Pillar of Light

by Gerald N. Lund

  Abigail Pottsworth had come too, bringing Jenny and Andrew Stokes. Jenny was with child now and starting to show. There was a brief, awkward moment between her and Will, but warm and sincere congratulations from Andrew. Then they moved back to stand with the others.

  Brigham came up to Will, who stuck out his hand. Brigham brushed it aside and swept him up in a crushing hug. “See, young Will?” he growled in a low voice. “I told you that day on the ship that you just had to be patient and you’d come to know.”

  “You were right,” Will laughed back at him. “I wish I had just trusted you.”

  Heber followed, nearly crushing Will’s hand as he congratulated him on his decision. Joseph said nothing, just gripped Will’s hand and smiled broadly at him. Then he moved to Olivia and gave her a hug. He whispered something in her ear that made her smile.

  Finally, Joseph came to Caroline. Brigham and Heber were over with Joshua and Carl, reminiscing about the time Carl and Melissa had put the two Apostles up in their home in Kirtland. It gave Joseph the opportunity he was looking for. He reached out and touched her hand briefly. She smiled radiantly at him.

  “You are right, you know,” he said softly. “I know that you are filled with doubts about the wisdom of your course of action, but it is right that you should accept this gift that Joshua’s offered you.”

  “I know. I worry that he still resents it down deep inside, but it is his gift. And I’ve waited so long.”

  Joseph leaned forward a little. “He’s a good man, Caroline. Don’t give up on him.”

  “I won’t.” She had to blink quickly to fight the sudden burning in her eyes.

  “This is not an easy thing he’s done here. Just remember, you don’t have to make him a Mormon.” He smiled gently. “That’s the Lord’s work. You just love him.”

  She nodded, unable to speak.

  By quarter past six, all the greetings and the congratulations were done. Gradually everyone stepped back, the anticipation rising as Joseph stepped forward. Joseph spoke briefly from the third chapter of John, where Nicodemus was told by Jesus that except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. Then he just simply reaffirmed that what these three good people were doing was pleasing to God. Though several shot sidelong glances at Joshua at that point, Joseph did not, nor did any of the family. Joshua took note of that and was grateful. He sensed that while Joseph was not skirting around what he wanted to say because of Joshua, neither was he using his talk as a way to preach to Joshua.

  In less than five minutes Joseph was through. He signaled for Matthew. “I think you are going to baptize this young lady and young man, are you not?”

  Matthew grinned happily. “I am.”

  “Then let’s proceed.”

  Matthew came forward, took Olivia by the hand, and led her into the water. The water was brown and sluggish and still quite cold from the spring runoff. Olivia walked out until she was waist deep. Then she turned, smiling brightly at her mother.

  Matthew gave her a quick smile, then took her arm. His right arm came up, the elbow bent, the arm pointing straight at the sky. He bowed his head and closed his eyes, and Olivia did the same.

  “Olivia Mendenhall Steed,” Matthew intoned, firmly enough that those on shore could hear, “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.”

  His eyes opened, his hand came down. Matthew tightened his grip on her right arm now, holding her back with his other arm. Down she went. The water engulfed her, and Matthew looked quickly to make sure her long hair had gone completely under. Then he pulled her up. She flung her head from side to side, whipping water away from her eyes and spraying Matthew. He just grinned and held out his arms. She came into them, laughing and crying. “Congratulations, Livvy,” he whispered.

  “Thank you, Uncle Matthew.”

  Will was next. He strode out boldly, almost as though he would push the river aside now that he had his answer. Do my will and you will know. Well, that was what he was here for. It was time for doing. He gave Matthew a broad smile. Up came the hand. Both closed their eyes. The brief but significant prayer was repeated. Again a body was immersed in the river’s water so that a soul could be cleansed.

