Pillar of Light

by Gerald N. Lund

  He went to his mother and knelt in front of her, taking her hands. “Am I wrong, Mama? Can we take this hardheaded, wonderful old fool that you married and go see Melissa and Caroline and Jessica without displeasing the Lord?”

  The tears welled up and spilled over as Mary Ann nodded vigorously. “I don’t think there is much that this hardheaded, wonderful, glorious old fool can do that would displease the Lord.”

  Nathan stood up and swung around to face the family. “Then it’s settled. All in favor?”

  A thunderous “aye” shook the rafters.

  “Any opposed?”

  Benjamin started to lift his hand, but Mary Ann’s hand shot out and pushed it back down again.

  “Motion carried!” Nathan cried. “We leave in the morning.”

  * * *

  Mary Ann pulled the canvas at the back of the wagon closed, then, stepping carefully over Emily’s and young Nathan’s sleeping forms, sat down beside her husband. She shivered slightly as she removed her coat and then quickly ducked under the big quilt Caroline had purchased in St. Louis.

  They were in Tenny’s Grove, the first stop on their journey to the Mississippi. They had gotten a late start by the time they got what few things they would be taking from their homes loaded on the wagons, but they made good time. It hadn’t rained or snowed for two or three days now, and the roads were in reasonable condition.

  As she snuggled up against Benjamin, he sniffed diffidently. “I thought only stubborn, old, hardheaded fools were allowed in this bed.”

  “They are,” she said cheerfully. “My children said I qualify.”

  He wasn’t in much of a mood for banter. “Well, I don’t. I’m not going to ride in here for eight or nine days while everyone else takes their turn walking.”

  She reached out and found his hand. “Benjamin, I want to say something. And I want you to listen for a minute.”

  There was no answer.

  “Will you?”

  “I’m listening,” he growled.

  She lay back, putting her hands behind her head and staring up at the canvas.

  “I said I’m listening,” he finally said when she didn’t speak. This time there was more softness in his voice. “Say it.”

  “I know,” she said in a small voice suddenly tight with emotions. “I’m trying to.”

  She turned her head and wiped at her eyes with the corner of the quilt. Finally, she turned back. “Do you remember that night? Back in Palmyra?” She swallowed hard. “The night you and Joshua . . .”

  There was a long silence, then, “Yes, of course.”

  “When was that?”

  “September of ’27,” he said without hesitation.

  “Eleven years ago now, coming up on twelve.”

  He nodded. That night had been relived so many times in his memory, it was still as vivid as if it had been the previous evening.

  “Almost twelve years without having all of our children together.” She came up on one elbow to look at him. “Have you thought about that? That we haven’t had all of them together in that time?”

  Actually Benjamin had thought about his children a lot, but he hadn’t thought about it in those terms, that with Melissa staying behind in Ohio, even with Joshua’s return there had been no having them together. Not all at the same time. He shook his head. “No, I guess I haven’t.”

  “Do you know what this means to—” She had to stop, and her hand came up to her mouth. He could hear the tremor in her voice as she finally went on. “Do you know what this means to me? To see Melissa again? To see the baby? To have every one of my children . . .”

  He reached out and took her hand and pulled it down against his chest. “Yes, I think I can understand that.”

  “Well, I want you there!” she exploded in a fierce whisper. “I want Melissa to see her father. I want Caroline to be able to know that you don’t hold any feelings against her.”

  “I’m going to be there,” he said, surprised by her passion, and strangely moved by her concern for him. “I’m fine.”

  “You’re not fine, Ben,” she said, in a voice that was now as small and hopeless as it had previously been filled with intensity. “I watch you get weaker and weaker. I watch you hunch over in pain whenever you cough. And I get sick to my stomach. You are not fine.”

  She pulled her hand free from his and folded her arms on her chest. “And that’s why, stubborn old fool or not, you are going to stay right here in this bed all the way across Missouri and onto the ferry and into Illinois. Do you hear me, Ben? That’s the way it’s going to be.”

