Page 1 of Running to the Cowboy

Chapter One

Olivia

The brothers take our shoes away at night.

Mother stands watch by the door as I pass, just another daughter in a single file line of 19 modestly dressed girls returning home at the end of a long day’s work.

I’m tired and cold from working outside. I haven’t eaten all day, so I’m also a little dizzy. With all that affecting me, I take too long to focus on what I’m supposed to be doing.

“Olivia,” Mother says severely.

I sniff as I search for softness in her rigid, cold face.

“I suggest you perk up by tomorrow,” she says. “Delivering a pale, sick bride has consequences.”

She isn’t my biological mother. That one lives at a compound across the border in Wyoming, and I haven’t seen her in months. Not since the new Prophet took over.

This Mother is just the one assigned to this particular dormitory, in this particular compound. She’s in charge of 19 girls, some from her womb and some from others’. Prophet Orlyn Moffat doesn’t care who raises whom in the Celestial Order of the Covenant Kinship.

In fact, the Prophet doesn’t care to see or hear women or children at all, at least not until he comes to arrange the weddings.

My wedding is to take place tomorrow at the Holy Temple, to Brother Nevyn. Not a blood-related brother. That’s what we are told to call the adult men in the church who are not yet married to multiple wives. But none of that matters, because I won’t be participating.

If Mother thinks that a sick bride will mean bad things for her and her “girls,” then a missing bride will be nothing short of hell. And it will be all my fault for running away.

But I have to. I won’t have that disgusting old man putting his hands on me. Not tomorrow. Not ever.

At 21, I’m well past the typical marrying age of a woman in this church. I know that. The Prophet was wary of arranging a marriage for me while my granddad was alive. Granddad was here in the before times. Before the forced marriages, before the dormitories, before the welfare fraud.

Granddad fell ill and passed away several months ago, and that’s when they moved me to the new compound in Montana.

I’ve seen how Brother Nevyn looks at me whenever I tend the dairy cows. No matter how many layers I put on in the freezing cold weather, Brother Nevyn stares at my legs and my breasts like I belong to him.

I’ve begged to be reassigned to child care or to the school. The brethren rarely visit those buildings. But reassignment was not possible, I was told. I’ve been told that it’s my own fault for having large breasts, hips, and thighs; I’ve already attracted the attention of the men in our church. As if that makes any sense. Nevermind that none of my physical attributes are visible under all these modest layers.

Later that night, as I lie in bed exhausted, weak, and hungry, I wonder where I’ll run to.

Out the window, the night is black and moonless. At least there’s no wind or snow tonight.

Still, I must be insane. Who tries to make a run for it without a plan? Without shoes? After working her fingers to the bone on an empty stomach?

If I stay here, my life is over.

Goldie’s blonde hair is like a waterfall as she peers down at me from the top bunk. Mother, one of 18 wives of Prophet Orlyn, has left for the night because it’s her turn with her husband.

“Olivia,” Goldie whispers in the dark. “You can’t go tonight.”

“I have to,” I croak.

She knows me too well.

“Shut up and listen to me. I know you’ve been giving your food rations to the primary school.”

I explain what they already know. “The welfare credits for the month ran out, and I can survive longer than a five-year-old with no food.” Goldie knows this because all of us older girls forgo food at the end of the month so the little ones can eat.

The church may subscribe to the doomsday-prepper way of thinking, but it’s always at the expense of the needs of the here and now. We have flour, sugar, and beans in the storehouses. But can we access them?

“Of course you can, but we need to prepare,” Goldie urges.

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