Pillar of Light

by Gerald N. Lund

  And all of this was mixed with a third emotion. The enormity of what she had done now lay upon her. She didn’t know how long it would be before Joshua or her father realized she was no longer there. She prayed fervently that it would come quickly, before he lost too heavily. Joshua was already drunk. He was still functioning, but she knew him well enough now to know that when he drank that heavily it left him teetering on the brink of losing control. Crossing the line into rage would be as simple as stepping off a porch step. Coming to that realization just before she reached her home, she had felt real fear. She could not go home and simply wait for him to find her. And so she walked—numbed, lost, forlorn, afraid.

  “Jessica!”

  The shout spun her around. A dark figure was across the street, coming in her direction. In one instant her heart leaped and began to pound, so hard that it hurt inside her chest. Her initial impulse was to bolt, to dart between two of the darkened buildings and hide somewhere, anywhere.

  “Jessie? You slut! Is that you?” The voice was heavily slurred, jumbled even as he shouted out at her.

  She fell back a step, her eyes wild, her panic almost complete. Then suddenly she stopped. Her chin came up. She would not run from him. She clasped her hands together to stop the trembling and waited for Joshua, determined not to flinch in the face of his anger.

  He broke into a stumbling run, almost falling as he jumped off the boardwalk and hit the softer dust of the main street. He was waving something in the air, and Jessica felt a second, even more desperate lurch of panic as she realized it was a pistol. But still she held her ground.

  “You...it is you!” At closer range, even in the darkness, she could see the whites of his eyes, wide and frightening. His chest was heaving up and down, his face jutted out toward her. The smell of whiskey was so strong that she guessed he had spilled some of it on his clothes as well as filling up his insides with it.

  “Yes, Joshua,” she said quietly, “it’s me.”

  “I knew you were trying to run!” He screamed it at her, his face inches from her own.

  “I’m not running, Joshua. I’m right here.”

  “You witch!” He fell back, half sobbed, and one hand came up to rub at his eyes. “I’m ruined. Ruined!”

  It was as if he had stabbed her. “Joshua.” She reached out toward him, not daring to touch but beseeching. “We can rebuild, Joshua. I’ll help you. We’ll work together. We can go somewhere else if you want.”

  Behind them a window screeched as it was lifted. Joshua jerked up and Jessica turned around. A woman in a nightcap stuck her head out.

  At the sight of her, Joshua’s face went livid, and he waved the pistol at her. “Get out of here!”

  The woman jerked back inside, her eyes wide.

  The pistol dropped to his side, and for a moment it was almost as though Jessica weren’t there. “I had him. I was so sure. It would have been all right. I could have won everything.”

  “It still can be,” Jessica soothed. She finally touched his arm.

  He jerked back as if she had touched him with a hot anvil iron. “You left!” he yelled. “Why did you leave? I could have won!”

  “Joshua, I couldn’t. You had no right to ask me to cheat for you.”

  His hand flashed out so swiftly that she barely saw it coming. He struck her across the cheek with the flat of his palm. It cracked in the stillness of the night, like the branch of a tree shattering in a cold frost.

  “Had no right?” he shrieked. He struck her again, knocking her backwards. “Whore! Slut! You’re my wife. I have every right.”

  This time she saw his fist double. “No, Joshua, no!” The blow caught her high on the cheekbone. She slammed back against the storefront, then fell to her knees, lights flashing crazily in front of her eyes.

  “Do you hear me?” He was screaming at her, his eyes like a wild animal’s, the rage unleashed and untamable now. He raised his fist again. “You’ll do whatever I say, whore. Daughter of hell! Do you hear me?”

  “Don’t, Joshua, please.” She raised one arm, but it was like putting out a hand to stop a charging bull. He swung again. She spun away, and his fist caught her a glancing blow alongside the head. It knocked her flat, dazing her for a moment.

  “Hey!” It was a man’s voice from above them.

  Joshua swung around. This time a man was leaning out of the window. He was holding a lamp up high, trying to see. “What’s going on down there?” he yelled.

  Cursing, Joshua stepped over Jessica. “None of your business! Get out of here! Go back to bed.”

