Pillar of Light

by Gerald N. Lund

  A hand came up in the back, and Bishop Partridge stopped. He nodded in the man’s direction.

  “Bishop, is there no hope that we can ever return to Zion?”

  “Ever?” The bishop’s eyes filled with a sad wistfulness. “There is still hope, Brother Carter. The Lord has said Zion has not been moved out of her place. But he also said we must wait a little season for the redemption of Zion. But we can’t wait any longer to decide what to do. More of our people are coming all the time. The people of Clay County are becoming alarmed. We do not wish a recurrence of the depredations we experienced south of the river in Jackson County. The citizens have assured us that if we commit to remove hence, they shall protect us from further violence.”

  “But where shall we go?” one of the sisters in the back cried. Instantly a ripple of murmuring swept through the crowd.

  John Corrill stirred, looking a little irritated. “That is what Brother Phelps and Bishop Partridge are here to speak with us about. Let them speak.”

  As the noise settled down, Bishop Partridge continued. “As you know, since Brother Phelps and I returned from Kirtland we have ridden north to the area that is called ‘Far West.’ ”

  Far West was the name the Missourians gave to the northwestern areas of the state that were as yet largely unsettled. Jessica found herself nodding. That would be one solution. Go where no one else had laid claim to the land. Since her arrival, she had learned that the brethren had already started purchasing some land up in that area.

  “And what did you find?” It was the same sister who had cried out from the back.

  “I’d like Brother Phelps to answer that.” He was motioning for W. W. Phelps to come forward. As he did so, Jessica noted that Rachel’s eyes were beginning to droop. Smiling down at her, she took her gently by the shoulders and pushed her down into her lap.

  “I’m all right, Mama,” she said sleepily. “I’m not tired.”

  “I know, dear. Just rest your eyes for a minute.” Gratefully she complied with her mother’s wishes. Almost instantly her body relaxed, and she began to breathe more deeply.

  Brother Phelps was at Bishop Partridge’s side now. Because both of his given names—William Wines—started with W, many of the Saints called Brother Phelps, “W. W.” He was a thin man, a little above average height. His high cheekbones and narrow chin gave his face almost a gaunt look. That impression was heightened by a Vandyke beard and mustache and heavy eyebrows. He was one of the most literate men in the Church. He had been a newspaper editor in Canandaigua, New York, a few miles south of Palmyra, at the time Parley P. Pratt brought him a Book of Mormon. Almost immediately after his conversion, the Lord had called him to go to Missouri and establish a newspaper and a printing office. Nearly a dozen hymns in the new hymnal published the previous year under the direction of Emma Smith had been written by W. W. Phelps. Jessica especially loved his “Redeemer of Israel” and “The Spirit of God Like a Fire Is Burning,” the latter having been written for the dedication of the Kirtland Temple.

  Brother Phelps cleared his throat. “Well, we didn’t find all we had hoped for. However . . .” He paused for effect.

  Isaac Morley shook his head in good-humored exasperation. “Come on, W. W.,” he said. “Don’t keep us in suspense.”

  He gave Brother Morley a quick glance, half-irritated that he would not let him build the expectations a little, then chuckled good-naturedly. “All right, all right.” He looked at the group. “As expected, the Far West is mostly prairie with tall grass and gently rolling hills. Nearly every skirt of timber from here to the Iowa Territory has someone on it.”

  There was a collective sigh of disappointment. While a few small plots of prairie were being cultivated on the Great Plains, people did not yet believe that settlements could be established unless there was a nearby creek or river and plenty of trees for buildings and firewood. So this was disappointing news.

  Again Phelps paused, but seeing the look on Isaac Morley’s face, he hurried on. “But please note I only said nearly every place.” He smiled broadly. “We have located an area up on Shoal Creek, in northern Ray County. Some of you remember Jacob Haun. He went up last season and built a gristmill there. Well, there are some possibilities west of there. There are two creeks in the area and very few settlers there now. We plan further scouting expeditions, but we believe there are places with definite promise.”

  That brought several murmurs of approval.

