Pillar of Light

by Gerald N. Lund

  Five days after Far West fell, fifty-six of the most prominent men of Far West were taken prisoner and marched off to Richmond. Contemporary accounts report that identification of the Church leaders was aided by former members of the Church. In addition to thus being enabled to satisfy old scores, some of the apostates were paid handsomely for the information. (See LHCK, p. 223.) The intent of General Clark was to strip the last vestiges of leadership from the Saints. But two notable and very important omissions from the list of prisoners should be mentioned: Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball. Brigham was by then the senior Apostle, and with all the members of the First Presidency in bonds, he was the most important leader left to guide the Church. But his name was not on the list. Heber C. Kimball said it was because Brigham lived three or four miles outside of Far West and wasn’t well known to the mob. Heber himself was the second in seniority in the Twelve, but he had been gone a year to England and had just returned to Missouri a few weeks before. So he too was overlooked. Heber said Colonel Hinkle came looking for him but could not remember him. (See LHCK, p. 222.) These oversights would prove to be of critical importance as Joseph Smith languished in Liberty Jail until April 1839 and the Saints were driven from the state of Missouri.

  Chapter 25

  Will Mendenhall Steed came into the bathing room just as Caroline and Olivia were finishing Savannah’s bath. “Oh, good,” Caroline said when she saw her son. “Can you and Livvy finish with Savannah? I need to—” She stopped at the sight of Will’s face and his heavy panting. “Will, what’s the matter?”

  “Mother, come quick. Mr. Cornwell needs you at the freight yard.”

  Caroline stood up, wiping her hands on her apron. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  He gulped in air hungrily, gasping out the words. “He wouldn’t tell me. Just said to fetch you real quick.” He half turned. “Hurry, Mama. I’ve never seen him like this.”

  * * *

  Joshua’s business partner was waiting for Caroline and Will in the main yard. Caroline rushed up to him. “What is it, Obadiah? What’s wrong?” He took her by the elbow, but to her surprise he did not start toward the office. Instead he steered her toward the long shed where they kept the wagons out of the weather.

  “Caroline, there’s been some news from up north.”

  She stopped dead. “About Joshua?”

  He gently pulled her forward again. “There are two men in the office,” he said slowly, obviously careful of what he was saying. “They’ve come down from Caldwell County just this morning.”

  “Do they know anything about Pa?” Will blurted, looking over his shoulder to see if he could see them through the window.

  “Please,” Cornwell said. “This isn’t the place to talk.”

  Caroline’s stomach was suddenly as tight as a bowstring, but she said nothing more and she and Will followed Cornwell into the shed. Obadiah stopped beside one of the big flatbed wagons they used to haul lumber. He was trying to meet her eyes, but he couldn’t quite do it. “Has Joshua been hurt?” she asked.

  His mouth opened, then shut again. Finally he looked away. “I’m sorry, Caroline. I’m so sorry.”

  * * *

  It was more than a quarter of an hour later when the man called Hugh hurriedly stepped back from the window of the office. “Here they come,” he said. He looked at himself quickly, to see if he was presentable. Any trace of the war paint he had worn just days before was now gone. He had changed the buckskin shirt and moccasins for white man’s clothing. He had even trimmed his beard and spit out his chewing tobacco before he had come to the building that housed the company of Joshua Steed and Son, Freight and Portage.

  He leaned forward again, peering at the three figures who had just emerged from the shed and were coming towards the office. He whistled softly. “Now, there’s a looker!” But then he remembered what he was about and moved swiftly back against the wall. “You let me do the talking, Riley.” He swore softly. “We’ll teach that uppity captain not to mess with Neil Gilliam’s boys.”

  The other man grimaced as he moved around the desk to join his partner. His left arm was in a sling, and his hand hung useless from out of it. “We already taught him one lesson,” he chortled. “Best shot you ever made.”

  “Well, the debt ain’t paid yet. Not by a long shot. So you just let me do the talking.”

