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

by Harry Leon Wilson

  CHAPTER XX.

  _How the Lion of the Lord Roared Soft_

  But with the coming of spring some fever that had burned in the blood ofthe Saints from high to low was felt to be losing its heat. They hadheld the Gentile army at bay during the winter--with the winter's help.But spring was now melting the snows. Reports from Washington, moreover,indicated that a perverse generation in the States had declined toaccept the decrees of Israel's God without further proofs of theirauthenticity.

  With a view to determining this issue, Congress had voted more money fortroops. Three thousand men were to march to the reinforcement of thearmy of Johnston on Black's Fork; forty-five hundred wagons were totransport their supplies; and fifty thousand oxen and four thousandmules were to pull these wagons. War, in short, was to be waged uponthis Israel hidden in the chamber of the mountains. To Major Rae,watching on the outposts of Zion from behind the icy ramparts of EchoCanon, the news was welcome, even enlivening. The more glory therewould be in that ultimate triumph which the Lord was about to secure forthem.

  In Brigham and the other leaders, however, this report induced deepthought. And finally, on a day, they let it be known that there could nolonger be any thought of actual war with the armies of the Gentile. JoelRae in Echo Canon was incredulous. There must be battle given. The Lordwould make them prevail; the living God of Abraham, of Isaac, and ofJacob, would hold them up. And battle must be given for another reason,though he hardly dared let that reason be plain to himself. For only bycontinuing the war, only by giving actual battle to armed soldiers, byfighting to the end if need be--only so could that day in MountainMeadows be made to appear as anything but--he shuddered and could notname it. Even if actual war were to be fought on and on for years, hebelieved that day could hardly be justified; but at least it could bemade in years of fighting to stand less horribly high and solitary. Theymust fight, he thought, even if it were to lose all. But the Lord wouldstay them. How much more wicked and perverse, then, to reject theprivilege!

  When he heard that the new governor, who had been in the snow withJohnston's army all winter, was to enter Salt Lake City and take hisoffice--a Gentile officer to sit on the throne of Brigham--he felt thatthe Ark of the Covenant had been thrown down. "Let us not," he imploredBrigham in a letter sent him from Echo Canon, "be again dragooned intoservile obedience to any one less than the Christ of God!"

  But Brigham's reply was an order to pass the new governor through EchoCanon. According to the terms of this order he was escorted through atnight, in a manner to convince him that he was passing between the linesof a mighty and far-flung host. Fires were kindled along the heights andthe small force attending him was cunningly distributed and duplicated,a few of its numbers going ahead from time to time, halting the rest ofthe party and demanding the countersign.

  Joel Rae found himself believing that he could now have been a fiercerLion of the Lord than Brigham was; for he would have fought, whileBrigham was stooping to petty strategies--as if God were needing to relyupon deceits.

  He was only a little appeased when, on going to Salt Lake City, helearned Brigham's intentions more fully. The new governor had beeninstalled; but the army of Johnston was to turn back. This was Brigham'sfirst promise. Soon, however, this was modified. The government, itappeared, was bent upon quartering its troops in the valley; and Zion,therefore, would be again led into the wilderness. The earlier promisewas repeated--and the earlier threat--to the peace commissioners nowsent on from Washington.

  "We are willing those troops should come into our country, but not stayin our city. They may pass through if need be, but must not bequartered within forty miles of us. And if they come here to disturbthis people, before they reach here this city will be in ashes; everyhouse and tree and shrub and blade of grass will be destroyed. Here aretwenty years' gathering, but it will all burn. You will have won backthe wilderness, barren again as on the day we entered it, but you willnot have conquered the people. Our wives and children will go to thecanons and take shelter in the mountains, while their husbands and sonswill fight you. You will be without fuel, without subsistence foryourselves or forage for your animals. You will be in a strange land,while we know every foot of it. We will haunt and harass you and pickyou off by day and by night, and, as God lives, we will waste your armyaway."

