“Assault and battery, and false imprisonment.” Parley shook his head in amazement. “We cannot get a warrant against a man for breaking into the store, but he can get a warrant against us for catching him at it!”
Newel Knight spoke up. “The brethren are—”
He was cut off as the door flew open and a man burst into the room. It was one of the nineteen men who had left earlier. “We’re under attack!” he cried. “At the Big Blue! The mob are after our men!”
Chapter Twenty-Three
It was now nearly sundown on November fourth, the day that would come to be known as the “bloody day,” and Joshua Steed was highly frustrated and in a foul mood. Early that morning, he and Colonel Pitcher had led another group of men out from Independence. They had taken the Mormon ferry at the Whitmer settlement on the Big Blue without firing a shot. All they had done was wave their pistols and the Mormons who were operating it fled.
Once the ferry was secure, they moved on to a small store run by a Missourian named Wilson, about a mile west of the river. There they stopped to rest and refresh themselves. But unbeknownst to the Missourians, marching up the road toward them were the nineteen volunteers from the Colesville settlement. Before these volunteers reached the store, however, they met some Saints who reported that while the ferry had been lost, the rumors about the rampages east of the river were false. They also told the Colesville group that the mob was at the store. Upon hearing this news, the nineteen men decided to return home and avoid a confrontation.
Unfortunately, two small boys caught sight of the band of retreating Mormons. They ran pell-mell to the store and reported to Colonel Pitcher that the Mormons were on the road west of them. Eager for action, the Missourians dashed for their horses. When the Mormons saw forty or fifty men thundering across the prairie towards them, they fled in every direction. That had been in the afternoon, but it provided only a temporary diversion. When Pitcher’s men had seen the Mormons scatter, they had gone after them with relish, driving their horses back and forth through the cornfields, hoping to flush them out. When that failed, they began to break into the houses of the nearby Mormons, terrorizing the women and children. That had been going on now for more than two hours.
Disgusted and tired of it all, Joshua walked to his horse and swung up into the saddle. He walked it over to where Pitcher was talking with several of the men. The deputy constable looked up. “What do you think, Steed?”
“I think I’m going back to Independence and getting a beer.”
Some of the men chuckled, nodding. One stood up. “That’ll be the first good thing to happen today. I’m goin’ too.”
“I guess you’re right,” Pitcher said in disgust. “There ain’t nothin’ goin’ on—”
A cry from off to their right brought them all around sharply. A man was gaping, his arm pointing toward the west. “It’s the Mormons!” he shouted.
Joshua stood up in the stirrups, peering into the low-lying sun. He felt a leap of exultation. Sure enough, there was a whole body of men—thirty for sure, maybe more. They were coming toward them; the sun was at their backs, and Joshua could see several rifles silhouetted against the horizon. The Mormons had come to fight!
“To arms! To arms!” Pitcher was shouting. Joshua dug his heels into the horse’s flanks and sent it leaping forward. All around him pandemonium erupted. Men were scrambling for their weapons, shouting and yelling. Some, he noted in disgust, ran for cover.
As Joshua pounded past the few men standing amidst the dried, brown cornstalks, he yelled at them. “Form a line! Form a line!”
“Fire, fire!” Pitcher was screaming. He had one foot in the stirrup of his saddle, but his horse was frightened and the colonel had to keep hopping on one foot to keep his balance as the horse kept skittering around in a circle. Off to Joshua’s left, someone fired a rifle. The explosion sounded muffled and distant as it rumbled across the open fields.
“Hold your fire!” Joshua screamed, racing toward the men nearest the road. “Let ’em get closer.”
But panic was the commander now, and no one gave Joshua heed. He saw a man throw his rifle to his shoulder and fire. One of the Mormons in the lead file jerked backwards, slamming into one of his companions, then crumpled to the ground. A cry of triumph went up from the Missourians.
They were firing wildly now as Joshua joined them. He saw a flash across the fields, followed instantly by a puff of smoke. The Mormons were firing back.
“Take your aim!” he screamed at the men. “Make your shots count.” Joshua pulled out his own pistol but didn’t fire. They were in good rifle range now, but a pistol was still useless.
