Chapter 1

Hiding under the low bridge she knew it was only a matter of time before the Seeders would find her there. She had sneaked out of the second-story room where they were keeping her by tying her sheet to the bed, tossing it out the window, and sliding down before dropping the last five feet to the ground. Having no idea where she would go, she knew that everyone in the house was sleeping and that she could at least put some distance between them before they found out she was gone. Bursts of white steam exploded from her mouth as she ran toward the highway. It was cold but not freezing but she only had access to the sweater she had been wearing since the Seeders took her from her home two days ago. Running for a mile and a half she made it to the low bridge over U.S. Rte. 27 where she hid beneath to catch her breath. If she had any chance of succeeding in her escape, she had to find a way to put more distance between herself and the cult before they woke up. In the silence, she heard a distant rumbling. Edging up the small embankment she peeked down the straight road. In the distance, two headlights pierced the darkness as the noise of a heavy vehicle grew more distinct. “Dear Lord,” she whispered, “Let it be one of the big trucks.”

As it neared, she saw a semi pulling a forty-foot trailer. With no other hope, she knew she had to take the chance and run to the middle of the highway. As she frantically waved her arms in wide arcs the long blast from the huge vehicle’s airhorn seemed to be pushing her back. Expecting to be crushed, she closed her eyes and heard the squeal of juddering tires as she smelled the smoke of hot rubber. The heat from the truck’s radiator was miraculously warming her face and chest. She heard the truck’s engine ease to a slow idle. Opening her eyes, she saw the front of the huge Freightliner no more than three feet in front of her.

The driver’s door opened and a man in a cowboy hat over a face with a menacing frown jumped down and rushed toward her. “JESUS CHRIST YOUNG LADY,” he yelled, “WHAT IN THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?”

Her only chance would be to convince this stranger to take her far enough away from Eldorado to give her a chance to escape this life. Dropping to her knees she tightly clasped her hands, raised them in desperate prayer, and said, “PLEASE sir, PLEASE HELP ME.” She was not even aware that she was sobbing as she said, “PLEASE DON’T MAKE ME GO BACK, THEY’LL TORTURE ME THEN START RAPING ME AGAIN.”

Chester McClean, like most long-haul truck drivers, was a well-informed man. He had made several deliveries to Eldorado Texas and Colorado City, Arizona, and was familiar with the LDS Church (Mormon), as well as Warren Jeff’s FLDS (Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints) cult. Jeffs at the time was incarcerated in St. George, Utah, undergoing trial for the rape of minors, incest, and polygamy. When the girl crawled out of the culvert, ran to the middle of the highway, and flagged him down, Chester knew by her long, curly hair and how she was dressed, that she was an FLDS girl—probably married. He had heard about attempted escapes before. None of them had succeeded. After he got over the panic of almost hitting the girl, he was moved by the intensity of her pleas. With thoughts of his daughter who had been killed in an auto accident, he was both repulsed and moved by this girl’s claims of being raped. He knew about the Seeders and heard of them raping young women. SHIT, he thought, knowing that any kind of involvement in this weird community could get him into trouble with these unexplainable people. With disquiet written all over his face, he said, “Get into the cab Missy. Climb into the upper bunk behind the seats and pull the curtain tight. That will get you through Eldorado.”

Giving it more thought he explained, “I have to make a delivery in San Angelo. You will have to stay there until I deliver my load. By then maybe I will have collected my wits enough to figure out what I am going to DO with you.”

Two days after he picked her up, she was still trying to figure out the man who drove the truck. Even though they had driven hundreds of miles and were even in a different state she still feared the cult would catch up with them.

Chet was twenty-seven years older. She was fifteen. He was forty-two yet was eight years younger than her husband. Ruggedly handsome this man Chet was unexpectedly kind, a trait her husband had never shown her. Thankful that he had picked her up Corrie was still amazed that his semi-truck tractor, a Freightliner Cascadia, could be so spacious and luxurious. It had both a lower and top bunk and a fold-down desk with a computer. Though there were no toilet facilities, it seemed to her like she was in a traveling palace.

They had stopped at two clean and busy truck stops to take showers and eat. He was kind enough to stop every two hours to accommodate her tiny bladder. Looking over at him she could not stop herself from saying it again, “I still can’t believe that you picked me up and are STILL letting me ride with you Chet; you’re so NICE to me.”

Earlier in the day he had dropped off a load in Memphis and picked up another on his way to Los Angeles. Just after crossing the Tennessee border, he stopped at the Transportation Centers of America truck stop on US40 in Earle, Arkansas so they could both take a shower. While she waited in the cab he went to the supermarket in Earle where he bought a loaf of bread, some fruit, and juice. When he returned, he said, “We’re headed for a picnic lunch at the park down the road.” Looking over at the attractive young girl who a couple of days ago had shockingly materialized in the middle of the road he reached out and stroked her freshly cut short hair and added, “So you think they’re looking this far out to find you?”

