Pillar of Light

by Gerald N. Lund

  Hugh started at that. “Mrs. Steed? What the . . . ? How could a kid know about that?”

  “Don’t know,” Charlie crowed, enjoying Hugh’s sudden nervousness. “But he’s willing to pay for information.”

  Riley swore. “What if it’s the law?”

  Hugh snorted loudly. “A kid? Don’t be stupid.”

  Charlie smiled, revealing brown and crooked teeth. “You weren’t listening very good, Hugh. Did you hear what I said?”

  “No, what?” Hugh growled.

  “Them that has seen him”—his tongue darted out and he licked his lips, his eyes narrowing hungrily—“they say he’s got a purse full of money.”

  Chapter 31

  Matthew!”

  Matthew had the ax poised above his head. When he saw his sister he swung it downward, burying the blade in the log they were chopping into firewood lengths. Derek and Peter, working together to split those shorter lengths, stopped as well.

  “What is it, Rebecca?” Derek asked, wiping at his brow. It was cold enough that they could see their breath, but they were all sweating.

  “Matthew needs to come to the house.”

  “What’s the matter?” Matthew asked.

  “You’d better come and see for yourself. You too, Derek.”

  As they wiped their feet at the door, Matthew gave Rebecca a quizzical look. She was smiling mysteriously, but when he looked at her she just shook her head and laughed softly.

  She opened the door and stepped inside, holding it open wide for the three of them to follow. Matthew went first, taking off his hat as he entered. His hand froze in midair. His mouth dropped and his eyes flew wide open.

  “It’s not polite to stare, Matthew,” his mother said, chuckling merrily. “Do come in and shut the door.”

  But Matthew didn’t move. He just stood and gaped.

  Derek stepped around him, as startled as Matthew. “Mrs. McIntire?” he blurted. “What are you doing here?”

  * * *

  Benjamin turned away from the table and hunched over, clutching at his chest, the coughs racking his body for several seconds. Mary Ann watched him anxiously, wanting to reach out and steady him but knowing he wouldn’t like it. Finally he straightened and turned back. “Sorry,” he murmured. “This cold air doesn’t seem to agree with my lungs.” He took a breath. “Mrs. McIntire, are you sure this is a wise thing you have decided to do? I mean, we think it is wonderful that you have read the Book of Mormon and feel it is true, but . . .” The lines of pain and weariness around his mouth and eyes seemed to deepen perceptibly. “But coming to Far West right now? Matthew should have been more clear when he wrote to Jenny. Things are not good here. The state still restricts our movements. We will probably have to leave sooner than expected.”

  “I’m aware of all that, Brother Steed,” Nancy McIntire said evenly. “News of what is happening down here is common in Daviess County.”

  “But still you came?” Lydia said, not able to keep the awe from her voice.

  “Aye,” the robust woman said cheerfully. “We’ve decided that our lot is with the Mormons.” She turned to her daughters. “Haven’t we, girls?”

  Jenny was looking at Matthew from beneath lowered lashes. “Yes,” she murmured. Kathryn was nodding vigorously.

  “We weren’t able to sell the farm,” Mrs. McIntire went on, “but we’ve got a man to work it, and he says he’ll do his best to find a buyer come spring.”

  “There won’t be any buyers,” Benjamin said bitterly. “Anybody looking for farms this spring will be taking whatever we leave. For nothing.”

  “Perhaps so,” Mrs. McIntire agreed. “But wasn’t it the Master who said, ‘And whosoever forsakes houses or lands for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life’?”

  Derek sat back, looking at this simple woman in open admiration. “Yes, that’s exactly what he said.” In a way that’s what he and Peter had done when they left England two years before and came to America. They didn’t own any property, but they left home and friends and occupation. And the Lord had repaid them four times over.

  Mrs. McIntire turned to Benjamin, her eyes earnest now. “It’s true, isn’t it?”

  Benjamin was taken aback.

  “The Book of Mormon is true, isn’t it?” she persisted.