  This was hopeful. Here at least was another chance to sufferpersecution, and thus, in a measure, atone for any monstrous wrong theymight have done. He hoped the soldiers would come despoiling,plundering, thus compelling them to use the torch and to flee. Anotherforced exodus would help to drive certain memories from his mind andsilence the cries that were now beginning to ring in his ears.

  Obedient to priestly counsel, the Saints declined, in the language ofBrigham, "to trust again in Punic faith." In April they began to movesouth, starting from the settlements on the north. During that and thetwo succeeding months thirty thousand of them left their homes. Theytook only their wagons, bedding, and provisions, leaving their otherpossessions to the mercy of the expected despoiler. Before locking thedoors of their houses for the last time, they strewed shavings, straw,and other combustibles through the rooms so that the work of firing thecity could be done quickly. A score of men were left behind to apply thetorch the moment it became necessary,--should a gate be swung open or alatch lifted by hostile hands. Their homes and fields and orchards mightbe given back to the desert from which they had been won; but never tothe Gentile invaders.

  To the south the wagons crept, day after day, to some other unknowndesert which their prophet should choose, and where, if the Lord willed,they would again charm orchards and gardens and green fields from thegray, parched barrens.

  Late in June the army of Johnston descended Emigration Canon, passedthrough the echoing streets of the all but deserted city and camped onthe River Jordan. But, to the deep despair of one observer, theseinvaders committed no depredation or overt act. After restinginoffensively two days on the Jordan, they marched forty miles south toCedar Valley, where Camp Floyd was established.

  Thus, no one fully comprehending how it had come about, peace was seensuddenly to have been restored. The people, from Brigham down, had beenoffered a free pardon for all past treasons and seditions if they wouldreturn to their allegiance to the Federal government; the new officersof the Territory were installed, sons of perdition in the seats of theLord's mighty; and sermons of wrath against Uncle Sam ceased for themoment to resound in the tabernacle. Early in July, Brigham ordered thepeople to return to their homes. They had offered these as a sacrifice,even as Abraham had offered Isaac, and the Lord had caught them a timelyram in the thicket.

  In the midst of the general rejoicing, Joel Rae was overwhelmed withhumiliation and despair. He was ashamed for having once wished to beanother Lion of the Lord. It was a poor way to find favour with God, hethought,--this refusing battle when it had been all but forced uponthem. It was plain, however, that the Lord meant to try themfurther,--plain, too, that in His inscrutable wisdom He had postponedthe destruction of the wicked nation to the east of them.

  He longed again to rise before the people and call them to repentanceand to action. Once he would have done so, but now an evil shadow layupon him. Intuitively he knew that his words would no longer come withpower. Some virtue had gone out of him. And with this loss of confidencein himself came again a desire to be away from the crowded center.

  Off to the south was the desert. There he could be alone; there face Godand his own conscience and have his inmost soul declare the truth abouthimself. In his sadness he would have liked to lead the people with him,lead them away from some evil, some falsity that had crept in aboutthem; he knew not what it was nor how it had come, but Zion had beendefiled. Something was gone from the Church, something from Brigham,something from himself,--something, it almost seemed, even from the Godof Israel. When the summer waned, his plan was formed to go to one ofthe southern settlements to live. Brigham had approved. The Churchneeded new blood there.

  He rode
out of the city one early morning in September, facing to thesouth over the rolling valley that lay between the hills now flauntingtheir first autumn colours. He was in haste to go, yet fearful of whathe should meet there.

  A little out of the city he passed a man from the south, huddled high onthe seat under the bow of his wagon-cover, who sang as he went one ofthe songs that had been so popular the winter before:--

  "Old squaw-killer Harney is on the way The Mormon people for to slay. Now if he comes, the truth I'll tell, Our boys will drive him down to hell-- Du dah, du dah, day!"

  He smiled grimly as the belated echo of war came back to him.