She claimed to be fifteen but looked like a girl in her early twenties. After what she had told him there were no questions in his mind that she had more experience for her years than she should have had. “There’s no place in the United States where they won’t be looking for me, Chet.” One would have thought she had committed a heinous crime and was the subject of a nationwide manhunt.

Had the girl not reminded him of his daughter he probably would have taken her into Eldorado and turned her over to the police. But her story was so compelling that he decided to give her a ride to someplace where she could attempt to free herself from the bondage she talked about. In the polygamous communities of Colorado City, Eldorado, and Bountiful, Utah where he made deliveries, he had heard numerous stories about the “Seeders” in the FLDS cult. If the wives, reportedly as young as fourteen, had not gotten pregnant within a reasonable amount of time they were turned over to the Seeders—a group of elders in the community that were handpicked for their proven potency. It was said that when the girls were turned over to the Seeders, they were banned from having sex with their husbands until the Seeders had their way with them and they had become pregnant ... or not. As Corrie had sobbed on her knees in the middle of the highway, clutching at Chester’s shirt and trousers while begging him to help her escape, he saw the image of a young girl with his daughter’s face being gang-raped by a group of middle-aged men.

While his truck was being unloaded in San Angelo, he went to a thrift store that was only a few blocks away. Unaccustomed to shopping for girls’ clothes he told the clerk that his “daughter” was five-feet-one -inch” and weighed 106 pounds. With the woman’s help, he picked up a pair of jeans, two t-shirts, and three pairs of white cotton panties—he would let Corrie buy shoes and socks later.

Being an independent contractor, McClean was a rebel who was completely self-sufficient. He had done things in the past that could have gotten him into serious trouble ... had women riding in his truck before, both professionals and casual acquaintances. But having a fifteen-year-old girl whom he had taken across state lines and had locked in his truck could put him in jail for a long time. But since his daughter had died and his marriage evaporated his attitude made him a carelessly fearless man. “Fuck it,” he said.

Over the years Chet had formed a tight friendship with eleven other drivers who created an association they called Wheelin’ Warriors who were a true “band of brothers,” like him driving around the calendar, none married. Constant driving made each of these men rich by normal standards. Every three years all twelve of them would take three weeks off and travel to some exotic place like Australia, New Zealand, the African Veldt, Nepal, the South Pole, and such. They worked out of a place in the suburbs of St. Louis, Missouri that they called “Central Headquarters.” It was a large old Victorian house that they turned into a kind of trucker’s B&B. Located in the almost dead center of the country the individual Warriors would use the facilities themselves every time they passed through St. Louis. It was a convenient spot to party. Central Headquarters was an unusually conceived bordello that they started when they rescued a woman who was in trouble, an abused housewife whom they helped disappear. Loving the sex that the Warriors abundantly supplied she started the whorehouse and grew it quite successfully.

Bobbie-Jo Hadley had been the wife of Lamar Hadley, a small-town sheriff in East Texas. Typically corrupt, Lamar was also viciously abusive to his wife. One night he came home drunk and beat her so brutally that he broke her nose, jaw, and collarbone. People in the community knew that she had suffered abuse before; it was nothing to see her with a black eye or bruises on her arms and face. But figuring that “BJ,” true to her initials, deserved what she got for having been such a fast girl in high school, the good people of Buckskin just shrugged their shoulders with a “tsk, tsk” and looked the other way.

After beating his wife that night Lamar passed out on the floor in a pool of vomit. It was the night before the fourth of July. Each year Lamar bootlegged fireworks for the Independence Day Picnic. Gravely injured from the beating Lamar subjected her to, Bobbie-Jo was able to sort through her husband’s stash of fireworks and pick out three M-80 firecrackers, the largest available. She undid her husband’s pants and duct taped the M-80s to his scrotum, lit the fuse, and blew off his balls along the head of his penis. When the picnickers came for the fireworks the next day, they found Lamar dead in a pool of blood. Bobbie-Joe lay in a coma on the floor next to him.

While in the hospital with her injuries Bobbie-Jo was charged with the murder of her husband, the sheriff. Her brother Houston Caffrey, a long-haul trucker, came up with enough cash to bribe her out of jail. He knew there would be no mercy for the notorious “Blow Job Queen” of Buckskin High School. Spiriting his sister out of town in his big rig he took her to his home in St. Louis. There he put her under the care of Dr. Lambert Keen, son of the personal physician of William Prendergast (the Missouri political boss that sent Harry Truman to Washington). Keen performed plastic surgery on her face which completely changed her appearance. Through the help of the Prendergast gang, Bobbie-Jo received a new birth certificate under the name of Frederica Krause, after which she went to every corner of the United States riding in various trucks of the Wheelin Warriors. Alternating rigs and drivers every ten days her odyssey finally made the authorities search for the notorious “Blow Job Queen” fruitless, and she was presumed dead. Just about that time Houston Caffrey and the rest of the Warriors decided to buy the four acres of property with a Victorian house next to the highway and convert it to the National Headquarters of the Wheelin Warriors, calling it the Wayfarer’s Inn where Freddie Krause started her brothel.

