by Lou Cameron
I looked at the dead men; flies were beginning to gather on the shattered heads already; for a man of peaceful inclinations, I was getting very used to looking at bullet-riddled corpses. Rockwell was brutal but he was right this time. They had been prepared to cripple him for fifty dollars.
“You believe that story about Davenport’s brother?” I asked.
“From the mouth of an idiot sometimes comes the truth,” Rockwell said. “Of course the man did try to shoot me. That would fit. But something smells just the same. My man at the jail is going to put the body in a bed of ice so people can have a look at him. It could be that somebody will know him. If so, it’s a step to finding out who put him up to it.”
I wanted to ask him about William Hickman, his fellow Danite, but there was no safe way to bring it up. The two men might even be friends, all my suspicion might be unfounded.
In spite of my newfound callousness, I was somewhat shocked when Rockwell stripped the dead men of their few belongings. The twenty-five dollars was still intact and he put that in his pocket.
“You’ll be taking the horses and saddles?”
“The horses are no great shakes, but they’ll be useful for something. We look after our people in our own way. Nothing goes to waste. You’re still thinking I should have taken those men in for trial?”
“It’s one way of doing it,” I said.
“True,” Rockwell admitted. “And when this country settles down maybe you’ll be right in what you say. But now isn’t the time. If justice isn’t swift, men like the Murdocks will say we can’t make up our minds. As more men like the Murdocks come here it can only get worse.”
~*~
When we returned to Salt Lake the jailer had the dead man on ice and people were filing into the cellblock to view the body. Children were there too, pretending to be frightened of the corpse. The jailer, whose name was Birkin, shook his head when Rockwell asked if anybody had identified the body.
“People think they’ve seen him everywhere from London, England, to London, Ontario,” the jailer said. “But nobody remembers seeing him in Utah. From the saloon, sure. A few men remember seeing him there, but who he is and where he comes from—you ain’t going to find out, Port.”
“I’ll find out,” Rockwell stated firmly. “Just you keep the ice coming and we’ll give it another day or two.”
Rockwell turned to me. “I’ve got some things to do, William. You have the same. Remember what I told you—watch yourself all the time. You killed this man and the men who hired him won’t forget it.”
“Where will you be?” I asked.
“Here and there, around and about,” Rockwell answered with deliberate vagueness. “Rest up, William. When I hear something I’ll let you know.
“If I can,” he added.
I didn’t ask him what he meant by that: I knew Brigham Young would allow him to talk or order him to remain silent. If there was a conspiracy to topple Young from power then he might not wish it to be known, or he might reveal a broken plot as a warning to his enemies. I guessed Rockwell had gone to Young after we returned from the mountains, to explain what had happened there, perhaps to explain his friendship with me, for news of this would have come to Young’s attention by now. It could be that Rockwell would be forbidden to have anything more to do with me, and he would obey this order as he obeyed all the prophet’s directives. This would be a setback in my work, but I was determined to respond with patience and a lack of anger. Rockwell had been a steadfast Mormon for most of his life, and I could not hope to change his habit of obedience with five minutes of earnest persuasion.
And so, planning to wait, I had a good meal at the hotel and read about myself in the Deseret News. Rockwell was bigger news than I was, but my name was mentioned as having provided assistance when he was attacked. Gunfire had been exchanged, the would-be assassin had been killed in the affray, though it was by no means clear that I had done the killing or that Rockwell would have been killed if I had not intervened. Still, no matter what the newspaper said, everyone in Salt Lake knew I had done it. I was, the News said, an Eastern newspaperman come west to recover from wounds received in the war. But they spelled my name correctly and that, as everyone knows, is the principal thing.
The young waitress, Abby Brimmer, served my meal and lingered as long as she could at my table. Fussing with the silverware, she murmured, “We’re all grateful to you, William. Port will be grateful, too, and that will mean a lot for as long as you stay.”
“I wasn’t planning to leave,” I said. “The newspaper says I’m here for my health.”