  Brother Phelps looked across the group. “We have recommended to the presidency that we purchase sixteen hundred acres and begin looking for more as quickly as possible.”

  “Yes!” someone called. “Hear, hear!” said another. “Amen,” cried a third.

  Rachel stirred on Jessica’s lap, her eyes fluttering open. “What is it, Mama?”

  Brushing the dark hair back away from the little girl’s eyes, Jessica shushed her gently. “It’s all right, Rachel,” she whispered happily. “I think we have found a home.”

  * * *

  Nathan was unbuttoning his shirt as Parley finished washing his face at the basin of water and turned around. As Parley groped for a towel, Nathan spoke his thoughts. “It’s been quite an exciting month, Parley.”

  Parley peeked at him for a moment over the towel. “A month, Nathan? Tomorrow is May twenty-third. That will be five weeks to the day since we arrived in Toronto.”

  “Five weeks . . . yes, I guess it has been that long. I can’t believe it. The time has flown by so swiftly.”

  “But you are right about one thing, Nathan. It has been exciting. Most exciting.”

  “That first night at Mrs. Walton’s house, when she asked to be baptized and you said no—I was dumbfounded. Now we’ve baptized virtually every person who was there that night. And the work now spreads to the surrounding areas.”

  “Ah, don’t forget to mention the Taylors.”

  Nathan laughed softly. “Yes, the Taylors.” His mind went back swiftly. “He was so cool toward us at first. Then that first night at Mr. Patrick’s house, can you believe it? ‘Where is our Peter?’ he cried. ‘Where is our John?’ he asked. And you just sat there! I thought I’d bust.”

  Parley hung the towel on the rack, nodding thoughtfully. “The Spirit whispered patience.”

  Nathan hung up his shirt and sat down on the bed and began taking off his boots. “It probably whispered that to me too, but I was too impatient to listen.”

  “Well, Brother Taylor gave my sermon that night, outlining what Christ’s church ought to be like. You could tell they’ve been studying the Bible diligently for two years.”

  Nathan nodded and tossed one boot in the corner, then started tugging on the other one. “I wish Heber was here.”

  Parley was moving toward the bed. He stopped, his face wistful. “Wouldn’t that be wonderful? He would have loved to witness the fulfillment of his inspired prophecy. And inspired it was.” He moved to his bedside and dropped to his knees. “Shall we pray, Brother Nathan? I think we have much for which to be grateful.”

  Chapter Eight

  Can you give me five minutes, Joshua? I need to get this manifest out to the ship’s captain. He wants to push off within the hour.”

  “Of course. I’m in no hurry.”

  As Richard Wesley nodded his thanks and left, Joshua turned to the window that opened to the south, giving him a view of the city across Factors’ Walk and Bay Street beyond it. He pulled a face. That’s exactly the problem. I’m in no hurry.

  He reached in the inside pocket of his coat and withdrew the letter. He took it from the envelope and opened it slowly. It was dated May fourth, but it had just arrived at the hotel the previous evening, so it had taken nineteen days to reach him from St. Louis. He didn’t read it again. He already knew too well the words on the paper. His partners had reached the last stages of construction on the textile mill. The big water-driven looms were to arrive from New England by steamboat the third or fourth week of May. Joshua shook his head. That was no
w! They could already be there. It would take two more weeks to assemble the looms and get the mill completely functioning, and then they would be ready for the cotton. How were arrangements coming? They were concerned that they hadn’t heard from him. They were not panicked, but he could sense they were getting very nervous. His letter to them would be there by now. That would help, but it wasn’t letters that kept the looms going.

  He swore softly as he folded the letter and returned it to his pocket. He had twenty-five wagonloads of cotton sitting directly below his feet in Richard Wesley’s warehouse. Twenty-five! That represented an out-of-pocket investment of nearly eight thousand dollars. By now it should have been sitting on the docks of St. Louis. Instead it still sat in Savannah, taking up floor space and costing Joshua three dollars a day for storage fees.

