Right before dawn, avoiding security cameras and the prying eyes of any early risers, I slipped over the Jeffses’ six-foot-high, wrought-iron gate. The spikes at the top were tricky to manage in my long skirt, yet nothing compared to the half-mile walk I had to trek to meet Ben, fighting my urge to bolt back to my sister-wives, whom I was having great difficulty leaving. I finally reached the back side of ALCO, an FLDS-member-run business.
Ben was nowhere in sight.
He couldn’t do it, I thought numbly. He had accidentally slept in that morning, causing me to pace my room for hours until I had finally heard from him and was able to leave the property, trusting he would be here. Without Ben, all was lost. I had no escape route and no time for a new plan. Between the horror stories I knew from the inside and the police in Warren’s pocket, I could not win on my own.
Just then, Ben rounded the corner in his brother’s shimmery gold truck, loaded with a minitrailer from his previous employer, Reliance Lighting. My heart flooded with relief.
“I’m sorry for being late,” he whispered, as he opened the door for me to hop in, his eyes filled with remorse at the fear he knew he’d put me through for the second time that morning. “How are you?”
“Scared to death!” I replied, trembling in both relief and fear. “Let’s get out of here!”
My heart continued to pump wildly as we passed our neighbors’ homes on the way to Highway 59, which would draw us toward Las Vegas. The cover of darkness was lifting, and so was my determination. If Ben hadn’t been driving, I doubt I would have had the courage to continue. We stayed on the main highway bordering Utah, Arizona, and Nevada so as to draw no attention to ourselves, not stopping for fuel until we made it past the farthest outskirts of Vegas.
In the silence of the growing light, I stole furtive glances at Ben, whom I barely knew. I had just left everything and nearly everyone I’d ever known, and so had he. I tried to fathom why in the world he would do this for me.
The last few days had been the most tumultuous of my entire life, bar none. Secretly, I had called an aunt who lived in St. George. She had left the FLDS over “one-man rule” years prior, but it was too dangerous for her to take me in. Deflated, I had known that anywhere I went for asylum, my host and I would face spiritual, mental, and perhaps even physical danger. How could I do that to anyone? After my vision in the bathroom, I had no longer felt alone, but it had been unclear as to whom I could seek help from. I had gone to bed that night, only to be awakened by the ringing of the phone in my room.
“Is this Rebecca Wall?” The male voice on the line had sounded vaguely familiar, yet I couldn’t place it.
“Who is this?” I had whispered, no longer groggy. It was not appropriate for any male to call me at two a.m. I was already in enough trouble!
“It’s Cole, your brother.”
“No way!” I had cried. No one had seen or heard from Cole for five years. Cautiously, I had lowered my voice back to a whisper. “It can’t be. Tell me something only Cole would know.” There had been just a slight hesitation.
“Do you remember at our old house, when we started that fire that almost burned down the shed…?”
“Yes!” I had squealed, slapping my hand over my mouth. It had to be Cole. We had never told a single soul about that close call. “How did you get my number?”
“You sent it with a gift you made for me.” I was amazed, as I had sent that gift years before on a wing and a prayer, not knowing if the last address anyone had was accurate. In all that time, miraculously I had never switched rooms and had kept the same phone number despite Rulon amassing forty-six wives after me. Most of the wives had frequent room changes and had changed numbers accordingly.
“Becky,” Cole had said urgently, “I’ve been keeping an eye on what’s going on down there. Don’t get remarried!”
I then told Cole I was being forced to marry almost immediately. I shared that I had already decided to leave but was unsure how, as it seemed unsafe for anyone to shelter me.
“You can’t stay anywhere near Short Creek,” he had said. “They’ll get you.” With a sudden urgency in his voice he had cried, “Come to Oregon!”
During that call, Oregon had sounded foreign and so far away. Even now, the thought of it frightened me. But knowing the history of our people, I realized it was likely the only way to escape the clutches of Warren for good. So now I was on my way to my brother’s apartment in Coos Bay, by the sea. Cole had talked to me for several hours, describing everything he’d been through since he was kicked out from our home and the FLDS. He hadn’t always lived in Oregon, but described how he had become so ill his doctors believed he wouldn’t live. He had dragged his body to his car, and drove and drove until he reached the sea. Although my brother had begun to heal his body, he was still very weak, and I heard that frailty in his voice.