  “Yes, of course, but—”

  “Then that’s all that matters. We’ll find a place to stay here and—”

  Jessica spoke up quickly. “You and the girls can stay with me.” She turned and smiled at Matthew for a moment. “In fact, Matthew and I had even thought about seeing if Jenny and Kathryn wanted to come to school. I teach it in my home. I could give you board and room if you would be willing to help with my children and around the house.”

  Mrs. McIntire clapped her hands. “Wonderful! Would you like that, Jenny?”

  “Oh, yes,” she cried. “I would love to go to school.”

  “Me too,” Kathryn said eagerly.

  Benjamin leaned back, smiling now and a little chagrined at his previous concerns. “You’ll have dinner with us tonight, then,” he said. “Won’t be much, but we would be proud to have you at our table.”

  Mary Ann reached across the table and took Mrs. McIntire’s hands. “Welcome—to our home, to Far West for however long we shall be here, and, most especially, welcome to the fold.”

  Jenny was watching Matthew, who was beaming like a mother with newborn twins. “What do we have to do to become Mormons?” she asked shyly.

  “You have to be baptized,” he said. “That’s all.”

  “Can you baptize me?” She was blushing now.

  He was startled, but recovered and grinned broadly. “Yes. I’m a priest in the Aaronic Priesthood. I can’t confirm you and give you the Holy Ghost, but Derek is an elder. He could do that.”

  “I’d like that,” Jenny exclaimed.

  Nancy McIntire turned to Benjamin. “And would it be too much to ask that you baptize me, Brother Steed?”

  “I—” Another cough rose up and he had to hunch over as it racked his body. When it was spent, he straightened slowly. There was a look of great respect on his face. “I would consider it an honor to baptize someone with faith like yours, Sister McIntire. An honor indeed.”

  * * *

  “You the kid lookin’ for the two Missourians?”

  Will was slouched down on a stool in the tavern where he had found the least expensive rooms and meals along the waterfront. The remains of a meager supper still sat on the bar before him. He was instantly alert, straightening slowly. “Yes.”

  The man was filthy. Smears of dirt and coal dust streaked his face. His beard was matted and stiff, and the hair that showed beneath a battered felt hat was shaggy and streaked with gray.

  “Charlie Patterson’s the name,” he said, and held out a gloved hand, the tips of each finger sticking out of the glove. There was a quick grin. It was meant to be a sign of amiability, but was in reality more of a hideous grimace. It revealed crooked, discolored teeth and flecks of tobacco at the corners of his mouth. Will shuddered inwardly, but took the hand briefly. “Do you know anything about them?”

  Charlie cackled happily. “Dare say that I do.”

  Will had learned quickly that word of his willingness to pay for information had gotten around the waterfront and was bringing the hungry and the greedy out of their holes. “Do you know where they are right now? Are they still in St. Louis?”

  “Right ya are on both questions, boy.”

  A thrill of exultation shot through Will. He had heard rumors that they were still around, had even talked to a man who had hired them as day laborers a week or so before, but so far no one had been able to tell him for sure if they were still here.

  “Will you take me to them?”

  Charlie looked aghast. “Are you crazy, boy? Them are two mean-lookin’ gentlemen. I ain’t about to get myself killed.”

  “I’m willin’ to pay.”

  Ch
arlie’s eyes narrowed. “How much?”

  “A dollar now. Four more when you show me where they live.”

  “Ha!” he shouted. Several men in the room turned and looked at them, and Charlie instantly dropped his voice to a hoarse whisper. “You think I’m gonna get myself killed for five dollars?”

