Bozeman Magazine

Short Creek, Arizona, 1974: Fifteen-year-old Loretta slips out of her bedroom window to meet her “Gentile” boyfriend. This time, however, her strict Mormon parents catch her returning at dawn and quickly arrange for her to marry the upstanding Dean Harder, a devout yet materialistic fundamentalist who already has a wife and a brood of kids, some not much younger than Loretta herself. Trapped in her role as a “sister wife,” Loretta dreams of another, better future, of a world glimpsed in magazines and ads. Her chance comes when Dean uproots the family to Idaho, and she meets Jason, Dean’s teenage nephew, who worships Evel Knievel and longs to leave his small town—and the Mormon faith—behind. As Jason’s parents clash with Dean and struggle to come to terms with his unconventional family living next door, Loretta and Jason make their plans to escape. Vestal delivers a dizzying jolt of teenage freedom as the two drive off into the starry night, with hopes of recovering Dean’s cache of “Mormon gold.” But someone Loretta left behind is on their trail…

Shawn Vestal is a columnist for the Spokesman-Review and was raised in the Mormon faith. His stories have appeared in McSweeney s, Tin House, and other publications.