Pillar of Light

by Gerald N. Lund

  “O Lord, my God!” he cried, and pitched head first out the window.

  “He’s jumped the window!” someone at the door yelled. There was a shout and instantly those at the door were gone, tearing down the stairs lest they lose their quarry. Willard Richards heard the yell too. He crossed the room to the window, staring down at the horrible scene before him. Joseph’s body was lying near the well. “We got ’im! We got Joe Smith!” someone was yelling. Heedless of the danger he was putting himself in, Elder Richards thrust his head out the window, wanting to see more clearly. Joseph’s shirt was a mass of blood. There was no movement in his body. Men were coming around the corner of the jail on the dead run, screaming in triumph. One man was dancing up and down, howling fiendishly.

  With a sob, Elder Richards drew his head back into the room. Looking around wildly, he sought escape. In moments they would be back for him. Sure that his life was forfeit at any moment, he rushed across the room to see if the door to the criminal’s cell might be open so he could find refuge there.

  “Take me!”

  He whirled in astonishment. “John?”

  “Yes!”

  “Hold on!” Racing now, he went out of the bedroom, pushed open the door to the cell, then went back for his companion. Taking Elder Taylor by the arms, trying to inure himself to the wounded man’s groans of agony, Willard dragged him across the floor of the bedroom, out onto the landing, and then into the criminal’s cell, leaving a long smear of blood across the floor. The cell was empty except for a filthy straw mattress on the floor. Puffing heavily, Willard pulled John into the far corner of the cell. Then he yanked the mattress up and over him, taking care to make sure his body was completely covered. “This is a hard case to lay you on the floor,” Willard gasped, “but if your wounds are not fatal, I want you to live to tell the story.”

  He took one last look around, then moved swiftly back to the outside door to the cell room to await the next onslaught. He didn’t have long to wait. Joseph Smith was dead, but the mob knew there were three more men still up there. The entrance to the jail crashed open and heavy footsteps came running up the stairs again. They reached the landing, not five feet from where Elder Richards stood, holding his breath. He heard the door to the bedroom being flung open, then heard a cry of joy. There was a scuffling sound, then, “This is the brother! This is Hyrum. We got his brother!”

  “Where’s them other two?” someone shouted.

  “Check the cell!”

  Holding the cane high, knowing how futile it would be, Willard Richards stepped back.

  Then another cry went up. This time it came from outside. It was filled with sheer terror. “The Mormons are coming! The Mormons are coming!”

  Someone right outside the door swore. “The Mormons! We’ve gotta get outta here!”

  Once again there was the thunder of boots on the wooden stairs, then the sound of panicked flight outside. In less than a minute, all was silent.

  “Are you awake?”

  Nathan turned his head and nodded.

  Lydia reached out and took his hand. “Will you hold me?”

  “Of course.” He half turned, wincing a little, and opened his arms to her.

  “I don’t want to hurt your legs.”

  “My legs are fine. They’re just superficial wounds.”

  She nodded and slid into his grasp, laying her head against his chest. He pulled her close, holding her to him, wanting the comfort that her presence gave him. They lay there for a long time, neither one speaking, both wide awake.

  “What is it?” she finally said.

  He turned and looked at her.

  “You feel it too, don’t you?”

  He nodded, not having to ask what “it” was.

  “Why, Nathan? What is it? It’s like a great chill has fallen on the city.”

  “I don’t know. Worry, maybe. Knowing Joseph and Hyrum and the others are down there alone now.” He turned his head away from her.

  “Nathan, you had no choice. You were driven out. They would have killed you if you went back. Joseph would have wanted you to go, you know that.”

  “Yes,” he said, not comforted at all with knowing she was right. “And yet . . .”

  She snuggled in against him even more tightly. “I know,” she said.

  He closed his eyes, picturing the jail’s bedroom, wondering if the night had brought a breeze to cool it down at all, wondering if the governor was back in Carthage yet to bring at least some rein over the Carthage Greys.

  “What do you make of what happened with the animals tonight, Nathan?” Lydia asked after a few minutes.

