Corn Creek, Utah
September 1857
With Kanosh and many of the men gone to raid cattle for a few days, life in the village felt different. Softer, somehow. Awan still accompanied me to draw water from the creek every morning and afternoon, but I had the feeling this arrangement would evaporate soon. Inola didn’t try to shadow me anymore, and I got the sense I was no longer considered a flight risk.
I found myself walking a little slower on our trips to and from Corn Creek, letting Sweet Pea, the old brown mule, stop to snatch at a patch of dry grass whenever she wanted instead of tugging her along.
In his quiet way, Awan asked me question after question about what life in the Young household was like—and what I remembered from my time among my tribe.
I was delighted when I heard him laugh for the first time, a deep warbling chuckle.
Awan didn’t pry about the scars on my face, so one day I told him about the man who had taken me and Tyee. Then I showed him the shabby yucca horse that had once had a twin.
Awan reached out a hand to touch the horse’s soft mane in silence. Then revealed that his mother, Inola, and I had more in common than I realized.
“When she was six years old, her twin sister was taken in a Ute raid along with several other girls in the village,” he said, explaining that the Paiute people didn’t ride horses back then, making them one of the Utes’ favorite targets. “Ten men from the village died that day, trying to rescue their stolen children,” he finished sadly.
I swallowed back a bubble of sadness, wondering what my mother, my father, had done when they found me missing.
I thought of Tyee, lying motionless in the dirt where Batiste left his body on the shoulder of the main road in Salt Lake City where the men who refused to purchase him would see it. The angry scars on his cheeks were hidden by the blood and dust that covered his face and tangled his beautiful dark hair.
I hoped fervently that Inola’s sister had been luckier than Tyee.
Clara Young once told me, as if I needed reminding, that most stolen children weren’t lucky enough to find themselves in the home of a prophet with velvet couches. Most were sold to wealthy families in Mexico or even shipped across the ocean to work in the fields until their bodies gave out. Others were forced underground into the mines.
Other little girls weren’t so lucky to be sold for a rifle—and then a handshake.
After Awan told me what had happened to Inola’s sister and father, I began to speak to the other women in the tribe once in a while, pretending to learn the Paiute language at an impressive rate.
Over the next few days, the other women stopped bristling so much at my presence. Numa and Povi still held me at arm’s length, but no more dirty brooms appeared on my bedroll in the wickiup. Nobody called me “Brigham’s little doll” anymore. At least, not to my face.
Inola in particular seemed to soften toward me, asking Awan to find out whether I had a warm blanket for the winter. When I told him I did not, a downy rabbit skin covering appeared on my bedroll the following morning. I had seen one just like it on the other wives’ beds. Someone had spent precious time sewing the delicate skins together.
The dusty, desert village still didn’t feel like home. I suspected nothing ever would.
But it didn’t feel like I was in exile anymore, either.