by Lou Cameron
I smiled. “I won’t answer that, Port. I’m here to observe the progress of this undeclared war.”
“Don’t get huffy,” Rockwell said. “I forgot, that’s all. I think Connor sent those men north. To attack from the north, or to draw some of us off. Either way, it has to be looked in to. But that Irishman won’t draw us too far.”
We halted to water the horses. The irregulars ate on the move, sipping water in their saddles. We rode in silence all through the hot afternoon. We rested in the only shade we could find for miles. The men sprawled in the sand, sweat seeping out of them under the force of the sun; anything metal was blistering hot to the touch. No one complained about anything.
There was a gaudy desert sunset and darkness dropped like a curtain. Connor’s army had come through the east-west pass in the mountains. We were in the foothills now.
“I’m not taking the men through there,” Rockwell said. “No better place for an ambush. It’s narrow at the top and we’d be trapped. Yes, I know Connor hasn’t done any killing or burning, nothing to rouse the settlements against him. That could be another of his tricks. Too risky, William. I know another way over the mountains. It’s not much farther and well be safe.”
Rockwell seemed to be leading us straight into the side of the mountain. The entrance to his route was screened by piles of rocks as big as municipal buildings. It climbed after we got into it, and in places it was just wide enough for one horse and rider at a time. We had to ride in darkness till the moon came out. It took us hours to reach the top of the pass.
“Farther on there’s a wide place where we can water the horses. A few hours rest and we’ll push on for the other side and get there by first light.”
No fires were made. Sentries were posted and the rest of us went to sleep. Since I was an observer I didn’t have to do any work. Rockwell handed me a canteen and said it contained cold coffee left over from the noon break. So I ate bannock cakes and sipped cold coffee. Cynthia Mason talked to Fritz and ignored me.
It was biting cold but I slept like a stone. Rockwell shook me awake; the men were mounted and ready to move. The sun was blazing up when we caught sight of the flatlands and the desert beyond.
The main pass was about two miles from where we emerged. Rockwell used the telescope and declared that there was nothing he could see. Then he spread out his fifty men, all looking for signs of a large party heading north. After inspecting many miles of ground, they all returned to make negative reports.
Squinting against the glare of the sun, Rockwell said, “Maybe I’m wrong. Well have to turn back and join up with the main body. But there’s something wrong here. I can feel it. Where in blazes are those hundred soldiers? I don’t like any of it, William. We’ll go back through the main pass to save time. If they’re waiting for us we’ll be in their rear.”
Nothing moved in the pass except small animals alarmed by our passage. The ground was churned up by the wheels of cannon and supply wagons. Rockwell sent scouts ahead to climb the walls of the pass. All was clear.
Beyond the pass, Rockwell drove us hard. It took three days to catch up with Connor’s army; we rode around it at the darkest hour of the night. Philips reported that the volunteer force had slowed its pace. “They know we’re here,” Philips went on. “How can they not?”
“How could they not?” Rockwell frowned. “That Irishman is up to some trick. Did he make any move to drive you off?”
“None at all,” Philips answered. “But Connor is taking no chance on a night attack. Every night the guard is doubled and the cavalry are taking care to keep between us and the infantry. The horse herd has the heaviest guard of all.”
Rockwell smiled. “Then we won’t be running off their horses the way we did with Johnson. Mr. Philips, you keep a force on fifty men and watch their movements. If the situation changes, send fast horsemen ahead to Salt Lake. It seems that by doing nothing, Connor is doing a lot. Maybe he figures on taking the city without a shot being fired.”
On the way back to Salt Lake I asked Rockwell where Hickman was.
“Old Dan sent his force to watch Eagle Pass,” Rockwell answered. “That’s the way Johnson came during the first war. They could be moving troops from Kansas and Colorado. Hickman will be laying powder charges to bring the whole pass down on the Americans if they come. That will take care of their cannons and wagons. Their cavalry will have to fight on foot. We can hold them in Eagle Pass.”
“What’s to hold Connor?” I said. “The break in the mountains is too wide.”