  A smattering of applause rippled through the crowd. Caroline could barely see Will and Matthew hugging, so swiftly her tears were flowing. Then she felt a hand on her arm. She turned. Benjamin was standing beside her. “Are you ready, Caroline?” Then with a soft hoot of derision he added, “What a question!”

  Caroline was barely aware of the water’s touch as she followed Father Steed into the water. She turned, feeling as if the warmth of the Spirit was already racing through her every vein. She started to look at the encircling faces but then changed her mind. She turned to Benjamin, wanting to watch his face, wanting to let him see hers. This was the man who, perhaps more than any other person, was responsible for her being here on this day. She loved and respected him so deeply. Only if Joshua had been a Church member would she have wanted someone else standing by her side at this moment.

  Benjamin smiled, then gently took her arm in his left hand as he raised his other hand to the square. “Caroline Mendenhall Steed,” he began. She closed her eyes. “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.”

  Down she went, the water enfolding her; and then almost before she could comprehend its embrace she was up again. Benjamin released her and she reached up and wiped the water from her eyes; then her hands continued upward, pulling her

  hair back away from her face. “Thank you, Father Steed,” she whispered.

  He put his arms around her and pulled her to him softly,

  even as she started to cry. “No, thank you,” he said, weeping unashamedly with her.

  She came out of the water and back up on the bank. Will started toward her. Olivia stepped forward. But she only smiled at them. She walked straight forward, past the outstretched towel that Mary Ann was holding, past Nathan and Lydia and Joseph and all the others. She walked straight to Joshua and into his arms, soaking the front of his shirt and vest. “Thank you, Joshua,” she cried in a hoarse whisper. “Thank you for allowing this day.”

  Chapter 32

  It was late in the afternoon of June fourth when the midwife and Mary Ann Steed came out of Derek and Rebecca’s house. Most of the family were standing in the front yard talking quietly to each other. Derek swung around and went swiftly to the two women. All the others went instantly quiet and turned eagerly to listen.

  “You have a new baby, Derek,” Mary Ann said in weary happiness.

  “I do?”

  “Yes, and Rebecca is fine.”

  “What is it?”

  Mary Ann smiled at him. “What did you want?”

  He hesitated a moment. “Rebecca thought it was a girl. All along I’ve felt it was going to be a brother for Christopher.”

  She nodded thoughtfully. “And do you have names picked out?”

  He grinned and looked at Father Steed. “If it’s a boy, we thought it was time we had a little Benjamin around here. We’ll call him Benjamin Derek Ingalls. If it’s a girl, we’d like to call her Mary Ann Ingalls.”

  The midwife was beaming now, enjoying Mary Ann’s little delaying game. Mary Ann nodded again at Derek, then looked to her husband. “I think you win this one, Benjamin.”

  There was a soft gasp from those around him, and then they clapped their hands. Derek let out a whoop as Mary Ann said, “Come in and see your new son, Papa.”

  The record does not clearly state what happened between the end of May and the third week of June. Bennett had made his public confession and things seemed to be settling down again. Perhaps further evidence of Bennett’s misdeeds came forth. Perhaps Joseph felt his repentance was not sincere. Whatever the reason, on June eighteenth Joseph spoke to a huge group of Saints assembled near the
temple. In the words of Wilford Woodruff, he “spoke his mind in great plainness concerning the iniquity, hypocrisy, wickedness, and corruption of General John Cook Bennett.”

  Furious, Bennett went to Joseph and threatened to expose him to the world unless he publicly retracted what he had said. He would write letters to newspaper editors. He would write a book telling all of Joseph’s secrets. Joseph, no stranger to calumny and false witness, was unmoved and unmoveable. Even though he had already voluntarily taken his name off the rolls of the Church, on June nineteenth John C. Bennett was formally excommunicated from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Three days later, Bennett abruptly left Nauvoo.

  In what came to be known as the Wentworth Letter, Joseph Smith had boldly declared: “No unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing. . . . The truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent, . . . till the purposes of God shall be accomplished, and the Great Jehovah shall say the work is done.”