“You have a funny way of looking after your health, William.”
She looked up quickly as a middle-aged man in black approached the table, turning his hat in his hands. A Mormon but no farmer or feed merchant. I decided that he was someone of importance, at least in Salt Lake. He was a heavy face, closely shaven and well-fed—a confident face.
“Good day, Mr. Fleming,” the girl said. To me she added, “Mr. Fleming is editor of our newspaper.”
“I was about to say that, but thank you, Abby,” Fleming said, a trifle irritably. “I’d like to talk to you, Mr. Forbes. I was here earlier, but you hadn’t returned at that time.”
“Just got back. Won’t you sit down?”
Fleming nodded as if he didn’t need an invitation. The girl waited. “A glass of buttermilk,” Fleming said, placing his sober black hat on a chair. I went on eating. The buttermilk arrived and he drank some of it before he began.
“That was a fine thing you did, Mr. Forbes. It won’t be forgotten.”
“I was with Mr. Rockwell,” I said. “The man I shot might as well have shot me. I shot him first.”
Fleming sipped more of his buttermilk, a drink I have a particular aversion to, not that my dislike of him was based on that. “Be that as it may,” he went on. “You didn’t panic and run for safety. That is what counts. How is your health, sir?”
“Improving, Mr. Fleming.”
“Good. Very good. I am told you were sent here by Mr. Greeley himself?”
“For my health and his newspaper,” I answered.
“There are other topics besides Porter Rockwell, not that he isn’t one of our most esteemed citizens.”
“I intend to write about everything, Mr. Fleming. I admire much of what I’ve seen here.”
“Have you ever considered changing jobs, Mr. Forbes?”
So that was it. “I’d like to be editor of the New York Sun,” I said. This was a flippant answer, and not entirely true. Then, and even now, elderly though I am, newspapering in the field was and is my first love.
Fleming’s brief laugh was mirthless, a concession to my youthful levity. “A fine position, to be sure,” he agreed. “But there must be many men ahead of you.”
“Many, Mr. Fleming.”
“Here you would not have that problem. This is a young country, not so bound by the rules of seniority. I am prepared to offer you the position of managing editor of the Deseret News. I am editor in chief at the moment, but soon I shall be moving on to become publisher. As a rule, the managing editor becomes editor if he proves himself to be the right man for the job.”
“Why me, Mr. Fleming?”
“Because you’re well thought of at the Sun,” Fleming answered with his self-satisfied smile. “Because you’re here and you haven’t shown any of the usual bigotry against our people. Don’t be offended, Mr. Forbes, but I have used the telegraph to discover a few things about you. Yes, we have people in New York, we have people everywhere. You are young, somewhat rash, and you have an instinct for the newspaper business. You will be very well paid if you accept.”
I thought of Davenport. “Don’t I have to be a Mormon?”
“Not necessarily, Mr. Forbes. It would be better if you were, however. I’m told you’re a Presbyterian.”
“Not much of one, I’m afraid.”
Fleming said, “The job would pay much more than you get on the Sun. You h
ave performed a service for us and we are mindful of that. Let me be frank, sir. You have come here from perhaps the most influential newspaper in the United States. You are well connected through your uncle, Silas Forbes, who knows nothing of all this, by the way. Therefore, your presence on the Deseret News would be of some advantage to us. And to yourself, naturally.”
“Would I have a free hand, Mr. Fleming?”
“Well, young man, no editor can do as he pleases. Is it not so at the Sun, at any newspaper? Does not Mr. Greeley set the policies which must be followed?”
“He encourages some independence,” I said. “Not much, I admit—but some.”
