Abducted Innocence (Emily Etcitty)

by Sandra Bolton

  “I’m a Navajo police officer. Etcitty, Emily Etcitty,” she muttered through clenched teeth. The knife plunged down, and Emily began to scream, pounding the air with her fists in self-defense. But the blade made a clean rip in her pant leg, exposing the protruding broken bone. The Ute woman stood and stared at the twisted leg, mumbling under her breath, then retrieved a blanket from the donkey and placed it behind Emily’s head. Returning to the donkey, she got a gourd canteen and gave Emily a sip of water, all the while speaking words Emily could not understand. After giving Emily a final look, she covered her with a shawl, mounted the donkey, and rode away.

  “No!” Emily cried out. “Don’t leave me here.” She tried to move her body in the direction the woman had gone but found it impossible. The sky darkened, and flashes of light sent jagged cracks through the thunderheads. Emily began to shake, her breathing slow and shallow, her heartbeat irregular and faint. She closed her eyes, allowing darkness to envelop her once again.

  No alarms sounded, and no armed guards came rushing when the gate swung open. The posse returned to their vehicles and followed the sheriff’s lead down a well-maintained gravel road broad enough to accommodate large trucks and heavy equipment. The sparse high-desert landscape gradually transformed into lush green fields. Tight barbed-wire fences divided the land into sections, some planted in barley, oats, and hay. Other pastures held grazing cows with their newborn calves, ewes with their lambs, and goats.

  Abe was amazed to see the contrast between this land and the surrounding ranches. “Where’s all the water coming from for irrigation when the rest of the area is nothing but red dirt and sage?” he asked Will.

  With squinted eyes and his mouth pulled into a frown, Will surveyed the landscape, taking his time before he answered. “The only source of water around here I know about is Navajo Wash—unless they drilled some wells, which they might have done.”

  Since living in New Mexico, Abe had learned a lot about water rights and the importance of water in arid country. Acequias, communal irrigation canals, were supposed to be shared equally with all the members of a community. The villages elected a majordomo whose job entailed ensuring that water distribution remained equal. It looked like Harmony Home Ranch used more than its fair share, if irrigation water came from the Navajo Wash. He quickly dismissed the train of thought—he had more important things on his mind, like finding Emily and the girls.

  They had driven close to five miles without seeing any other vehicles or structures, except for a distant tall, white spire, when the landscape began to change. On the left, an array of solar panels stretched out, blanketing a half acre of land. A sewage-treatment facility appeared on the right, followed by a water tower. Other indicators of an organized community began to emerge. Another steel gate and a high wall brought the caravan to a sudden standstill. Coiled razor wire topped the wall, giving it the appearance of a prison stronghold rather than a home for unwed mothers. A man in his early twenties—pudgy, pink-faced, shirt buttons bulging, hand on the butt of a pistol, stepped out of a guardhouse near the gate and walked to the sheriff’s vehicle. Turnbull emerged from his SUV and confronted the guard. Abe could not hear the exchange of words, but he watched as the lawman presented his identification and the search warrant.

  The guard scowled as he read the document, handed it back to the sheriff, and took a handheld walkie-talkie from a side holster. An angry exchange of words ensued, and the sheriff’s deputy jumped from the vehicle with his gun pulled. The young guard dropped the walkie-talkie.

  Abe drummed his fingers on the dash, feeling the tension building with each passing moment. “I wish I knew what was going on.”

  “Let’s find out,” Will said, stepping down from the truck. Abe joined him, and by the time they reached the sheriff, Hosteen and the other Navajo cops were already there. The guard, though still refusing to open the gate, glanced nervously at them.

  His pink face turned bright red as he continued to argue with the sheriff. “I can’t let you in without authorization from the Prophet. I’ve got my orders.” His eyes darted toward the Navajo men as they formed a tight semicircle around him.

  Sheriff Turnbull shook the warrant in front of the man’s face. “This is all the authorization you need, son. Now open this gate or we bust the damn thing down. Whichever way, we’re coming in.”