He reined his horse around to see if Pitcher and some others were mounted yet. A good charge would send the whole lot of them scattering. But just as his eye found the colonel, his horse stumbled and Joshua went flying. Instinctively he rolled as he hit, trying to hold his pistol away from him. For a moment he lay there, dazed, shaking his head, letting his mind register that there was no serious pain. He swung around. His horse lay flat, one hind leg kicking weakly in its death rattle. It had taken a ball just below its left eye, and the ball had gone straight into the brain.
Joshua leaped up, a rage seizing him. He had bought that horse from a breeder in Kentucky and brought him all the way out to Independence. He fired at the men, now no more than fifty yards away, then fired again. The Mormons had spread out now and formed a skirmish line. Flashes of rifle fire were coming fast now. He instinctively ducked as he felt a ball whistle over his head.
Just behind him there was a sharp cry, and Joshua whirled around in time to see a man five or ten yards from him drop his rifle and clutch at his stomach. He had a shocked look on his face as he slowly sank to his knees, then pitched forward on his face without a sound. The man next to him stopped, gaping in horror.
Now things were happening so fast that it was impossible to follow them. An inhuman shriek rent the air, and Joshua knew that another horse had been hit. Somewhere behind him, he heard Pitcher screaming, though whether to attack or retreat he could not tell. Men were cursing and yelling. Clouds of smoke from the gunpowder hung like little puffs of cumulus in the still air, swirling wildly when men ran through them, otherwise just slowly dissipating.
Directly in front of Joshua a man was running towards the Mormons, firing blindly as he ran. Then, as though he had been hit at knee level with some giant scythe, he went down, sending up little clouds of dust as he hit the dry soil. For a moment there was a violent twitching, then he lay still.
“Oh no,” someone screamed hysterically. “Hugh’s down.”
“We can’t hold ’em!” another cried. “Run! Run!”
“No!” Joshua tried to scream the word, but it came out as a hoarse cry, barely more than a croak. But it wouldn’t have mattered either way. The man who yelled had already done the damage. Everywhere he looked, men turned and ran. There was no attempt to stay low, no attempt to dodge back and forth. They ran blindly to their horses with no thought but escape. It was not a retreat, it was a rout, and Joshua stood there shaking with rage as he watched the battle evaporate before his eyes.
He swung around, suddenly realizing he was vulnerable, unhorsed and standing straight up in the open as he was. But the Mormons, seeing their opposition in flight, had also had enough. They too were moving backwards, more cautiously, but nevertheless eager for disengagement. The sound of gunfire had ceased.
Joshua watched the retreating Mormons until they were well out of rifle range, then he put his pistol away, trying to ignore the keenness of his disappointment. Slowly he walked to the body of the first man who had fallen. He knelt down and felt at his neck for a pulse, then stood slowly. The man was dead. He walked to the second man, the one whose fall had been the turning point for the Missourians. He knelt down beside him and turned him over. He didn’t even check for a heartbeat. The bullet had caught the man squarely in the left side of his chest.
Joshua straightened slowly. The ir
ony was not lost on him. This man’s name was Hugh L. Brazeale. That very morning, after they had taken the ferry, Brazeale had been one of the most vocal in the spate of braggadocio that followed. “Give me ten fellows,” he boasted, “and I will wade to my knees in blood and drive the Mormons from Jackson County.”
Joshua turned his head and watched the last of his men whipping their horses at full flight for the line of trees along the river. “There’s your ten men, Hugh,” he said bitterly. “Go get ’em.”
Jessica Steed pulled back the curtain and tiptoed quietly into the sleeping area that the curtain separated from the main room of the cabin. It was about half an hour before sunset on November fifth, and the late autumn sunlight streamed through the shuttered windows in narrow shafts. She stopped, her eyes softening. Sister Dibble sat beside the still form of her husband, Philo Dibble, who was stretched out on the one bed in that corner of the room. Her head had dropped to her chest and she was breathing heavily, still clinging to her husband’s hand.