“By fighting, that’s how we’ll hold him,” Rockwell replied. “If he breaks through we’ll fight him in the streets of the city. The Mexicans learned how to do that in the war. Connor had only nine hundred men, but then there’s the damned artillery. For year I’ve been saying we should cast our own cannon. It cost too much, I was told. Besides, the Americans wouldn’t have the nerve to invade us a second time. Well they’re here—nearly here—and all we have is a few old four-pounders. Blast it! I wish I knew where those hundred men were.”
I remained with Rockwell while he made his report to Old Dan, who had set up quarters in a room in the armory. Men kept coming and going all the time we were there. Unlike their armies, the Mormon army wasn’t bogged down in paper shuffling. No papers were being signed that I could see. Impatiently, Old Dan waved them away and told his tormentors to stay out of his office for twenty minutes.
“A hundred men missing, you say?” Old Dan mused. “You’re making too much out of it, Port. Even if they are operating on their own, what can such a small force do?”
“What are the Americans in Camp Douglas doing?” Rockwell asked. Camp Douglas was a very small U.S. Army post a few miles outside the city. At the end of the first Mormon war Johnson established the post and called it Camp Floyd. Later it was renamed as Camp Douglas.
“They’re staying close to home,” Old Dan answered. “The city has been declared off-limits to the soldiers. The commandant is showing the flag and that’s all he’s doing. We can overrun the place in five minutes.”
“I’m still worried about those hundred men,” Rockwell said.
Chapter Fourteen
“Dan,” Rockwell said. “Are we going to fight or not? Connor is getting closer all the time and we haven’t done a thing. Sure we have defenses set up, but that’s not the way to fight a war. We’ve been all over the country and all I know for sure is Connor’s army is coming right down on top of us. We should have taken the whole force and attacked them in the desert. It’s not too late to attack now.” General Wells rubbed his red-rimmed eyes. “I don’t know what’s going on, Port. Brigham’s orders are to hold off and that’s what I’ve been doing. God knows I don’t want a war, but if we’re going to fight, now is the time to get started. Bill Hickman was in here yesterday, saying what you’re saying now. You’re both right, but what can I do about it? Brigham is the commander in chief. I’m worried about Bill Hickman. I never saw a man as wild as he was yesterday. ‘What if the war just happens?’ he said to me. ‘All it would take is the killing of a few American soldiers, and that could happen any time.’ I warned him against that kind of talk, but you know how he is. He just stalked out with a black look on his face. I don’t mind which way it goes—I’ll do my duty—but this watch and wait business is getting on my nerves.”
“Mine too,” Rockwell agreed.
The general sighed. “Port, you might as well know. We are not the united people we were in ’57. The city has grown since then and some of our businessmen are concerned about their investments. War may be good business in the northern states—the soldiers have to be clothed and fed and armed—but it’s bad for business here.”
Rockwell gave Old Dan a baleful look. “Who are these men don’t want the war?”
Old Dan waved the question aside with a bitter smile. “I won’t tell you, Port. I don’t want a bunch of leading citizens getting shot. I mentioned it so you’d know how things are. Patriotism is giving way to prac
ticality. Anyway, that’s how these men see it.”
I thought this unusual talk for a banker. However, Old Dan wasn’t just any banker.
Cynthia Mason, who had followed us in and stayed silent all this time, broke in with a question. “General, how can you fight a war without the support of the men who run the city?”
“I’ll answer that,” Rockwell cut in before Old Dan could form an answer. “We can wage war with or without them. They don’t run Utah— Brigham does. When the shooting starts, these business leaders, so called, can be roped to horses and sent out to face Connor’s guns.”
Old Dan pounded on the top of his desk. “Be quiet, Port. That’s no kind of talk. I’m your chief and Brigham is mine. It’s not for you to talk about killing people. It’s a good thing that what you said won’t be repeated outside this room. Will it, Miss Mason? Mr. Forbes?”
“Of course not, General,” Cynthia Mason said.
“I didn’t even hear it,” I said.