  From behind the man a woman’s voice sounded clearly. “There’s a woman down there. He’s hitting her.”

  “Get away from her!” the man shouted.

  “I said get out of here!” Joshua was past any point of reason. He lurched forward, raising the pistol toward the open window.

  “He’s got a gun!” the woman screamed. The man jerked backwards.

  Jessica stumbled to her feet, staring in horror as Joshua tried to steady the weaving pistol. She jumped as the blast of the pistol shattered the night.

  “Get outta here!” Joshua screamed, nearly incoherent now. He fired at the window again.

  Blind with terror, shocked beyond thought, Jessica had only one impulse. She turned and began to run. The pistol roared again behind her, then she heard Joshua’s cry of dismay. She darted into the narrow passageway between two stores, catching a glimpse of him swinging around toward her as she did so. It was so dark that she could see nothing. Throwing up a hand to ward off any obstacles, she ran blindly. Behind her, Joshua was screaming her name. She didn’t stop, only ran all the harder, into the darkness, into the safety of the blackness of the night.

  Clinton Roundy grabbed the front of Joshua’s jacket and shook him out of his stupor. “Joshua! Listen to me! There’s no time for this. You’ve got to get going.”

  “She ran, Clint. She cheated me, then she ran.” His head dropped on his chest. “I hit her.”

  Clinton Roundy’s eyes hardened, but he just shook his head. They were in the small room above the freight office, where Joshua had sometimes slept when he and Jessica were fighting. The door opened and Obadiah Cornwell, Joshua’s foreman in the freight company, slipped inside quickly. He peered outside for a moment, then shut the door again. “All right, everything’s ready.”

  Clinton picked up the mug of strong, black coffee and jammed it into Joshua’s hand. He then forced it up to his mouth. Joshua drank, then winced as the hot liquid seared his tongue.

  “Listen, Joshua,” Clinton said urgently. “You’ve got to get out of here. The man you shot at has gone for the constable. They don’t know who it was yet, but as soon as they find Jessica you’re going to be in one heap of trouble. And if she tells them about our little deal with that nail hole and Wilson Everett, we’re both gonna end up in jail.”

  “That or with a slug in your gut,” Cornwell said. “Everett ain’t gonna take kindly to you trying to slicker him.”

  Joshua nodded dumbly.

  “I’ve got a horse saddled in the yard,” Cornwell went on. “There’s some clothes and food enough in the saddlebags to hold you till you catch up with that wagon train heading for Santa Fe.”

  “Santa Fe?”

  “Yes,” Roundy said. “You remember, it left four days ago.”

  “But my business...”

  “You ain’t got no business no more!” Clinton had lost any patience he had. He snapped it out sharply.

  “That ain’t true, Clint,” Cornwell said. He turned back to Joshua. “We’ll have to sell off a bunch of the stock and wagons, but even at worst they can’t take those wagons and teams you’ve got on the trail. I’ll try and hold things together here.”

  “But don’t you be comin’ back until you hear from us,” Roundy said, softening a little. It galled him that Joshua had struck Jessie, but he still had an anger of his own at his daughter for denying them of their victory. They were so close! “We’ve got
to let this die down first,” he said.

  Cornwell reached out and took the cup from Joshua’s hand. “You’ve got to get moving. If they find you it’s gonna be too late.”

  Joshua nodded, then staggered to his feet. He clutched at his father-in-law’s shirt. “I wish I hadn’t hit her, Clint.”

  “I know.”

  “I didn’t mean to hit her. If only she—”

  “Joshua!” Cornwell grabbed his arm. “There ain’t no time for this. Go!”

  Joshua stared at him for a moment, then straightened his shoulders. “Right,” he said.

  Roundy opened the door. “You’re gonna have to circle around town. Don’t be riding down Main Street.”

  Joshua sighed. The foreman handed him his hat. “We’ll write you in Santa Fe,” he said.

  For a moment, Joshua seemed cold sober. “Right,” he said again. He jammed his hat on his head, and stepped out of the door.