  He reached down and began to rub her shoulder softly. “That was very strange,” he admitted.

  That evening, just before sundown, the animals around the city began a most peculiar thing. Somewhere a dog started to howl—a low, mournful sound that carried for blocks. Another took it up, and then another. And if that were not odd enough, very quickly the cattle joined in, lowing and bellowing from stables and pastures, barns and milking sheds. Soon the whole city was filled with the eerie sound of animals crying out in seeming pain. It had sent chills running up and down Nathan’s back and only added to the great heaviness that seemed to lay upon him.

  “Have you ever seen that happen before?” she asked.

  “No. I saw a dog mourn for his master like that once, after the man died, but nothing like this. Tonight it seemed like animals all over the city were howling.”

  She gave a little shudder and squeezed in more closely to him. “It frightened me, Nathan.”

  He wanted to soothe her, tell her it was just an odd coincidence, but he couldn’t. He just gently rubbed her shoulder over and over and held her close.

  Nathan woke up with a start, sitting straight up in bed. Light flooded through the windows and he realized that the sun was up already. After lying awake for so long last night, he had overslept by an hour or more.

  Lydia stirred and then the loud knocking started again and she too jerked up. “What is it, Nathan?”

  “Someone’s downstairs.” He tossed back the sheet and got out of bed, moving to the chair where he had hung his pants. Lydia rose now too, putting a robe on around her nightdress. Then, even as they moved toward the bedroom door, they heard the door downstairs open. “Nathan? Lydia?”

  “It’s Joshua,” he exclaimed. He turned. “Coming!”

  As they came quickly down the stairs, Nathan saw that Joshua was fully dressed. He had his back to them, staring out the window. He turned and Nathan stopped. Joshua’s face looked exactly as it did that night when they had arrived in Warsaw to help with Caroline. He looked haunted, half in shock.

  Lydia recognized that look too. “Joshua! What is it? What’s wrong?” One hand flew to her mouth. “Not Caroline!”

  He shook his head. “I was going to the freight yard, when . . .” He held out a paper, staring at them mutely. Nathan took it and moved closer to Lydia. It was in Joshua’s scribbled handwriting on the back of another letter, obviously a hastily made copy. The first line read: “Carthage Jail, 8:05 o’clock, p.m., June 27th, 1844.”

  Then Lydia gasped. Her knees buckled and she started to crumble. Nathan grabbed her around the waist, too dazed to do more than that, reading on in a numbing shock of his own.

  Joseph and Hyrum are dead. Taylor wounded, not very badly. I am well. Our guard was forced, as we believe, by a band of Missourians from 100 to 200. The job was done in an instant, and the party fled. This is as I believe it. The citizens here are afraid of the Mormons attacking them. I promise them no!

  W. Richards

  John Taylor

  “No!” Lydia wailed, tears streaming down her face. “No!”

  Half stumbling himself, Nathan led Lydia to a chair and sat her down. She dropped her head into her hands and began to shake violently as the sobs tore at her body. Dimly, barely seeing him through his own swimming eyes, Nathan turned to Joshua. “I should have stayed with them, Joshua. I should h
ave stayed.”

  Eight blocks away, in one of the sitting rooms of the Mansion House, a terrible cry of pain was torn from the lips of Emma Smith. “No! Oh, dear God, please! No!” She dropped her head in her hands, rocking back and forth in violent jerking motions. “No! No! No!”

  John P. Greene, Nauvoo city marshal and long a trusted friend and associate of the Prophet Joseph Smith, dropped to one knee beside the huddled figure. He reached out and clasped her hands, his own face stricken with grief. “Oh, dear Sister Emma, God bless you.” Then laying his hands upon her head he bowed his head and poured out a fervent blessing upon her. Gradually she calmed under his hands, but he could still feel the trembling in her body. When he had finished blessing her with comfort and peace and the ability to accept what had happened, he stepped back.

  She looked up at him, her face wet with tears. But when she spoke, she didn’t speak to him. “Why, O God, am I thus afflicted?” she burst out. “Why am I a widow? Thou knowest I have trusted in thy law.”