  Being a man of enormous and preening ego, when Bennett fell from grace he struck back in fury. The prophetic promise was that no unhallowed hand could stop the work. There was no promise that the unhallowed hand would not try.

  Learned, articulate, suave, charming, and with considerable talents, John C. Bennett came into the Church like a summer storm, quickly moving into its highest circles—mayor, major general in the Nauvoo Legion, chancellor of the newly formed University of the City of Nauvoo, Assistant President of the Church. Then secretly, insidiously, treacherously he began to work the works of darkness. By the time the Church realized just how unholy his hands truly were, he had wreaked enormous damage.

  On May sixth, 1842, Lilburn W. Boggs, ex-governor of the state of Missouri, was nearly assassinated by an unknown assailant. At first, no one even thought of the Mormons. Boggs had been a vastly unpopular governor and, at the time, was in the midst of a hotly contested state senate race. In Jackson County a suspect was found—the “many corroborating circumstances leave no doubt of this man’s guilt,” the papers stated.

  Enter John C. Bennett.

  In a series of letters to the editor of the Sangamo Journal, a Springfield paper, Bennett rehashed all of his previous charges against Joseph—spiritual wifery, Nancy Rigdon, Melissa Schindle, and so on. Swearing that he had left the Church voluntarily after he saw the corruption in the leadership and that his former confessions of guilt had been given under severe duress, he now took a new tack. In one of the letters, he said that Joseph had paid Orrin Porter Rockwell fifty dollars to assassinate Lilburn Boggs. The timing was perfect. Rockwell had been in Jackson County with his wife, who had returned to her family there to have a baby. And Rockwell’s name was perfect. Known to be fiercely loyal to Joseph, Porter was fearless in battle, was a crack shot with pistol or rifle, and had become legendary during the Mormon War. He was hated by the Missourians and was still wanted on charges stemming from the war.

  Bennett, seeing a rich opportunity, traveled to Independence and introduced himself to Boggs. Almost overnight the story now changed. The suspect already in hand was suddenly acquitted of all charges, and Boggs went before a justice of the peace and swore out a deposition accusing Porter Rockwell and Joseph Smith of attempted murder.

  It was a blistering hot afternoon in late July. The humidity was high and the sun shone down from a cloudless sky. Trees, flowers, bushes, cornfields, and humans all wilted under its merciless rays. Joshua had his shirt unbuttoned and fanned himself continuously as he sat in the office of his freight business working over the books. The windows were opened, but no breeze stirred and the air was heavy and ripe with the smell of his own sweat.

  Though the office for the freight yard was still where it had always been, near the west end of Sidney Street, the corrals and stables were now empty and in the process of being dismantled. With the population of Nauvoo still soaring—it had been announced a week earlier that it topped nine thousand—Joshua’s freight business was booming. He now ran almost thirty wagons all over the state of Illinois and back and forth between Nauvoo and St. Louis. He was up to almost a hundred horses and mules and oxen. Land within the city had grown too precious to consume with stables and corrals. So, using the handsome profit he had made on his raft of lumber, he purchased a large parcel of land east of town and built new corrals, stables, barns, and storage sheds. Next week, when the ones here were gone, Joshua would deed the land over to his father and Nathan, and they would begin to develop it into prime building lots, sharing half the profits with him.

  In truth, he reflected, all of the Steeds were prospering. The Steed family store was doing a brisk business. Nathan was working on putting another row of storerooms across the back and opening up some of the front ones for more store space. Lydia and Caroline still supervised the running of the store, but with its success, they now had hired a full-time woman and three part-time clerks to attend to the daily working of it. Matthew and Carl were both richly benefitting from the booming growth in the city. The woodworking shop run jointly by Matthew and Brigham Young had such a high demand for cabinets, furniture, railings, fireplace mantels, and a hundred other products, that they too had become employers as well as owners. Brigham was still heavily involved in his work as President of the Quorum of the Twelve, so they hired two men—one full-time, one part-time—to help Matthew at the shop.