  He didn’t answer. He was a stubborn old fool. He had admitted that to himself long ago. And in these past months since his arrest and contracting the sickness in his lungs, he had also become honest enough with himself to admit that he was frightened. He could feel down in his bones what Mary Ann had only seen with her eyes. He was tired. He was weak. Something had gone out of him, and he sensed it was more than just the sickness. It was as if the cough had opened the floodgates for old age to come pouring in.

  Down deep, he was secretly relieved that his sons had forced his hand, had carried him out to the wagon bed, not even letting him walk from the house, had covered him with quilts and blankets up to his chin. It galled him that it had to be so. It was a bitter blow, and he was finding it difficult to accept it. But he also knew that if they had let him have his way, had let him walk along with the others, he wouldn’t make it. He was as sure of that as he was that his children loved him.

  And now, after only one day on the trail, he wasn’t even sure the bed would be enough. The pounding of the wagon had been brutal. It had sapped his reserves to dangerously low levels. And they were through only one day.

  “Mary Ann?”

  She turned her head.

  “If I . . .” He shook his head and tried again. “If for some reason . . .” He couldn’t finish it. “Will you tell Melissa for me? How much I loved her?”

  Mary Ann was up instantly. “Stop it, Benjamin!”

  “Will you?” he repeated quietly. “And Caroline?”

  She leaned over and kissed him hard on the mouth. He tasted the saltiness of her tears on his tongue. “You tell them yourself, Benjamin Steed,” she whispered with that same ferocity she had had in her voice earlier. “I won’t do it.” Her voice caught, and she fell back against the straw mattress. “I won’t!”

  * * *

  By mid-March, one of the worst of the winters the Great Plains had seen in several years began to relinquish its grip. The snow melted, the rains came, and the roads turned to quagmires, but the temperatures started to rise. Occasionally a light frost would tip everything with white, but daytime temperatures were climbing into the fifties and low sixties. The vast inland ocean of prairie took on a green tint that deepened visibly almost every day. And most important to the grateful Saints who were still making their way eastward, the Mississippi had not seen ice for over a week, and the ferry was making continuous runs now, getting the Mormons out of the state that had refused to consider them as rightful citizens.

  Every morning, Jenny and Kathryn McIntire and Rachel Steed walked down the main street of Quincy, Illinois, at quarter to eight. They would pass the still unopened shops and businesses, pass the blacksmith shop where the apprentice was just stoking up the fires for the day, and go on down to the street that ran parallel to the river. As soon as they could see across the river, they would go up on tiptoes and peer over to the camp on the other side. It was a hundred yards across here, and it was difficult to make out which wagons in the camp had not been there the day before, but they always looked. And then they would turn and walk up the street to where the ferryboat had its small dock.

  The ferry did not start its runs until eight o’clock each morning, but the girls were always there five minutes early anyway. They would watch the ferryman check the lines. They would watch him and his boy start the first westward shuttle across the great river. When it reached the far side,
they would begin to squirm and fidget in anticipation as the first wagons were loaded—with no ice in the river it could take two at a time—and people streamed aboard in the space that was left.

  This morning was no different. As the ferryman and his son started pulling on the ropes, heaving together to move the heavy flat-bottomed boat across the muddy current, Jenny’s eyes narrowed. She always imagined that Matthew would somehow be on that first wagon, sitting on the wagon seat, one hand up on the backrest, grinning as he saw her waiting for him. Now as the ferry approached, still only halfway back, she was up on the balls of her feet, squinting to see all the better.

  “It’s not him,” Kathryn said. “It’s an old man.” With the typical myopia of a twelve-year-old, she thought she was being helpful.

  Jenny came back down again. The second driver was not Matthew either. “I know that, Kathryn,” she said with a little bit of reprimand in her voice. “There’s not much chance they’ll ever be the first ones across. There’s too many people.”

  Now other people were coming up the street to join them—a man and his daughter, two women, an older woman with two young boys. By mid-March, some six or seven thousand Latter-day Saints had left Missouri and found refuge in Illinois. Many were in Quincy; many more were scattering up and down the river in nearby settlements. Not a few of these had left family or friends behind. So coming down to meet the ferry was a common practice.

