lone man was walking through the fire swamp toward us. Mitchell immediately pulled me back, almost pushing me to the ground. He dragged me back to the tent and hissed for me to sit down. Barzee followed, her face tight with fear. Mitchell made a lot of noise, rummaging through his gear. It only took a few seconds to find the knife and pull it out. Barzee did what she always did, which was to stand around and wait for Mitchell to tell her what to do. Mitchell peered out of the gray tunnel, his lips growing tight. He was standing right over me, peering from behind the tarp. Because I was on the ground, his hands were level with my eyes, and I noticed that his knuckles were white. He shifted the knife in his hand to put it in a better position to strike, then crouched down.

I don’t know if the man heard Mitchell rummaging around, or if he saw the blankets that were hanging in the trees and thought he’d check it out, but for whatever reason he started walking toward our camp. As the sound of his footsteps got closer, Mitchell inched forward, ready to attack. I watched him intently.
Is he going to kill him?!
I wondered in horror.

The man came to a stop. “Hey,” he called out. “Is anybody there?”

Mitchell glared at me and lifted the knife, moving it in my direction.

“Anyone there?” the man yelled again.

Mitchell put his fingers to his lips, then nodded at the knife.
As if he had to remind me what he would do if I were foolish enough to scream!

“Anyone home?” the man repeated, though his voice was not as loud this time.

He waited, then started walking toward us again. We could clearly hear his footsteps across the leaves. He got closer. Closer. Mitchell was as tight as a wire. He held the long knife at his side, ready to spring at the intruder.

I wanted to scream!

The man continued walking until he was just a few feet from the hanging blankets. I could see his shadow through the thin barricade. He lifted his arm. He was going to push the blankets aside. He was going to see us. Then he was going to die.

Suddenly, the man stopped. He didn’t move. He didn’t say anything. All of us held our breath. No one dared to move.

I don’t know what it was that made him stop. Maybe he was afraid. Maybe he started listening to that intuition that’s inside all of us, that little voice that sometimes guides us when there is danger. Maybe his guardian angel was with him that day. I don’t know. I only know that Mitchell showed every indication of intending to kill him. He was coiled like a snake and ready to strike. But the man never took that last step. He didn’t push the blankets aside. He never said another word. He stood there a long moment, the tension sucking all of the oxygen out of the air, then turned around and walked away.

For a long time, none of us moved.

“We have to find another place to live,” Mitchell said.

*

Mitchell was convinced that the Lord, in His great and manifest wisdom, had tried our faith and found us lacking. We were nowhere close to being worthy of accepting another wife. Nowhere close to being worthy of His constant protection. We had been tried and we had failed.

Which meant that something had to change.

“There’s a story in the Bible,” he explained. “The children of Israel are surrounded by the Syrians. Evil people. Really bad. They had a mighty army. A terrible and deadly scourge. But when the prophet Elisha stood up to face them, instead of seeing all of the Syrian soldiers that had surrounded them, he saw thousands of celestial soldiers that stood ready to defend the children of Israel. Chariots of fire. Angels with their mighty swords. ‘They that be with us are more than they that be with them,’ the prophet Elisha said.”

Mitchell stopped and looked at us. Barzee nodded as if it were the most inspired thing she had ever heard. I looked at him as if it made no sense.

“You don’t see it, do you, Shearjashub?”

I shook my head. I didn’t.

“Just like with Elisha, the Lord could surround us with His angels. He could protect us so that no one would ever find us. But”—he paused and looked at me—“He can’t do it if you’re not worthy.” He turned and looked at Barzee. “He can’t protect us if you’re not humble. He can’t bless me if your faith isn’t strong enough. He can’t hide us. He can’t protect us. He is bound by your weak faith.”

He fell silent and thought a long moment. “We need to move to a more secure and hidden location. Tomorrow, we will go out and find our new home.”

*

The next day, Mitchell made us dress in our street clothes, a bunch of filthy rags he had taken from the abandoned homeless camps. I wore a gray shirt and some oversize pants. Pulling them on, I felt so dirty. There I was, putting on a shirt that was so thin and filthy that a homeless man had thrown it away. That is what I had come to. I shook my head sadly and held my nose.

Once we were dressed, we headed out. It was my first time in public without wearing a veil. I felt uncomfortable. Vulnerable. I was surprised how much I’d grown used to it. And I knew it made Mitchell nervous to have my face exposed, which made me nervous too. Mitchell, of course, led the way. I followed. Barzee followed me. But we took a completely different route from any we had ever taken when exiting the fire swamp before. Instead of crossing the riverbed and climbing the small embankment, we turned left and crawled through a large irrigation pipe that crossed under the road. Emerging on the other side, Mitchell told us to be quiet and stay low while he checked it out. After a couple minutes of watching, he decided it was clear and we headed out again, following the dry streambed. We only went a couple of miles, but it seemed to take all day. It was hot and dry and dusty. When we couldn’t go any farther, we climbed out of the ravine and found ourselves in an empty pasture. Again, Mitchell made us stay low while he took a look around. He was acting like a kid playing some kind of spy game, sneaking and creeping here and there. But I knew it wasn’t a game. It was dangerous. And I knew he had his knife.

While we waited, I sat down and put my hand into a patch of vibrant, green plants. I felt instant pain shoot through my hand and immediately jumped up. The stinging nettle was vicious and my hands were quickly covered with red blisters. Barzee watched me but showed no sympathy. “Spit on your hands,” she instructed drily. “Dogs and cats lick their wounds. You’re no better than they are. You should do the same thing.”

I hated her reasoning but figured she might be right. I spat and rubbed it in. It felt a little better and Barzee seemed to puff a bit with pride.

Mitchell crouched toward our hiding place and pointed to a mountain about half a mile away. We would have to sneak across pastures and a narrow road to get there. Mitchell took off, leading the way. Trying to appear as inconspicuous as possible—something that was ridiculously difficult to do—we made our way across the pasture and road and started climbing the small mountain. It proved to be much harder than it looked from the bottom of the hill. It was steep and thick with shrubs and covered with huge rocks. We climbed slowly. I was already weak from hunger. Mitchell pushed us on, always talking. Barzee had taken to not saying very much anymore. I don’t know why. She was just quiet now. It was slow and difficult work to climb the mountain. We had to scramble over boulders, pulling ourselves up by thorny bushes before dropping down on the other side. We had to lift and pull and help to catch one another. Sometimes we had to slip between tiny cracks between the boulders. As we climbed, Mitchell would point out how various rocks reminded him of sexual body parts and he would name the rocks with these names.