Pillar of Light

by Gerald N. Lund

  “When does it leave?” Will asked.

  “Noon.”

  “Tell them you want to take boarding immediately. That way you won’t have to try and find a place to stay tonight.”

  “Is that allowed?” Benbow asked in surprise.

  Both Turley and Will nodded together. “If they don’t have all the quarters ready, some of us can sleep on deck,” Will explained. “It might be a little chilly, but it shouldn’t be that bad.”

  “Thank you, young man,” Turley said, extending his hand. As Will shook it, the missionary leader went on. “I have never met your father personally, but I heard about what he did for your family during the siege of Far West. You have every reason to be proud. I do know your uncle Nathan and your grandfather and grandmother very well. It will be a pleasure to have you travel with us.”

  “Thank you,” Will responded, feeling a little guilty that he had thought the man to be stern. Then he had an idea. “Would you like me to take the people to the boat while you go and purchase the tickets?”

  “Good idea.” He turned. “Folks, we have passage. We leave tomorrow at noon.”

  A cheer went up and several clapped their hands together. They were glad to be off the ship and on land, but they were also as ready as Will to get the journey done with. They had set sail from Liverpool on September eighth. Today was October twenty-fourth. That meant six weeks at sea with only brief stops at New York, Savannah, and Tallahassee. The weariness showed in their bodies and in their faces, but so did their excitement to know they were about to begin the last leg.

  “Mr. Steed here will be traveling with us,” Turley went on. “He has family in Nauvoo too. So if you’ll follow him, he’ll show you the way to go. Brother Benbow and I will go purchase our tickets. We shall sleep on the boat tonight.”

  As the people sprang into action, grabbing suitcases and valises, trunks, baskets, fabric sacks, or whatever else they carried their things in, Will saw Jenny reach down and pick up the same heavy trunk she had brought aboard. It wasn’t a full-size sailing trunk, but it was larger than most valises or cases and she lifted it with some effort.

  Will stepped forward. “May I help you with that?” he offered.

  She swung around, surprised. Then her face darkened. “I thought crew members weren’t allowed to help with the luggage.”

  “I’m not crew anymore,” he said evenly, trying to hold his temper.

  “You are to me,” she snapped.

  “Jenny Pottsworth, you stop that this instant.” Abigail Pottsworth was onto her daughter angrily and yanking the case from her hand. “This young man has apologized to us, and we’ll not be treating him so flippantly if you don’t mind.” She handed the case to Will. “We’d be most appreciative of your help, thank you.”

  Jenny picked up a smaller case and stepped around them, her head held high. Will watched her flounce away, amused and intrigued and irritated all at the same time. He let her reach the street and start to turn the corner, then called out, softly laughing to himself. “Not that way, Miss Pottsworth. That’s the way to the sailing docks. Unless you want to return to England, you’d better go the other way. The riverboat docks are to the left, up the street.”

  She spun around without a word and went the opposite direction.

  The sky was clear, the stars so brilliant and so numerous as to make the mind hurt with the contemplating of their numbers. The moon was little more than a sliver just coming up in the eastern sky, but the lights on the far shore gave definition to the wide expanse of river that moved slowly past him.

  Will watched the moon, lost in thought. Some six or seven hundred miles north of where he now stood, this same moon would be visible over the place they called Nauvoo. Was his father even now standing on the porch and looking up at it? Was his mother there too, holding the baby brother he had never seen? Were Olivia and Savannah there with them, counting the same stars that filled the sky over his head? Probably not, he decided. The night air here was cool and pleasant, but that far north it would likely be putting frost on the ground about now. His family would be inside, but still under the same moon and stars and sky.

  For six weeks now he had lived with the news that his father wasn’t dead. He could scarcely believe it. There had been too many months of numbing pain, too many months of wishing there had been even a chance for one last farewell to his father. There was also the pain of living with his own stupidity, knowing that his bravado attempt to track down his father’s killers had cost him two years away from his family. Now that was all the more bitter. It wasn’t just his mother’s company he had lost for two years.