  As Cornwell shut it behind him, he looked at Clinton Roundy, who just shook his head. “I think we’d better be gettin’ to our beds too,” Cornwell said. “Wouldn’t be good to have someone find us here either.”

  Roundy nodded. They stood together for a moment in silence. There was the sound of a horse’s hooves below them, which quickly faded away. Roundy reached over and blew out the lamp, and they left without saying anything more.

  It was shortly after sunrise when Jessica knelt down by a small stream. She took a kerchief from her dress pocket and wet it. She began to sponge the swelling under her eye with one hand, letting the fingers of her other hand gingerly explore the damage. The side of her head ached abominably, and the cheekbone kept shooting pain up into her eyes and temples. She felt below her nose and felt the encrusted blood which had now dried. In her flight, she had not even been aware that her nose had been bleeding. She knew she must be a sight. If the eye was not already black and blue, it would be shortly. The skirt of her dress was torn in several places and muddy from where she had stumbled across a swampy area near a pond sometime during the night.

  She stood, careful not to move too fast and send the explosions of pain rocketing through her head again. She looked around, trying to get her bearings. Since first light she had been following a wagon track. The sun was at her back, and she was pretty sure she had been traveling in the same direction for much of the night. That meant she was west of town. Behind her was a line of trees, and she remembered that an hour or so before, she had crossed a small river. That puzzled her for a moment. Some distance west of town the Kansas River joined the Missouri, but the Kansas was a big river in its own right, much bigger than the one she had crossed.

  Then she remembered. There were two rivers that drained the water from the central highlands of Jackson County into the Missouri. East of town was the Little Blue River; west of town, the Big Blue. That meant she was not far from Kaw Township. She felt her spirits lift a little. There were settlers starting homesteads out here on the prairie. Perhaps she could find someone who would take her in until Joshua’s fury cooled enough that she could reason with him.

  She squeezed the last of the water from her handkerchief, dabbed at her cheekbone one more time, then moved back onto the road. She turned her face to the west and began to walk again.

  Kaw Township embraced all of that part of Jackson County that lay west of the Big Blue River and from the Missouri River south to the county line. The western edge of the township also served as the western border of the United States of America. Beyond that was Indian Territory, that vast reserve of land which President Andrew Jackson had set aside for the resettlement of the various native tribes.

  Mostly the land was rolling prairie, an undulating sea of grass and wild flowers that always left newcomers from the East a little breathless with the vastness of its scope. Along the creek and river bottoms the timber was heavy and varied—oak, hickory, black walnut, elm, cherry, honey locust, mulberry, cottonwood, and maple. Plum, grapes, crab apple, wild raspberry, blueberry, and a multitude of other smaller trees and shrubs made the lowlands an almost impenetrable tangle. But beyond that, it was as though the land had been carefully cultivated and cared for.

  With the limited timber, most of the settlers’ houses were low and squat, made either of double-hewn logs or, more commonly, from slabs of sod cut from the incredibly wiry prairie turf, so tough it took two span of oxen to pull a plow through it.

  The home in which the missionaries to the Lamanites had chosen to live was a mixture of both. The walls were of logs, but only shoulder high. The roof line was low enough that a grown man had to stoop to enter. Cedar shingles were a luxury beyond the reach of any settlers in Kaw Township. Instead, a tight cross-hatch of tree limbs and thick willow sticks formed the base. Over that, slabs of prairie sod were laid. It was a functional, if not an attractive, shelter. The climate in western Missouri was much milder than that in New York and Ohio. The worst problem occurred when it rained hard enough to soak through the sod and begin to drip streams of mud on everything inside the house.

  But today Oliver Cowdery was not worried about rain. It was already on its way to becoming a hot day in mid-July and he was in the small garden area behind the cabin, hoeing out the morning glory that was taking over their patch of sweet corn. Ziba Peterson and Peter Whitmer were about a hundred yards behind him, down by the creek, gathering dead sticks and tree limbs to be used for their cooking fire. Frederick G. Williams was in Independence, tending to the small tailor shop they ran to keep them in funds.

  “Sir?”

