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

by Harry Leon Wilson

  CHAPTER XXXI.

  _The Lion of the Lord Sends an Order_

  They reached home in very different states of mind. The girl was eagerfor the solitude of her favourite nook in the canon, where she coulddream in peace of the wonderland she had glimpsed; but the little bentman was stirred by dread and chilled with forebodings. To him, as wellas to the girl, the change in the first city of Zion had been a thing towonder at. But what had thrilled her with amazed delight brought pain tohim. Zion was no longer held inviolate.

  And now the truth was much clearer to him. Not only had the Lorddeferred His coming, but He had set His hand again to scatter Israel forits sin. Instead of letting them stay alone in their mountain retreatuntil the beginning of His reign on earth, He had brought the Gentilesupon them in overwhelming numbers. Where once a thousand miles ofwilderness lay between them and Gentile wickedness, they were now hemmedabout with it, and even it polluted the streets of the holy city itself.

  Far on the east the adventurous Gentile had first pushed out of thetimber to the richly grassed prairies; then, later, on to the plains,scorched brown with their sparse grass, driving herds of cattle ahead,and stopping to make farms by the way. And now on the west, on the east,and on the north, the Lord had let them pitch their tents and buildtheir cabins, where they would barter their lives for gold and flocksand furs and timber, for orchard fruits and the grains of the field.Little by little they had ventured toward the outer ramparts of Israel,their numbers increasing year by year, and the daring of theironslaughts against the desert and mountain wastes. With the rifle andthe axe they had made Zion but a station on the great highway betweenthe seas; a place where curious and irreverent Gentiles stopped to gazein wonder at and perhaps to mock the Lord's chosen; a place that wouldbecome but one link in a chain of Gentile cities, that would be forcedto conform to the meretricious customs of Gentile benightedness.

  It had been a fine vengeance upon them for their sin; one not unworthyof Him who wrought it. It had come so insidiously, with such apparentnaturalness, little by little--a settler here, a settler there; here anacre of gray desert charmed to yellow wheat; there a pouch of shininggold washed from the burning sands; another wagon-train with hopeful menand faithful women; a cabin, two cabins, a settlement, a schoolhouse, aland of unwalled villages,--and democracy; a wicked government of menset up in the very face and front of God-governed Israel.

  At first they had come with ox-teams, but this was slow, and the bigKentucky mules brought them faster; then had come the great rollingConcord stages with their six horses; then the folly of an electrictelegraph, so that instant communication might be had with far-offBabylon; and now the capstone in the arch of the Lord's vengeance,--arailway,--flashing its crowded coaches over the Saints' old trail insixty easy hours,--a trail they had covered with their oxen in ninetydays of hardship. The rock of their faith would now be riven, the veilof their temple rent, and their leaders corrupted.

  Even of Brigham, the daring already told tales that promised this lastthing should come to pass; how he was become fat-souled, grasping, andtricky, using his sacred office to enlarge his wealth, seizing thecanons with their precious growths of wood, the life-giving waterways,and the herding-grounds; taking even from the tithing, of which herendered no stewardship, and hiding away millions of the dollars forwhich the faithful had toiled themselves into desert graves. Truly,thought Joel Rae, that bloody day in the Meadows had been cunninglyavenged.

  One morning, a few weeks after he had reached home from the north, hereceived a call from Seth Wright.

  "Here's a letter Brother Brigham wanted me to be sure and give you,"said this good man. "He said he didn't know you was allowing to startback so soon, or he'd have seen you in person."

  He took the letter and glanced at the superscription, written inBrigham's rather unformed but plain and very decided-looking hand.

  "So you've been north, Brother Seth? What do you think of Israel there?"

  The views of the Wild Ram of the Mountains partook in certain ways ofhis own discouragement.

  "Zion has run to seed, Brother Rae; the rank weeds of Babylon is a-goin'to choke it out, root and branch! We ain't got no chance to live a pureand Godly life any longer, with railroads coming in, and Gentiles withtheir fancy contraptions. It weakens the spirit, and it plays the veryhob with the women. Soon as they git up there now, and see them newstyles from St. Looey or Chicago, they git downright daft. No morehomespun for 'em, no more valley tan, no more parched corn for coffee,nor beet molasses nor unbolted flour. Oh, I know what I'm talkin'about."

