The Gun of Joseph Smith

by Katherine R. Chandler

  He hesitated to conclude that God had directed the lightning bolt; that seemed an arrogant assessment. He wondered—if the Joseph Smith rifle had not been involved, mightn't he have thought the lightning only a fortunate coincidence? And that made him wonder if, during a lifetime, many of God's interventions were not passed off as just good luck at the right time.

  One conclusion was obvious; Tucker had been spared, and whether they acknowledged it or not, only God could have allowed it. For that blessing, the Morgans owed more than they could measure. Mark Morgan was sobered by his thoughts and returned with them heavy on his mind.

  The Pin Larkin storm was the last of the daily downpours. As if satisfied, the weather settled and the sun shone without ominous clouds peering above distant crests.

  The train staggered across a final summit and the way became mostly downhill. Parley Pratt's road was a crude affair, but its minimal grading and hastily chopped route seemed a turnpike after the long haul left behind. Each wagon was happy to pay its toll for the new way was far easier than the pioneers' original route.

  Suddenly Tucker's parents no longer hurried, and their train pulled away while they lingered to enjoy the encroaching fall and hold long conferences. Tucker knew what it was about, and although he would be pleased to end the traveling, he wasn't sure about wanting to settle where there didn't seem to be much of anything.

  Back home their farm had been small and almost in town. Woods and fences edged fields. Neighbors were close and you knew them all. Out here? Tucker looked across the high mountains, spotted with thin timber, and only wheel ruts showing that people had passed this way.

  Of course, a man could ride his horse as free as a bird, and he could shoot his gun anywhere without dogs barking and women complaining. There was game, if you knew where to find it—which he did—and maybe lower down, the ground would look more as though it could grow something.

  This was Holloway's kind of country and that spoke well of it. He grinned to himself, trying to imagine a man like Holloway sewed into a town like they had come from. Back there a man toed the line or the important folks would hear about it. Out here you could lay tracks where you chose and answer only to your conscience. That sounded brave to Tucker and he felt more in harmony with the land they were crossing. It was just that . . . well, California had sounded so important for so long.

  They were well down and beginning to see glimpses of the Great Salt Valley when the train behind caught up. The Morgans pulled aside and let them hustle past with only a few words, shouted halloos, and happy waves.

  Tuck sat tall in Pin Larkin's saddle with the stirrups shortened up and with Larkin's beaver hat pulled low over his eyes. He carried the rifle across a forearm as he always did and he had sewn a fold of saddle leather to scabbard the big skinning knife on the hip opposite his hunting pouch. He nodded gently to the passing train and tipped his hat a bit to the ladies as Holloway had used to do. He hoped his eyes looked cool and distant—as though he had seen a lot—and he knew, certain-sure, that every boy going by envied him about to death.

  Mark and Rebecca watched his performance with concealed glee, although Mark nearly guffawed when Tucker started the hat tipping.

  "That son of ours is going to need reeling in, Mark Morgan." Becky's tone was amused.

  "Don't know as he'll make much of a farmer, Becky. He's got a free spirit and we'd best keep that in mind."

  "He'll do what we tell him, Mark. Tucker is still a young boy despite the things that have happened."

  "Well, they wouldn't believe much of it back east, would they?"

  When the Morgans found a place where they could really see into the Great Salt Valley they halted the oxen. Where tracks showed many others had paused, they too walked to the best lookout.

  As Tucker came up his parents were holding hands and he heard his father's words as clear as the sky above them.

  "You heard what Brigham Young said when he first saw this valley, Becky? Well, I sort of feel the same way.

  "This is the right place."

  Chapter 9

  Sometimes Tucker thought living in the Great Salt Valley was purely awful. The first year had been the worst and it seemed as though all they had done was work and then work some more.

  First there was the problem of not being Mormons. In Deseret, the Saints were in charge. This was their land and they chose the tunes.

