Star Light, Star Bright

by Marian Wells

  “Nothing. Silly-like, I left them in Adam-ondi-Ahman.”

  And then in another moment he said thoughtfully, “So the people aren’t happy. What do they want from me?”

  “They want you to stay your hand. They want to live in peace with these people in this state. It can’t happen as long as you insist on crushing everyone around you, Saints included.”

  “Jenny, my dear.” His voice was sorrowful. “It is for their own good. Have you not heard enough of the revelations to know that when the people disobey, God will punish them? It is my unhappy lot to be standing between the two as prophet. I get blamed for all the Lord does to His people.” He paused before adding, “Now go. When the questioners come to you, tell them that when they quit sinning, they will experience all the fullness of the blessings of the Lord. If they refuse to consecrate their property and do the work of the Lord, well, they’ll suffer for their sins.” His shiver was tiny and controlled, but Jenny turned away with a new seed of despair in her heart.

  Joseph lifted Jenny to her horse. Once again he was distant, cold. She rode away with a heavy heart. Back on the road to Far West, she allowed the mare to amble along while she thought about the things Joseph had said.

  She was deeply conscious of sin and failure. As she headed up the road to Morgans’ little cabin, she murmured, “I went expecting to improve the Saints’ lot, and I’ve come back crushed to the ground by all our faults. No wonder the Lord can’t bless us. I’m guessing I’d do well to quit blaming Joseph for something he can’t help and go to work on changing things.”

  She rode silently for a time and then with a grin, she straightened and lifted her face. “Seems it really is hopeless, Joseph. You told me not to be childish, but you don’t know what you’re talking about. No sense advertising to you, but I intend to get that book and the talisman. But I don’t expect you to thank me for saving your neck!”

  Joseph watched until Jenny was out of sight and then he turned. “All right, Lucinda, come out of those bushes. I know you are there.”

  She raised her arms and Joseph caught her close. “But you are a witch, of the very best kind. Miss me?” He bent to kiss her before she could answer.

  Lucinda leaned back to study his face, saying, “For a moment I thought I had competition.” His grin wasn’t reassuring. As she snuggled close, she stifled a sigh.

  Chapter 14

  As Mark left Far West with the newly formed militia, now called the Armies of Israel, he soon discovered that he was part of the derided group. Rigdon had referred to them as the Oh, don’t men. Right now they were called the “bayonet outfit” by the old timers. As nearly as he could determine, the name either had reference to the position of the men in battle line—right out front—or because it took the urging of a bayonet to get them on the horses.

  His chagrin over the stigma was short-lived when he met his illustrious companions. “John Corrill, Phelps, Cleminson, and Reed Peck!” he exclaimed when the men were forced into line in front of the foot soldiers as they prepared to march to Adam-ondi-Ahman.

  The first day their march extended into the cool autumn dusk. The troops passed up the road he and Jenny had traveled just a few days previously. Toward evening Mark and his companions talked in low voices while the remainder of the army abandoned caution and sang one song after another.

  The morning of the second day of march, the troops began seeing caravans of people heading down the valley toward them. Mark pointed them out to Corrill and asked, “What do you make of that?”

  He didn’t get an answer until the group had passed, and then Corrill’s answer confirmed his guess. “From the looks of those poor beggars, I’m guessin’ we’ve routed the rest of the Gentiles out of Daviess County. I recognize some faces. They don’t impress me as goin’ on a pleasure trip.”

  The troops watched the exodus of the Gentiles as they passed with wagons piled high with furniture and stuffed with people. The oxen were having a hard time of it and the wagons moved slowly. Mark saw the pinched-faced women staring stoically ahead, while solemn children watched wide-eyed.

  “It’s enough to make you feel like a perfect rotter,” Peck muttered.

  “Can’t say I’m too proud of myself running a neighbor outta his home,” Corrill added.

  When the exhausted men reached Adam-ondi-Ahman late Tuesday evening, Mark discovered the character of the small town had undergone a radical change. True, he and Jenny had sensed abandonment as they had ridden through, but now the Gentile settlers seemed to have vanished. As Mark studied the half-finished fortress in the middle of town, he recalled his conversation with Tom, and how, at the time, the bunker had seemed like a feeble joke. But clearly the Danites were in control now.

