The Lions of the Lord: A Tale of the Old West

by Harry Leon Wilson

  CHAPTER XXIX.

  _The Wild Ram of the Mountains Offers to Become a Saviour on Mount Zion_

  In the valley of which Amalon was the centre, they made ready for theend of the world. It is true that in the north, as the appointed yeardrew nigh, an opinion had begun to prevail that the Son of Man mightdefer his coming; and presently it became known that Brigham himself wasdoubtful about the year 1870, and was inspiring others to doubt. But inAmalon they were untainted by this heresy, choosing to rely upon whatBrigham had said in moments more inspired.

  He had taught that Joseph was to be the first person resurrected; thatafter his frame had been knit together and clothed with immortal fleshhe would resurrect those who had died in the faith, according to theirrank in the priesthood; then all his wives and children. ResurrectedElders, having had the keys of the resurrection conferred upon them byJoseph, would in turn call from the grave their own households; and whenthe last of the faithful had come forth, another great work would beperformed; the Gentiles would then be resurrected to act as servantsand slaves to the Saints. In his lighter moments Brigham had been wontto name a couple of Presidents of the United States who would then actas his valets.

  Some doubt had been expressed that the earth's surface could contain theresurrected host, but Apostle Orson Pratt had removed this. He cited theprophet who had foretold that the hills should be laid low, the valleysexalted, and the crooked places made straight. With the earth thus freeof mountains and waste places, he had demonstrated that there would bean acre and a quarter of ground for each Saint that had ever lived fromthe morning of creation to the day of doom. And, lest some carpingmathematician should dispute his figures, he had declared that if, byany miscalculation, the earth's surface should not suffice for theSaints and their Gentile slaves, the Lord "would build a gallery aroundthe earth." Thus had confusion been brought to the last quibbler inZion.

  It was this earlier teaching that the faithful of Amalon clung to,perhaps not a little by reason that immediately over them was aspiritual guide who had been trained from infancy to know that salvationlay in belief,--never in doubt. For a sign of the end they believed thaton the night before the day of it there would be no darkness. This wouldbe as it had been before the birth of the Saviour, as told in the Bookof Mormon: "At the going down of the sun there was no darkness, and thepeople began to be astonished because there was no darkness when thenight came; and there was no darkness in all that night, but it was aslight as if it were midday."

  They talked of little but this matter in that small pocket of theintermountain commonwealth, in Sabbath meetings and around the hearthsat night. The Wild Ram of the Mountains thought all proselyting shouldcease in view of the approaching end; that the Elders on mission shouldwithdraw from the vineyard, shake the dust from their feet, and seal upthe rebellious Gentiles to damnation. To this Elder Beil Wardle hadreplied, somewhat testily:

  "Well, now, since these valleys of Ephraim have got a little fattened awhole lot of us have got the sweeny, and our skins are growing too tighton our flesh." He had been unable to comprehend that the Gentiles were arejected lot, the lost sheep of the house of Israel. On this occasion ithad required all the tact of Elder Rae to soothe the two good men intoan amiable discussion of the time when Sidney Rigdon went to the thirdheaven and talked face to face with God. They had agreed in the end,however, that they were both of the royal seed of Abraham, and were onthe grand turnpike to exaltation.

  To these discussions and sermons the child, Prudence, listened withintense interest, looking forward to the last day as an occasionproductive of excitement even superior to that of her trips to Salt LakeCity, where her father went to attend the October conference, and whereshe was taken to the theatre.

  Of any world outside the valley she knew but little. Somewhere, far overto the east, was a handful of lost souls for whom she sometimes indulgedin a sort of luxurious pity. But their loss, after all, was a part ofthe divine plan, and they would have the privilege of serving theglorified Saints, even though they were denied Godhood. Shehalf-believed that even this mission of service was almost more of glorythan they merited; for, in the phrasing of Bishop Wright, they "made ahell all the time and raised devils to keep it going." They had slainthe Prophets of the Lord and hunted his people, and the best of themwere lucky, indeed, to escape the fire that burns unceasingly; a firehotter than any made by beech or hickory. Still she sometimes wonderedif there were girls among them like her; and she had visions of herselfas an angel of light, going down to them with the precious message ofthe Book of Mormon, and bringing them into the fold.