At the time of Freddie’s odyssey truck cabs did not have sleeping accommodations nor were truck stops as elaborate as they are today. They did not attract the variety of women that those of today do either. Today waitresses, lonely females, prostitutes, or even women drivers people these truck stops with restaurants, showers, and even sleeping quarters. At the time these road warriors found liaisons with females in local restaurants, brothels in cities large enough to support them, and sometimes even in churches. So, while construction on National Headquarters was being completed Billie-Jo Haley (now Frederica Krause), became a “special companion” of those twelve men (the Wheelin Warriors) who were accustomed to driving alone.

The Wheelin Warriors were a small society. They all worked hours that no normal person would even have considered and were usually paid in cash. Within seven years of their formation, each Warrior had amassed a sizable wad of cash. Having set up a private medical insurance plan they paid cash for Bobbie-Jo’s medical expenses. At the end of her two years on the road Frederica Krause’s earnings helped with a down payment on a large Victorian house which was managed by Freddie herself.

During those two years of travel, Freddie did not receive a salary. Nor was she paid fees for the services she rendered as the Warrior’s “Social Facilitator.” Compensated handsomely from the Warrior’s Foundation, she received the money in the form of Charitable Donations. Paying all her expenses on the road, she checked into motels as Mrs. Krause and her husband. Her clothes and other traveling needs were taken care of by the foundation as well. At the end of the first year, she had $45,000 in the bank, thirty of which she paid as part of the down payment on Wayfarer’s Inn. Though the Prendergast Political organization was on the wane their lawyers and accountants were still giving Wheelin Warriors excellent business and tax advice.

Wayfarers Inn was an immediate success soon becoming a truckers’ Mecca. At first, it was only Freddie who was turning tricks which she could not seem to get enough of. But no successful business can be built on the back of just one person—often on her knees. So, it became the Warrior’s responsibility to recruit new blood for Wayfarer’s Inn. Since no trucker can go many miles without somebody asking for a ride the task was easy. The best “Wayfarer Girls” were those young women traveling west, many hoping to get to Hollywood, most of whom were accustomed to giving sex in exchange for rides, money, or other rewards.

Freddie, having been involved with so many men before she got into “life,” was an excellent screener. She was quite picky, insisting that all her prospective girls love sex beyond the norm of usual women. Hers was a more particular selection that consisted of young women with a goal, not just those who were down and out. The deal made by the driver when he picked up a prospective Wayfarer Girl was, if the girl did not work out in her two-week trial period, she would be taken to Los Angeles in one of the Warrior’s trucks. After signing an agreement that she would never divulge Wayfarer’s Inn’s true business, she would be given enough of a stipend to get her through a month in the Los Angeles area. To this date, the inn has never been compromised. As for the trucking clientele beyond the Wheelin Warriors, it was made clear that “loose lips sink ships.” If anyone were discovered loose-lipping it, he and his rig would be sunk.

As he carried the package from the thrift shop back to his rig Chet laughed again, shook his head, and said, “What the hell, you only go around once,” a comment he and the Warriors often made. Pondering the situation some more he thought but what the hell am I going to do with THIS girl? He knew that his fellow Warriors would back him up on whatever he decided ... they had all done some outrageous things themselves and most of them worked out. He knew that if this little girl were to escape from the cult, she would have to go along with being on the road for a long time, maybe a year or two.

When Corrie changed clothes, came down from the top bunk and sat in the seat beside him, she appeared to be a changed woman. He knew she was just a kid but when she had shed the long dress required by the FLDS she was now dressed like a normal teenage kid. But even at fifteen, Corrie was more than just a teenager. Though she smiled with false bravado and was cautiously friendly she held herself in such a way as to say, “Don’t FUCK with me buster, I’m NOT a kid.”

Back on the road she volunteered, “They made me get married to this old man when I was fourteen Chet; I am his fifth wife. He didn’t get me pregnant, so they turned me over to the Seeders—five men who have all been at me for the last week and a half.” The way she said was a blatant announcement of a strange set of circumstances that pissed him off. Pondering realities that had suddenly been thrust upon him McClean took it in without comment. He was aware that polygamy went on in these communities, but he had never considered that one of those wives might try to escape. Shaking his head at the strange situation he found himself in he thought, This girl is trying to break out though. She is surely a woman with balls.