Cole had promised he would come to get me before Monday but had been so ill he couldn’t keep his promise. My adrenaline was on high for two days waiting for his call, wondering if he had been caught or hospitalized in his weakened state. He had finally phoned in the night to tell me he was sending friends for me, but they couldn’t arrive until it was too late. By that time, in my sheer desperation, I had called Ben and confided the whole story to him over the phone.
“Let me help you,” Ben had begged. “Let me help get you out of there.”
“I can’t let you do that.” I didn’t want that, either. It was one thing for my brother to help me escape, but both Ben’s and my reputations would be ruined beyond repair if we escaped together.
“My days are numbered, anyway—” he began.
“Because of me!” I had cried.
“I’m the one that kissed you, remember?”
That was when Ben had given me details of Warren’s confrontation with him. Warren had asked him the same dirty, degrading questions he had asked me. When Ben answered honestly, Warren had told him he detected the seeds of apostasy in him, too. We both knew those were Warren’s code words for “expect major consequences.”
“You see,” Ben had added to me, “I’m on my way out, anyway. I can’t stay here any longer. Let me help you.”
I hadn’t known what to say. Ben had already scandalized himself and his family, but he would place himself in very real danger if he had the audacity to turn against Warren and escape with the Prophet’s wife. How could I let him do that? I didn’t know, but I had to keep planning on leaving. It was the only thing keeping my will alive. For the next two days, I attended every meal and class so it wouldn’t occur to Warren that anything was different. As Monday had approached with no word from Cole, I had felt even less sure but began packing anyway. It had been agonizing, deciding what to include besides my violin. I knew nothing about Oregon, except Cole had described it as cold and blustery in November.
Carefully, I had selected only a few favorite long dresses from the closet, so that it would still look full. I couldn’t leave all my photos and scrapbooks behind, as my family and friends were too precious. Neither could I leave my sewing machine, nor the boxes of material in my closet. Besides music lessons, I had felt that sewing would be my only way to make a living on the outside. That thought still terrified me.
Making sure my room looked as if everything was still intact, I’d had to sneak the most important items out without being seen, then hide them somewhere off the Jeffses’ estate. Though not a liar or a thief, I’d had to steal my own belongings away to claim my very life. I borrowed one of the estate’s minivans to smuggle my items off the premises and into Elissa’s shed.
The secrecy had been killing me, but I couldn’t tell a soul. Elissa was miserable, and Ally and Sherrie were not safe. Every night I’d been suffering from nightmares about what Warren would do with them in his lust for power and bartering of young brides. I longed to take them with me, but Cole had warned that taking any of them, including Elissa, would be considered kidnapping because they were underage. We would have the police and the FLDS looking for us. Brokenhearted, I understood, but I would never forget the look on her face when she had surprised Ben and me just the day before as we loaded his truck at her shed. Tearfully she begged me to stay. Would she ever forgive me for leaving?
Now as Ben and I raced to Oregon, I tried to concentrate on the road, but all I could think of was Elissa and the people I had left behind. I had worked for so many years to be an example to my family and my community, and the thought made me want to stop and go back. Driving through the desolate landscape skimming the north end of the Mojave National Preserve, about a hundred miles south of Death Valley, I balked, thinking if I returned now no one would have to know.
Finally the knowledge of my destiny under Warren Jeffs flooded my being and brought reason. As much as I wanted to, I could not go back. I glanced at my watch, realizing at this time our entire community would be in Sunday School. I thought how unfair it would be for my dear friend Samantha to have to learn of my leaving from another source. Since I had cleared all of the messages from my pager and left it in my room in Hildale, I used Ben’s phone to text her: “Good-bye. I love you.”
I found out later that Samantha got up from Sunday School and immediately tried calling my room three times, with no answer. She then called Christine, who was absent from church that day, and asked her to check on me. I couldn’t blame her. Anyone with that kind of information who didn’t report it would be under harsh scrutiny, and Samantha had a standing in the community and a husband to protect. When Christine couldn’t get me to answer the door, Nephi and Isaac found a key to unlock my room, where they found my letter of explanation.
