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

by Harry Leon Wilson

  CHAPTER XXVII.

  _A New Cross Taken up and an Old Enemy Forgiven_

  Christina would now be left alone with the cares of the house, and heknew he ought to have some one to help her. The fever of sacrifice wasalso upon him. And so he found another derelict, to whom he was sealedforever.

  At a time of more calmness he might have balked at this one. She was across, to be sure, and it was now his part in life to bear crosses. Butthere were plenty of these, and even one vowed to a life of sacrifice,he suspected, need not grossly abuse the powers of discrimination withwhich Heaven had seen fit to endow him. But he had lately been on theverge of a seething maelstrom, balancing there with unholy desire andwickedly looking far down, and the need to atone for this sin excitedhim to indiscretions.

  It was not that this star in his crown was in her late thirties and lessthan lovely. He had learned, indeed, that in the game which, for thechastening of his soul, he now played with the Devil, it were best tochoose stars whose charms could excite to little but conduct of asaintlike seemliness. The fat, dumpy figure of this woman, therefore,and her round, flat, moonlike face, her mouse-coloured wisps of hair cutsquarely off at the back of her neck, were points of a merit that was inits whole effect nothing less than distinguished.

  But she talked. Her tones played with the constancy of an ever-livingfountain. Artlessly she lost herself in the sound of their music, untilshe also lost her sense of proportion, of light and shade, of simple,Christian charity. Her name was Lorena Sears, and she had come in withone of the late trains of converts, without friends, relatives, ormeans, with nothing but her natural gifts and an abiding faith in thesaving powers of the new dispensation. And though she was so alive inher faith, rarely informed in the Scriptures, bubbling with enthusiasmfor the new covenant, the new Zion, and the second coming of theMessiah, there had seemed to be no place for her. She had not been askedin marriage, nor had she found it easy to secure work to supportherself.

  "She's strong," said Brigham, to his inquiring Elder, "and a goodworker, but even Brother Heber Kimball wouldn't marry her; and betweenyou and me, Brother Joel, I never knew Heber to shy before at anythingthat would work. You can see that, yourself, by looking over hishousehold."

  But, after the needful preliminaries, and a very little coy hesitationon the part of the lady, Lorena Sears, spinster, native of Elyria,Ohio, was duly sealed to, for time and eternity, and became a starforever in the crown of, Joel Rae, Elder after the Order of Melchisedekin the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and President of theAmalon Stake of Zion.

  In the bustle of the start south there were, of necessity, moments inwhich the crown's new star could not talk; but these blessed respiteswere at an end when at last they came to the open road.

  At first, as her speech flowed on, he looked sidelong at her, in atrouble of fear and wonder; then, at length, absently, trying to put hismind elsewhere and to leave her voice as the muted murmur of a distanttorrent. He succeeded fairly well in this, for Lorena combined admirablyin herself the parts of speaker and listener, and was not, he thankfullynoted, watchful of his attention.