  The guard, sweat soaking the armpits of his denim shirt, shook his head and went inside the guardhouse as he mumbled under his breath. The sheriff and deputy followed right on his heels. While the sheriff looked on, he punched in a series of numbers, and the gate swung open.

  “I’m going to be in a world of trouble,” he whined.

  “You’re already in a shitload of trouble, son,” said Sheriff Turnbull. “Stay here with him, Frank, and watch the gate. Cuff him if needed. We don’t want this boy skedaddling or making any warning calls.”

  “You can’t do this. I haven’t done anything wrong. This is private property. I’m just doing my job.”

  Ignoring the young guard’s outburst, the sheriff addressed his deputy once again. “Frank, I want you to make a note of whoever comes through here. Make sure no one leaves. Keep an eye out for Phillip Harris and Wayne Mackey, the two suspects Hosteen briefed you on. I gave you all a copy of their mugs and the license number on the vehicle, but I’ll bet my next paycheck they changed it.” He turned and gave the gate guard a hard look. “You know those two, don’t you? You see them leave anytime today?”

  The guard shrugged. “I don’t recognize those names.”

  “You better not be lying. It’ll go hard on you, guaranteed.” The sheriff turned his attention back to his deputy. “Get on the radio if you have any problems, Frank. Keep me posted on what’s comin’ in and tryin’ to go out.”

  Frank nodded and positioned himself inside the guardhouse.

  “Okay, men. Get back in your trucks, and let’s get moving.”

  Once inside the gate, it was hard to believe they were still in the Southwest semidesert. Buildings began to pop up—identical two-story homes grouped together in a sort of cul-de-sac around a central plaza that gave the appearance of tract homes in a suburban community from the sixties. Massive hangarlike buildings, warehouses, and various smaller structures clustered around a central square. At one such structure, a clutch of women clad in long, pastel dresses stood beside a group of children. They stared at the intruders, their eyes round with surprise or fear—as if a band of aliens had just landed on their planet. The women quickly hustled the children inside one of the buildings and closed the door. In the center of the plaza stood an imposing white temple.

  “Holy shit,” said Will. “Where does all the dough come from to build and maintain this place?”

  “I’m thinking the women’s welfare checks and the men’s payroll from jobs in town go into the big boss’s general operating fund. It must add up to a hell of a lot of money,” Abe said. “Look. A private jet and runway.”

  “Rich bastard is scamming his own members, raping young girls, and living like a king.”

  “Rules this place like a dictator. He must have the people here brainwashed. Remember Jim Jones and the Kool-Aid? They’d probably drink it here if he said it was good for them.” Abe glanced at several men lined in front of a machine shop of some kind, their unsmiling faces etched in harsh lines.

  He saw the walled area behind the temple and felt a new surge of anger. “Will, see the building back there with a wall around it? Yesterday we saw women working in there. I’ll bet you anything that’s where they’re hiding Emily and the girls. Damn, I wish we could break in there right now. This search-warrant business is going to take all day.”

  Will narrowed his eyes and stared at the women’s compound, but remained tight-lipped.

  “All right. I know it would be a mistake,” Abe said. “We have to do this by the book so the pervert can be arrested and sent to jail where he belongs. Did you see all those little kids? Think about how many of them he might have fathe
red while he was getting his jollies with young girls.”

  The sheriff’s vehicle stopped directly in front of the sidewalk leading to the temple steps, and the rest of the posse pulled in, forming a line behind him. At the sound of the vehicles, men dressed in coveralls and work boots emerged from workshops and houses to stand abreast. They appeared unarmed but formed a human barricade in front of the temple. Sheriff Turnbull stepped down from his patrol car and faced them.

  “I’m Montezuma County Sheriff Tom Turnbull, and I’m here to serve a search warrant and conduct a legal search of these premises and all structures on these premises. Anyone who attempts to interfere with this procedure will be held under temporary arrest for obstruction of justice by one of my ten deputies. I have papers and an affidavit signed by Judge Mobley that outlines the terms of this warrant. Now, somebody tell me where I can find Rupert Langley.”

  The men stared at the sheriff, stone-faced and mute.