  Mark turned in that night, crowded between the other dissenters and placed under guard. Corrill murmured, “One advantage to being labeled an Oh, don’t man is that we get to sleep inside the stable on the hay instead of outside with the tough ones, and, man, is it getting cold out there!”

  By the morning it was snowing heavily. The men clustered around the campfires and shifted from one soggy foot to another. A chosen group was sent out to hunt dinner. Seeing Tom in the group, Mark hailed him and was surprised to see his curt salute as he turned away.

  All that day, as the snow continued to pile high in Adam-ondi-Ahman, the men huddled around the fire. Mark’s thoughts were gloomy as he recalled Jenny’s white face and terror-filled eyes. When he caught Phelps’ eye and the man gave him a twisted grin, he decided his thoughts weren’t much different than the ones others were having.

  Moving closer to Mark, Phelps murmured, “I’m not liking it either. My family isn’t faring better; fact is,” he gave a twisted grin, “I’m out of favor, too. Guess I did too much thinking out loud.” After a moment he added, “I’m not a man to be out totin’ a gun, but when pushed in the corner, I guess I fight.”

  As the morning wore on, the small talk around the fire dwindled to discontented murmuring, given with eyes slanted toward the known Danites in the group.

  The men’s restlessness carried them back and forth between the livery stable, the stockade, and the fire. Mark was eyeing Phelps as he moved back into the circle of the fire about noontime. He pulled a log close to Mark’s and grunted, “Some status, from newspaper editor to Joseph’s flunky. Still, I guess that means living your religion, and I’m not too much different than the others. You’re an attorney, aren’t you?” Mark nodded.

  While Phelps stared into the fire, he spoke slowly, as if thinking aloud, “I still believe in Joseph. There’s too many indications that his revelations are truth.”

  “What are you referring to?”

  He looked up. “I was thinking about all the Indians being moved this way by Andy Jackson.” He chuckled and shook his head, “He’d a pushed them into the Atlantic rather than serve the Lord’s and Joseph’s purposes by gathering Israel so close to Zion.” He paused and then added, “I predicted then that the second coming was less than nine years away.”

  “The deadline is close,” Mark observed, studying the man. Phelps shrugged, and Mark asked, “What did you do to rate the title of an Oh, don’t man?”

  “Just what any decent newspaper man would do. I was sticking up for the rights of those unjustly persecuted.”

  “You mean you think the dissenters were persecuted?”

  “Isn’t that right? They spoke out against oppression and lost position, favor, property, and were forced to run for their lives. It was fortunate that they survived the interview with the Danites,” he murmured, glancing quickly around.

  Mark looked too, and then said, “That’s plenty. I did less and got myself in hot water.”

  “Yes, I know. You helped them out of the state and then flapped your big mouth over Whitmer’s house when you knew Rigdon had confiscated it for himself.”

  “And Joseph sanctioned all this by his silence.” Phelp’s eyebrows raised, but he nodded. Deliberately pushing now, Mark added, “And no law,
nothing, is superior to the word of the Lord given through the Prophet.”

  “When you say it like that, the whole thing sounds ridiculous.”

  “Phelps, you’re a thinking man. You can’t continue to follow a man so obviously wrong in his dealings with his fellowman.”

  The man looked at Mark for a long time, studying his face thoughtfully. Finally he sighed and shifted his weight on the log. “You’re overlooking the most important thing. I believe he has the keys to the kingdom, that he has given us the sacred word of God.”

  “What about all those things that happened back in the early days before he had a following? What about the South Bainbridge days, the money digging and witching? Surely a thinking man wouldn’t accept without questioning.”

  “You’re right,” Phelps said. “I did question. It was an advantage to do my questioning first instead of as an afterthought.”

  “You did?” Mark knew his surprise and disappointment was showing, but he must ask. “How did that happen?”

  “Just after the founding of the church I heard about Joseph and his men and decided to inquire.

  “And you were satisfied?”