Warren was adamant in the order he issued to the community: find us before nightfall, “to save that girl’s soul before she commits adultery.” All of Warren’s brothers and several members of the God Squad were sent on a massive manhunt for us, scouring Colorado City, St. George, Cedar City, and the surrounding environs. He used the threat of adultery to get the men to move quickly, as a woman’s virtue was prized among the FLDS. However, Warren was also very concerned about something else, though I wouldn’t understand that until much later. As the former Prophet’s widow, I knew far too much about the inner working of the Jeffs family and the true undertakings of the FLDS. I was a dangerous liability to the new Prophet.
Within an hour of my text to Samantha, Ben’s phone started ringing—first his dad, then his mom. He ignored both calls. Next, Nephi’s number showed up on caller ID as we were getting gas in a small town in California. Though the calls unnerved us, as we got farther away we were able to distract ourselves with the beautiful change in scenery. There were lush fields of grapevines, even this late in the season, but we didn’t stop. We flew across the road as if the devil himself was chasing us. It was already getting dark when Ben’s brother Scott called.
“Dude!” he cried to Ben, who finally answered his phone. “This is huge, what you’ve done. Everyone’s calling me—Mom, Dad, Uncle Nephi, and Uncle Warren—and crowds of people are coming out here!” Scott had finally gotten tired of the hordes of searchers and screwed shut the door of the shack he’d been sharing with Ben.
Both Ben and Scott were very young, and I felt bad that he was having to face the brutal buffetings of family members and strong-armed church leaders because of me. The manhunt had become more intense, and it was a good thing Ben had left no evidence, because they scoured all the areas he had been. Had they found the MapQuest map on the computer’s history or a printout in the garbage can, we would have been stalked down and brought back. I knew how it worked. They would have separated us right away, then manipulated us, telling me things like “Ben doesn’t really want to be with you,” and saying the same to him about me. They would have finally forced me into a marriage designed to break the rebellion out of me, while Ben would have been tossed to the wolves to join the thousands of “spiritually dead” lost boys.
Ben grew more and more nervous. He didn’t let me hear all the voice mails being left, or the awful things they were saying about both of us. However, I could tell by his face that certain ones were getting to him. He shared the message from my mother and sisters. Mom’s teary message demanding that Ben bring me back immediately broke my heart.
“Remember the Golden Windows, Becky,” she sobbed.
Ally, now eight, was not as sensitive. “You can go to hell, Ben! You can go to hell for what you’ve done!” she screamed.
Ben turned the ringer off, and I cried quietly, not knowing if my mother would ever speak to me again. I knew that she secretly stayed in touch with my brothers to check on them, and I hoped she would be able to forgive me enough to do the same with me. I finally succumbed to exhaustion as darkness engulfed us. A while later, Ben stopped and gently woke me.
“The ocean is over there, Becky,” he said. I noticed he didn’t call me Grandmother Becky or Mother Becky.
“Really?”
“Yes. Do you want to see it?”
“Heck, yeah!” I had only ever seen the Atlantic, and only once, when I had briefly visited Florida with two sister-wives and Warren’s brother Wallace for his business. This was so exciting, I could hardly stand it.
We parked and I raced to the water’s edge in my long skirt. I took off my shoes and felt the sand and then the water through my nylons. Suddenly, a huge wave came in and I had to pick up my skirts and run! Ben laughed as I kicked the water high, and made a face at the surprising saltiness of the sea. If this was what freedom tasted like, I was beginning to think it was worth it.
All too soon, we had to get back on the road, stopping only for fuel and to eat. People in the rest stops and restaurants stared curiously at our attire and my hairstyle. As we whipped through the forest between Northern California and Oregon and came upon the most incredible pine trees, I experienced an unexpected stirring in my soul. Even though it was dark, it was like I could feel their ancient presence. Finally, Ben and I pulled into Coos Bay in the middle of the night. It was largely deserted, although the sight of a man washing his car in the chilly night air reminded us this wasn’t Hildale anymore. I was suddenly overcome with anxiety. What would my adored big brother think of me now?
