The Lions of the Lord: A Tale of the Old West

by Harry Leon Wilson

  CHAPTER XVI.

  _The Order from Headquarters_

  He left Parowan the next morning to preach at one of the littlesettlements to the east. He was gone three days. When he came back theytold him that the train of Missourians had passed through Parowan and onto the south. He attended a military council held that evening in themeeting-house. Three days of reflection, while it had not cooled theanger he felt toward these members of the mob that had so brutallywronged his people, had slightly cooled his ardour for aggressivewarfare.

  It was rather a relief to know that he was not in a position of militaryauthority; to feel that this matter of cutting off a wagon-train was inthe hands of men who could do no wrong. The men who composed the councilhe knew to be under the immediate guidance of the Lord. Their names andoffices made this certain. There was George A. Smith, First Counsellorto Brigham, representing as such the second person of the Trinity, andalso one of the Twelve Apostles. There was Isaac Haight, President ofthe Cedar City Stake of Zion and High Priest of Southern Utah; therewere Colonel Dame, President of the Parowan Stake of Zion, PhilipKlingensmith, Bishop from Cedar City, and John Doyle Lee, Brigham's mosttrusted lieutenant in the south, a major of militia, probate judge,member of the Legislature, President of Civil Affairs at Harmony, andfarmer to the Indians under Brigham.

  When a call to arms came as a result of this council, and an officialdecree was made known that the obnoxious emigrant train was to be cutoff, he could not but feel that the deed had heavenly sanction. As toworldly regularity, the proceeding seemed to be equally faultless. Thecall was a regular military call by the superior officers to thesubordinate officers and privates of the regiment, commanding them tomuster, armed and equipped as directed by law, and prepared for fieldoperations. Back of the local militia officers was his Excellency,Brigham Young, not only the vicar of God on earth but governor of Utahand commander-in-chief of the militia. It seemed, indeed, a foretaste ofthose glorious campaigns long promised them, when they should go throughthe land of the Gentiles "like a lion among the flocks of sheep, cuttingdown, breaking in pieces, with none to deliver, leaving the landdesolate."

  The following Tuesday he continued south to Cedar City, the mostpopulous of the southern settlements. Here he learned of the campaign'sprogress. Brigham's courier had preceded the train on its way south,bearing written orders to the faithful to hold no dealings with itspeople; to sell them neither forage for their stock nor food forthemselves. They had, it was reported, been much distressed as a resultof this order, and their stock was greatly weakened. At Cedar City, itbeing feared that they might for want of supplies be forced to haltpermanently so near the settlement that it would be inconvenient todestroy them, they were permitted to buy fifty bushels of wheat and tohave it and some corn the Indians had sold them ground at the mill ofMajor Lee.

  As Joel's informant, the fiery Bishop Klingensmith, remarked, this wasnot so generous as it seemed, since, while it would serve to decoy themon their way toward San Bernardino, they would never get out of thevalley with it. The train had started on, but the animals were so weakthat three days had been required to reach Iron Creek, twenty milesbeyond, and two more days to reach Mountain Meadows, fifteen milesfurther south.

  Here at daybreak the morning before, Klingensmith told him, a band ofPiede Indians, under Lee's direction, had attacked the train, killingand wounding a number of the men. It had been hoped, explainedKlingensmith, that the train would be destroyed at once by the Indians,thus avoiding any call upon the militia; but the emigrants had behavedwith such effectiveness that the Indians were unable to complete thetask. They had corralled their wagons, dug a rifle-pit in the center,and returned the fire, killing one Indian and wounding two of thechiefs. The siege was being continued.

  The misgiving that this tale caused Joel Rae he put down to unmanlyweakness--and to an unfamiliarity with military affairs. A sight of theorder in Brigham's writing for the train's extermination would have sethis mind wholly at rest; but though he had not been granted this, he wasassured that such an order existed, and with this he was obliged to becontent. He knew, indeed, that an order from Brigham, either oral orwritten, must have come; otherwise the local authorities would neverhave dared to proceed. They were not the men to act without orders in amatter so grave after the years in which Brigham had preached his rightto dictate, direct, and control the affairs of his people from thebuilding of the temple "down to the ribbons a woman should wear, or thesetting up of a stocking."

  Late on the following day, Wednesday, while they were anxiously waitingfor news, a messenger from Lee came with a call for reinforcements. TheIndians, although there were three hundred of them, had been unable toprevail over the little entrenched band of Gentiles. Ten minutes afterthe messenger's arrival, the militia, which had been waiting under arms,set out for the scene in wagons. From Cedar City went every able-bodiedman but two.