  A sound behind him brought him around. It was Mrs. Pottsworth and Jenny, walking slowly along the deck toward him. He straightened, unconsciously tensing in preparation for another verbal jousting match.

  “Good evening, Mr. Steed.”

  Will inclined his head slightly. “Mrs. Pottsworth. Miss Jenny.”

  “Good evening,” Jenny said, her voice bland and unreadable.

  “We’ve come out to enjoy the evening. I had heard there were such places on the earth, where even in the dead of winter one could walk about in one’s shirtsleeves, but I never thought I’d live to see it.”

  Will turned and looked out across the river. “And there are places south of here, in the Caribbean, that would make this seem like a very cold night.”

  “And I suppose you’ve seen them all,” Jenny said.

  There wasn’t anything definite in her voice but Will sensed the challenge. So did her mother, for she shot her a dirty look. But Will’s previous mood was still on him and he was not willing to launch into another round of contention. “Only a few,” he said.

  “Like where?” Mrs. Pottsworth asked, genuinely interested.

  He half turned, so he didn’t have to watch Jenny’s face. “Mexico. Cuba. Jamaica.”

  “What about China?” Jenny asked. “I thought you’d been to China.”

  He turned his head, but this time was surprised to see that she was watching him openly, without any rancor. “Yes, Canton was very warm too. We were there in January and saw many of the coolies working without their shirts.”

  “Coolies?” she asked.

  “Yes, that’s what they call their laborers over there.”

  “Well, I declare,” Mrs. Pottsworth said. “No shirts in January.”

  Jenny was looking at him narrowly. “You’re not just funning with us, are you?”

  He laughed. “No, I swear.”

  “You’ve seen so much for a young man,” her mother said.

  “Not by any choice of mine,” he muttered softly.

  Just then Mrs. Pottsworth spied someone going inside the main cabin. She leaned forward, peering. “Oh, there’s Brother Benbow. I have a question for him.” She started away.

  Jenny, watching Will steadily, called after her. “I’ll be along shortly, Mum.”

  Mrs. Pottsworth waved airily. “All right.”

  Caught by surprise, Will watched Jenny for a moment, then blushed when she caught him at it. He turned back to lean against the rail. In a moment, she did the same, a few feet away from him. They stood there for almost a minute before she spoke again. “It’s so big,” she breathed softly.

  “The river? Yes, it is.”

  “I thought the River Ribble in Preston was one of the grandest in the world. Then I saw the Mersey River in Liverpool and thought that had to be the biggest ever.”

  “Some of the men I sailed with, they claim there’s a river in South America that is so big at its mouth you can’t see from one shore to another.”

  “I can’t imagine such a thing. This is big enough for me.”

  “Mississippi is an Indian word meaning ‘big river.’ They also call it the Father of Waters.”

  She turned now to look at him. “Have you seen a real Indian?”

  He was tempted to laugh. It was such a childlike question. But then he remembered he had asked Joshua Steed exactly the same quest
ion that day in Savannah when he had told Will he was from Missouri. “Independence—that’s in Jackson County, Missouri—that’s where I lived. It’s only about twelve miles from Indian Territory. We saw Indians all the time. There’s thousands of them out there from a dozen or more tribes.”

  “Jackson County,” she said in sudden awe. “You actually lived in Jackson County?”

  Puzzled, he bobbed his head. “Yes, why is that so surprising?”

  “That’s where Zion is. That’s where the New Jerusalem is going to be built.”

  “Oh,” he said, feeling suddenly deflated. Mormon talk. He had heard it from the settlers in Jackson County. It was partly what had brought on the war.

  “Why do you hate the Mormons so?” she asked abruptly.

  Startled, he turned to look at her. “I don’t hate the Mormons. I . . . I just used to. I thought they were the ones who killed my father.”

  “But they weren’t.”

  “I know. So I don’t hate them anymore.”

  “But you’re having a hard time getting rid of it.”