  * * *

  As the three of them stepped up to the porch of the freight office, Cornwell stopped and touched Caroline’s arm. He spoke very gently. “Caroline, I’m not sure this is the best time for you. The men said they can stay until tomorrow if they have to.”

  Caroline’s fingernails dug into the palms of her hands. She had finally mastered the tears, though she knew her eyes were red and puffy. She still felt as though huge waves of blackness were washing over her, but the trembling in her body had mostly stopped. Fighting the temptation to bite her lip, she turned to her son. “Will?”

  He looked awful, as if he had been struck by some terrible force that had knocked the life from him. But instantly his shoulders straightened. “I want to talk to them, Mama.”

  She nodded and looked back to Cornwell. “Me too, Obadiah. I need to hear it for myself.”

  Cornwell started to say something else, then finally nodded. “All right.” He opened the door and stood aside.

  There were not many people that Caroline took an instant dislike to, but as they stepped into the office and the two men straightened, there was an immediate sense of revulsion. The first man was small, with a narrow face and tiny round eyes that glittered like those of a ferret or a weasel. His beard was trimmed and his clothes were presentable enough, but they weren’t enough to overcome the evilness of his face.

  “This is Mr. Hugh Watson,” Cornwell said, “from over in Carroll County.”

  The man had his hat in his hand. He grinned, showing crooked teeth and a tongue brown from chewing tobacco. The smile was more like a grimace and only heightened the feral characteristics of his features. “Pleased to meet you, Miz Steed,” he said. He had meant to keep his eyes downcast, but she saw that he was startled by her beauty and had to pull his gaze away from her with some effort. It only made her want to shudder.

  Hugh turned to the man beside him. “And this is Mr. Riley—”

  “Riley Overson,” the other man said hastily. “I’m from Ray County, ma’am.” He was bigger, fuller in the face, but also heavily bearded and with the kind of face that would make a woman shiver if she passed it on a dark night. She saw that his left arm was in a sling and that he was holding it with his other hand.

  “How do you do?” she murmured.

  Cornwell pulled out the chair for her, and she waved it aside. But Will took her by the arm and moved her to it. Too emotionally beaten to resist, she sat down. “Mr. Cornwell has told us that you were there when . . .” She fought back the surge of bile that rose in her throat. After a moment, she looked up again. “Will you tell us about it please?”

  The one named Hugh stepped forward. He was twisting his hat in his hands as though he too were in pain. “Things were goin’ just fine, ma’am,” he said. “We had taken all the Mormon militia out south of town and had them surrender their weapons. General Lucas, he told us to go through the city, searchin’ from cabin to cabin, lookin’ just in case somebody had held some rifles back. There was three of us. Me and Riley here and a man named Caleb Scott.”

  He looked down, trying to muster some semblance of grief. “Suddenly some Mormons who had stayed in town and hid jumped out from a barn behind us. Weren’t no warning at all. They just started shooting. Caleb took a ball right in the back. He was dead ’fore he hit the ground. Riley here swung around and took another one in the shoulder.”

  Riley kept his face impassive. He hadn’t heard this version and was amazed at how smoothly Hugh could lie. He raised his damaged arm, just in case they hadn’t noticed it before, to lend credence to Hugh’s tale. Hugh stopped for breath, peering at Caroline with eyes that ke
pt straying away from her face.

  She watched him steadily, her face not betraying any emotion now. “Please go on.”

  “We started shootin’ back, and they turned tail and ran. I was gonna go after ’em, but I had to look after my two friends. Weren’t nothin’ we could do for Caleb, of course, but Riley was hurt bad. Then those men started shootin’ at us again. It was right then that your husband come runnin’. He’d heard the shootin’. He shot at them on the dead run. Hit one of ’em, too. Saw the man go flyin’.”

  He turned to Will, who was standing beside his mother, rigid as a steel beam and clenching and unclenching his fists. “Braver man ain’t never been born. Even though there was still danger, he paid it no mind. No mind at all. You can be right proud of your pa, boy. Right proud.”

  “Get on with it,” Cornwell said. This was a far more colorful version than he’d been told, and the man’s fawning manner was starting to grate on him.

