The Story of Elizabeth Smart

15

Chapter Fifteen-The Voice

My captors and I were sitting in the tarped area outside the tent. It was the third day since I’d been taken. The sun was starting to drop toward the horizon. Soon it would be cool. Barzee was standing near the containers with the food. In a few minutes, it would be time to eat. Food was the last thing that I wanted. My stomach was always tied in knots. The trees provided shade, but it was June, and the sun was burning through the leaves. There was no breeze. We had little water and I was thirsty. Mitchell was reading from the Book of Immanuel, the fascinating tome that he had written. I was learning more about his church, the Church of the First Born in the Last Days, and how he was the prophet of the world. Then he started reading scripture. When he talked of God, it was the creepiest thing you can imagine; the words of God coming from the face of the devil. It was the scariest thing I had ever seen.

I shifted on the bucket. It was early afternoon and the day was very calm. I was dressed in my robe. It was already filthy and only getting worse. Though it’d only been three days, it already seemed like years. I looked up at the sky as the sound of an airplane filtered through the trees. It seemed there were a lot of them now. I could hear them almost constantly. I searched for the aircraft through a break in the leaves but it was too high to be seen. Way too high to see me. A couple of times that morning some helicopters had flown over the ridge, but none of them had been very close. At least, I didn’t think they were, although it was hard to tell for certain as the sound of their rotors reverberated up and down the canyon walls. Although it was terribly disappointing that none of them came close enough to see me, at least I knew that they were out there looking.

I pulled against the steel cable that held me. If I could just get free! If I could run into an opening! If I could signal them in some way!

The sun was high now, almost at its apex in the sky. Hot. Dry. I felt like I was going to die of thirst. We were getting very low on water. A few cups was all that remained in the plastic containers. I was sitting in my usual place, on the bucket by my tiny sapling, when I heard it. Far away. So far away. My heart instantly jumped into my throat.

Mitchell heard it too. He fell silent. His eyes grew wild in fear and anger, his face growing hard as stone. Barzee was sitting right beside him. She didn’t seem to hear. Mitchell reached out and grabbed her shoulder, commanding her to hold very still.

Elizabeth …

The sound drifted through the trees.

Elizabeth …

The voice was faint as a breeze, soft as a whisper in the night. I strained my ears to hear it, praying it would come again.

Nothing.

I held my breath.

Nothing.

Mitchell slowly stood.

I continued straining.

Elizabeth …

It was drifting through the trees from the bottom of the canyon. It was so faint. So far away. I wondered if I had imagined it. But I know that it was real. And Mitchell knew it too.

I thought I had recognized my uncle’s voice. I wanted to scream! I wanted to cry! I wanted to jump up and down and wave my arms. I wanted to yell and shriek.

Mitchell moved toward me like an animal on the attack. He knelt down right beside me, his face just a few inches from my own. “I have my knife.” His breath was hot and foul. “One tiny peep, and you know what I will do.”

I stared at him in terror. Yes, I knew.

“If you make a sound, I’ll tape your mouth shut.”

I glanced in fear toward the bottom of the canyon, tears of frustration burning my eyes.

Elizabeth …

The sound drifted through the trees again.

“If he comes into our camp, if he even gets close, I’m going to kill him,” Mitchell sneered. “Do you understand that? If you call him and he hears you, if he comes up here, I’m going to stick him with my knife! He’s alone. He won’t be ready. If you call out and he finds us, I will kill him right here and now. So you better pray he doesn’t find you unless you want him dead!”

I turned in terror toward the sound of the voice. I couldn’t hear it any longer. I listened, tilting my head to the side. Yes … yes … there it was again. Was it really my uncle David? I couldn’t tell for sure. I peered through the trees. The mountain oaks were thick with leaves. I found a gap in the branches and looked down the side of the canyon. It was much too steep and thick with trees to see more than a few yards. I could look across the canyon at the mountain on the other side, but I could not see anything when I looked down. None of us had set so much as a foot outside of the camp and I had no idea what was down there. I didn’t know how far down it was to the bottom. I didn’t know if there was a trail, a road, a stream?

Mitchell was as taut as wire. He didn’t move. He hardly breathed. He stood there listening, tense and ready to spring. I didn’t know where he kept his knife, but I knew that it was always close. It seemed that he could make it appear out of nowhere. I pictured it again in my mind. Long. Black. Serrated on one side. A cutting knife. A deadly knife. And if I had learned anything about Brian David Mitchell, it was that he was evil enough to kill.

So we waited there together, listening for the sound of someone calling out my name.

I was being torn apart inside. My heart beat with both terrible excitement and utter fear. Someone was looking for me! Someone was very near! Calling my name. I might be rescued! He might find me! But if he did, would Mitchell kill him? If I screamed, the man might hear me. He might try to climb up the side of the mountain. But would he find me? I could picture Mitchell, this crazy man jumping out from behind a tree and slitting his throat. My uncle would be dead. I would still be captured. Nothing would really change. Then would Mitchell kill me too? Would he move me somewhere else? Somewhere worse? Somewhere more dangerous? Someplace much farther away from my family and my home? I remembered how hard it had been to climb the mountain. There had been times when we had been forced to crawl on our hands and knees. It might take, what … an hour for my uncle—if it was my uncle—to climb up the mountain to the camp? Plenty of time for Mitchell to kill me. Plenty of time to get ready to attack whoever came into the camp.

For a moment, a fantasy flashed into my mind, the dream of a desperate little girl. I imagined lots of men. Maybe twenty. Maybe more. They knew where the camp was without me screaming. They surrounded the camp. There was nothing Mitchell could do. He couldn’t hurt me. He couldn’t attack them all. He might turn to me in anger, but he would know that it hadn’t been my fault that they had found me! I had not even made a sound. He couldn’t be mad at me. He couldn’t blame me. I had done everything he had told me to do. But the men had found me anyway.

I wanted it so badly that I could hardly breathe. I wanted to be away from there. I wanted to be away from him. I wanted to go home. I wanted to see my family. I wanted to be safe and not hurt anymore.

But I knew it wasn’t real. There was no group of men. They weren’t going to surround us. There was only one man. And Mitchell was going to kill him if he came into the camp.

I glanced at Barzee. Her face was mean and hard. Mitchell moved closer to me. His eyes were as deadly as the steel of his knife. You will die here, his eyes seemed to say. You and whoever is down there in the canyon. There’s no way this ends well if he starts climbing toward our camp!

My heart fell into my stomach. I wasn’t just brokenhearted. I was shattered. Simply shattered. I had lost my only chance! I started shaking. My knees turned to rubber, my throat grew so tight I couldn’t breathe. The bitter disappointment seemed to crush my soul.

We waited, all of us listening intently. The voice called again a time or two but then faded. A long time passed. We didn’t move. The voice was never heard again.

That night, I cried myself to sleep again. And though I didn’t know it, four or five miles to the west my mother cried herself to sleep as well.