  Carl’s two brickyards were working double shifts six days a week. He opened another kiln in early June but still could not keep up with the demand. Carl was now one of Nauvoo’s more well-to-do citizens. Even Derek, who was content with his ten acres of farmland down near the river, was doing well. His assignment of acreage in what had once been a swamp proved to be a blessing. The rich soil was producing some of Nauvoo’s finest corn, beans, squash, and tomatoes. His produce sold readily as soon as it was harvested.

  It was a good time, even for him, Joshua had to concede to himself. His father had been right. His decision to withdraw his opposition to the baptism of his family had paid off in rich dividends. Caroline was radiantly happy. Will had not said another word about going to sea, even though Joshua knew there was a growing restlessness in him. Olivia was like a child again, and the love between her and her father blossomed into something very special to Joshua. That didn’t mean that his feelings about the Church and plural marriage had changed at all. He made no attempt to hide those feelings, but neither did he feel that he had to keep waving the flag in front of his family to remind them of where he stood. And they in turn did not try to persuade him that he was wrong. In a way, the whole issue had become like a room in their marriage that had been shuttered up and closed off. It was always there. They passed back and forth by it a dozen times a day, but they never opened the door to step inside or to try and air it out.

  He set his pen down and leaned back, fanning himself more swiftly with a book. It was an interesting contrast between himself and Carl. Melissa had never rebounded from the shock of what she had heard that night in Heber Kimball’s home. Though she claimed she was still saying her prayers and reading the Bible and the Book of Mormon, she and the children had not been to a worship service since that night. She still steadfastly refused to talk about it. This was far more than a closed room for them. It was a sealed tomb. It was as though she had erased any memory of it from her mind. On those few occasions when Caroline or Lydia or Mary Ann did try to talk about her feelings, she would simply turn away, as if they hadn’t spoken.

  Carl had come to some kind of inner resolution with what the Mormons were doing—not acceptance, but a wary tolerance. He too spoke little of it. But things had changed. He still loved living in Nauvoo and being part of the Steeds, but it had been several years since he had been with his family. His sons and daughter had a wonderful relationship with all their cousins here, but they also had cousins in Kirtland. They loved Father and Mother Steed, but they had another set of grandparents they barely knew. More and more, he and Melissa started talking about maybe making a visit back to Kirtland. An extended
visit.

  With a sigh, Joshua set the book down and went back to work. The sooner he was finished here, the sooner he could leave the unbearable heat of the office.

  Ten minutes later, Joshua was startled when the door to the office opened and Joseph Smith stepped inside. “Hello, Joshua.”

  “Well,” he said, standing up, “this is a surprise.”

  Joseph nodded and came across and shook his hand. Since the whole thing with plural marriage, Joshua had not seen much of Joseph. This was partly because of the press of matters on Joseph’s mind now, partly because Joshua had avoided Joseph whenever possible. Their relationship was still amiable, but there was also a definite coolness in Joshua now. Joseph had not seemed to notice or, if he did, had not let it affect his feelings at all.

  “I was out east of town yesterday,” Joseph said. “That’s quite an operation you’ve made for yourself out there.”

  “Yes. We really didn’t have a lot of choice. We had to expand and there just isn’t room here.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Joseph said heartily.

  Joshua pointed to a chair. “Come in and sit down.”

  Joseph did so, and Joshua went around behind his desk again and took his chair. “I heard about Bennett going to Missouri and meeting with Boggs. Believe it or not, I’m sorry about that, Joseph.”

  “Thank you.”

  “What do you think will come of that?”

  There was an enigmatic shrug. “The Missourians aren’t after legal redress, Joshua. If they get me back to Jackson County, I’m a dead man. So we’ll fight it in the courts.”