  Joel Rae was with them, wondering why he went. He wanted not to go. Hepreferred that news of the approaching victory should be brought tohim; yet invisible hands had forced him, even while it seemed thatfrenzied voices--voices without sound--warned him back.

  The ride was long, but not long enough for his mind to clear. It wasstill clouded with doubts and questionings and fears when they at lastsaw the flaring of many fires with figures loitering or moving busilyabout them. As they came nearer, a strange, rhythmic throbbing crept tohis ears; nearer still, he resolved it into the slow, regular beatingsof a flat-toned drum. The measure, deliberate, incessant,changeless,--the same tones, the same intervals,--worked upon hisstrained nerves, at first soothingly and then as a pleasant stimulant.

  The wagons now pulled up near the largest camp fire, and the arrivalswere greeted by a dozen or so of the Saints, who, with Major Lee, hadbeen directing and helping the Indians in their assaults upon the enemy.Several of these had disguised themselves as Indians for the betterdeception of the besieged.

  At the right of their camp went the long line of the Indians' fires.From far down this line came a low ringing chant and the strangelyinsistent drum-beats.

  "They're mourning old Chief Moqueetus," explained Lee. "He fell asleepbefore the fire just about dark, while his corn and potatoes werecooking, and he had a bad nightmare. The old fellow woke up screamingthat he had his double-hands full of blood, and he grabbed his gun andwas up on top of the hill firing down before he was really awake, Iguess. Anyway, one of the cusses got him--like as not the same one thatdid this to-day while I was peeking at them," and he showed them abullet-hole in his hat.

  At fires near by the Indians were broiling beef cut from animals theyhad slaughtered belonging to the wagon-train. Still others were cuttingthe hides into strips to be made into lariats. As far down as the linecould be seen, there were dusky figures darting in and out of thefirelight.

  A council was at once called of the Presidents, Bishops, Elders, HighPriests, and the officers of the militia who were present. BishopKlingensmith bared his massive head in the firelight and opened thecouncil with prayer, invoking the aid of God to guide them aright. ThenMajor Higbee, presiding as chairman, announced the orders under whichthey were assembled and under which the train had been attacked.

  "It is ordered from headquarters that this party must be used up, exceptsuch as are too young to tell tales. We got to do it. They been actingterrible mean ever since we wouldn't sell them anything. If we let themgo on now, they been making their brag that they'll raise a force inCalifornia and come back and wipe us out--and Johnston's army alreadymarching on us from the east. Are we going to submit again to what wegot in Missouri and in Illinois? No! Everybody is agreed about that.Now the Indians have failed to do it like we thought they would, so wegot to finish it up, that's all."

  Joel Rae spoke for the first time.

  "You say except such as are too young to tell tales, Brother Higbee;what does that mean?"

  "Why, all but the very smallest children, of course."

  "Are there children here?"

  Lee answ
ered:

  "Oh, a fair sprinkling--about what you'd look for in a train of ahundred and thirty people. The boys got two of the kids yesterday; thefools had dressed them up in white dresses and sent them out with abucket for water. You can see their bodies lying over there this side ofthe spring."

  "And there are women?" he asked, feeling a great sickness come upon him.

  "Plenty of them," answered Klingensmith, "some mighty fine women, too; Icould see one yesterday, a monstrous fine figure and hair shiny like acrow's wing, and a little one, powerful pretty, and one kind of betweenthe two--it's a shame we can't keep some of them, but orders is orders!"

  "These women must be killed, too?"

  "That's the orders from headquarters, Brother Rae."

  "From the military headquarters at Parowan, or from the spiritualheadquarters at Salt Lake?"

  "Better not inquire how far back that order started, Brother Rae--not ofme, anyway."

  "But women and children--"

  "The great Elohim has spoken from the heavens, Brother Rae--that'senough for me. I can't put my human standards against the revealed willof God."

  "But women and children--" He repeated the words as if he sought tocomprehend them. He seemed like a man with defective sight who has comesuddenly against a wall that he had thought far off. Higbee nowaddressed him.

  "Brother Rae, in religion you have to eat the bran along with the flour.Did you suppose we were going to milk the Gentiles and not ever shed anyblood?"

  "But innocent blood--"

  "There ain't a drop of innocent blood in the whole damned train. Andwhat are you, to be questioning this way about orders from on high? I'veheard you preach many a time about the sin of such doings as that. Youpreach in the pulpit about stubborn clay in the hands of the potterhaving to be put through the mill again, and now that you're out here inthe field, seems to me you get limber like a tallowed rag when an ordercomes along."

  "Defenseless women and little children--" He was still trying to regainhis lost equilibrium. Lee now interposed.