  He thought for a moment. It had been April fifteenth, the day after their return from the Montagues’ plantation, that he and Richard Wesley and Abner Montague had signed the papers for the purchase of Montague cotton. Today was the twenty-third of May. That meant he had been paying storage fees for over a month now. He gave a soft snort of disgust. He might just as well have walked to the edge of the wharf and thrown the money into the muddy waters of the Savannah River. And all because of this obsession he had over this widow with the bewitching eyes, who toyed with him like a cat playing with a beetle.

  Joshua turned around and walked to Wesley’s liquor cabinet and splashed some bourbon in a small decanter. He started to put the bottle down; then, frowning, poured that much again into the glass. He walked to the large side chair beside the desk and dropped heavily into it. As he sipped the fiery liquid, he thought back on the previous six weeks. He had enjoyed them as much as any time he could remember. And that was not just due to Caroline. He had come to love Savannah with its neatly laid-out squares and streets. And Wesley had introduced him into his social circles, and so now, twice a week, Joshua joined a group of eight or ten of the city’s well-to-do men who gathered in a private club on Bull Street. There they drank fine Irish whiskey, smoked Cuban cigars, and played some high-stakes poker.

  Joshua smiled at that. These genteel Southern businessmen didn’t know what high-stakes poker was. Playing seven-card stud with Wilson Everett, and putting your whole life’s work on the line—now, that was high-stakes poker.

  Quickly he took a deep swallow of the liquor, focusing on the burning sensation as it went down his throat. He didn’t want to be thinking about that night anymore.

  As he felt the warmth of the liquor begin to spread through his stomach, he leaned back and half closed his eyes. On the other hand, as painful as the memory was, it was interesting to ponder the outcome of that night’s events. Ultimately they had led to his divorcing Jessica; and if he and Jessica hadn’t divorced, would he be here now? Would he be in partnership with wealthy men in St. Louis, or would he still be mule-skinning dried cod and New England broadcloth across the Santa Fe Trail? He smiled to himself. And would he be courting the person who most of these Georgian gentlemen agreed was Savannah’s most beautiful and eligible woman?

  But that was exactly what was frustrating him. In the South a courtship was like a fine business deal. It was not to be rushed. It went half step by maddening half step. Caroline was attracted to him. He knew that. He could see it in her eyes, feel it in the warmth of her welcome when he came to call. Two weeks ago he had paused at the door as he prepared to leave. He had not asked. He just took her in his arms and kissed her. There was no question about her response. It was warm, eager, almost hungry. But then three or four more days went by before he could even see her again.

  He longed for the frontier simplicity of Independence. There, when you thought it was time, you asked the question, got a preacher, got it done. Here, courtship was an elaborate and silly game. But it was more than that. Wesley and his wife, Margaret, kept hinting that Caroline could not be rushed right now. There were things of a “troublin’ nature” she had to work out. Of course, Southern gentility kept them from saying more than that. “Just be patient. She’s not trying to be difficult. You must give her time.”

  And so he waited. With his St. Louis partners in a stew, with eight thousand dollars’ worth of cotton sitting in a warehouse, with a freight business running practically on its own without him, he sat and waited.

  The door opened and Richard Wesley came back into his office. “It’s done,” he said. “Sorry for making you wait.” He moved behind his desk and sat down. Immediately he opened a leather box and fished out his pipe. He took some tobacco, tamped it in carefully, then withdrew a match from a package that sat next to the pipe box. He leaned down and drew the match across the base of the chair. It flared into life, and he touched it to the end of his pipe, puffing heartily until it was glowing.

  “Margaret asked me to be sure you and Caroline are planning on dinner this evening.”

  Joshua nodded.

  “Good. Seven o’clock.”

  “Yes. By the way,” Joshua said, watching as Wesley blew out the match, “don’t forget you promised to send ten cases of those matches with me.”

  Wesley laughed. “Of course. You can probably make more profit on those than you can with the cotton.”

  Joshua gave him an answering chuckle. That was probably true, but he had no intention of selling them. The strike-

  anywhere match, invented in France just a few years before, was becoming popular along the East Coast, but they were still too expensive on the frontier to be more than a novelty. Joshua found them a wonderful convenience and would keep them for himself.