  But in spite of all he could do, sentences would come to seize upon hisears: "... No chance at all back there for a good girl with any heartin her unless she's one of the doll-baby kind, and, thank fortune, Inever was _that_! Now there was Wilbur Watkins--his father was presidentof the board of chosen freeholders--Wilbur had a way of saying,'Lorena's all right--she weighs a hundred and seventy-eight pounds onthe big scales down to the city meatmarket, and it's most of it heart--ahundred and seventy-eight pounds and most all heart--and she'd be aprize to anybody,' but then, that was his way,--Wilbur was a good dealof a take-on,--and there was never anything between him and me. And whenthe Elder come along and begun to preach about the new Zion and tellabout the strange ways that the Lord had ordered people to act out here,something kind of went all through me, and I says, 'That's the place for_me_!' Of course, the saying is, 'There ain't any Gawd west of theMissouri,' but them that says it ain't of the house of Israel--lots offolks purtends to be great Bible readers, but pin 'em right down andwhat do you find?--you find they ain't really studied it--not what youcould call _pored_ over it. They fuss through a chapter here andthere, and rush lickety-brindle through another, and ain't got theblessed truth out of any of 'em--little fine points, like where the Lordhardened Pharaoh's heart every time, for why?--because if He hadn't 'a'done it Pharaoh would 'a' give in the very first time and spoiled thewhole thing. And then the Lord would visit so plumb natural andcommonlike with Moses--like tellin' him, 'I appeared unto Abraham, untoIsaac, and unto Jacob by the name of God Almighty, for by my nameJehovah was I not known unto them.' I thought that was awful cute andfriendly, stoppin' to talk about His name that way. Oh, I've spent hoursand hours over the blessed Book. I bet I know something you don't,now--what verse in the Bible has every letter in the alphabet in itexcept 'J'? Of course you wouldn't know. Plenty of preachers don't. It'sthe twenty-first verse of the seventh chapter of the book of Ezra. Andthe Book of Mormon--I do love to git set down in a rocker with my shoesoff--I'm kind of a heavy-footed person to be on my feet all day--andthat blessed Book in my hands--such beautiful language it uses--thatverse I love so, 'He went forth among the people waving the rent of hisgarment in the air that all might see the writing which he had wroteupon the rent,'--that's sure enough Bible language, ain't it? And yetsome folks say the Book of Mormon ain't inspired. And that lovely versein Second Niphi, first chapter, fourteenth verse: 'Hear the words of atrembling parent whose limbs you must soon lay down in the cold andsilent grave from whence no traveller can return.' Back home theschool-teacher got hold of that--he's an awful smarty--and he says, 'Oh,that's from Shakespeare,' or some such book, just like that--and I justgive him one look, and I says, 'Mr. Lyman Hickenlooper, if you'll takenotice,' I says, 'you'll see those words was composed by the angelMoroni over two thousand years ago and revealed to Joseph Smith in thesacred light of the Urim and Thummim,' I says, and the plague-onedsmarty snickered right in my face--and say, now, what did you and yoursecond git a separation for?"

  He was called back by the stopping of her voice, but she had to repeather question before he understood it. The Devil tempted him in thatmoment. He was on the point of answering, "Because she talked toomuch," but instead he climbed out of the wagon to walk. He walked mostof the three hundred miles in the next ten days. Nights and mornings hefalsely pretended to be deaf.

  He found himself in this long walk full of a pained discouragement; notquestioning or doubting, for he had been too well trained ever to doeither. But he was disturbed by a feeling of bafflement, as might be aground-mole whose burrow was continually destroyed by an enemy it couldnot see. This feeling had begun in Salt Lake City, for there he had seenthat the house of Israel was no longer unspotted of the world. Since thearmy with its camp-followers had come there was drunkenness and vice,the streets resounded with strange oaths, and the midnight murder wascommon. Even Brigham seemed to have become a gainsayer in behalf ofMammon, and the people, quick to follow his lead, were indulging inungodly trade with Gentiles; even with the army that had come to invadethem. And more and more the Gentiles were coming in. He heard strangetales of the new facilities afforded them. There was actually a systemof wagon-trains regularly hauling freight from the Missouri to thePacific; there was a stage-route bringing passengers and mail fromBabylon; even Horace Greeley had been publicly entertained inZion,--accorded honour in the Lord's stronghold. There was talk, too, ofa pony-express, to bring them mail from the Missouri in six days; and afew visionaries were prophesying that a railroad would one day come bythem. The desert was being peopled all about them, and neighbours wereforcing a way up to their mountain retreat.

  It seemed they were never to weld into one vast chain the broken linksof the fated house of Abraham; never to be free from Gentilecontamination. He groaned in spirit as he went--walking well ahead ofhis wagon.

  But he had taken up a new cross and he had his re
ward. The first nightafter they reached home he took the little Bible from its hiding-placeand opened it with trembling hands. The stain was there, red in thecandle-light. But the cries no longer rang in his ears as on that othernight when he had been sinful before the page. And he was glad, knowingthat the self within him had again been put down.

  Then came strange news from the East--news of a great civil war. Thetroops of the enemy at Camp Floyd hurried east to battle, and even thename of that camp was changed, for the Gentile Secretary of War, saidgossip from Salt Lake City, after doing his utmost to cripple hiscountry by sending to far-off Utah the flower of its army, had nowhimself become not only a rebel but a traitor.