Fleming seemed to know I had no intention of accepting the job, yet he persisted, and perhaps he had been ordered to persist. Some of the other diners were trying to hear what was being said, so Fleming kept his voice low. “I’ll continue to be straightforward,” he said. “At a recent meeting of the owners it was decided that the News needed to be read, to be noticed, outside the confines of Utah. We have capable men on our staff, but they have been with us for a long time, while you are— forgive me—an outsider. What we would like to do is to find a man Gentile readers would be inclined to trust, a man who would present our point of view. Too many lies have been written about our church. It’s time to rectify that situation. Do you follow me?”
Oh yes, I followed him all right: he wanted a ventriloquist’s dummy and not an editor and, looking at him, I knew this was none of his idea, so it had to have come from much higher up. Brigham Young? Or could it have originated with Rockwell? If I took the job, which I had no intention of doing at any salary, I would have as little freedom as a monkey on a leash. They would expect me to print the truth as they saw it; the only truth—the Mormon truth. And if I did that, in time I would be finished as a newspaperman.
I said as politely as I could, “I have a job, Mr. Fleming, but thank you for the offer. I don’t like to work in offices. Would you like a suggestion, sir?”
Fleming nodded stiffly; all pretense of cordiality was gone. “I’m listening,” he said.
“Start a new Mormon newspaper in the East. Anything that is published in Utah will be suspect. Tell the public the facts—your facts—but don’t set yourself up as the sole guardians of liberty and holiness. No one is, Mr. Fleming.”
His heavy face flushed angrily and he leaned across the table, jabbing a finger at me. “The Mormons are because God says they are. Another thing. We have offered you the hand of friendship and you have chosen to reject it. What you have to remember—don’t ever forget it—is that you are here on sufferance, as all you Americans are. All that can be changed at a moment’s notice. Pry too deeply into our affairs and you will discover that I am speaking the truth.”
“I’ll tell that to Rockwell,” I said coldly.
Fleming pushed his bulk away from the table and stood up. “Tell him what you like. Rockwell is just a man like everyone else.”
He stalked out, gathering his dignity about him like a cloak, and left me wondering what he meant.
Chapter Seven
I did not see Rockwell for several days after that, though I looked for him whenever I took a turn around the town, enjoying the ever-present sunshine, getting stronger all the time. Always there was a feeling of being watched, even in McSorley’s when I dropped in occasionally for a glass of beer. McSorley was friendly enough but I thought his manner distant, as if he wanted to regard me as simply another casual patron with a little money to spend. He said nothing about Rockwell, nor did I.
My first dispatches were written and handed in at the Pony Express office. In a few years the Pony mail would be nothing but a colorful memory; at that time it remained the fastest way to get a letter to the outside world. What I had written about Rockwell remained in my room waiting to be read to him. If anything urgent or exciting happened to turn up, I would use the telegraph lines. So far, nothing had.
I had got in the habit of reading the Deseret News and the Salt Lake Tribune, the only anti-Mormon newspaper that existed then. I wondered why the Tribune was allowed to exist until I learned that its publisher and editor was closely related to a U.S. Senator from Ohio. Even so, the fiery editorials and stories in the Tribune did seem like pulling the lion’s tail, and there was hardly an edition in which plural marriage was not condemned or federal intervention demanded in the strongest possible terms. Not only did J.G. Grant, the publisher, damn the Mormons—he damned the federal government as well. The rule of law must be established in Utah, he thundered, and the only way to achieve that was to send in a ‘powerful military force led by a resolute commander.” In the same editorial, Mr. Grant lambasted Colonel Sidney Johnson, indecisive leader of the “American invasion” of several years before and now fighting for the Confederacy. The Tribune, in contrast to the Mormon newspaper, seemed carelessly written and poorly printed, thereby gaining some safety in contempt.
I was reading Mr. Grant’s latest tirade when Rockwell called out his name and came in, dusty and travel worn but in good spirits. We shook hands and he asked me how I had been. I told him I hadn’t done much of anything except write my dispatches and stroll about the city. While I was talking he took a bottle from his coat pocket and drank from it.
“A man named Fleming offered me a job on the Deseret News,” I told him. “Managing editor, later to be promoted to editor when he moved on to publisher.”