  He had to admit that the rules made sense. The land was laid out proper without people throwing up shacks just any old place. If you came in needy> the church found shelter and work for you, which was generous, as things weren't easy for anyone. But, if you weren't a Mormon you didn't really belong and you could feel it.

  Of course, that part got settled when Mark and Becky Morgan were baptized. Tucker had seen it coming from way back at Independence Rock even, and the three of them had long talks before the baptizing.

  It was proud sitting with his parents, talking it out, just as though he was grown up. They encouraged him to join with them, but they didn't force him. That was sort of marvelous because he figured most families joined because the father said to—whether the rest liked it or not.

  He had hung back, unwilling to say yes. He felt shamed, having the Joseph Smith rifle and remembering how the lightning had saved him, but he hadn't listened all that good to his father's reading and he didn't know beans about the Mormon church. He thought he ought to understand and believe some before he became a member.

  His father had nodded in his quiet way and agreed that he should first believe. He also suggested that a person might judge the worth of a church by how the people in it acted. If the Saints were the kind to march with, that should tell him something, just as the opposite could be true. Tucker promised to keep looking and thinking about it.

  He did feel left out during the baptizing and for a while thereafter, but with the rush of work to be done he let it all go by.

  They built close by the trail and along the creek. The house was adobe and Tucker rode up the mountain to cut and haul logs for the roof beams. Work on the house was slow because they could live in the wagon, and earning a living took precedence.

  Mark set up his forge and went to blacksmithing. Horse, mule, and ox shoes were in demand. With mining being attempted on every rock face between the salt lake and the Pacific Ocean, there was good business in drill sharpening and shaping. Trains of movers constantly spouted from the eastern canyons, so harness and wagon fittings were always needed and provided quick returns.

  Iron was hard to come by. Before snow threatened the passes, the Morgan men led borrowed packhorses back across the mountains to knock off and carry home every piece of iron from every abandoned wagon along the trail.

  On one such trip, Tucker came across a huge cast-iron wood stove half buried in a stream bed. It was a glorious find and Tucker felt little sympathy for the hurrying gold seeker who had dumped it.

  The stove required an extra trip and Tucker made it alone. He camped in bitter high-country cold, and hurried to get through before an early storm could trap him.

  The stove gave their home warmth and comfort beyond the wood-devouring fireplaces endured by most. The thick adobe walls held heat and proved the right material for building—until the spring thaw, when a wall of water came down the stream. When it receded, the home was a washed-out ruin not worth rebuilding.

  Disheartened and angry, Tucker helped sort out the mess. If someone had suggested, "Let's load up and head west," he would willingly have carried the iron stove on his back.

  Instead, Mark said, "Well, we built too close to the creek. House was too small anyway. We'll move back and build bigger and better."

  His mother acted real pleased but all Tucker saw were a million or so adobe bricks to be shaped, sun dried, and plastered into place. Horrible, he thought, just horrible.

  While his father blacksmithed, Tucker made bricks. Together they plowed and planted. The three of them weeded their garden and laid up the house walls. While it w
as light they worked and only on Sunday did they rest. It was essential but it was unendingly hard labor.

  Tucker figured that if they spent ten years or so at it they might end up as well off as they had been back east.

  On the good side, his mother made him an elk-hide hunting shirt and when he got rigged out with the rifle and all his trappings, mounted high on the horse he had named Pin, he felt about set for anything. Then he'd head up into the mountains to bring in meat, but also to look around and let the wild country ease his spirit until it again floated free.

  In some ways it was a lonely life. He was not one with the Mormons, who were clannish within their own affairs. The boy on a tall horse heading alone into the heart of the mighty Wasatch Range—to return with game taken by his own rifle—became an accepted phenomenon, but other youths could envy and remain distant.

  Seasons turned and fields produced. The house became a home, and the oxen and horses were sheltered. Tucker received a new leather shirt because the other burst at chest and shoulders. He helped at the blacksmithing and handled the oxen when they were rented out. The second horse foaled and they traded the filly for a cow and calf.

