by Dean Hughes
Rain came some afternoons, but the heat didn’t back off much, and the air was steamy after a storm—and full of mosquitoes. Even worse was the mud—the greatest enemy to the poor oxen. A hard pull sometimes became an impossible one as rain turned the clay on the slopes into a slick muck. It was then that Will would sometimes gather other men and all of them would help push the wagons. That aided the oxen and carried some stones to the temple that might have had to wait another day or two, but the muck filled Will’s boots, penetrated the legs and knees of his trousers, and splashed onto his chest and into his face. He came home some nights so filled up with mud that Liz wouldn’t let him into the house. He would pull everything off outside and then trudge inside to wait while Liz boiled his clothes. He would wash himself—never quite getting all the stain off—and then he would lie down on the bed and try to retrieve his strength, but the heat in the house lingered not only all evening but all night.
Will was young—not quite twenty-seven—and powerful, and he told himself there never was a job that could get the better of him. No matter how tired he was at night, he was able to arise each morning, well recovered, and he could go after the work again the next day. “The Lord is blessing me, Liz,” he told her one morning. “I know I’m a strong man, but God has lifted me up a notch or two. The men at the quarry talk about me as though I’m Samson, the way I can lift and pull and carry mighty stones.”
Liz smiled at him. “I’m glad you’re giving thanks to the Lord. Otherwise, I might think you’re boasting a little.”
“I’m sorry, Liz,” Will said. “I didn’t mean to sound that way. I do know it’s the Lord who’s given me such strength. I thought at one time that I would be a cripple all my life, but my bad hand works well enough for the work I do. I have the Lord to thank for that, too.”
“Just don’t push yourself too hard, Will. I fear you’ll break your back and make a cripple of yourself yet.”
Will grinned. “Don’t worry about me. I never lift a stone that’s bigger than I am.”
But at the end of that very day Will felt more worn down than usual. He fell asleep before supper, and by the time the meal was ready, he could feel a fever coming on. By morning he was shaking with chills and then burning with fever. “I boasted too much of my strength yesterday,” Will told Liz. “It’s all gone now. I am like Samson. I was the strongest man alive yesterday, and now I can barely lift a finger.”
“Maybe that’s what illness is for—to remind us that we’re not so powerful as we think we are.”
“If it’s so, the Lord wants to chasten His people. Half the men working at the quarry are sick again.”
• • •
Liz didn’t know why so many died in Nauvoo, why so much illness came each year at this time. She wished that this illness hadn’t come to Will now. She was not very well herself, feeling sick with the baby, and she was aching with the loss of her father even more than she had expected. She thought of her mother and sister every day, wondered what they were thinking and feeling now. A letter was only an expression of a single day—or just an hour—and she knew that moods and attitudes could change quickly. Mother had sounded accepting and stoic, but Mary Ann had told the other side of it. Each night when Liz went to bed, she thought of her mother alone and crying. She was likely to be alone a long time, and maybe it wasn’t right for Mary Ann to think of leaving. But if that was so, maybe Liz shouldn’t have left either.
God expected so much, it seemed. Liz had found the faith to accept Zion, but she simply hadn’t known that Zion would be so hard as it was. She hadn’t known about the heat—or the terrible cold, either—and she hadn’t known it was a place where people got sick, and where so many of their babies died. She hadn’t known that people from neighboring towns would hate them, that she would have to learn to shoot a gun to protect herself. She hadn’t known that members of her church would spread rumors, criticize the Prophet, fall short of keeping their commitments and even the commandments of God. She hadn’t known that she herself would doubt and fear and sometimes complain.
Liz didn’t blame God. She didn’t feel any resentment about the choices she and Will had made. But she was homesick, and she was worried for her mother and her sister, and she was pregnant, hot, and tired—and now Will was sick again.
Strong men died of the ague. And Will was very sick. Liz told herself she needed God again—and she reminded herself that it was a good thing to need God. So as Will slept, Liz slipped down on her knees and prayed, “Please, Lord, make him whole again. And give me strength.”
When she opened her eyes, she saw that Jacob was watching her, and suddenly everything came back to her: almost a year ago now, she had thought she had lost everything, and the Lord had given her this gift, this lovely child. She couldn’t indulge herself in self-pity. She had to keep her eye on what Zion was, in spirit, and not pay so much attention to the earth it was built upon.
• • •
After four days in bed, Will got up. “It was only a fever,” he told Liz. “I don’t think it was the ague. I’ve got to get back to the quarry.”
“It will come back. It always does,” Liz said.
“The ague does. But not a summer fever. I’m certain that’s what it was.”
But Will knew that Liz might be right. He had watched all the suffering in Nauvoo because of the “fever chills.” Even in winter the attacks would return, and strong men and women would be brought down again. People would shake as though they were freezing, their teeth chattering and their limbs jerking. The victims could pull on any number of quilts and still continue to quiver, and then they would throw everything off as the fever came back. He knew also that once a person became sick with ague, they were never entirely free of it.