As we ascended Cole’s stairs where he waited at the top, I tried to hide my shock at my brother’s appearance. His longer hair was unfamiliar to me, but his drawn face and haggard frame made me swallow. His skin was ashen, and his under-eye circles were darker than those of my sister-wives after months of fasting. For the first time, I realized how sick Cole truly was. As he embraced me, I felt something thaw inside and realized that when he disappeared years before, part of me had gone missing, too.
I introduced Ben to Cole, who graciously welcomed us both inside his apartment, which smelled like wheatgrass. He explained he had to do horrific colonic cleanses, but they were sustaining his life. Given the late hour, he showed us the two separate couches where we would sleep. Gratefully, I slipped beneath the thin blankets and had only a moment to be grateful for safety before I was out.
The next morning, after Ben and I unloaded the trailer, Cole took us for breakfast. It was so strange to walk into a restaurant where people didn’t know me, didn’t step aside in line in deference to my position, and didn’t open the door for me. My ego wanted to say, Don’t they know who I am? The rational part of me shot back, Of course they don’t!
Cole couldn’t eat anything on the menu, so while Ben and I ate, he told us his story, including some of the very intensive historical and spiritual research he had done on the FLDS. He felt that our beliefs were not based on any form of truth. Ben and I had already partially come to that conclusion on our own, but Cole’s bold words sounded almost like blasphemy.
Then he challenged me. “Becky, where do you want to live?”
I stared at him. “I don’t know. Where do you think I should live?”
“That’s not my decision. It’s yours. Where do you want to live?” he repeated.
I turned to Ben. “Where do you think I should live?”
“Rebecca!” Cole rebuked me. “I’m talking to you! Where do you want to live?”
I was silent and frightened for a long moment. “Ummm, well, Colorado might be nice.”
“No, I don’t mean in the States. I mean Fiji… or Australia… or Europe. What would you like to see? Where would you like to go?”
It was too much for me. I remembered when my sister-wives and I had received a free geographical encyclopedia CD in the mail. I had begged Seth to put it on the computer, but he had snidely declared that women didn’t need to know geography. Suddenly not only was I facing freedom, but Cole was expecting me to contemplate choices and decisions I had never been allowed to make.
“It doesn’t matter where you are, whether you are part of the Work or not, Becky,” he said. “You need to decide what is okay for you, and what is not okay—regardless of what anyone else is doing. You need to decide your code of conduct, right here and now. If you don’t, this world will shred you.”
I sat in stupefied silence. My compass had always been set by others. I had witnessed people leave the church without a guiding light or moral code. Almost all of them had fallen prey to drugs, alcohol, promiscuity, or crime. Now that I was out, what was my North Star?
It felt much too soon and dangerous to go back to Utah, but Ben had promised to return Scott’s truck and the trailer, and Ben was nothing if not an honest soul. That afternoon we drove back, taking comfort in the fact that no one except Scott would expect us to return. Still, as we left behind water, pines, and lush growth for the desert again, fear gnawed at me. It wasn’t a topic of polite dinner conversation, but we both knew that girls in my community had been forced back to their families and some quite literally held captive until they could be “sweet” again.
During the drive, I became aware of a new tension between us that lasted all the way to southern Utah. Every time Ben moved in his seat, I was excruciatingly aware of the ripple of muscles along his arms and legs, his red hair gleaming in the fading sunset. When he would beam a reassuring smile at me, I felt a little thrill before reality set in. Until Ben had kissed me in the canyon, the only place he held in my world was as a friend. Now when I would look at him or think of him, my head kept spinning.
As if he could read my thoughts, Ben gave me a mischievous look, then suddenly reached over and took my hand. We sat there, hands clasped in the space between us, the warmth from his suddenly spreading up my arm. I didn’t understand this feeling. I dropped his fingers and looked out the window. Ben glanced at me but didn’t push it.
Our hearts were both heavy at what we had done. So many people were angry and horrified with us. The calls hadn’t stopped. And it wasn’t as if gold was at the other end of the rainbow: Coos Bay in November was humid and cold, with a chilling wind that had whipped through our bones. But along the way, Ben and I began to talk seriously and decided that no matter what, we were not going to live in Utah. All it held for us now was a dead-end road, a life of misery and manipulation.