  “Well, it was right then that it happened. The Mormons ran, but one of them must have stopped behind a nearby barn. We didn’t see him, of course. Then just like the yellow-bellied cowards them Mormons are, the man took aim and shot your husband square in the back. Didn’t give him a fightin’ chance. Just shot him in the back, then turned and hightailed it away.”

  She thought she had steeled herself after hearing Obadiah tell her that Joshua was dead, but Hugh’s words had both Will and Caroline openly weeping. Even Riley was moved. Hugh looked at Will and shook his head sadly. “It’s a real shame, boy,” he said. “Your pa was one brave man, and those Mormons shot him down cold.”

  * * *

  Riley looked at his companion with open awe, then lifted the mug of beer in salute. “Best danged liar east of the Rocky Mountains,” he toasted.

  “Shut up!” Hugh snarled, looking around the saloon. But it was late, and the few men still inside were paying the two strangers little attention.

  “Well, you are,” Riley said sullenly, taking a deep swig of the dark brown liquid. “And it worked. You hear that boy start cussin’ the Mormons, his ma trying to hush him up?”

  “It ain’t over yet.”

  Riley’s eyebrows raised. “It ain’t?”

  Suddenly Riley was nervous. Neil Gilliam was Hugh and Riley’s immediate superior officer, and it had been to him they had gone after finding and killing the arrogant Captain Steed. They had told him most of the story, leaving out only the minor detail that it had been their planned rape of the women in the cabin that had so infuriated Steed. Gilliam was seething by the time they finished their tale and was bitterly disappointed that Steed was beyond his reach now.

  Then, while Riley and Hugh were taking a detail of men back to retrieve Caleb’s body—hoping that the women would still be there—Hugh’s plan had started to form. The humiliation they had suffered in the cabin was festering in him like a boil, and by the time they had returned to Gilliam, Hugh had devised a way to lance it.

  Riley savored the idea of revenge too, especially as he saw how sweet and complete Hugh meant that revenge to be. But he couldn’t get thoughts of Gilliam out of his mind either. Cornelius Gilliam was not a pleasant man when crossed. His fury could be murderous. He had agreed to their proposal to go to Jackson County and tell the Widow Steed in person how her husband had shamed her and every other Missourian. But, he said, as far as he was concerned, the Mormon war wasn’t over yet, and there was still plenty yet to do before the Mormons were driven from the state. So Hugh and Riley were to get on down there to Independence, then get right back.

  Now it was becoming obvious to Riley that Hugh’s plan had grown more elaborate and that Hugh had no intentions of returning immediately.

  Riley cleared his throat. “Look, Hugh, Gilliam said we was to get back real soon.”

  The small bearded man swung around on his companion, whispering fiercely. “You listen, Riley. All Gilliam cares about is seeing what else there is to loot up there. But it weren’t Neil Gilliam who was in that cabin the other day.” His eyes narrowed into tiny slits. “Steed came in there like he was God himself. He pistol-whipped Caleb, then killed him. He shot you down like a cur dog.”

  Riley thought about reminding Hugh that it was the English boy who had shot him in the shoulder, but he decided to let it pass.

  Hugh was working himself up all over again. “We was right on the verge of gettin’ some real action,” he snarled, “but Steed stopped us from doin’ that too. And them was good-lookin’ women.”

  “Yeah,” Riley said wistfully.

  “Well, he’s dead, and just shootin’ him down and shamin’ his name ain’t good enough for me.”

  Riley looked around quickly, then leaned forward. “What if he ain’t dead, Hugh? They still ain’t found his body.”

  Hugh slammed down his glass of beer with a sharp crack. That won him a look from the other patrons of the saloon, so he held his tongue until they turned away. Then he shot Riley a withering look. “Not dead!” he exclaimed. “You was there with me. You saw him bleeding like a gutted pig. No man’s gonna survive that kind of ball.”

  “Well,” Riley muttered, “we still shoulda put another ball into him.”