But this had been only a summer fever, he told himself, and he went to work. He put in a good day, not feeling all the power he had boasted of, but doing well, moving a good deal of stone. In his absence, others had driven his oxen, but the men at the quarry all told him that no one could move as much stone in a day as he could. The Lord needed him, Will told himself, and would sustain him. But that night the chills and fever came back. Will made it to work most days after that, but once or twice a week, he simply couldn’t. On those days, other men worked with his animals, and they reassured him, the illness could put any man down.
Jesse and Daniel brought the harvest in—what there was of it. Before long they came and worked with Will and helped with the oxen. They needed the wages now, at least enough to put away food for winter. They did have their earnings from the roadwork they had done, but there was no more of that to expect. Will hoped some new immigrants would want their land plowed this fall and he could gather a little more savings that way. He thanked the Lord that he had partners who could keep some of his work going when he couldn’t be there to help.
Each night Will also knelt with Liz and thanked the Lord that they were well off enough to make it through the winter. They had seen nothing of the Samples brothers, so he thanked the Lord that he and his family were safe and well. He thanked the Lord that the baby was growing and that Liz was feeling a little better now. He thanked the Lord that Jacob was a year old, strong and happy, and hadn’t been sick this season. He thanked the Lord for the temple, and prayed that progress on it might be doubled next year, and the day would soon come when the people could enter and receive the endowments and sealings Joseph had promised. He thanked the Lord for Zion, for the prophets and apostles, for the truths they had received, for life itself. After all, he was getting a little stronger all the time.
Work on the temple continued through the fall. When the first hard frost came, the work had to slow, but stones could still be cut and hauled to the temple, ready for placement in the spring, so Will, along with Jesse and Daniel, still had work to do all winter—and that was a blessing.
As the colder weather came on, Will had fewer bad days, and he was able to pr
ocure some quinine powder from Brother McNeal, a druggist in town, although at a very dear price. Still, he could tell that the medicine was helping him. What he wanted now was for Liz to be a little happier. She had never been quite herself since she had learned of her father’s death.
Chapter 16
Jeff had never been so tired in his life. William was six weeks old now and was making steady progress. He had gained a little weight and he was healing well. Other than being small, he seemed to be thriving in every way, and Jeff and Abby never failed in any of their prayers to thank the Lord for preserving his life. But that didn’t mean that baby William—or “Will,” as Jeff usually called him—slept very well at night. He was nursing better, and sometimes slept three or four hours without waking up, but he woke up two or three times during the night, and Jeff always tried to take one of those feedings. The trouble was, he had to be up early to drive to Fort Madison, and he was also feeling the pressure to start accomplishing more on the house. It wasn’t right for him to continue to get free rent if he wasn’t doing much work for the Robertsons.
After his mother-in-law had left, Jeff had decided to take on the kitchen, and he and Malcolm had spent some evenings planning all they wanted to do. Malcolm had enough to do in his own house, but their idea was, they would rework Jeff and Abby’s kitchen and then do the kitchen at Malcolm and Kayla’s house. They could save some money on materials that way, and the two of them working together could get more done than if they each worked alone on their own projects. The only catch to that was that they tended to inspire one another with their lofty ideas and to end up attempting things that were rather grandiose. The cabinets in both homes clearly needed to be replaced, and the Robertsons’ house had no dishwasher. The additional plumbing was enough of a challenge, but as the two used graph paper to draw their plans, they began to realize that they needed to move a wall to get the cabinet space they wanted.
Jeff and Malcolm had taken their wives and kids with them to Quincy one night to look at kitchen designs at a home improvement store. That had turned out to be fun for both couples—especially with a stop for something to eat at the Steak ’n Shake that both men liked so much—but the women added more ideas, and the plans became all the more elaborate.
Actually, the hours working with Malcolm were some of Jeff’s favorite times these days, but neither of them knew when to stop, and their nights got late sometimes. Jeff knew he wasn’t getting enough rest, but he had been a night owl during his college days, and he always thought he could get by on four or five hours of sleep. He was finding now, though, that he sometimes had trouble keeping his eyes open when he sat down at the computer in his office.
Abby kept telling Jeff that he needed to take some evenings off and go to bed early once in a while, but the kitchen was all torn up and the house was a mess. Jeff really wanted to get the project finished.
One night, when William had gone to bed and Abby had fallen asleep early, Jeff and Malcolm were still working. Malcolm took a look at his watch and said, “Jeff, it’s almost ten. I promised Kayla—and Abby—that we wouldn’t work late tonight.”
“I know. I told her the same thing. But Abby’s asleep. You go ahead. Now that we’ve got these corner cabinets hung, I just want to secure them with a few more screws.”
“Won’t your drill wake the baby—and Abby?”
He laughed. “I know it won’t wake Abby. Will might be another matter.”
“If you wake the baby, you wake Abby.”
“You’re right. Maybe I better stop.”
Malcolm turned toward Jeff and waited until Jeff looked back at him. When he did, Malcolm asked, “What’s going on with you lately?”