  Tucker Morgan planned on becoming a Mormon. He rarely picked up his rifle that memories of Pin Larkin and the lightning did not prompt him. He guessed he should join and, as his pap had pointed out, the Saints stood higher than most he had encountered. But it was sort of inconvenient—with all the meetings and obligations—and it was just easier to delay and face up to things later on.

  Tucker didn't often ride up Parley's Canyon because game had long departed the great road, but early in the third fall he chose that rugged climb and eventually worked his way across the Divide.

  No convenient targets appeared and he began careful glassing with Larkin's telescope. A man didn't find animals by riding through and hoping to spook something. It was more rewarding to pick a good lookout and watch likely places. Sooner or later an animal would move. Then you could plan your stalk against undisturbed game.

  Before noon he had located a small elk band but they were a long ride away and he kept looking. Something closer might show itself. If it didn't, he'd go after the elk.

  From his place he could see a section of the road and when he saw travelers he focused in to see what they amounted to. So far the most interesting had been a brightly painted wagon moving quickly. A young girl sat beside the driver and he liked the way her poke bonnet bobbed around. Too far to see more, and noon heat began raising mirage that blurred images, but he'd remember the wagon.

  Movement well down the trail caught his attention and he drew down on a rider leading a pair of pack animals. He knew who it was the instant the telescope steadied. For a long moment he couldn't believe it; then the tube began to shake in his hands and he couldn't see. There was a lot of time and he leaned back against a rock to think about just how he ought to go about things.

  While the rider was hidden by trees and a nob or two, Tucker wiped his rifle down and made sure the cap was on good. He put a better edge on his skinning knife by whetting it against his saddle skirt. By then it was time to have another look.

  His eye had been true. He closed the telescope with a snap and replaced it in the saddlebag. Then he rolled into the saddle and settled himself extra firmly. He pulled Larkin's hat low over his eyes and cradled the Joseph Smith gun across his forearm. A touch with his heels started the horse down and Tuck felt his heart begin to pound.

  When the rider came around a bend Tucker Morgan was waiting, sitting as he had ridden, relaxed and watching, rifle ready.

  The rider came to an easy stop and just looked for a long moment. Then he shifted in his saddle and spat alongside.

  His face didn't really show beneath the hat brim but Tucker knew how the lips would purse and an almost smile would appear. The words were right, too.

  "Should of known that was you up there, boy, brass on that rifle glittering in the sun and light dancin' off a telescope like you was signaling." Then Grant Holloway did smile and his teeth shone white in the saddle dark of his face.

  The guide's obvious pleasure broke Tucker's poise, and he kicked his horse down the trail his face almost hurting with the width of his grin and words bubbling as fast as he could get them out.

  "I couldn't believe it, Mr. Holloway, just couldn't believe it. By darn, but it's good to see you, Mr. Holloway. I been looking for game and just happened to focus in on you. By dam, Mr. Holloway, it sure is a pleasure seein' you again. Why just wait'll Ma and Pap see you. Why, they won't believe it either, why . . ."

  When Tucker got quieted, Holloway said only, "It's mighty fine running into you too, boy." He stuck out a hard hand and Tucker gave it a man's strong shake and managed not to start yammering all over again.

  Holloway began riding so Tucker fell in alongside.

  "Fact is, Tucker, I was heading for your place."

  "You knew we were here, Mr. Holloway?"

  The guide snorted. " 'Course I knew you were here. Riders come through and a man asks."

  He looked Tucker over more closely, as though judging his growth. "Heard about Pin Larkin only this last winter. Funny nobody mentioned it a'fore, but they didn't.

  "Wintered near Laramie and had time to do some thinking." He pulled up his horse and looked hard at his young companion. "I've come for them reading lessons we spoke about, Tuck, and I think maybe I'd best be doing them out of the Book of Mormon, 'cause that's what I've been thinking about ever since your pap did his reading around them campfires."