Thankful Pratt, wife of Parley, was standing near the window, gazing at nothing. She sensed Jessica’s presence and turned around, quickly lifting a finger to her lips. Jessica motioned to her and Thankful tiptoed quietly across to her. They both moved out of the sleeping area, letting the curtain drop again.
“Did you find any medicine?” Thankful asked.
Jessica held up her hand. She had a wad of clean rags. “No, I found some more bandages, though, and Sister Anderson and Sister Lewis are checking some of the other families for medicine.”
Thankful had spent most of the previous night and all this day helping Sister Dibble and attending to Philo’s needs. She looked as if she could easily fall asleep even as she stood there.
Jessica closed her eyes for a moment. “By the way, I didn’t get a chance to tell you earlier. Brother Barber died early this morning.”
“Oh no!” Tears sprang to Thankful’s eyes.
“Yes,” Jessica said, fighting her own emotions. “He was such a fine young man.”
When the Missourians opened fire on the approaching Mormons at what would come to be called “the battle of the Big Blue River,” Andrew Barber and Philo Dibble had both been hit almost instantly.
Jessica reached out and took Thankful’s hand. “The brethren wanted to administer to him, but he wouldn’t let them.”
Parley’s wife looked up in surprise. “Why not?”
“He said—” Jessica’s voice caught and she had to swallow quickly. “He said there were angels in the room waiting to take him home.” She managed a smile through her tears. “He was a little put out with us that we couldn’t see them too.” Jessica had spent the better part of the day with the Barbers, helping to comfort them, assisting in preparing the body for burial. It had been emotionally draining. Only when that was done had she and two other sisters come to see if they could help at the Dibbles’.
Thankful had a faraway look in her eyes. “He is the first martyr killed in battle defending the kingdom in this dispensation.”
Jessica’s eyes widened a little. She had not considered it in that light before.
There was a noise behind them, and they turned to see that Sister Dibble was standing at the curtain. “Will my husband be the second?” she cried in an anguished whisper.
Jessica and Thankful rushed to her side. “No,” Thankful said fiercely, “no, you mustn’t lose faith.”
“But you heard what the doctor told us,” she said, fighting to stop her voice from becoming a wail of despair. “He said Philo was a dead man.”
Philo had taken a ball and two pieces of buckshot squarely in the abdomen. Amazingly he had grabbed his rifle and powder horn and walked away, in spite of the excruciating pain. He had finally found his wife and children in a cabin not far from the Whitmer settlement. Since the mob was threatening to kill anyone who aided the Mormon militia members, they had tried to hide him, but he was in such agony that they were able to take him no more than a short distance to another cabin. As the night passed and the day wore on, his condition worsened.
When Jessica arrived, both Sister Dibble and Sister Pratt were nearing exhaustion. She and the two sisters who came with her set about cleaning the cabin, cooking a meager meal. Then the doctor had come. Jessica went in to watch. She had gasped when the doctor pulled down the blanket and revealed Philo Dibble’s horribly distended stomach. There was little question but what he was steadily bleeding to death internally, for his abdomen had swollen to the size of a bread basket. His face was mottled and his breathing shallow and labored. Grimly, the physician had finally stepped back and made his terrible pronouncement: Philo’s death was certain. Brother Dibble, still conscious at that point, writhing back and forth in agony, had heard the diagnosis. It was as if he had accepted the inevitability of the verdict and surrendered to his fate. The writhing had stopped, and in moments he lay deathly still, his face a ghastly gray against the pillow.
That’s when Jessica and two of the other sisters had gone to the house of David Whitmer looking for medicine, leaving Thankful to stand watch with Philo’s grieving wife. Now Jessica reached out and took both of Sister Dibble’s hands. “I told Brother Whitmer what the doctor said. He said to tell you that Philo shall not die. That he should live.”
For a moment Sister Dibble brightened, but almost instantly her face twisted again. “How can he?” she moaned. “He is nearly dead now.”
There was a sound on the doorstep, and all three women turned as the door to the cabin opened. In burst one of the sisters who had gone with Jessica. She quickly stepped aside, opening the door wider. “Look,” she said. “Brother Knight has come.”
Newel Knight stepped into the room and immediately crossed to Sister Dibble. “I have come to help,” he said quietly. “With your permission I would like to give your husband a blessing by the hand of the priesthood.”