  “Right,” Hugh said in disgust, “with someone comin’! Whoever it was, we’da had to kill them too or have them tellin’ Lucas or somebody that it was Missourians that killed one of their own officers.”

  “At least we’d be sure,” the bigger man said, still worrying but fearing to make his partner angry.

  “I’m sure!” Hugh snapped. “He’s dead, and I don’t want no more talk about it being otherwise. And we can’t make him pay any more, but his family’s gonna pay. His family’s gonna pay real good.”

  The other man set his beer down slowly. He licked his lips, suddenly nervous. “What’re ya gonna do?”

  Hugh was staring off into space, his eyes like two tiny points of ebony. “The name Sampson Avard mean anything to you?”

  The other man looked blank.

  “Never mind. He was a Mormon too. And let’s just say Sampson Avard’s going to give us a little helping hand in this matter. He won’t know anything about it, but he’s gonna be real helpful to us.”

  * * *

  On Tuesday morning, the day after the arrest of the Church leaders in Far West, General Clark again ordered the Saints to assemble in the main square. He paraded the prisoners before them, then had them stand before their wives and children. And then Clark gave a speech. Though he himself had not been in the field until after the war was over, he had written a speech to the conquered. This time the Steeds had left the children at home, but Mary Ann, Lydia, Jessica, and Rebecca stood near the front row trying to get a glimpse of Benjamin. Peter stood farther behind, still half-fearful that additional arrests were going to be made and, in spite of his younger age, not wanting to be too conspicuous.

  “Gentlemen,” Clark said loudly, “we have the last of those who have committed crimes against the state under bonds now. And they shall be punished. But now I feel to show you some mercy. Those men whose names were not on our list, you now have the privilege of going to your fields and providing corn, wood, and so on for your families.”

  There were cries of surprise, and a murmur of excitement rippled across the group. Jessica turned to Mary Ann with a look of great relief. The loss of Benjamin had left the family stunned and shaken, but with or without Benjamin, food was becoming a critical problem. They had two babies, six other children, and five adults—counting Peter—to feed and, with the city under siege, no way to get more. Breakfast had been served only to the children. The adults were holding themselves to one meal per day. So this was at least one glimmer of good news.

  “Those who are now taken will go from this place to prison. There they will be tried and receive the due merit of their crimes. But the rest of you are now at liberty, as soon as the troops are removed that now guard the place, which I shall cause to be done immediately. It now devolves upon you to fulfill the treaty that you have entered in
to.”

  Treaty! Jessica had to stifle a laugh of derision. They had been betrayed, deceived, and decimated. Only Hinkle had had the gall to call the betrayal a treaty.

  “The orders of the governor to me were that you should be exterminated and not allowed to remain in the state, and had your leaders not been given up, and the terms of the treaty complied with before this, you and your families would have been destroyed and your houses left in ashes.”

  “Instead of just looted and left in ruins,” Mary Ann muttered to no one in particular.

  There were other voices now too, low and angry, protesting the blatant mutilation of the truth. Clark ignored them and went on loudly. “There is a discretionary power vested in my hands which I shall exercise in your favor for a season. For this leniency you are indebted to my clemency. I do not say that you shall go now, but you must not think of staying here another season, or of putting in crops, for the moment you do this the citizens will be upon you. If I am called here again, in case of noncompliance with the treaty made, do not think that I shall act anymore as I have done. You need not expect any mercy, but extermination, for I am determined the governor’s order shall be executed.

  “As for your leaders, do not once think, do not imagine for a moment, do not let it enter your mind that they will be delivered, or that you will see their faces again, for their fate is fixed, their die is cast, their doom is sealed.”

  Mary Ann gave a low, half sob, and Lydia and Rebecca both stepped up to her and steadied her.

  “I am sorry, gentlemen, to see so great a number of apparently intelligent men found in the situation that you are; and oh! that I could invoke that Great Spirit, the unknown God, to rest upon you, and make you sufficiently intelligent to break that chain of superstition, and liberate you from those fetters of fanaticism with which you are bound, that you no longer would continue to worship a man.