  “Look,” he said, enjoying this too much to let it end. “I said I was sorry. And I meant it.”

  “And I’m sorry too,” she said with sudden contriteness. “I guess I’ve just seen so much of it back home. Ever since Mum and me joined the Church, people laugh at us, jeer at us. We’ve even had rocks thrown at us from time to time.”

  He stared at her.

  She looked up at him from beneath lowered lashes. “I guess that’s why your comments about not liking Mormons kind of set me off.”

  He gave her a rueful grin. “Kind of?”

  She laughed, then totally surprised him by sticking out her hand. “What say we’re friends, then,” she said. “I’d like someone to tell me all about America.”

  He took her hand and shook it once, then withdrew it quickly. “Well, I don’t know everything. But I’ll be happy to tell you what I do know.”

  “Tell you what,” she said, giving him a full smile, the first one he had seen from her that was directed at him. It completely dazzled him. “Let’s meet out here on deck. Right at the front of the boat. Eight o’clock every morning. Then you can tell me about everything we are seeing.”

  He hesitated only for an instant, and then he remembered he wasn’t crew anymore. He was a passenger, just like her. Just like all the rest. “I’d like that,” he said.

  “Good.” She started away, after her mother, then abruptly turned back. “Will?”

  He looked up, half-startled.

  She blushed slightly. “Do you mind if I call you Will?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Good. And I’m Jenny. No more of this Miss Pottsworth.” She hesitated, growing very serious now. “It won’t be anything more than just friendship.”

  “What?”

  “It can never be anything more than friendship, you know. Because you’re not a Mormon. I’m saving myself for a Mormon boy. Like Peter.” Her color darkened even more. “Or Matthew.”

  He just stared at her, his lips parted in amazement. He couldn’t believe what she was saying. Was she always like this, just blurting out whatever was going through her mind?

  “I just wanted you to know that,” she said, then turned and was gone.

  Chapter Notes

  The proposal to build a temple was approved by the Saints in the October 1840 conference. Excavation for the basement began shortly thereafter, and a stone quarry was opened on the outskirts of the city (see CHFT, p. 242). John C. Bennett, who would figure so prominently and so disastrously in later history, joined the Church in the late summer of 1840. He was the one primarily responsible for drafting the Nauvoo Charter and getting it passed through the Illinois legislature in December 1840. (See CHFT, pp. 222–23.)

  Brigham was sensitive about his poor writing abililty and his phonetic way of spelling. Some lines from a letter to Willard Richards show his willingness to poke fun at himself: “Be careful not to lay this letter with the new testment wrightings. If you doe som body will take it for a text after the Malineum a[nd] contend about it.” (Quoted in MWM, p. 158.)

  The first Mormon emigrant ship to leave England in the summer of 1840 sailed to New York, and then the Saints traveled by steamboat and train to Nauvoo, a journey which, with a winter layover in Pennsylvania, took them a total of nine or ten months. Later ships sailed on from New York around Florida to New Orleans and up the Mississippi to Nauvoo, an all-water route that was both less expensive and considerably shorter in time. (See CHFT, p. 234.) The author has taken the liberty to have the second official group of emigrants, who sailed on the North America, go by way of New Orleans. In actuality, the third group, who left five weeks later on the Isaac Newton, was the first to take this route.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Are we crazy to even think about it, Nathan?”

  Nathan looked around, eyeing the exposed rock. It was a high-quality limestone, ranging from light gray to almost pure white. In his mind, he tried to picture how deep it went below where they were standing and what it would take to quarry enough out of the site to build a temple. Then he grinned. “Probably.”

  Joseph laughed softly. “You were supposed to say, ‘Not at all, Brother Joseph. I think it is a wonderful idea.’ ”

  “I do think it is a wonderful idea! But that doesn’t make the task any easier.”

  “I know, I know. It’s just that I keep thinking of the sacrifice it took to build the Kirtland Temple. And it took so long.”