Rockwell nodded. “I get mad, Dan. Forget it. Nobody’s going to get shot. What I’d like to do is telegraph one of our people in San Francisco. Abraham won’t do because they may be watching him since he sent the first message. I’ve been thinking about that first message. Why didn’t he send it in code?”
“He should have,” the general said. “Maybe he thought there was no need to code it. A large force of men is no secret.”
“Or maybe Connor sent the message, had it sent.”
Old Dan’s eyebrows shot up. “Why would he want to do that?”
“To cover the fact that Abraham has been arrested.”
“But we acknowledged Abraham’s message.”
“That’s not to say he got it. Connor may have soldiers posted in every telegraph office in the city. Like I said, I’d like to send another message to Abraham, this time in code and warning him to answer in code. If the answer isn’t in code, or there’s no answer at all, then we’ll know Abraham is locked up.”
The general sipped something that looked like lemonade. “What will the message say?”
“Nothing much. A general request for information. Then I’d like to send another message to someone else, one of our best people. You know all of them, where they live. Pick a man and ask him if he knows anything about the hundred missing men. No code this time. Not the regular code. I mean the one based on the Book. How will it read, Dan?”
Old Dan was tired and irritable. “Lord Almighty, Port, you don’t ask for much. It will take me an hour to put such a message together. I’ll let you know how it comes out. Now, will you get out of here? I must have ten people waiting to see me.”
Rockwell went to the jail to check the rifles that were being brought there. “If it comes to street fighting the jail will be one of the strong points,” he said. “We’ll hold the city as long as we can— supposing they crack our defenses—while the rest of the men get away to the hills. Even cannon won’t be much use against the jail or the armory.”
I went back to the jail to write a dispatch about our bloodless sortie into the desert. But first I took a bath and slept for two hours, and after my writing was done, I put it aside to read later to Rockwell. Then, recalling the waterless misery of the desert, I went down the street to McSorley’s to drink a glass of beer. Entering the saloon I was surprised to see Fitz and McSorley talking together in more than casual fashion; on the face of it, it seemed to be a casual conversation, but I was certain it was not. McSorley saw me before Fitz did and he said in an extremely loud voice, “There will never be another gold strike like the one in ’49, my friend. Forget Ballarat down in Australia. Sutter’s Mill was the start of the greatest gold rush in the history of man. Ah, there you are, Mr. Forbes. You know Mr. Fitz here?”
Fitz nodded stiffly; he seemed to be nervous. “We’ve been introduced.”
McSorley went on with his gold rush talk after he pumped up a schooner of cold beer for me. “We were just talking about gold finds, the good ones, the not so good. My opinion is it’ll take plenty to beat the one of ’49. Am I right or wrong, Mr. Forbes?”
Fitz sipped his own beer. I don’t think he wanted it.
“There are good reports from Arizona,” I ventured. “But perhaps it was a silver strike I heard about.”
“Silver is right,” McSorley said firmly and yet absently. “But I’ll tell you, silver will never take the place of gold in the hearts of men.” This was followed by a coarse laugh. “For one think it’s not near as valuable, which is not the whole reason, for there’s something else about gold that drives men crazy.”
Fitz took another sip of beer and said quickly, “I’d better be off, gentlemen. I have work to do.”
“A nice quiet man Mr. Fritz is,” McSorley remarked after he went out. “Another beer?”
I got the beer but didn’t drink it too quickly. McSorley was waiting on another customer when I went out. I walked past the open door of the hotel and saw Fitz talking to the desk clerk. Still curious, I crossed the street and stood behind a wagon and waited. In a few minutes McSorley came out without his apron, looked up and down the street, and took off at a fast clip. I followed him all the way to the telegraph office. What in blazes was going on? I thought I knew the answer.
McSorley took his time getting back to the saloon; he had the air of a man who has done his duty and was able to relax. There was no way I could examine a copy of his message, short of going to Rockwell, that is. A bribe might work, but that would bring Rockwell just as surely as if I had sent for him. That would never do: it was not my business to ferret out spies on behalf of the Mormons.
