in to see the
real-estate agent. I saw ranchers and farmers walking by, and I was intrigued when I realized that we were in cowboy country. I thought to myself: This might actually be fun.
We drove the six miles up the mountain on a dirt road. As we approached the six-mile mark, we veered off the county road and drove half a mile straight up the mountainside on a very rutted and muddy path.
“Just so you know,” the cheery real-estate woman told us, “in the winter, the county does not plow this small section because it is a private road. The people who live up here mostly use tire chains and a prayer to get up the mountain in the winter.”
“We have neighbors up here?” Brian asked with a frown.
The real-estate agent smiled and nodded. “Oh, don’t worry; you are not all alone up here. About two and a half miles up that way live the Farrows and about two miles beyond them live the Hawthorns. And,” she carried on, “if you follow the county road a couple more miles up, there are a few more people scattered around.”
I saw that Brian was not too happy at that news, and his forehead was furrowed as we drove up the steep road. Soon, we arrived at what appeared to be a driveway leading to a huge parcel of land.
“Well, here it is—sixty acres of good quality ranch land,” the agent said, as she flashed her big smile in Brian’s direction.
I looked around at the acres of desolate, sagebrush-filled terrain. Free-range cows were munching grass in the distance, and two huge cottonwood trees swayed gently in the spring air. There were some flat areas, but the landscape was mostly made up of one hill after another. Mamma and Brian talked a lot, and my sister and I walked around a little. We discovered a creek across a road with tall aspen trees and green moss. We got back to the car in time to hear Brian tell the agent that they wanted the land if they could agree on a price.
For a moment, my heart stopped. The land was beautiful, but it was in the middle of nowhere. There were no sounds from any other people; the quiet was interrupted only by the occasional mooing cows in the distance or the call of one bird to another. I looked over at Samantha, and although we were not allowed to speak, I could see the same look of sheer terror. What would happen to us here?
After negotiating an agreeable payment plan with the owners, we moved up on the mountain. Even though Samantha and I had great misgivings about moving there, we were looking forward to not being cooped up in the truck and the tents, and Brian and Mamma would not have to worry about the people asking about our not being in school. As soon as we knew we were going to move, Mamma registered with the state to receive her disability, food stamps, and the checks for Samantha and me. She registered in a different county 150 miles south in Wenatchee, Washington, and gave a fake address in that same county. How she never got caught is a mystery. When she had to go into the government office, she would change out of her Amish clothes and into normal clothes.
Brian, too, was in hiding from the state. Besides the 1970s child molestation charges, he also had an ex-wife whom he had divorced right before he met Mamma. When she was only eighteen, he had moved her to an isolated mine way up in the Bradshaw mountains of northern Arizona. Eight years later, she fled the mountain to her parents’ home in Phoenix where she pressed charges against Brian for battery. She dropped the charges during the divorce when Brian agreed to give her full custody of their three children with no contest.
Brian kept a low profile after that, in order to avoid paying child support. The mountain was on the outskirts of a tiny ranch town, only a few miles from the Canadian border. This proved to be the perfect place for Brian and Mamma to wallow in their paranoia about the government, while practicing their religious beliefs and torturing my sister and me.
After we had pitched the tents, Brian announced that we would need a lot of money if we were going to try to build any sort of structure before winter set in. I shivered at the thought of winter; we would have to build a shelter or we would freeze to death. The winters on the mountain could range anywhere from zero degrees Fahrenheit to thirty degrees below zero. Not long after pitching the tents, Mamma and Brian went into town to get supplies and left Samantha and me at our new homestead.
When they returned, Brian and Mamma brought with them shovels, picks, and rope.
“Here we go,” Brian said as he started pulling things out of the truck bed. “We got a generator too, so we can start making things to sell again.”
A few hours later, Samantha and I were put to work with picks and shovels to clear the sagebrush, so we could start building a small shelter. Brian helped some, but he would use the truck and a chain to pull the debris out. I was only eleven and Samantha was only nine: the tools were heavy.
As dusk fell, Brian came out and said we could come in for the night. We had only cleared five square feet but could do no more. Mamma gave us some soup, and we collapsed on our blankets and fell asleep to the lonely howl of coyotes that seemed to say, “You are all alone, so very alone … and defenseless.”
It took us nearly two weeks to clear a chunk of land fifty feet wide by fifty feet long. While working, Samantha and I stumbled upon an old piece of cement that was sticking up from the ground. It turned out to be part of the basement to a house that had been on the land in the thirties. We were excited with our find and ran down the cement steps into the underground room which was only ten feet by ten feet. Of course, there was no hidden treasure, but it was still fun to see how old it looked. We did find a few mason jars of canned plums that still had their seal. Brian seemed pleased with our find and even let us eat the fruit. They were surprisingly delicious, even though they had been there at least sixty years.
Brian decided that we would construct a small building on top of the basement and stay the winter there. However, lumber was expensive, so we would have to sell a lot of our crafts in town to buy the needed supplies.
It was May and a rainbow of different colored flowers covered the mountains. They nodded their pretty heads in the warm spring air and brought a smile to my otherwise sad face. Wild cherries were blossoming along the country road; there were miles of apple, cherry, and peach orchards down in the valleys. All the way to Wenatchee, all you could see was orchard after orchard. When they were all in bloom, it was a masterpiece to behold. Springtime made everything look alive and beautiful, but there was also a sense of urgency in the air. We had to prepare for the oncoming cold that would kill every form of life if it were given a chance.
That first week of May, we loaded our wares into the truck and headed to Wenatchee to pick up Mamma’s government checks. They did not come to the post office in our little town because the P.O. box had to be in the same city as her fake address. Every month, Mamma and Brian made this trip to pick up the checks and food stamps. Since Mamma did not have a job and the government did not know she was making money on the side with crafts, we qualified for all kinds of government aid.
Just a few miles outside of Wenatchee, Brian and Mamma set up our table with Amish dolls, Amish cookbooks, and Brian’s music boxes. A lot of people set up stands to sell their vegetables, so Mamma thought it might work to sell our items.
We did pretty well that day and sold more than half our things, and Brian was able to buy some of the much needed lumber for our winter shelter.
As the summer progressed, Mamma and Brian started bringing home goats and other farm animals from the auctions. Samantha and I loved playing with the goats, but we did not get much time to do so as our list of chores seemed to grow with every day.
Samantha and I would now have to get up before the adults. We were to heat up water for coffee, make breakfast, put Brian’s shaving things out and then wake them up. After breakfast, we would clean the two tents and then help Brian and Mamma with building, pull sagebrush or take care of the animals.
My sister and I were in charge of virtually everything since Mamma had complained to Brian that she did not want to be stuck with the work around the tents. She believed that we were capable of doing more than we already were.
As early fall approached, old Jack Frost revisited the mountains. A shiver ran up my spine as I watched the geese fly south and the goats’ fur become fluffier.