  Down below them, closer to the river, Benjamin, Alpheus Cutler, and the others of the building committee came out of the trees. They were walking slowly, heads down as they examined the quarry site. There were four different quarries in the Nauvoo area, but this was the temple quarry, which had opened not quite three weeks before. The first of the large blocks had already been cut and moved to the temple site. Nathan watched his father and the others as he considered Joseph’s words. “That’s true. But look at what happened because we did what the Lord asked.”

  “Oh, yes,” Joseph said instantly. “When I think of that great season of spiritual power we enjoyed, it made every sacrifice worth it.”

  “There are many more of us now,” Nathan added. “That will help a great deal.”

  “Yes.” Joseph laid a hand on his shoulder. “And Nathan, it is of great significance that we do it. God has important things to reveal to us, and they have to do with the temple.”

  “Like before?” Nathan asked, thinking of the stunning series of revelatory experiences that had come during the dedication of the Kirtland Temple.

  “Even more. And we must have a place for our baptisms for the dead. The Lord has given us permission now to perform those ordinances in the river, but it will not always be so. The Lord wants them performed in his house.”

  Nathan was nodding. Benjamin had come home one night all excited and told the family about Joseph’s plan to have a baptismal font in the basement of the temple. It was to rest on the back of twelve oxen, just like the great laver in Solomon’s temple.

  Joseph turned, looking toward the city now. “Ah, Nathan, it is a wonderful time. A wonderful time.”

  “It is, Joseph.”

  “I feel such an urgency about this,” he said, half to himself. “The Lord has so much to give us and there is so little time.”

  That startled Nathan. “So little time?”

  That brought Joseph out of his thoughts. “Yes. You know what I’ve said before. Our destiny does not lie here, but in the Rocky Mountains.”

  Nathan was shaken by that thought. Yes, he had heard Joseph say that very thing on more than one occasion, but that was before Nauvoo. That was before they had found themselves a new home. “Are we to leave this place, then?” he asked forlornly, suddenly feeling quite dejected.

  Joseph laughed heartily. “Someday, Nathan. But for now, this is our home, and we are to do all we can to build it up. This is the task the Lord has given us to do.”

/>   He turned back toward the quarry and the river, watching the committee below them examining the walls of exposed limestone. Then he sat down and patted the ground beside him. “I can see the brethren are taking their assignment seriously. Let’s sit for a spell.”

  Nathan did so. The day was overcast and right on the edge of being cold, but they had their coats on and it was not entirely unpleasant. Joseph pulled out a dried piece of grass and began to chew on it, his eyes thoughtful and far away again.

  “Joseph?”

  “Yes?”

  “You’re very different since Liberty Jail, did you know that?”

  He chuckled. “That’s what Emma keeps saying too. She says she can’t believe I’m home so much now.”

  “No, it’s more than that.”

  He looked at Nathan squarely now. “Like what?”

  Nathan shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s like you’re so . . .” He groped for a good word. “So seasoned now. So much more mature.”

  “Oh,” Joseph said with a straight face, “so I was immature before?”

  Instantly Nathan’s face flushed. “No, I . . . I was only trying to say—” He stopped, knowing that Joseph was only having some fun at his expense. “I mean it. There is so much more depth to what you’re teaching us now. That discourse on priesthood that you gave at conference, I’m still trying to digest it all. Baptism for the dead. Some of the things you’ve said about the second coming of the Savior. I mean, it’s almost like every time I listen to you, I go away reeling.”

  “So not only was I immature, now I make you dizzy.”

  Nathan laughed sheepishly. “I’m not saying it very well,

  but . . . well, I’m not the only one who’s commented on this.”

  Now Joseph sobered. “I know, Nathan. I’m just funning with you.” He pulled the piece of grass out and flicked it away. “Do you know what day today is, Nathan?”

  He thought for a moment, then shook his head.

  “It was exactly two years ago today that the attack at Haun’s Mill took place.”

  “Oh.”

  “We have been through the refiner’s fire, Nathan. I have. The Church as a whole has.”