  The boat scraped to a stop on the muddy shoreline, and the boy sprang forward to release the front end of the boat, which served as a gangplank. The man driving the lead wagon snapped the reins and drove it off the ferry. Immediately the second followed. Then the people on foot swarmed in behind them. They carried valises and small trunks, cloth bags filled to bulging, packages tied with ropes, or trousers with the legs tied shut and stuffed with other belongings.

  Those waiting on shore pushed forward and began calling out questions. “Have you seen the Levi Hatch family?” “Did any new wagons come in last night?” “The Judds? Anyone know anything about the Judds?”

  Jenny fell in step beside the first wagon. Kathryn and Rachel moved in among the others. Jenny looked up at the wagon driver. “Good morning, sir.”

  He looked down and smiled. Inside the wagon she could see a woman’s face and a child’s. They were smiling too. They had made it. They were across the river. “May I help you?”

  “Any new wagons come last night?”

  “Yes. Half a dozen or so.”

  There was a quick leap of hope. “You wouldn’t know if the Benjamin Steed family was among them?”

  The man turned to his wife. “Benjamin Steed?”

  She shook her head. Jenny felt like someone had thrown cold water in her face, the same way she felt every morning when it became obvious that they hadn’t come.

  The man saw it and felt bad. “They from Far West?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’re from Di-Ahman. Don’t know a lot of people from Far West. Sorry.”

  Suddenly the woman was tugging at his shirt. “Wait a minute. Rebecca Ingalls? She married that English boy? Wasn’t she a Steed?”

  Jenny’s head snapped up so quickly it made her hair bounce. “Yes!” she cried. “Derek Ingalls. His wife is Rebecca Steed.”

  The woman smiled. “Them we know.” Her smile broadened even further. It was great to be the bearer of good news. “They came in late yesterday afternoon.”

  “Oh, yes, them,” the man said. “There’s a whole bunch of them.”

  Jenny was fairly dancing alongside the wagon now. “Are they coming over today?”

  “Yep. They’re ten, maybe eleven wagons back.”

  Jenny leaped into the air, then spun around and started running. “Kathryn! Rachel! Run home quick! Tell Jessica and Melissa and Caroline. They’re coming! They’re coming!”

  * * *

  Mary Ann was standing in the first wagon directly behind Joshua, Lydia, and Nathan, who rode on the wagon seat. They were still about thirty yards from the eastern shore, but she could see that there was close to a hundred people milling around waiting for the ferry to arrive. The sun was up about midway to noon, and it was difficult to look into it. The people were backlit and she couldn’t distinguish faces.

  Then she heard a familiar voice. “Grandma! Grandma! Grandma!”

  Mary Ann’s head came up. Lydia jerked forward. Joshua and Nathan had heard it too. “It’s Rachel!” Lydia cried.

  “Do you see her?” Mary Ann asked.

  And then Lydia was pointing. “There! On the left. Right by the water.”

  Nathan laughed. “The one dancing like a banshee.”

  “And there’s Caroline,” Joshua exclaimed. He lifted his hand and started waving.

  Matthew and Derek and Rebecca had walked onto the back of the ferry and were behind Carl’s wagon. Now they pushed their way through the people and came alongside the lead wagon.

  “Do you see Melissa?” Rebecca called up to her mother.

  “No. There’s Caroline and Rachel—and oh, there’s Jessica! And the boys.”

  “There’s Melissa!” Nathan said. “Right behind Jessica. She’s holding up the baby.”

  The remaining fifty feet of water seemed like it took forever, but finally there was a lurch as the boat came up against the dock. The gangplank creaked down, then dropped with a thud. “All right,” the ferryman bawled, “everybody off.”

  As Joshua picked up the reins, the man grinned up at him. “Hey, mister! I’m using that hundred dollars to buy me another boat. Then we can have one coming and going. Be the best danged ferry between here and St. Louis.”

  Joshua laughed and snapped the reins. “Good for you.”