  Will considered that. He didn’t trust the man, and yet he sensed that something about Charlie was different than the others. Charlie knew. He could feel it, and that both excited and frightened him. Will’s determination to track down his father’s killers was as strong as it had ever been—he burned with it, dreamed of catching them, weaved fantasies about dragging them to court, then watching them hang from the gallows. But the last week had also sobered Will tremendously. At the freight yards he had gotten used to being around toughened men, men with foul mouths and a way of life that was as rough as the roads they drove their wagons over. But even the teamsters didn’t measure up to the seamy elements that inhabited the rabbit’s warren of shacks and alleyways and saloons that lined the banks of the Mississippi. For the past two or three days, a voice in the back of Will’s head kept crying out at him. It had started out as a persistent whisper. Now it was almost a shout. Go home. Don’t be a fool. You’re swimming in deep water and swift currents.

  Charlie stood up abruptly, startling Will out of his thoughts. “See ya, kid. Sorry we can’t do business.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve, eyeing the empty dishes with a hungry look as he started away.

  “Wait!”

  Charlie was back in a flash, sitting down and grinning.

  “All right,” Will said, his heart pounding. “I’ll make it five dollars now, and fifteen more when you take me there. But I have to see them. I have to know for sure it’s them before you get your money.”

  Charlie was ecstatic. So what if the purse was twenty dollars lighter when Hugh and Riley got their hands on it? Who would be the wiser? The gloved hand shot across the table. “Done!”

  Will didn’t take the extended hand this time. Instead he reached in his pocket and, keeping the purse under the table where Charlie couldn’t see it, found a five-dollar note and shoved it into the clutching fingers. It disappeared in an instant into a fold in the greasy shirt.

  “I don’t know where they are tonight,” Charlie said, “but I know where they’ll be for sure night after tomorrow. I’ll meet you at the back entrance to the tavern here night after tomorrow at eleven o’clock. Then I’ll take you to them.”

  “All right.” Will stood up, wanting to get away from the creepiness of the man. “Night after tomorrow night, eleven o’clock.”

  Charlie cackled happily again, leering at him. “You sure you want to do this, boy?”

  Will hesitated only for a moment, then his jaw tightened. “I’m sure.”

  * * *

  The McIntires, mother and daughters, were baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Tuesday, January eighth, 1839, the third day after their arrival in Far West. Brigham Young was out in the countryside with a small group of men seeing to the needs of families in isolated homesteads, but Heber C. Kimball and John Taylor, both Apostles, were there, along with a hundred or so others. Normally converts were not an uncommon occurrence. But to have a family—and a Roman Catholic family, at that—join the Church at a time when the Saints were in such doleful circumstances was unusual, and many came out to witness it.

  The baptism was held a short distance north of the city, where a place on Shoal Creek had been dug out so that it was deep enough to provide a baptismal site. It was determined that the services should be held first thing in the morning before any of their enemies might be out and about, and when the group arrived shortly after sunup there was a thin skim of ice across the top of the water.

  Jenny McIntire was dressed all in white, as were her mother and sister. Rebecca and Jessica had found white dresses to borrow for Sister McIntire and Kathryn, but no one had something that would fit Jenny’s slender form. So they had located some flour sacks made of bleached cotton, turned them inside out, bleached them even whiter with lye and soap, and then sewed them into a skirt. Lydia had furnished the white blouse to complete Jenny’s baptismal dress.

  As Matthew moved to the water’s edge, Jenny removed her coat, then stepped out of her shoes onto the dry grass that lined the stream bank. Matthew watched her in open admiration. Her nose wrinkled slightly as the coldness of the ground hit her, and the freckles across the bridge of her nose almost melted together. She had pulled back her hair away from her face and woven it into a long braid that came to the center of her shoulder blades. In the early-morning rays of the sun, it was almost a strawberry blond rather than its usual light brown color. But it was her eyes he loved the most. Large and pale blue, they were filled with life and excitement and amusement and affection for him all at the same time.

  “Are you ready?” he said.

  Her head bobbed once, and she held out her hand to him.

  Matthew gasped as he stepped into the water and the ice crackled and broke beneath his feet. Clenching his teeth, he turned and flashed her that disarming grin of his. “It’s not that bad, Jenny,” he managed.