  “Boys, come on out here.” Turnbull beckoned to the posse. When they were all lined up, flanking each side of the sheriff, he turned to the ranchmen again. “I’ll give you one more chance. This here warrant doesn’t have to be presented directly to Langley. I have the authority to show it to any of you, but I’m giving you the courtesy of speaking to your boss and explaining things first. Now, I’ll ask you—”

  He was interrupted in midsentence by the roar of a jet engine firing up. By the time he turned toward the sound, a Beechcraft turboprop was rolling down a runway. Abe felt a slow burn building within his body.

  “I’ll bet a year’s pay that’s Langley. The son of a bitch done cut and run,” the sheriff said to no one in particular. “Where’s he going in such a hurry?”

  Abe clenched his fist. “Dammit. How’d he know we were coming?”

  The ranchmen crossed their arms, still saying nothing, but a smirk cut across the face of a short, balding man.

  Sheriff Turnbull pulled a handheld radio out of its case. “Dispatch, run a check on a flight plan for a commuter jet that just took off from the Harmony Home Ranch. I believe it’s a Beechcraft Baron. See if you can find out who it is licensed to and where it’s headed, and get right back to me. Over.” After returning the radio to its case, he turned his glare on the ranchers. “Okay, you with the silly grin,” he said to a slope-shouldered man in overalls. “Step on over here.” He pushed a copy of the warrant into the now-flustered man’s hands. “I am conducting a criminal investigation into the kidnapping of two young Navajo girls and a female Navajo police officer. You are duly served this warrant granting me and my deputies the right to search any and all vehicles, buildings, houses, or persons on the property known as Harmony Home Ranch. It also gives us the authority to confiscate anything we might consider evidence in a criminal case. We’ll start right now, with this here church.”

  The massive door to the temple swung open, and a thin man with a narrow, pinched face stood in the entrance. He wore a black suit and black dress shirt buttoned tightly around a long turkey neck. Snow-white hair hung to his shoulders, and the skin on his face was parchment thin, broken by blotches of bright-red capillaries on his cheekbones and his nose. His voice, when he addressed the sheriff, reminded Abe of a rusty gate.

  “Our Prophet has unexpectedly been called away. I am his private secretary, Fred Henrikson, and I am authorized to act on his behalf. How may I help you?”

  The smirking man in overalls rushed up the broad steps and handed the warrant to the secretary, who pulled a pair of bifocals from his jacket pocket and began to scan the papers, his mouth turned down at the corners in distaste.

  “Like I just told these men, I’m Tom Turnbull, the sheriff of Montezuma County, and I’m looking for some missing girls. So, your boss just got called away unexpectedly? Executive business meeting or something? You just step aside, Mr. Henrikson, and we’ll begin our search right here and now. If any doors need unlocking, I’d be mighty obliged if you’d cooperate. That way we won’t have to cuff you and break the place up.”

  22

  Friday, April 13, 1990

  Unknown Location

  Colorado Backcountry

  When she regained consciousness, Emily felt sure the cult members had found her. Her body was pinned down on a flat mat, and she was unable to move her legs or arms, just as she had been when the kidnappers first took her and Lina hostage in the van. A sharp pain shot through her right leg when she tried to sit, causing her to cry out. Her eyes fluttered open. She was not in a van taking her to some secret hideaway, nor in a locked room or a prison for young girls.

  Two amber-colored, almond-shaped eyes stared back at her. The animal bleated, kicked up its heels, and scampered away.

  A goat, Emily thought groggily. Where am I? She remembered falling, breaking her leg, and the appearance of the strange woman. The Ute woman must have brought me here. I have to tell her to call for help—Abe, Will, someone at headquarters—let them know about the cult and the girls.

  “Hello? Where are you? Please. I need to talk to you.” She closed her eyes again, exhausted from the effort. A memory came floating back.

  The Ute woman did not understand English. I don’t understand Ute. I’m so tired. Can’t keep my eyes open. Have to rest.

  She blinked until she could focus, unaware of how much time had elapsed, and peered at her surroundings through eyes as narrow as slits. Her head was pounding, and her broken leg was bound between two wooden slats with strips of rawhide. She tried to pull herself into a sitting position but became dizzy and immediately fell back again.

