CHAPTER XVIII.
_In the Dark of the Aftermath_
He was never able to recall the events of that day, or of the monthsfollowing, in anything like their proper sequence. The effort to do sobrought a pain shooting through his head. Up to the moment when theyellow hair had waved in his face, everything had kept a ghastlydistinctness. He remembered each instant and each emotion. After thatall was dark confusion, with only here and there a detached,inconsequent memory of appalling vividness.
He could remember that he had buried her on the other side of the hillwhere a gnarled cedar grew at the foot of a ledge of sandstone, using aspade that an Indian had brought him from the deserted camp. By her sidehe had found the scattered contents of the little bundle she hadcarried,--a small Bible, a locket, a worn gold bracelet, and a pictureof herself as he had known her, a half-faded daguerreotype set in a giltoval, in a square rubber case that shut with a snap. The littlelimp-backed Bible had lain flung open on the ground in the midst of theother trinkets. He remembered picking these things up and retying themin the blue silk handkerchief, and then he had twice driven away anIndian who, finding no other life, came up to kill the two childrenhuddled at the foot of the cedar.
He recalled that he had at some time passed the two wagons; one of themwas full of children, some crying, some strangely quiet and observant.The other contained the wounded men whom Lee and the two drivers haddispatched where they lay.
He remembered the scene close about him where many of the women andolder children had fallen under knife and tomahawk. At intervals hadcome a long-drawn scream, terrifying in its shrillness, from some womanstruggling with Saint or savage.
Later he remembered becoming aware that the bodies were being strippedand plundered; of seeing Lee holding his big white hat for valuables,while half a dozen men searched pockets and stripped off clothing. Thepicture of the naked bodies of a dozen well-grown children tangled inone heap stayed with him.
Still later, when the last body had been stripped and the smallertreasures collected, he had known that these and the stock and wagonswere being divided between the Mormons and the Indians; a conflict withthese allies being barely averted, the Indians accusing the Saints ofwithholding more than their share of the plunder.
After the division was made he knew that the Saints had all been calledtogether to take an oath that the thing should be kept secret. He knew,too, that he had gone over the spot that night, the moon lighting thenaked forms strewn about. Many of them lay in attitudes strangelylifelike,--here one resting its head upon its arm, there a white facefalling easily back as if it looked up at the stars. He could not recallwhy he had gone back, unless to be sure that he had made the grave underthe cedar secure from the wolves.
Some of the men had camped on the spot. Others had gone to Hamblin'sranch, near the Meadows, where the children were taken. He had sent theboy there with them, and he could recall distinctly the struggle he hadwith the little fellow; for the boy had wished not to be taken from thegirl, and had fought valiantly with fists and feet and his sharp littleteeth. The little girl with her mother's bundle he had taken to anotherranch farther south in the Pine Mountains. He told the woman the childwas his own, and that she was to be kept until he came again.
Where he slept that night, or whether he slept at all, he never knew.But he had been back on the ground in the morning with the others whocame to bury the naked bodies. He had seen heaps of them piled in littledepressions and the dirt thrown loosely over them, and he rememberedthat the wolves were at them all a day later.
Then Dame and Haight and others of high standing in the Church had cometo look over the spot and there another oath of secrecy was taken. Anyinformer was to be "sent over the rim of the basin"--except that one oftheir number was to make a full report to the President at Salt LakeCity. Klingensmith was then chosen by vote to take charge of the goodsfor the benefit of the Church. Klingensmith, Haight, and Higbee, herecalled, had later driven two hundred head of the cattle to Salt LakeCity and sold them. Klingensmith, too, had put the clothing taken fromthe bodies, blood-stained, shredded by bullets and knives, into thecellar of the tithing office at Cedar City. Here there had been, a fewweeks later, a public auction of the property taken, the Bishop, whopresided as auctioneer, facetiously styling it "plunder taken at thesiege of Sebastopol." The clothing, however, with the telltale marksupon it, was reserved from the auction and sold privately from thetithing office. Many stout wagons and valuable pieces of equipment hadthus been cheaply secured by the Saints round about Cedar City.
He knew that the surviving children, seventeen in number, had been "soldout" to Saints in and about Cedar City, Harmony, and Painter's Creek,who would later present bills for their keep.
He knew that Lee, whom the Bishops had promised a crown of glory for hiswork that day, had gone to Salt Lake City and made a confidential reportto Brigham; that Brigham had at first professed to regard the occurrenceas unfortunate for the Church, though admitting that no innocent bloodhad been shed; that he had sworn Lee never to tell the story again toany person, instructing him to make a written report of the affair tohimself, as Indian agent, charging the deed to the Indians. He was saidto have added on this point, after a period of reflection, "OnlyIndians, John, don't save even the little children." He was reported tohave told Lee further, on the following day, that he had asked God totake the vision from his sight if the killing had been a righteousthing, and that God had done so, thus proving the deed in the sight ofheaven to have been a just vengeance upon those who had once made warupon the Saints in Missouri.
With these and with many another disjointed memory of the day Joel Raewas cursed; of how Hamblin the following spring had gathered a hundredand twenty skulls on the ground where the wolves had left them, andburied them again; of how an officer from Camp Floyd had built a cairnon the spot and erected a huge cross to the memory of the slain; of howthe thing became so dire in the minds of those who had done it, thatmore than one man lost his reason, and two were known to have killedthemselves to be rid of the death-cries of women.
But the clearest of all among the memories of the day itself was theprayer offered up as they stood amid the heaps of fresh earth, afterthey had sworn the oath of secrecy; how God had been thanked fordelivering the enemy into their hands, and how new faith and betterworks were promised to Him for this proof of His favour.
The memory of this prayer stayed with him many years: "Bless BrotherBrigham--bless him; may the heavens be opened unto him, and angels visitand instruct him. Clothe him with power to defend Thy people and tooverthrow all who may rise against us. Bless him in his basket and inhis store; multiply and increase him in wives, children, flocks andherds, houses and lands. Make him very great to be a lawgiver and God toThy people, and to command them in all things whatsoever in the futureas in the past."
Nor did he forget that, soon after he had listened to this prayer, andthe forces had dispersed, he had made two discoveries;--first, that hishair was whitening; second, that he could not be alone at night and keephis reason.
The Lions of the Lord: A Tale of the Old West Page 20