Rockwell corked the bottle and put it away.
“That’s the first I’ve heard of it, William.”
“I told him I didn’t want the job and he warned me not to pry too deeply into Mormon business.”
“Sometimes Fleming takes too much upon himself,” Rockwell said. “Pay him no mind, William.”
“Why do you think he made the offer, Port?”
“What he told you sounds right enough. I had nothing to do with it. You been writing while I’ve been gone?”
“I was waiting for you to get back before I read it to you,” I said, knowing that he would tell me about his journey if he wanted to. It must have been a fair distance; he had been gone for five days. “I’d like you to listen now. Mr. Greeley will be waiting for something more than descriptions of the Great Salt Basin.”
Rockwell took out his bottle and had another drink. “Fire away,” he said, closing his eyes, ready to listen.
Actually, it wasn’t one dispatch but three; they were long because there had been nothing to do but write. He made no comment as I read, nor did he open his eyes. Starting with the interview in Mr. Greeley’s office, I described how it was to see Salt Lake City for the first time. Then I went on to my first meeting with Rockwell, our long conversation, the tour of the city, the execution of the idiot murderer. Later I described my visit to Rockwell’s ranch, his pleasant family; after that I went on to the attempted assassination and my part in the killing of the unknown man. I concluded with the summary execution of the Murdock brothers.
Rockwell didn’t move for a while, yet I knew he wasn’t sullen but simply thoughtful. This was the point where our relationship would turn one way or another. I hoped what I had written wouldn’t mean the end of it.
I felt sudden relief when Rockwell opened his eyes and smiled at me. “You didn’t leave out much, did you?”
“Just the part about getting so drunk. Mr. Greeley doesn’t approve of alcohol. I’ll put it in if you like, but the people who buy newspapers would prefer to hear about you. Now tell me the things you want crossed out or written some other way.”
“Leave it as it is, William. It’s true, all of it. The only thing I want put in is something like this: ‘Porter Rockwell shot the prisoners—the Murdock brothers—before I could say a word.’ That’s true, too.”
“Yes,” I said quietly. “It is. Then I can send these off to New York?”
“Soon as you like. There will be one more dispatch if you care to write it. Maybe it will go far toward explaining some of the things in the other three. You see, I found out who the dead
man is and have a fair idea why he tried to kill me.”
The casual way he said this startled me more than if he had shouted. All at once I was a newspaperman, all business, and my mind jumped to the telegraph lines and the costly dispatch I was going to send. Somehow I knew that what he was going to tell me would burn up the wires.
Rockwell said, “His name was Bernard Edgar Jarman and he served under Colonel Johnson in the Mormon war of ’57. He was a lieutenant then and Johnson had him kicked out of the army because I made off with more than two hundred horses he had charge of. I don’t see that it was his fault—a young green officer—but he got booted just the same. Fact is, I even heard about it, never did see him face to face. He’s the man, though, and I had to ride over two hundred miles east to find that out. That’s where I’ve been and thank you for not asking. You didn’t believe that yarn about him being Davenport’s brother; neither did I. He didn’t look like any kind of working man, so that got me to thinking. What was he then? Not somebody I cleaned out at poker. I don’t play cards. Was he somebody I bested in a horse deal? No sir. I’d know him if he was. Another thought was he was related to somebody I had to kill back in the States. That didn’t wash either. Why would he wait all these years? He wasn’t a local man. Half the city looked at the body and didn’t recognize him. That probably meant he was hired, like you hinted. You were right.”
Rockwell paused to drink whiskey and I asked, “How was I right, Port?”
“We’ll get to that,” Rockwell said. “I figured he came from the East. If he came from California he’d have to cross a lot of bad desert. That would show and it didn’t. So the day we got back after the Murdock business, I had a picture made of him and started east with it. I didn’t ask you to come along because I knew I’d have to make the fastest time I could. You’re no horseman, William—not yet— and there’s your wound to think of.”