Her voice broke and she choked back a sob. “Oh, yes, please.”
Jessica stepped to the curtain and held it back, and the five of them entered the small area where Philo Dibble lay. Newel Knight spoke not another word, but he moved to the bed and sat down carefully beside Brother Dibble. There was a soft moan, then nothing more. Newel glanced at the women for a moment, then reached out and laid his hand on Philo Dibble’s head. Again he said nothing, just sat there in great solemnity, his eyes half-closed, his hand resting gently on the wounded man’s forehead.
Suddenly, Philo Dibble’s eyes fluttered open. He stared at the ceiling, seeing nothing, but his chest started to heave up and down, his stomach distending and extending with it. His wife was so startled, she just gaped at him in shock.
“The chamber pot!” Newel Knight cried, jumping up. “Get him the chamber pot.”
Jessica leaped to the bed, reached under it, and grabbed the unused chamber pot. As she pulled it up, Philo groaned and rolled over on his side, grabbing at his stomach. His wife snatched the pot from Jessica and jammed it in front of him just as a violent spasm shook his body. There was a gagging sound, then he vomited, and vomited again. Time after time his body convulsed and expelled great quantities of a dark and bloody liquid.
Jessica was dumbfounded. The chamber pot could hold several quarts, and by the time Philo collapsed back on his bed, his body finally at peace, the pot was better than half full. Beneath the blanket, his stomach was flat again. Jessica stared at him in amazement. His face was still very pale, but even as she watched the grayness was swiftly taking on color.
Thankful took the pot from Sister Dibble, who was gazing at her husband in wonder. He smiled weakly and reached out for her hand. With a sob of joy, she threw her arms around him, burying her head against his chest.
He touched her hair, then turned to face Brother Knight. “When you laid your hands on me?” he said. He stopped for breath. “I felt...” Now his eyes filled with tears and he could not finish.
Newel took his other hand. “What, Brother Philo?”
“I don’t know how to explain it. It was li
ke fire, only not terrible. It was wonderful. I could feel it flowing all through me, purifying every part of me. It was like I was being purged of the corruption that filled my body.”
Newel nodded soberly as Sister Dibble straightened. “Your mission on earth is not yet completed, Brother Philo,” he said. “The Lord has chosen to spare you so you can fulfill your mission in life.”
Philo Dibble considered that for a moment; then, turning to his wife, he managed a wan smile. He merely nodded as he clasped her hand to his breast.
While the Colesville settlement spent the night of November fourth watching over their wounded and their dying, the news of the battle of the Big Blue spread through Jackson County like a prairie fire fanned by high winds. And with each telling the story grew more horrible. Two Missourians had been killed, but by morning, in the telling that number had swelled to more than a dozen. The Wilson store, only a temporary stopping place for Pitcher’s men and totally untouched by the action, now figured into the expanded accounts. The Mormons had attacked it. Wilson’s young son had been shot down in cold blood.
In reality, the Mormons had returned to their homes to mourn their loss; in rumor, they had ridden into Indian Territory and persuaded a massive war party to join them. They were on their way to put Independence under siege.
By ten o’clock on the morning of November fifth, Independence was at a fever pitch. Armed men from every part of the county poured into town, looking for whiskey, trouble, and Mormons. A hasty war council was called. Lieutenant Governor Boggs decided this was a perfect opportunity. He formally called out a unit of the Missouri militia to “preserve the peace.” “Formally called out” in reality meant that he deputized the armed crowd who flooded the town. Colonel Thomas Pitcher, deputy constable of Jackson County, was named militia commander.
From mob to militia, from lawlessness to legitimacy, in one stroke Boggs had turned the citizens of Jackson County into the law. The Saints were outmanned, outgunned, and outmaneuvered. Pitcher demanded that the Saints surrender their weapons. They agreed on the condition that the militia do the same. Pitcher cheerfully accepted and pledged his honor, along with that of Lieutenant Governor Boggs, that the Saints would be left unmolested and given ten days to leave the county. The Saints gave up what few weapons they had in trade for peace.
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