  "Yes, Brother Rae, as defenseless as that pretty sister of yours was inthe woods there, that afternoon at Haun's Mill."

  The reminder silenced him for the moment. When he could listen again, heheard them canvassing a plan of attack that should succeed withoutendangering any of their own numbers. He walked away from the group tosee if alone, out of the tumult and torrent of lies and half-truths, hecould not fetch some one great unmistakable truth which he feltinstinctively was there.

  And then his ears responded again to the slow chant and the constantmeasured beat of the flat-toned, vibrant drum. Something in its rhythmsearched and penetrated and swayed and seemed to overwhelm him. It cameas the measured, insistent beat of fate itself, relentless, inexorable;and all the time it was stirring in him vague, latent instincts ofsavagery. He wished it would stop, so that he might reason, yet dreadedthat it might stop at any moment. Fascinated by the weird rhythm and thehollow beat, he could not summon the will to go beyond its sway.

  He walked about the fires or lingered by the groups in consultationuntil the first signs of dawn. Then he climbed the low, rocky hill tothe east and peered over the top, the drum-beats still pulsing throughhim, still coercing him. As the light grew, he could make out thedetails of the scene below. He was looking down into a narrow valleyrunning north and south, formed by two ranges of rugged, rocky hillsfive hundred yards or so apart. To the north this valley widened; to thesouth it narrowed until it became a mere gap leading out into thedesert.

  Directly below him, half-way between the ranges of hills, was a circleof covered wagons wheel to wheel. In the center of this a pit had beendug, and here the besieged were finding such protection as they couldfrom the rifle-fire that came down from the hills on either side. Evennow he could see Indians lying in watch for any who might attempt toescape. The camp had been attacked on Monday morning after the wagonshad moved a hundred yards away from the spring. It was now Friday. Forfour days, therefore, with only what water they could bring by dashes tothe spring under fire, they had held their own in the pit.

  When it grew still lighter he descried, out on his left near the spring,two spots of white close together, and remembered Lee's tale the nightbefore of the two little girls sent for water.

  At that instant, the chanting and the beat of the drum stopped, and inthe silence a flood of light seemed to shine in upon his mind, showinghim in something of its true aspect the thing they were about to do. Notclearly did he see it, for he was still torn and dazed--and not in itsreal proportions, moreover; for he saw it against the background of histeaching from the cradle; the murder of their Prophet, the persecutionof the Saints, the outrages put upon his own family, the fate of hissister, the murder of his father, and the death of his mother; thecoming of an army upon them now to repeat these persecutions; thereported offenses of this particular lot of Gentiles. And then, too, hesaw it against his own flawless faith in the authority of thepriesthood, his implicit belief that whatsoever they ordered was to beobeyed as the literal command of God, his unshaken conviction that todisobey the priesthood was to commit the unforgivable sin of blasphemyagainst the Holy Ghost. "If you trifle with the commands of any of thepriesthood," he himself had preached but a few days before, "you aretrifling with Brigham; if you trifle with Brigham, you are trifling withGod; and if you do that, you will trifle yourselves down to hell."

  Yet as he looked upon the doomed camp, lying still and quiet in the graylight,--in spite of breeding, training, habit of thought, and passionatebelief, he felt the horror of it, and a hope came to him out of thathorror. He hurried down the hill and searched among the groups ofIndians until he found Lee.

  "Major, isn't there a chance that Brother Brigham didn't order this?"

  "Brother Rae, no one has said he did--it wouldn't be just wise."

  "But _did_ he--has any one seen the written order or heard who broughtthe oral order?"

  "Brother Rae, look here, now--you know Brother Brigham. You know hisauthority, and you know Dame and Haight. You know they wouldn't eitherof them dare do as much as take another wife without asking Brighamfirst. Well, then, do you reckon they'd dare order this militia aroundin this reckless way to cut off a hundred and thirty people unless theyhad mighty good reason to know he wanted it?"

  He stood before Lee with bent head; the hope had died. Lee went on:

  "And look here, Elder, just as a friendly hint, I wouldn't do any moreof this sentimental talk. Why, in the last six months I've known men toget blood-atoned for less than you've said."

  He saw they were holding another council. Bishop Klingensmith again ledin prayer. He prayed for revelation, for the gifts of the spirit foreach of them, and for every order of the priesthood; that they mightprevail over the army marching against them; that Israel might grow andmultiply and cover the earth with cities and become a people so greatthat no man could number them; and that the especial favour of Heavenmight attend them on their righteous smiting of the Gentile host nowdelivered over to them by an all-wise Jehovah.

  The plan of assault was now again rehearsed, and its detailscommunicated to their Indian allies. By ten o'clock all was ready.