  Even Johnston, who had commanded the invading army, denouncing theSaints as rebels, had put off his blue uniform for a gray and washimself a rebel.

  When the news came that South Carolina had actually flung the palmettoflag to the breeze and fired the first gun, he was inclined to exult.For plainly it was the Lord's work. There was His revelation given toJoseph Smith almost thirty years before: "Verily, thus saith the Lordconcerning the wars that will come to pass, beginning at the rebellionof South Carolina." And ten years later the Lord had revealed to Josephfurther concerning this prophecy that this war would be "previous to thecoming of the Son of Man." Assuredly, they were now near the time whenother Prophets of the Church had said He would come--the year 1870. Hethrilled to be so near the actual moving of the hand of God, andsomething of the old spirit revived within him.

  From Salt Lake City came news of the early fighting and of meetings forpublic rejoicing held in the tabernacle, with prophecies that theGentile nation would now be rent asunder in punishment for its rejectionof the divine message of the Book of Mormon and its persecution of theprophets of God. In one of these meetings of public thanksgiving Brighamhad said from the tabernacle pulpit: "What is the strength of this manLincoln? It is like a rope of sand. He is as weak as water,--anignorant, Godless shyster from the backwoods of Illinois. I feeldisgraced in having been born under a government that has so littlepower for truth and right. And now it will be broken in pieces like apotter's vessel."

  These public rejoicings, however, brought a further trial upon theSaints. The Third California Infantry and a part of the Second Cavalrywere now ordered to Utah. The commander of this force was one Connor,an officer of whom extraordinary reports were brought south. It was saidthat he had issued an order directing commanders of posts, camps, anddetachments to arrest and imprison "until they took the oath ofallegiance, all persons who from this date shall be guilty of utteringtreasonable sentiments against the government of the United States."Even liberty of opinion, it appeared, was thus to be strangled in theselast days before the Lord came.

  Further, this ill-tempered Gentile, instead of keeping decently remotefrom Salt Lake City, as General Johnston had done, had marched histroops into the very stronghold of Zion, despite all threats of armedopposition, and in the face of a specific offer from one Prophet, Seer,and Revelator to wager him a large sum of money that his forces wouldnever cross the River Jordan. To this fair offer, so reports ran, theGentile officer had replied that he would cross the Jordan if hellyawned below it; that he had thereupon viciously pulled the ends of agrizzled, gray moustache and proceeded to behave very much as an officerwould be expected to behave who was commonly known as "old Pat Connor."

  Knowing that the forces of the Saints outnumbered his own, and that hewas, in his own phrase, "six hundred miles of sand from reinforcements,"he had halted his command two miles from the city, formed his columnwith an advance-guard of cavalry and a light battery, the infantry andthe commissary-wagons coming next, and in this order, with bayonetsfixed, cannon shotted, and two bands playing, had marched brazenly inthe face of the Mormon authorities and through the silent crowds ofSaints to Emigrant Square. Here, in front of the governor's residence,where flew the only American flag to be seen in the whole great city, hehad, with entire lack of dignity, led his men in three cheers for thecountry, the flag, and the Gentile governor.

  After this offensive demonstration, he had perpetrated the supremeindignity by going into camp on a bench at the base of Wasatch Mountain,in plain sight of the city, there in the light of day training his gunsupon it, and leaving a certain twelve-pound howitzer ranged preciselyupon the residence of the Lion of the Lord.

  Little by little these galling reports revived the military spirit in anElder far to the south, who had thought that all passion was burned outof him. But this man chanced to open a certain Bible one night to a pagewith a wash of blood across it. From this page there seemed to come suchcries and screams of fear in the high voices of women and children, suchsounds of blows on flesh, and the warm, salt smell of blood, that heshut the book and hastily began to pray. He actually prayed for thepreservation of that ancient first enemy of his Church, the governmentof the United States. Individually and collectively, as a nation, asStates, and as people, he forgave them and prayed the Lord to hold themundivided.

  Then he knew that an astounding miracle of grace had been wrought withinhim. For this prayer for the hostile government was thus far hisgreatest spiritual triumph.