  One day in this spring when she was fourteen, the good Bishop Wright, onhis way down from Box Canon with a load of wood, saw her striding up theroad ahead of him. Something caught his eye, either in her step whichhad a child's careless freedom, or in the lines of her swinging figurethat told of coming womanhood, or in the flashing, laughing appeal ofher dark eyes where for the moment both woman and child looked out. Heset the brake on his wagon and waited for her to pass. She came by witha smile and a word of greeting, to which his rapt attention preventedany reply except a slight nod. When she had passed, he turned and lookedafter her until she had gone around the little hill on the road thatentered the canon.

  After the early evening meal that day, along the many-roomed house ofthis good man, from door to door there ran the words, starting from herwho had last been sealed to him:

  "He's making himself all proud!"

  They knew what it meant, and wondered whom.

  A little later the Bishop set out, his face clean-shaven to the ruffleof white whisker that ran under his chin from ear to ear, his scant hairsmooth and shining with grease from the largest bear ever trapped in thePine Mountains, and his tall form arrayed in his best suit of homespun.As he went he trolled an ancient lay of love, and youth was in his step.For there had come all day upon this Prince of Israel those subtleessences distilled by spring to provoke the mating urge. At the Raehouse he found only Christina.

  "Where's Brother Joel, Sister Rae?"

  "Himself has gone out there," Christina had answered with a wave of herhand, and using the term of respect which she always applied to herhusband.

  He went around the house, out past the stable and corrals and across theirrigating ditch to where he saw Joel Rae leaning on the rail fenceabout the peach orchard. Far down between two rows of the blossomingtrees he could see the girl reaching up to break off a pink-sprayedbough. He quickened his pace and was soon at the fence.

  "Brother Joel,--I--the--"

  The good man had been full of his message a moment before, but now hestammered and hesitated because of something cold in the other's eye asit seemed to note the unwonted elegance of his attire. He took a quickbreath and went on.

  "You see the Lord has moved me to add another star to my crown."

  "I see; and you have come to get me to seal you?"

  "Well, of course I hadn't thought of it so soon, but if you want to doit to-night--"

  "As soon as you like, Bishop,--the sooner the better if you are to savethe soul of another woman against the day of desolation. Where is she?"and he turned to go back to the house. But the Bishop still paused,looking toward the orchard.

  "Well, the fact is, Brother Joel, you see the Lord has made me feel tohave Prudence for another star in my crown of glory--your daughterPrudence," he repeated as the other gazed at him with a sudden change ofmanner.

  "My daughter Prudence--little Prue--that child--that _baby_?"

  "_Baby_?--she's fourteen; she was telling my daughter Mattie so jest theother day, and the Legislatur has made the marrying age twelve forgirls and fifteen for boys, so she's two years overtime already. Ofcourse, I ain't fifteen, but I'm safer for her than some young cub."

  "But Bishop--you don't consider--"

  "Oh, of course, I know there's been private talk about her; nobody knowswho her mother was, and they say whoever she was you was never marriedto her, so she couldn't have been born right,
but I ain't bigoted likesome I could name, and I stand ready to be her Saviour on Mount Zion."

  He waited with something of noble concession in his mien.

  The other seemed only now to have fully sensed the proposal, and, withreal terror in his face, he began to urge the Bishop toward the house,after looking anxiously back to where the child still lingered with themist of pink blossoms against the leafless boughs above her.

  "Come, Brother Seth--come, I beg of you--we'll talk of it--but it can'tbe, indeed it can't!"

  "Let's ask _her_," suggested the Bishop, disinclined to move.

  "Don't, _don't_ ask her!" He seized the other by the arm.

  "Come, I'll explain; don't ask her now, at any rate--I beg of you as agentleman--as a gentleman, for you are a gentleman."

  The Bishop turned somewhat impatiently, then remarked with a dignifiedseverity:

  "Oh, I can be a gentleman whenever it's _necessary_!"

  They went across the fields toward the house, and the Bishop spokefurther.

  "There ain't any need to get into your high-heeled boots, Brother Rae,jest because I was aiming to save her to a crown of glory,--a girlthat's thought to have been born on the wrong side of the blanket!"

  They stopped by the first corral, and Joel Rae talked. He talked rapidlyand with power, saying many things to make it plain that he wasdetermined not to look upon the Wild Ram of the Mountains as anacceptable son-in-law. His manner was excited and distraught, terrifiedand indignant,--a manner hardly justified by the circumstances, aboutwhich there was nothing extraordinary, nothing not pleasing to God andin conformity to His revealed word. Bishop Wright indeed was puzzled toaccount for the heat of his manner, and in recounting the interviewlater to Elder Wardle, he threw out an intimation about strong drink."To tell you the truth," he said, "I suspicion he'd jest been putting anew faucet in the cider barrel."