Cynthia Mason was a government spy; I was sure of it. So was Fritz, of course, and so was McSorley. It was hard to think of McSorley as a spy, so bluff and simple-minded he seemed to be, which probably meant that he was a very capable spy. I had thought him a New York criminal come west to escape the police; live and learn. I didn’t have a shred of proof and any effort to obtain evidence would be disastrous. Rockwell was my friend, but he would be relentless if his suspicions were aroused. I was sorry that I had gone into McSorley’s for a beer; sorry that I had followed McSorley to the telegraph office. I didn’t want to know what Cynthia Mason was doing, what she hoped to achieve. What had sent McSorley out in such a hurry? I thought I knew the answer to that, too. It could not be Rockwell’s surveillance of Connors army, for as Philips said, Connor was well aware that he was being shadowed. It was something he would expect. It could not be the Mormons’ indecision; that was obvious—they had not fired a shot. So it had to be the hundred men who were missing from Connor’s army. It could hardly be anything else.
I knew that Rockwell was right: one hundred men were missing and there was some grim purpose behind their disappearance. What could it be? I had no idea. I recalled Old Dan’s words. “What can a hundred men do?” A fair question but it wasn’t enough for Rockwell, and now it wasn’t enough for me.
The Mormons were the enemies of my country; I tried to convince myself of that. It didn’t work. Certainly William Hickman was the enemy of my country, but then he was the enemy of all men. I failed utterly in my attempt to work up some ill will toward the rest of the Saints. So many were so decent. There was Old Dan, for instance. The salt harvesters by the lake who had shared their food with me. And Rockwell. I felt bad about Rockwell. I knew something that he would have given his right arm to know, and yet I could not tell him. You must remain aloof, I told myself with no great conviction. My country was engaged in a desperate war; the Mormons posed a threat to its survival. None of it worked and I stopped trying to explain my feelings to myself. The drama would have to continue without my participation, or so I thought at the time. The hand would have to be played as it was dealt. I could not tell Rockwell, I could not betray Cynthia Mason and her fellow agents. But I knew it was going to be very difficult to remain impartial.
I was on my back to the hotel when Fritz stepped out of a doorway and said quietly, “I have a gun on you, Forbes.” His hand was in
his pocket. “It’s cocked and ready to fire. Walk ahead of me and don’t try anything or you’ll be killed.”
I didn’t bother to try a bluff. “I followed McSorley and you followed me, is that it?”
“That’s it,” Fritz said. “No more talk. Walk ahead of me. Back to the hotel.”
“Am I to be murdered?” I asked.
“Walk on,” was the only answer I got.
Cynthia Mason—not her name, of course—was waiting in her rooms. “Sit over there,” she ordered, taking a double-barreled derringer from her bag and using it to point.
Fitz took my pocket pistol before I sat down. Then he stood by the door and watched me and, having shed his Man Friday pose, he looked no less a killer than Hickman.
“You’re too nosy, Forbes,” Cynthia Mason said. “If you want to play spy, you should learn how to do it.”
“Is it hard?”
“More college humor,” she said. “No, it isn’t hard if you love your country, or if you love money. Those are the only reasons people become spies. I love my country. What do you think you know?”
I told her.
“Close enough,” she said. “My problem is, what am I going to do with you?”
“Kill him,” Fitz said.
I said, “You think I’m going to tell Rockwell?”
The derringer hadn’t moved. “I think you’d like to. I made a mistake with you, Forbes. I should have stayed away from you. When did you start to suspect me?”
“I didn’t, not at first. At first I thought you might be spying on me for the Prophet. You made me uneasy, that’s all. Fitz didn’t fit the role you gave him. I knew your jokes about the Mormons were supposed to be taken as the cynicism of a hard-boiled reporter. You know, to hell with everything but the story. But behind the jokes I sensed real hatred.”
“Very good,” she commented, angry with me, angry with herself. “But what can you do about it?”
“With guns pointing at me—nothing. I wasn’t going to tell Rockwell, no matter what you think. I work for Horace Greeley, not for the Mormons, not for Washington. I want to do nothing but my work.”