The sunrise was bright and beautiful, and the air warmed considerably by the time we met Scott in St. George to exchange vehicles. Scott brought Ben’s Chevy Blazer and promised to take back the trailer to Reliance Lighting. Then he gave us an update on what the new Prophet was saying about us.
Using his old tactics, Warren had warned the people that anyone who associated with either of us would be considered traitorous and deeply immoral. Our families were not to contact us—their eternal salvation was at stake. I was concerned for Scott, but he laughed it off. He was on his way out, too, and he knew it.
Once we said good-bye to his brother, Ben and I realized our mutual exhaustion. Neither one of us had slept well since before the escape. To attempt a trip back to Oregon now was to risk our lives.
At a small Motel 6 in St. George, Ben paid for a room with cash. Seeing him pull out his lean wallet made me hang my head. We had been using his money for gas, food, and now for a hotel, and I had no resources of my own to contribute, which upset me. We reached our room in silence and I stopped short as I saw that there was just one queen-sized bed. I knew I would be damned to hell for all eternity just for crossing the threshold.
Ben set down our small bags and approached me gingerly, until he stood right in front of me, blocking my view of the bed. He took my hand in one of his and lifted my chin with the other. I began to tremble, but he held my gaze, and a part of me felt spellbound by his blue eyes as he placed my hands, one at a time, behind his neck. Then he slowly put his hands around my waist. I was suddenly very aware of his wide, strong shoulders. These were not the muscles of a frail old man. His breath grew warmer, and his lips touched mine. An electric shock went down my spine.
I stepped away. Did I love Ben? I looked at him, and then at the floor again. Perhaps not in the girlish, Disney-movie sense of the word. But what I felt for Ben far outweighed anything I had ever felt for Rulon, and my feelings were based on an emotion I hadn’t had for any man in the FLDS: respect. I genuinely esteemed Ben for his kindness toward my mom, his sacrifice in helping me escape, and his commitment to his brother. Finally, I respected him for not forcing himself on me the way I had seen Warren, Jason, Winston, and so many others do to their women; the way Rulon had made me prostitute myself to submit to him, and to keep sweet about it.
Yes, I realized, I respected Ben. If that wasn’t a basis for love, then I didn’t know what was.
Ben silently bridged the space between us once more, his eyes pleading.
Trust me, they said gently. There was a glowing ember that I didn’t want to admit had begun to rise in my own body from the moment I first felt his breath upon my face.
Our eyes continued the conversation.
Please don’t hurt me.
I won’t. I promise. I really do.
Early the next morning, we left town before most townspeople were up and about. Despite the security I had felt in Ben’s arms through the night, I couldn’t help but feel like a dog running away with my tail between my legs. Was I now everything Warren had told the people I was? Immoral, an apostate, evil? My actions weighed heavily on me, making me feel physically ill. But Ben continued to be kind. Although he had gotten what he had wanted, he didn’t push me away, like I’d seen so many men do once their wives were off duty. Instead, he looked at me with great affection and shyly grinned at me from time to time. He gently took my hand and held it for long periods. Once, he brought it to his lips. My nausea began to subside. The farther we drove from southern Utah, the better I could breathe. It didn’t matter that the air was getting colder. We hadn’t been struck by lightning. The road hadn’t yet cracked open to swallow us whole.
Ben thought it wise to take a different route back to Coos Bay. We made our way along the coast, taking in giant redwoods, the likes of which I had never seen before. We got out of the car and I began to run between the trees, my feet soft on the padded forest floor. Ben laughed and chased me. He snatched up my hand, and I stared as a patch of sunlight illuminated him. Here I was, in this beautiful place, with a man who wanted to be by my side. My eyes filled with tears. This was what Christine had always longed for: to walk in nature beside the man she loved. Instead, my sister was soon to be one of Warren’s entourage, following him from room to room like a puppy. Christine deserved real love, as did every one of my sister-wives. Ben noticed the change in my mood, but I didn’t withdraw my hand. He kissed me on the cheek, and I smiled at him. Slowly, I was becoming convinced that life would be okay.