  The tone of the good man became as of one who remembers hurts put uponhis own soul. He continued:

  "You no sooner let a woman git out of the wagon there now than she'scrazy for a pink nubia, and a shell breastpin, and a dress-pattern, anda whole bolt of factory and a set of chiny cups and saucers and some ofthis here perfumery soap. And _that_ don't do 'em. Then they let out ayell for varnished rockin'-cheers with flowers painted all over 'em indifferent colours, and they tell you they got to have bristlescarpet--bristles on it that long, prob'ly!" The injured man indicated alength of some eighteen or twenty inches.

  "Of course all them grand things would please our feelings, but theytake a woman's mind off of the Lord, and she neglects her work in thefield, and then pretty soon the Lord gets mad and sics the Gentiles onto us again. But I made my women toe the mark mighty quick, I told 'emthey could all have one day a week to work out, and make a littlepin-money, hoein' potatoes or plantin' corn or some such business, andevery cent they earned that way they could squander on this herepink-and-blue soap, if they was a mind to; but not a York shilling of mymoney could they have for such persuasions of Satan--not while we gotplenty of soap-grease and wood-ashes to make lye of and a soap-kittlethat cost four eighty-five, in the very Lord's stronghold. I dress mywomen comfortable and feed 'em well--not much variety but plenty _of_,and I've done right by 'em as a husband, and I tell 'em if they want tobe led away now into the sinful path of worldliness, why, I ain't goin'to have any ruthers about it at all! But you be careful, Brother Rae,about turning your women loose in one of them ungodly stores up there.That reminds me, you had Prudence up to Conference, and I guess youdon't know what that letter's about."

  "Why, no; do you?"

  "Well, Brother Brigham only let a word or two drop, but plain enough; hedon't have to use many. He was a little mite afraid some one down herewould cut in ahead of him."

  Joel Rae had torn open the big blue envelope in a sudden fear, and nowhe read in Brigham's well-known script:--

  "DEAR BROT. JOEL:--

  "I was ancus to see more of your daughter, and would of kept her hear atmy house if you had not hurried off. I will let you seal her to me whenI come to Pine valle next, late this summer or after Oct. conference. Ifanything happens and I am to bisy will have you bring her hear. Tell herof this and what it will mean to her in the Lord's kingdom and do notlet her company with gentiles or with any of the young brethren aroundthere that might put Notions into her head. Try to due right and neverfaint in well duing, keep the faith of the gospel and I pray the Lord tobless you. BRIGHAM YOUNG."

  The shrewd old face of the Bishop had wrinkled into a smile of quietobservation as the other read the letter. In relating the incident tothe Entablature of Truth subsequently, he said of Joel Rae at the momenthe looked up from this letter: "He'll never be whiter when he's dead! Isee in a minute that the old man had him on the bark."

  "You know what's in this, Brother Seth--you know that Brigham wantsPrudence?" Joel Rae had asked, looking up from the letter, upon whichboth his hands had closed tightly.

  "Well, I told you he dropped a word or two, jest by way of keeping offthe Princes of Israel down here."

  "I must go to Salt Lake at once and talk to him."

  "Take her along; likely he'll marry her right off."

  "But I can't--I couldn't--Brother Seth, I wish her not to marry him."

  The Bishop stared blankly at him, his amazement
freezing upon his lips,almost, the words he uttered.

  "Not--want--her--to marry--Brother Brigham Young, Prophet, Seer, andRevelator, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saintsin all the world!"

  "I must go up and talk to him at once."

  "You won't talk him out of it. Brother Brigham has the habit ofprevailing. Of course, he's closer than Dick's hat-band, but she'll havethe best there is until he takes another."

  "He may listen to reason--"

  "Reason?--why, man, what more reason could he want,--with that splendidyoung critter before him, throwing back her head, and flashing her big,shiny eyes, and lifting her red lips over them little whiteteeth--reason enough for Brother Brigham--or for other people I couldname!"

  "But he wouldn't be so hard--taking her away from me--"

  Something in the tones of this appeal seemed to touch even the heart ofthe Wild Ram of the Mountains, though it told of a suffering he couldnot understand.