  Feeling as if his very heart was breaking, John Greene kneeled beside her again. “Oh, Sister Emma, I know this is difficult for you, but this affliction shall be a crown in your life.”

  Her head came up, her eyes wide and dark with pain. “Joseph was the crown of my life!” she whispered. “For him and for my children I have suffered the loss of all things. Why, O God, am I thus deserted and my heart torn with this tenfold anguish?”

  She turned away, hunching over, hugging herself tightly as she wept for her lost Joseph.

  For Mary Fielding Smith the shock was as severe, but not totally unexpected. Her little Martha, who was three, was recovering from the measles. Mary nursed her long into the evening of the twenty-seventh of June, rocking her and telling her stories, trying to appear cheerful. But something was wrong. Mary could feel it. Long after Martha was asleep, Mary walked back and forth across the floor of the living room, or moved to the front window and stared out at the darkness, unable to shake the sense of foreboding that hung over her like a great pall.

  When the knock came shortly after first light and she saw the two men standing there, she nodded numbly. Calling the children around her, she sat down slowly in her rocking chair, then nodded for the men to give her the news that they carried. As the children burst into tears, Mary sat in a stupor of grief, rocking slowly back and forth, remembering the terrible feelings of the night before.

  At eight a.m. on the morning of June twenty-eighth, two wagons left Carthage. Branches cut from trees shaded two bodies from the summer sun. No one was there to bid them good-bye. By morning, Carthage was a ghost town. Fearing that the Nauvoo Legion was coming to sack the city, the populace fled. And thus the dead left their place of dying without fanfare or farewell.

  At three p.m., the wagons approached Mulholland Street, about a mile east of the rising Nauvoo Temple. Here the dead were welcomed home. Thousands lined the streets in mute grief or wailing sorrow. An entire city was in shock.

  The bodies were taken to the Mansion House and the doors closed behind them. The Saints were instructed to return the next morning when the bodies of the leaders would lie in state.

  That afternoon, Elder Willard Richards, his left ear still showing smears of blood from where a ball had grazed it, spoke to the grieving Saints. With John Taylor grievously injured and the rest of the Twelve in the East, he was the senior acting Apostle. He spoke earnestly and with authority. He reminded them that they were Saints. He spoke of the importance of keeping the peace. He told them that he had pledged his honor and his life on the promise that the Saints would not retaliate in kind. And then he asked for their sustaining vote.

  Red-eyed with grief, numb with shock, the eight thousand people present raised their hands in resolution. They would trust the law to provide a remedy for the assassinations, and that failing, they would call upon God to avenge their slain leaders of the wrongs committed against them.

  Then they quietly returned to their homes to try to comprehend the terrible loss that had been wreaked upon them.

  That evening, four brethren labored in silent grief to prepare the bodies of the fallen martyrs. They had been carefully washed. Cotton soaked in camphor was put into each of the several wounds both men had sustained. The brothers, not separated now in death any more than they had been in life, were dressed alike in their finest trousers and white shirts. White neckerchiefs were placed at their throats, white cotton stockings put on their feet, and white shrouds draped across their chests.

  Tomorrow, the Saints would gather to say their last good-byes. Tonight, the family and some close friends would spend a few moments with their beloved Joseph and Hyrum.

  Lucy Mack Smith stood quietly in front of the door that separated her from her two sons. She steeled herself with all the power of that mighty will that had sustained her through so many trials and so much hardship. Since the first word of the tragedy had reached her she had braced herself for this moment, roused every energy of her soul, and called on God to give her strength. She was not sure that she could bear to look upon the bodies of these two sons struck down so cruelly in the prime of life.

  Beside her stood Mary Fielding Smith, tall and straight, her eyes red and puffy but her face composed. Clinging to her hands or her dress were her children, who, like their mother, were trying to be brave.