  Chapter 10

  Grant Holloway didn't do a lot of smiling around other people. He still called Mark by his last name and addressed Rebecca as "Mrs."

  The Morgans cleared out their storage room and Holloway moved in as though he belonged there. He produced money to pay his way and pitched in if he liked the work being done. He quickly decided that Tucker didn't know beans about teaching reading and persuaded Becky to tackle the job.

  Holloway attended about every preaching he could get to and regularly sat around listening to the men arguing out meanings and directions. Tucker did read to him out of the Book of Mormon and they chewed over what they had learned when they were off together.

  "Maybe we ought to pack up and hunt that Hill of Cumorah, Tuck. Those records should still be buried there."

  "It's back in New York, Mr. Holloway. Everybody knows where it is."

  "Not that Cumorah, Tuck. That's Moroni's hill. I mean Mormon's Cumorah. It's in a 'land of many waters, rivers, and fountains.' I figure it's way south, near the Isthmus maybe."

  "Too far to ride. We'd best take a ship, Mr. Holloway."

  They laughed over that one, but mostly Holloway was serious in his Mormon talk.

  When the subject of the Joseph Smith gun came up Holloway's reasonings made Tucker more than a little ashamed of his hanging back.

  "Seems to me that you're overdue for baptizing, Tucker. You been carrying that rifle since you and it was near the same height. What's holding you back?"

  Tucker shuffled his feet in the hay they were moving, delaying because he didn't have good answers.

  "Well, there isn't any real proof that the gun was Joseph Smith's, Mr. Holloway." He felt like a traitor and his face burned with the embarrassment of his shabby excuse.

  Holloway was not impressed. "Huh, don't know what that's got to do with anything. Important fact is that having that rifle opened your eyes to the Saints and turned your wagon this way. 'Cause of it, your pap read the book and joined the church."

  He leaned over his hay fork to emphasize with hand motions. "Way I see it, that rifle's been like a compass for your family, pointing the way and reminding you time to time that it's there."

  Holloway cleared his throat noisily and spat aside. 'Look, boy, I been on these plains and in these mountains for more'n twenty years. Know how many men I've known to get lightning killed? None, Tucker. None till Pin Larkin. Maybe there ain't no way of proving why that lightning bolt came when it di
d, but if it was me, I wouldn't be waiting around for more proving.

  "Way I see it, you've been guided. Your folks have seen it, and I'm catching glimpses my ownself.

  "Living mostly alone these years I've had thinking time and I've spent a lot of it studying on people's beliefs. Met a bunch that figured that when you die you go back to the happiest time of your life and you enjoy that forever. Didn't make much sense to me.

  "Met Indians that believed in coming back as buffalo. Others thought ancestors watched 'em and some believed in a happy hunting ground. Of 'em all, including the white man's churches, only the Bible and the Book of Mormon ring true to me.

  "Now, I haven't had any special signs throwed my way, but I'm not afeared of studying on yours, or Brother Brigham's, or Joseph Smith's.

  "What I'm recommending is that it's time you quit milling around and stood up to be counted."

  Holloway paused a long time and the silence hung heavy because Tucker didn't know how to fill it.

  "Fact is, Tucker, I'm getting myself set to get baptized and follow the Mormon teachings the best I can. I figure them for true, and believing that, a man'd be a fool to pretend it wasn't so.

  "It would shine, if I had a friend to take the dip with me, boy. So if you've just been hanging back for no special reason, your folks an' me would be proud if you'd take the step when I do."

  Before anything could come of it, a letter arrived for Grant Holloway. It had come from San Francisco and the guide knew its sender. Although his reading had moved along, Holloway went off alone to cipher out the words. When he came back he announced that he would leave for the bay city—but he would return as soon as he could.

  Tucker helped him load one packhorse and saddle his tall gelding. Holloway mounted and turned his shadowed features to Tucker.