  When Prudence came in from the blossoming peach-trees that night herfather called her to him to sit on his lap in the dusk while thecrickets sang, and grow sleepy as had been her baby habit.

  "What did Bishop Wright want?" she asked, after her head was pillowed onhis arm. Relieved that it was over, now even a little amused, he toldher:

  "He wanted to take my little girl away, to marry her."

  She was silent for a moment, and then:

  "Wouldn't that be fine, and we could build each other up in theKingdom."

  He held her tighter.

  "Surely, child, you couldn't marry him?"

  "But of course I could! Isn't he tried in the Kingdom, so he is sure tohave all those thrones and dominions and power?"

  "But child, child! That old man with all his wives--"

  "But they say old men are safer than young men. Young men are not triedin the Kingdom. I shouldn't like a young husband anyway--they alwayswant to play rough games, and pull your hair, and take things away fromyou, and get in the way."

  "But, baby,--don't, _don't_--"

  "Why, you silly father, your voice sounds as if you were almostcrying--please don't hold me so tight--and some one must save me beforethe Son of Man comes to judge the quick and the dead; you know a womancan't be saved alone. I think Bishop Wright would make a fine husband,and I should have Mattie Wright to play with every day."

  "And you would leave me?"

  "Why, that's so, Daddy! I never thought--of course I can't leave mylittle sorry father--not yet. I forgot that. I couldn't leave you. Nowtell me about my mother again."

  He told her the story she already knew so well--how beautiful her motherwas, the look of her hair and eyes, her slenderness, the music of hervoice, and the gladness of her laugh.

  "And won't she be glad to see us again. And she will come beforeChristina and Lorena, because she was your first wife, wasn't she?"

  He was awake all night in a fever of doubt and rebellion. By the lightof the candle, he read in the book of Mormon passages that had oftenpuzzled but never troubled him until now when they were brought home tohim; such as, "And now it came to pass that the people Nephi under thereign of the second king began to grow hard in their hearts, andindulged themselves somewhat in wicked practises, like unto David ofold, desiring many wives--"

  Again he read, "Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives, whichthing was abominable before me, saith the Lord."

  Still again, "For there shall not be any man among you have save itshall be one wife."

  Then he turned to the revelation on celestial marriage given years afterthese words were written, and in the first paragraph read:

  "Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you my servant Joseph, that inasmuchas you have inquired of my hand to know and understand wherein I, theLord, justified my servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as also Moses,David, and Solomon, my servants, as touching the principle and doctrineof their having many wives--"

  He turned from one to the other; from the many explicit admonitions andcommands against polygamy, the denunciations of the patriarchs for theirindulgence in the practise, to this last passage contradicting theothers, and vexed himself with wonder. In the Book of Mormon, David wassaid to be wicked for doing this thing. Now in the revelation to Josephhe read, "David's wives were given unto him of me, by the hand ofNathan, my servant."

  He recalled old tales that were told in Nauvoo by wicked apostates andthe basest of Gentile scandalmongers; how that Joseph in the day of hisgreat power had suffered the purity of his first faith to becometainted; how his wife, Emma, had upbraided him so harshly for his sinsthat he, fearing disgrace, had put out this revelation as the word ofGod to silence her. He remembered that these gossips had said therevelation itself proved that Joseph had already done, before hereceived it, that which it commanded him to do, citing the clause, "Andlet my handmaid, Emma Smith, receive all those that have been given untomy servant Joseph, and who are virtuous and pure before me."

  They had gossiped further, that still fearing her rebellion, he hadworded a threat for her in the next clause, "And I command my handmaid,Emma Smith, to abide and cleave unto my servant Joseph and to none else.But if she will not abide this commandment she shall be destroyed,saith the Lord; for I am the Lord thy God, and will destroy her if sheabide not in my law ... and again verily I say, let mine handmaidforgive my servant Joseph his trespasses and then shall she be forgivenher trespasses."

  This was the calumny the Gentile gossips back in Nauvoo would have hadthe world believe,--that this great doctrine of the Church had beengiven to silence the enraged wife of a man detected in sin.

  But in the midst of his questionings he seemed to see a truth,--thatanother snare had been set for him by the Devil, and that this time ithad caught his feet. He, who knew that he must have nothing for himself,had all unconsciously so set his heart upon this child of her motherthat he could not give her up. And now so fixed and so great was hislove that he could not turn back. He knew he was lost. To cling to herwould be to question, doubt, and to lose his faith. To give her up wouldkill him.

  But at least for a little while he could put it off.