  Joshua didn’t even try and turn onto the street into the crowd. Holding the horses back as the people made way for them, he pulled the wagon over to the left, into the large grassy area that fronted the ferryman’s home.

  Caroline came up first, walking alongside the wagon, reaching up to hold Joshua’s hand. And then as Joshua reined in the horses, the reunion began. Cousins screamed at the sight of other cousins and grabbed each other’s hands. Jenny, suddenly shy, walked to Matthew. Not caring who saw them, he took her by the shoulders and kissed her soundly. The women were crying and laughing and hugging while the men stood back and watched. Carl smiled broadly as Melissa was mobbed. Oohs and aahs chorused as she lifted the blanket and revealed Sarah’s sleeping face. Then Mary Ann and Caroline were in each other’s arms, weeping and talking and telling each other that everything was going to be all right now.

  Then suddenly they fell silent. Joshua had seen it first and called out to Caroline. That brought Derek and Rebecca and Mrs. McIntire around. They waved at the others to be quiet.

  No one had noticed that Nathan and Lydia had left the group and gone around to the back of the wagon. Now they appeared again. Nathan had his father around the waist, supporting him. Lydia was on the other side, a hand out to steady him if he stumbled. He was trembling with the exertion of getting out of the wagon, and his face was pale. But the smile on his face split it nearly in two and made him look like the old Benjamin Steed again.

  “Papa?” Melissa pushed around Emily and young Joshua, who was holding her baby now. She took two steps forward, hesitantly, then in a rush ran to him, stepping into his arms. “Oh, Papa!” she cried, kissing his cheek. “It’s so good to see you.”

  “Dear Melissa,” he whispered. “Thank you for coming. Thank you for Carl.”

  He stepped back, blinking at the tears that were burning his eyes. He tried to glare at Joshua. “I guess it’s all right if I get out of that stupid bed now?”

  Joshua slowly nodded, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed quickly. “Yes, Papa, it’s all right now. We’re here.”

  As the noise started up again, Benjamin raised a hand. “I have a request.”

  Everyone went quiet again immediately. “Mother, come over here.”

  Mary Ann, looking a little surprised, complied.
Nathan let go of his father and let Mary Ann take him instead.

  “Now,” Benjamin said, letting his eyes sweep around the group. “In order. Joshua, come here.” He pointed to a spot beside him.

  Joshua stepped forward, giving his mother a quizzical look. She just smiled at him, her face radiant now. She understood exactly what was happening.

  “Nathan.”

  Nathan came around from behind his father and stood beside Joshua.

  “Melissa.”

  Melissa was already there and just put her arm around her father’s waist. Now everyone understood and the tears were flowing all over again.

  “Rebecca.”

  She squeezed Derek’s hand, then let go; and with a smile, she came forward. She went up on tiptoe and kissed her father on his forehead.

  Benjamin turned. “And Matthew.”

  He had already left Jenny’s side and walked over to stand behind Rebecca.

  There they stood, not moving. As Benjamin looked at his five surviving children, his shoulders straightened and his voice rose. “Sister Steed?”

  “Yes, Brother Steed,” Mary Ann managed, wiping now at her eyes.

  “It gives me a great deal of pleasure to present to you the children of Benjamin and Mary Ann Steed.”

  For a moment, nothing happened, then Caroline began to clap. Sister McIntire joined in instantly, then Jessica and Jenny and Kathryn. Then they were all clapping, standing there like an audience receiving a royal family. The people getting off the ferry and those who had come to meet them had turned and were staring at them with open curiosity.

  They didn’t care. The applause went out, striking the family, then rolling on to lose itself over the great Mississippi River.

  Book Five: The Work and the Glory - A Season of Joy

  The Work and the Glory - A Season of Joy

  © 1994 Gerald N. Lund and Kenneth Ingalls Moe

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, Deseret Book Company,

  P. O. Box 30178, Salt Lake City, Utah 84130. This work is not an official publication of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The views expressed herein are the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of the Church or of Deseret Book Company.