My Story by Elizabeth Smart

Author:Elizabeth Smart [Smart, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2013-10-07T04:00:00+00:00

24.

Party in the City

Mitchell made me scrape off the nail polish that Mary Katherine had painted on my toes a few days before I had been captured. There wasn’t much left, but he didn’t want to take any chances. While I scraped the last of the blue polish off, he and Barzee worked together to sew veils that could be buttoned onto the sides of our headdresses. The veils were made of thick, white material and reached from just below our eyes to halfway down our necks, leaving very little of our faces exposed. After they were finished, Mitchell made me put the veil on so he could inspect me. Nodding in approval, he turned and started down the hill.

We made our way down the side of the mountain until we got to the trail, then turned west and started hiking down the canyon. Mitchell led the way, his two green sacks tied across his back. I followed immediately behind him. Barzee walked right behind me. My captors were never more than a few feet away. So close that I could smell them. So close that I could always hear them breathing. So close that, even if I had gathered up the courage, I could not have run away. It was hot, the sun beating through the branches on the trees. I felt like I was suffocating, the thick veil making it very hard to breathe. The heavy robe swished around my feet, kicking up dust that stuck to my clothes. The farther down we hiked, the clearer the trail became.

Crossing over two outcroppings of fractured rocks, Mitchell suddenly turned to the right. “Stay!” he commanded. Climbing to the top of a dirt embankment, he pushed a couple branches out of the way, revealing the “shoe tree.” Hidden in a hole in the tree was a pair of sandals for him and a pair for Barzee. (Prophets didn’t wander around in hiking boots, don’t you know. They had to wear sandals to match their robes.) He and Barzee put on their prophet shoes, then he gave me Barzee’s hiking boots and commanded me to put them on. Hiding his boots in the hollow tree, he covered the opening with the rotten sticks and we headed down again.

The canyon began to open up and the trail became well used and clear. Soon it intersected with the main path that ran along the foothills at the bottom of the canyon. This was Dry Creek, a very popular jogging and biking trail. We turned left and kept on walking. Parts of Salt Lake City came into view. My heart jumped in my throat. I was less than a mile from my home! Around a bend in the trail, a jogger emerged, running right toward me. Look at me! I was screaming in my mind. Look at me! Don’t you recognize me? Don’t you know who I am? Of course he didn’t. He could only see my eyes. To him, we were just a couple of odd ducks dressed in old gray robes and veils.

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