  He moved restlessly and looked away from Mark. For a moment he was silent, and Mark saw the uncertainty on his face. When he squared his shoulders and looked at Mark, he grinned. “I guess we all have our moments of doubt—but to doubt is wrong. I was curious and looking. At the time, I’d been involved with my soapbox, Masonry. When I found out how dead set Joseph was against the secret societies, and how he’d had revelations showing God commanding against them, well, that just sealed my determination to be a part of the group.”

  Mark moved restlessly. Then Phelps was speaking again. “From the beginning, Joseph’s spirit was consistent with what we see now—a man of God.”

  “Tell me more.”

  “You know the rest of the story. About the finding of the gold plates.”

  “Phelps, can you believe his holy calling on the basis of this?”

  “I told you, I’d worked my way through belief and disbelief. It was hard; the story was incredulous. But just like the others, I had to ask for a sign from God, and He gave me a burning in the bosom in confirmation.” He was silent a moment and then added, “Besides, there’s something about the man. Sometimes I get angry at him, but I can’t help it; I’ve got to believe his calling. There is a divine cord about me which will not let me go.”

  Mark found he couldn’t control the ridiculous question: “Are you afraid?”

  Phelps looked up in surprise. “Of course! Mark, don’t you realize eternal salvation for you will depend on whether Joseph approves? I’ve heard him myself, saying that he will stand at the entrance of heaven and turn back those who haven’t won his approval.”

  They were still standing in front of the fire, silent with their own thoughts, when they heard the clatter of hooves on the river road. The men around the fire turned to watch. It was a lone horseman, and Phelps muttered. “The Ram of the mountain. It’s Colonel Wight—wonder what his problem is?”

  Mark watched the man dismount. He was wearing only a light jacket with his hairy chest open to the snow. His long, heavy hair was tied back with a soiled red kerchief.

  Wight impatiently flipped the bearskin covering his saddle, and strode to the fire waving a cutless. Watching him swish the short curved blade as he impatiently kicked a log into the fire, Mark murmured, “The name fits.”

  One of the Danites who had just approached the fire slanted a glance at Mark and Phelps. “Second to Avard, he’s a man the Gentiles fear. There’s trouble on the Millport road. I heard them talking last night. We all just might be called out there yet unless the rest of the army in Far West is moved this way.”

  “What’s the problem?” Mark asked, turning from the fire to meet the man’s frown.

  “Yesterday Wight was addressing the men in camp. I was there and, I’ll tell you, it was a speech to put fire in the veins of a dead man. He was in the midst of telling us how the Lord had made us invincible and that there’s not an army around who can defeat us when this fella up and cut out of there, riding like his life was on the line. And it would have been if we’d known who he was.

  “Information leaking back later let us know it was a dispatch from the other side. He’d been sent from the Missouri militia, mind you, to advise that their group was mutinous and that they were joining the DeWitt mob.

  “Later we heard more from one of the spies. He told us this fella, the one we saw bust and run, carried back the report that Wight had fifteen thousand men under him and would be in their camp in two hours. Intelligence said they broke camp and left, but Joseph’s sweating it out, getting ready to send more men this way.”

  It was late in the afternoon before the men took up the thread of conversation again. Mark heard Pratt reviewing the Lord’s plan for Missouri, but he paid little attention until the man sat up and declared, “There’s coming a day when the Lord will give these people a chance to accept the Book of Mormon. If they refuse to hearken to it, the remnant of Jacob, that’s the Indians, will go through here and tear these people to pieces.”

  “Do you really reckon it will happen, Pratt?” came a wistful voice from the far side of the fire.

  Pratt got to his feet and paced back and forth. His hands were linked behind his back. Mark was thinking that Pratt was a fellow who would catch anyone’s attention. When Pratt answered, his sonorous voice made the hair on Mark’s neck prickle. “I prophesy,” he said, “that there will not be an unbelieving Gentile on this continent in fifty years’ time. Furthermore, if they aren’t to a great extent scourged and overthrown in five or ten years from now—this year of 1838—then I say the Book of Mormon will have proved itself to be false. I intend to write this prophecy for posterity. I may not be suited to fighting, but I have the ability to prophesy.”