  Onto what?

  A travois was propped at an angle so her head remained slightly elevated, resting on a pillow of rabbit fur.

  She turned her head to the left and noticed a makeshift shelter of brush and grass backed up against a rock wall. It looked like the temporary dwellings the Ute used to make and left behind when they traveled on hunting or food-gathering trips.

  What was it called? Wickiup?

  In front of the wickiup, a fire pit smoldered with hot coals smelling of piñon smoke, something pungent. Baskets woven from willow or grasses hung on the outside of the primitive structure; others perched on rock shelves were filled with various roots and leaves.

  Emily felt as if she had fallen into the past, an earlier time when the Ute and Navajo raided each other’s camps for horses and slaves. Would she be a Ute slave now? Emily yelled again. “Hey! You’ve got to help me, please!”

  The Ute woman stepped out of the wickiup, glowering at her.

  “Me Emily Etcitty. Navajo. Police officer. You,” she said, pointing at the woman, “find a telephone. Call 911—the police or sheriff.” Emily pantomimed dialing and holding a phone to her ear while the Ute woman stared, her leathery face revealing nothing. “Shit,” Emily said, closing her eyes in frustration and raising her voice. “I have to get out of here.”

  “You don’t have to yell,” the Ute woman replied in a calm voice. “I’m not hard of hearing.”

  Ignoring the pain in her leg, Emily pulled herself upright at the sound of the woman’s voice. “You speak English? Why didn’t you say so before? You need to call the tribal police, sheriff, someone.”

  “Humph. Of course I speak English. Went to those damn government schools same as you where we couldn’t speak anything else. Can’t call anyone, though. No phone anywhere near here. Besides, I don’t go where there are people.”

  “Listen. Don’t you understand? I need a doctor. My leg’s broken.”

  “I saw your leg. I fixed it. When it heals, I’ll be gone and you can leave, walk out, and call the cops.”

  “Please. I can’t stay here and wait until my leg heals. The ranch I ran away from, they kidnap young girls during their puberty rite—Navajo girls, and maybe Ute girls as well. They brainwash them, and the bastard cult leader takes them as wives. Rapes them is what he does, fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds, tells them they please God by having his children. There are two young Navajo girls there now.” Emily’s voic
e broke as she strained to move. “Damn it, I have to tell someone.”

  The woman silently stared at Emily, her face devoid of emotion except for a tightening around her mouth and a narrowing of her eyes. “I can’t go to the white man’s town to call for help, and I can’t go back to my people.”

  “Why can’t you?”

  The Ute woman turned and walked away without providing an answer while two curious goats traipsed to Emily’s side and began nibbling on her shirt. “Scram!” she yelled, waving her arm, frustrated by the woman’s reluctance to send for assistance and her inability to do anything about it.

  Abe let his eyes roam over the interior of the massive temple. No expense had been spared in constructing the building. The cavernous interior was lined with gold-plated and marble statues. But not of Jesus, or any of the saints, or even of Mary, but of a curiously modern-looking man. He held a book while young girls knelt at his feet. The expensive-looking stained glass allowed light to cast a rainbow of color on a snow-white marble altar. Above the altar, etched in marble with gold-plated letters was a sentence: THE TIME IS GETTING SHORT, AND THE WICKED PEOPLE ARE ABOUT TO BE SWEPT OFF THE LAND, AND GOD’S PEOPLE WILL BE LIFTED UP TO REDEEM ZION.

  “Huh,” the sheriff scoffed after reading the cryptic message. A quick look at the main chapel revealed nothing but pews, benches, and more accolades to a Prophet. “Where do these doors lead?”

  The secretary gave the sheriff a condescending look. “The Prophet’s private residence and my office and quarters,” he said in a simpering voice. “And some quiet rooms for meditation and counseling. Nothing of interest to you, I’m sure.”

  “Open them up, and I’ll decide for myself what’s interesting.”

  Abe and Will exchanged looks of disgust.

  “Meditation and counseling, my ass,” Will said under his breath.