  “I don’t mind at all,” she said, smiling back at him with such pure joy that it made him ashamed he had even thought about the water temperature. When they reached the deepest part of the stream, Matthew stopped, then turned to Jenny. For a moment, their eyes locked. Then he reached out and took her wrist in his left hand. Very solemn now, he raised his right hand to the square, bowed his head, and closed his eyes. Immediately Jenny and all those looking on followed suit.

  “Jennifer Jo McIntire,” Matthew intoned, “having been commissioned of Jesus Christ, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”

  He laid her back, letting her sink into the water, watching closely to make sure her hair went completely under with the rest of her. Then he pulled her up again. As she came out of the water, she was gasping from the cold, but her eyes flew open and a radiant smile filled her face. She wiped the water from her eyes, then touched Matthew’s arm. “Thank you, Matthew Steed. Thank you.”

  Kathryn went in next, excited but anxious. She was twelve, and so much like Jenny in some ways—the blue eyes, the perky little upturned nose—and yet not like Jenny at all in others. Her hair was almost jet black, and she was much more serious of disposition. She made no pretense about how the water affected her, gasping and doing a little hop from one foot to the other as if that might somehow warm her a little.

  Again Matthew positioned himself and the hand came up. “Kathryn Marie McIntire, having been commissioned of Jesus Christ. . . .”

  As the women gathered around the two sisters, wrapping them in blankets and sitting them on chairs to get their feet off the ground, Nancy McIntire stepped to Mary Ann Steed and whispered something in her ear. There was a surprised look, then an immediate nod. Sister McIntire then turned to where Benjamin stood at the edge of the stream holding out his hand for Matthew.

  “Brother Benjamin Steed,” she said.

  He turned. “Yes?”

  “Considering your health and the condition of the water, perhaps it is better to have Matthew baptize me as well.”

  Benjamin frowned and shot Mary Ann a look.

  “No, ’tis my idea, not your wife’s. I have listened to your cough these past three days and have started to regret my haste in asking that you do this for me.”

  “Ben,” Mary Ann said, “she’s right. It’s not wise.”

  He nodded thoughtfully, then looked back at Sister McIntire. “Do you remember the scripture you quoted to me the other night? About leaving lands and houses?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “And you would deny me the privilege of baptizing you because of a cough?” He sounded incredulous.

  For a long moment she stood there. Then a slow smile spread across her face. “Of course not, Brother Steed. It was foolish of me to en
tertain such a thought.” Half turning, and adding noticeably to the lilt in her Irish brogue, she spoke to Matthew. “Aye, laddie, out of the water now with ye. Let’s see if a couple of old folk are as tough as you wee ones.”

  * * *

  Nathan, Joshua, and Joshua’s family had made near record time from Savannah, Georgia, to St. Louis, Missouri. In New Orleans, Joshua had found the captain of one of the smaller steamboats that hauled mainly freight up and down the river. The captain was waiting for a load of cotton to come in, but when Joshua offered him five hundred dollars cash if he would leave immediately, the load was forgotten.

  After some discussion, they had decided to forgo any searching along the way. Though she had first wanted to watch for him, stopping at each town, even Caroline now felt a growing urgency to get to St. Louis as quickly as possible and start their search there. It took them eleven days—five to New Orleans, and with the captain making only occasional stops to resupply his wood and water needs, they made it to St. Louis in six more.

  It was shortly after nine o’clock on the night of January tenth when they came down the gangplank and Joshua paid the captain the balance of his money. One of the cabin boys darted off to fetch a carriage, and as it rattled up a few minutes later, Joshua turned to Caroline. “Shall we find a boardinghouse first and get the children settled?”

  “No!” She was exhausted and her face was drawn and gaunt, but there was no question in her mind. “Let’s go to see Mr. Samuelson. We’ve got to know if Will is here.”

  * * *

  “This is a most pleasant surprise,” Walter Samuelson said, shaking his head as he opened the door to his large home and motioned them inside. “I didn’t expect you back half so soon, Joshua.”

  “Have you seen Will?” Caroline blurted.

  He looked surprised. “Will?”