Jeff was taken by surprise. “What do you mean?”
Malcolm unbuckled his tool belt and leaned back against the cabinet. “I don’t know. You don’t talk as much as you used to.”
“Hey, that’s got to be a good thing.” Jeff laughed. “I’m fine. I’m probably just worn out from burning the candle at both ends these last few weeks. But then, you’ve been doing the same thing.”
Malcolm nodded. He dropped his tool belt to the floor, as though he still had something he wanted to say. “On Sunday I watched you during the lesson in elders quorum. You started to raise your hand three or four times, and then you’d put it down again. Gary finally noticed and called on you, but all you said was, ‘Never mind.’ What was that about?”
“I don’t know. I was thinking about something I learned in one of my college philosophy classes. But I decided it probably wouldn’t add anything to the discussion. You know how those guys roll their eyes when I bring up stuff like that.”
“You shouldn’t worry about it. You know more than anyone in there. You talk about things I’ve never thought of. I like that.”
“Yeah, maybe. Sometimes. But I’m better off if I stick with the scriptures.” Jeff walked over and sat down at one of the kitchen chairs that had been pushed back against a wall. “I get people upset when I start spouting off.”
“I love the stuff you tell about Nauvoo history. You know more about it than people who’ve lived here for a long time.”
“But that’s my problem, Malc. History is always a lot more complicated than people want it to be. We tell these stories, and they get passed along, whether they’re true or not. Last Sunday I was reading a book about Nauvoo. There was a whole chapter about plural marriage and how Joseph first started preaching it—and practicing it—and it’s really different from the way we all like to think about it now. It was a secret thing at first. The Lord had taught Joseph, but Joseph knew he couldn’t tell the world—even most of the members—at that point. He understood the spirit of plural marriage, but guys like John C. Bennett were describing it as something really lurid. Emma actually agreed to the doctrine at one point, and then she changed her mind. She and Joseph really struggled over that.”
“After Joseph was killed, didn’t she claim it never happened?”
“Yeah, she did. Here’s the thing, though. I want to know about those kinds of things, but a lot of people get really nervous when I talk about them—so it’s just better if I keep my mouth shut.”
“Maybe we should know all that stuff.”
“I used to think so. But I don’t anymore. People don’t have to know everything, or understand everything. And they don’t need to speculate as much as I do. They need to hear the whisperings of the Holy Ghost and recognize that’s what they’re hearing. That’s what counts.”
“Do you really mean that?”
Jeff sat for a time. He tried to think about that. “Malcolm,” he finally said, “I spent a lot of time wringing my hands and wondering whether I had enough faith to heal our baby. But I finally received an answer from the Lord, and once I did, I knew what to do. If that didn’t change me, it should have. All my philosophizing doesn’t mean a thing compared to that.”
“Yeah. I get what you’re saying.” Malcolm reached down and picked up his tool belt, and he walked over to the door that led to the garage, but he stopped and turned around. “There’s another side to it, though.”
“What’s that?”
“When I was a kid, me and my dad used to fish a lot. And you know how fish are. Out of water, they flip around for a while, but then they start opening and shutting their mouths, like they’re trying to figure out how to breathe when they’re not underwater. I thought of that on Sunday. It’s like you’re trying to make the switch. You’re trying to survive, but you’re a fish out of water. You used to raise questions that made me pretty uncomfortable sometimes, but I watch the way you live, and you do live by faith. I think you can be smart and have faith, too.”
Jeff nodded. “I know. But some things are worth thinking about, and other things are just word games. I’m trying to figure out which is which, and it’s starting to become obvious to me how many games I’ve been playing.”
“Okay. But don’t worry about it quite so much. Just go ahead and say what you think. I don’t think it hurts anything.”
“Well, maybe that’s right.”
Jeff was surprised when Malcolm didn’t leave. Instead, he pulled out another one of the kitchen chairs and sat down across from Jeff. “I’ve been thinking I need to go to college,” Malcolm said.
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah, I am. Part of it is, I feel like I’m stupid. I didn’t take school seriously because I always figured I’d do about what I’m doing now. But I don’t know anything except tires and—”
“Malc, you’re one of the smartest guys I’ve ever known.”
Malcolm laughed. “No way. You’re just—”
“I’m totally serious. It’s not just that you can fix things. You remember everything you’ve learned. I’ll read the instructions before I start to install something, and then I have to go back and read every step again as I go along. You take a look, you get it, and you know how to do it.”
“Yeah, if I’m using my hands, I can—”
“No. It’s your brain. Things stick there. If you can do that with an instruction booklet, you can do it with anything. You’ll be a good student if you go back to school.”
“I can’t write an English paper to save my life.”
“Sure you can. And that’s something I could help you with.”
Malcolm laughed again. “We’re going to be building these two kitchens the rest of our lives. When will I have time to go to college?”
“Hey, we’ve got to get these houses finished. These projects of ours are going to do us both in.”