  Late that evening the hunters returned. Mark was still mulling over Pratt’s statement when he heard the questions shouted to the men. “Same old fare,” they called back. “Bear, buffalo, and sweet oil.”

  Phelps rubbed his cold chin and said, “That means we dine on Gentile cows, pigs, and honey. I just hope this doesn’t mean someone’s going hungry.”

  Cleminson answered, “I was on one of these thieving missions when the fellows helped themselves. Some old lady was left to watch her only cow being led away to feed Mormon bellies. I tell you, I felt like a rotter.”

  Phelps said in a soft voice, “Better keep your thoughts to yourself if you don’t want to join the group tomorrow night.”

  The men were eating the roasted beef, cooked over the open fire, when a lone man rode into their encampment. “Lee, come have something to eat,” Pratt called, waving his chunk of beef. “You have news?”

  He nodded. After taking the stick impaled with chunks of roasted meat, he said, “I’m here to round up volunteers to ride out with us in the morning.”

  Mark studied his furrowed brow as Franklin asked, “What’s the mission?”

  “Joseph, Wight, and Patten have cooked up a plan. You’ll hear about it tomorrow.” He looked around the group and said, “Just give me some men. About forty will do.”

  Chapter 15

  After being housebound by the snow, Jenny’s restless spirit couldn’t get enough of roaming. The snow, still piled under the trees, and the paths, a soggy mat of torn branches and snow-packed grass, didn’t stop her. However, she did spend one day dragging her skirts through the soggy mess and dampening her boots almost beyond saving before resorting to Patches.

  One day she was thinking, as she rode into Far West, that she would much rather crash through the deserted woods than ride the trails around town, but riding was better than nothing—and there were advantages.

  She had just let her restless horse shy away from Anna Briton. She chalked up the first advantage with a sly grin. A horse made it possible to escape busybody neighbors whose total enjoyment was checking out how others were living their religion.
<
br />   Jenny dug her heels into the horse’s ribs and refused to rescue her hair when the wind caught it and flung it over her shoulders.

  She was riding helter-skelter through Far West when the difference in the town caught her attention. More than just a sprinkling of frightened women were on the street, there were men as well—tattered, dirty, but jubilant. And the men and women who surrounded them were either frowning and backing away or pressing forward with eager hands and welcoming cries.

  Jenny watched the milling crowd, realizing now that the focus of their attention wasn’t the returning warriors home from battle. Instead, all eyes were on the loaded wagons in the town square.

  Slipping from her horse, she joined the group, where Mrs. Lewis greeted her with a smile. Jenny returned her greeting and turned to watch the eager hands pulling furniture—feather beds, a churn, even a mirror—from the wagon.

  When Mrs. Lewis stopped beside her, Jenny asked, “What is this?”

  The man tossing down bundles of clothing answered, “’Tis the riches of the Gentiles. Come get your share.” He tossed an embroidered shawl to her, and Jenny held it away to study it.

  It was of soft creamy wool, gently scented with lavendar. She could see it was old; the folds were yellow with age. Closing her eyes, she could nearly see the woman who had cherished the shawl. “Her mother,” she murmured. “I’m sure it was her mother’s shawl, and she’s grieving the loss!”

  “What did you say?” Mrs. Lewis was looking into her face.

  “I shall keep it,” Jenny declared. “And when this nightmare is over, I shall return it to its owner. It belonged to her dead mother. We’ve no right to take it.”

  The man on the wagon roared, “’Tis the Gentiles. They’ll be consigned to hell and there’s no need for shawls there!” The laughter spilled around Jenny, and she backed away, still clutching the shawl.

  Mrs. Lewis was chiding gently, “Child, are you disputing the word of the Lord through Joseph? You know the revelation. You know that now is the time for the riches of the Gentiles to become our inheritance. Come, don’t sound like a dissenter.” Her fingers were grasping the shawl, prying it out of Jenny’s hands. She added, “If you’ve no need for it, I can use a new one. I wonder if the yellow streaks will come out.”