  The quiet voice brought Oliver around with a jerk. For a moment he just stared, his mind not registering what his eyes were seeing. Then he dropped the hoe and ran to the battered figure that was standing there, hands open, eyes pleading.

  “Can you help me, sir?”

  Oliver barely caught her as her knees buckled and she collapsed into his arms.

  It was the next morning, about the same time, that Oliver was once again in the garden, trying to complete the task he had started the previous morning.

  “Halloo the house.” The sound came floating across the fields gently, almost like an echo.

  Oliver straightened, squinting into the bright sunshine. Peter Whitmer, near the front door, pounding out some cornmeal, looked up too, then leaped to his feet. Down by the road that ran between Independence and Kaw Village there were five—no, six—men walking briskly toward him. They all had hats on and knapsacks and bedrolls slung over their shoulders. These were traveling men, not some just come out for the day from the village. Oliver peered more intently. They all had traveling gear except for one, the one in the lead. He carried no pack. Now Oliver could clearly recognize that it was Frederick Williams. He was bringing company home.

  Oliver started. He raised his hand to shade his eyes, not daring to believe. But there was no mistaking it. The man just behind Williams was tall, broad of shoulder, and striding along like no other man Oliver knew.

  “Joseph?” he whispered in awe.

  “It’s Joseph!” Peter cried.

  “And there’s Martin Harris,” Oliver shouted. He threw the hoe down and leaped across the vegetables. As he broke into a run for the road, Peter Whitmer was hard on his heels, crying, “Joseph! Joseph! Joseph!”

  “I can’t believe it,” Oliver said again, for at least the tenth time. “I can’t believe you’re really here.”

  The five newcomers were eating elk stew, mopping it up with johnnycake and corn dodger and washing it down with warm milk from the brindle cow the missionaries kept behind the cabin. The new arrivals were seated at the split log table while the four missionaries stood around watching them eat.

  Joseph looked up at Oliver and smiled. “After eight hundred miles, the last two hundred or more on foot, neither can we, right, brethren?”

  They all groaned.

  “And there are others coming too?” Oliver asked after a minute.

  “Yes, Oliver. We left Newel Knight and the entire Colesville Branch in St. Louis waiti
ng for a steamboat. Brother Sidney Rigdon is with them.”

  Martin shook his head ruefully. “They wanted us to wait and come with them, but you know Joseph; he’d rather walk two hundred miles on foot than wait three or four more days doing nothing.”

  “They shouldn’t be many days behind us,” Joseph Coe spoke up.

  “There’s a river steamer due in here next week,” Peter Whitmer said. “On the twenty-fifth, I believe. The Chieftain.”

  “That’s the one they’ve got passage on,” Martin said.

  “Nathan Steed is with them,” Joseph said to Oliver.

  “Really?” he cried. “That’s wonderful. What about Lydia?”

  “No. He won’t be staying. Nathan is just helping Newel get the Colesville group here. He’s also most anxious to find Joshua.”

  Oliver’s face fell. “Now, there’s a tragedy, then.”

  “Why?”

  “Joshua’s gone.”

  “No!”

  “Yes, and good riddance to him too.” He quickly told Joseph of the woman who had shown up on their doorstep the previous day. Joseph’s mouth tightened as Oliver described her condition.

  “We have taken her to the Lewis family, not far from here. They are a good family who were baptized a few months ago. They will care for her well.”

  “But Joshua is gone.”

  “Yes,” Ziba spoke up. “We went into town to press charges against him. What he did to her is shameful, just shameful. But he’s disappeared. No one knows what’s happened to him. They’ve got the constable out looking for him now.”

  “That is going to be a hard blow for Nathan.” Joseph sighed. “And his family. They were so excited to have finally located him again.”

  Oliver’s face still showed his disgust. “He’s a man filled with anger. I met him some time ago, tried to talk to him about you. He boiled over almost instantly.”

  “I know. I had hopes of talking with him too, putting some of the old feelings behind us.”

  “Well,” Frederick Williams said, “there’s no chance for that now.” He straightened a little. “So tell us, has the Lord revealed the location of Zion yet?”