  There was a noise behind them and Mother Smith turned. Emma and her four children were coming down the stairs. Dimick Huntington, a longtime friend of the family, walked beside her, holding her arm. The roundness of Emma’s stomach was evident, a painful reminder that the unborn child would never know its father. At the sight of her mother-in-law and sister-in-law, Emma stopped. She swayed and nearly swooned, and Huntington had to grab on to her to hold her. Lucy Mack started toward her, but Emma straightened again and waved her back. This was not the first time she had started down to join them, and Mother Smith wasn’t sure but what once again she would have to turn back and return to her room. Emma was shattered, totally devastated by this latest and most terrible calamity in her life. And who could blame her? Mother Smith thought. This woman had seen enough trials and challenges for any five other women. As Emma came up to stand beside her mother-in-law, Lucy Mack reached out and took her hand. “We’ll make it, Emma,” she whispered, not sure if it would be true for either of them.

  “I’m ready, Mother Smith.”

  Lucy straightened to her full four-foot-eleven-inch height, then turned to Brother Goldsmith, who stood guard at the doors, and nodded. Gravely he stepped aside and they went in.

  The bodies were lying together side by side on a long table. As the families moved into the room, Emma cried out and threw her hands over her eyes. Her son Joseph the Third broke from her gasp and ran to his father’s body, crying out, “Oh, my father! My father!” That was too much for the rest of the children—Emma’s and Mary’s—and they burst into tears and started to wail and cry.

  Emma, barely able to walk, let Brother Huntington take her forward to stand beside the table. She fell to her knees and threw her arms around Joseph. “Joseph! Dear Joseph! Speak to me! Just once speak to me. Oh, Joseph! Have the assassins killed you?” She dropped her head and began to weep with mighty, shuddering sobs.

  Mary Smith moved forward slowly, trembling at every step. When she reached her husband, she too could no longer hold the anguish in. She reached out and touched Hyrum’s face, not wanting to look at where the ball had struck him, yet not able not to. “Oh, Hyrum,” she gasped. She ran her fingers through his hair. “Oh, speak to me, Hyrum. I cannot believe that you are dead.”

  Lucy Mack Smith stood back, listening to the sobs and cries of her daughters-in-law and her grandchildren. Tears streaked her cheeks too and finally she had to look away. After a few moments, Emma was taken out, on the verge of hysteria, barely able to walk. A great wrenching cry welled up inside Mother Smith. She could not give voice to it, but neither could she stop the question from bursting forth in her mind. She did not know it, but i
t was very much like the cry of Emma earlier that day. “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken this family?” She dropped her head, covering her eyes with her hands.

  And then it came, as clearly as if someone stood at her elbow. It was not an audible voice, but one inside her mind. It spoke softly but with perfect clarity. “I have taken them to myself, that they might have rest.”

  Her head came up with a start and she looked around. In an instant, peace flooded through her soul like a summer’s rain. She stood there, almost too overcome to move, letting the wonderful realization of the words sink into her soul. In her crushing grief she had momentarily forgotten that it was only the flesh that lay before her now. Joseph and Hyrum still lived. And at a future time they would take these bodies up again and live forever. Their Savior would bring them forth again someday, and in the meantime, they would have rest.

  Slowly now, still mindful of the great grief around her, she moved forward to stand before the table. She looked down at her sons. She saw the evidence of the violence that had snuffed out their lives. She saw the paleness of their faces and felt the coldness of the flesh. But now she saw something more. Though tears were still streaming down her face, as she looked down upon them she saw the calm repose on their faces. Their eyes were closed in death but they were also closed in peace.

  She marveled. And as she marveled she cried out in her mind, this time not with grief but with longing, “Oh, my sons, how I shall miss you.”

  And once again it came. Quiet, peaceful, clear. Only now it was the voice of her sons that came into her mind. “Mother, weep not for us. We have overcome the world by love. We carried to them the gospel, that their souls might be saved. They have slain us for our testimony and thus placed us beyond their power. Their ascendency is for a moment. Ours is an eternal triumph.”

  For a long time, Lucy Mack Smith stood there, saying good-bye to her sons, no longer grieving as she had when she came

  in. And then she turned and moved over to stand beside her daughter-in-law. Mary looked around in surprise. Mother Smith slipped an arm around her waist. Together they stood and looked at the two men who lay before them.