  Joshua stood and set the decanter back on the cabinet. He thought of the letter in his pocket. It was time to stop playing little boy and to get on with what he had come for. “The ship from England is due on Thursday?”

  “Yes. It will be here two days, then leave for New O’leans.” He was watching Joshua narrowly through the clouds of smoke. “The next packet ship after that isn’t due in until the middle of June.”

  Joshua stood abruptly. “I can’t wait that long. I want my cotton loaded this week. Can you arrange that?”

  “Can do.” The cotton factor set his pipe in an ashtray and leaned back, putting his hands behind his head. “You’re sure?”

  Joshua’s breath came out in an explosion of disgust. “Yes. I’ve waited too long already. I’ve got a business to run.”

  * * *

  An hour later, Joshua was in the warehouse below the offices of Richard Wesley. He was counting the exact number of bales of cotton he had purchased and would be loading on the American Colony when it arrived from New York later in the week. He turned to the black man who served as Wesley’s warehouse foreman. “I count one hundred ninety-eight bales, Samuel.”

  It was a hot day outside and the warehouse was stifling. They had the big doors that faced River Street thrown open, but it made little difference. They were both sweating heavily, and with its sheen of sweat, Samuel’s face looked like oiled ebony. “Yessuh, Mistuh Steed. That’s what I got.” He picked up a sheaf of papers from a small table, leafed through them until he found the one he was looking for, then showed Joshua the figure at the bottom. “That’s what it says here you bought from Mistuh Montague. One hundred and ninety-eight. ’Xactly the same.”

  “Good.” He clapped him on the shoulders. Joshua liked this big man with the ready grin and quick, intelligent eyes. “Well, Sam, give me a few more days and you can have this space back.”

  Samuel’s face fell a little. “We gonna miss you, Mistuh Steed. It’s been a real pleasure havin’ you here in Savannah. Y’all gonna be comin’ back?”

  Joshua didn’t answer. He turned and looked around, feeling the frustration rising up again. “I don’t know, Sam. Not—”

  All of a sudden he started. A figure was walking briskly by the doors, moving west along River Street. Her head was turned, watching the ship pulled up to the wharf and the men swarming over it; but there was no mistaking the profile nor the green hat with its
ostrich feather and large bow, the hat he had bought for her at one of Savannah’s finest millinery shops.

  “Caroline?”

  But she was past the door, not hearing him for the noise along the docks. He started after her, then realized what state he was in. He turned quickly to where Samuel kept a towel hanging from a peg on one of the thick wooden pillars. “Get my coat for me, will you, Samuel?”

  He wiped his face and brow quickly, then turned to where Samuel was holding his coat for him. The foreman was smiling broadly. “That Miz Mendenhall. She be one fine woman.”

  Joshua laughed. “Yes, she is.” He smoothed back his hair and beard, then thrust his arms into his coat and buttoned it quickly. “Tell Mr. Wesley I’ll be back to sign those shipping orders.”

  Not waiting for an answer, he hurried outside, blinking in the dazzling sunlight of midday. For a moment he thought he had lost her. River Street was always a busy place, with sailors, dockworkers, teamsters, merchants, and planters milling about. But few of the people along River Street were women. He shaded his eyes, squinting against the brightness. Then he had her. She was several buildings up the street, moving briskly, ignoring the interest she was generating as she passed.

  Joshua started after her, walking swiftly, tempted to call out, but wanting to surprise her. Ahead of him, she suddenly stopped beneath one of the signs that hung out over the warehouses. She started as if to go in, then stopped again. Even from a distance he could see her indecision. Curious, Joshua slowed his step.

  She was standing beneath the sign that read, “Berrett and Boswell, Merchants, Cotton Factors.” She seemed hesitant, almost reluctant. Twice she started forward, then stopped again. Joshua could sense the tension in her. He stopped, moving closer to the buildings so she wouldn’t notice him. Finally, she took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and went inside.