  "Brigham is very sot in his ways," he said, after a little, with acurious soft kindness in his voice,--"in fact, a _sotter_ man I neverknew!"

  He drove off, leaving the other staring at the letter now crumpled inhis hand. He also said, in his subsequent narrative to the Entablatureof Truth: "You know I've always took Brother Rae for jest a natural born_not_, a shy little cuss that could be whiffed around by anything andeverything, but when I drove off he had a plumb ornery fighting look inthem deep-set eyes of his, and blame me if I didn't someway feel sorryfor him,--he's that warped up, like an old water-soaked sycamore plankthat gits laid out in the sun."

  But this look of belligerence had quickly passed from the face of JoelRae when the first heat of his resentment had cooled.

  After that he merely suffered, torn by his reverence for Brigham, whorepresented on earth no less a power than the first person of theTrinity, and by the love for this child who held him to a past madebeautiful by his love for her mother,--by a thousand youthful dreams andfancies and wayward hopes that he had kept fresh through all the years;torn between Brigham, whose word was as the word of God, and Prudencewho was the living flower of her dead mother and all his dead hopes.

  Could he persuade Brigham to leave her? The idea of refusing him, if heshould persist, was not seriously to be thought of. For twenty-fiveyears he, in common with the other Saints, had held Brigham's lightestcommand to be above all earthly law; to be indeed the revealed will ofGod. His kingship in things material no less than in things spiritualhad been absolute, undisputed, undoubted--indeed, gloried in by thepeople as much as Brigham himself gloried when he declared it in and outof the tabernacle. Their blind obedience had been his by divine right,by virtue of his iron will, his matchless courage, his tireless spirit,and his understanding of their hearts and their needs, born of hiscommon suffering with them. Nothing could be done without his sanction.No man could enter a business, or change his home from north to south,without first securing his approval; even the merchants who went east orwest for goods must first report to him their wishes, to see if he hadcontrary orders for them! From the invitation list of a ball to thefinancing of a corporation, his word was law; in matters of marriage aswell--no man daring even to seek a wife until the Prophet had approvedhis choice. The whole valley for five hundred miles was filled with hispower as with another air that the Saints must breathe. In hisoft-repeated own phrase, it was his God-given right to dictate allmatters, "even to the ribbons a woman should wear, or the setting up ofa stocking." And his people had not only submitted blindly to his rule,but had reverenced and even loved him for it.

  Twenty-five years of such allegiance, preceded by a youth in which thesame gospel of obedience was bred into his marrow--this was not to bethrown off by a mere heartache; not to be more than striven against,half-heartedly, in the first moment of anguish.

  He thought of Brigham's home in the Lion House, the score or so ofplain, elderly women, hard-working, simple-minded; the few favourites ofhis later years, women of sightlier exteriors; and he pictured the longdining-room, where, at three o'clock each afternoon, to the sound of abell, these wives and half a hundred children marched in, while theProphet sat benignantly at the head of the table and blessed the meal.He tried to fix Prudence in this picture, but at every effort he saw,not her, the shy, sweet woman, full of surprised tenderness, but acreature hardened, debased, devoid of charm, dehumanised, a brood-beastof the field.

  And yet this was not rebellion. His mind was clear as to that. He couldnot refuse, even had refusal not been to incur the severest penaltiesboth in this world and in the world to come. The habit of obedience wasall-powerful.

  Presently he saw Prudence coming across the fields in the lateafternoon from the road that led to the canon. He watched her jealouslyuntil she drew near, then called her to him. In a few words he told hervery gravely the honour that was to be done her.

  When she fully understood, he noted that her mind seemed to attain anunusual clearness, her speech a new conciseness; that she was displayinga force of will he had never before suspected.

  Her reply, in effect, was that she would not marry Brigham Young if allthe angels in heaven came to entreat her; that the thought was not apretty one; and that the matter might be considered settled at that verymoment. "It's too silly to talk about," she concluded.

  Almost fearfully he looked at her, yielding a little to her spirit ofrebellion, yet trying not to yield; trying not to rejoice in the amusedflash of her dark eyes and the decision of her tones. But then, as helooked, and as she still faced him, radiant in her confidence, he felthimself going with her--plunging into the tempting wave of apostasy.