Pillar of Light

by Gerald N. Lund

  “Pa!” his son cried, and ran to drop beside him. At the same time, Derek ran to Matthew and backed up to him, trying to take the noose up and over his head with his tied hands. There was already a bright red welt, two inches wide, all around Matthew’s neck.

  Webster stepped away, looking at the men now. “All right, boys. You said you’re not interested in a lynching any more than I am. So this is over right now. Caleb, go cut those two men free.”

  There were slow nods, almost a visible relief. One of them pulled out a knife and went to Derek and Matthew. Another man was staring at the bulky figure on the ground before them. “What are you going to do, John?”

  “I’ll wait here for Pulse to wake up. The rest of you take the dogs and go on home.”

  “He’ll kill you!” Willie said, but curiously it was not said with anger. There was genuine concern for John Webster’s safety.

  Webster shook his head. “Once the liquor wears off he’ll be manageable.” There was a rueful grin. “He’ll want to fight, but I can handle that.”

  Free now, Derek helped Matthew to his feet and Caleb cut his hands loose as well. “What about us?”

  Webster considered only for a moment. “Did you mean what you said about leaving Arkansas? Going home?”

  “Yes. This was the last thing we planned to do.” There was a momentary, humorless smile. “Probably not our best idea.”

  “Take that horse,” Webster said, pointing to the one Matthew had been on, “and mine—the pinto there. You can leave them in Bonnerdale at the general store. Then git on out of here.”

  The missionaries nodded wearily. “Thank you.”

  Webster’s face was very somber. “We know you meant well, coming out here to see us and all, but we’re quit of the Church now. It’s best you not come back.”

  There were grunts and angry nods from a couple of the men. Had Webster taken the missionaries in warmly, he might have had a rebellion. But if they were leaving the state, well then . . .

  Matthew walked slowly to the horse. He took the reins and led it back as Derek got the pinto from where it was tied. As they swung up into the saddles, Matthew looked down. “Was that your boy who came to warn us this morning?”

  Webster looked puzzled and shook his head. Willie Scadlock stood up, still looking down at his father. “No, that was my brother. Ma sent him.”

  Matthew nodded. “May God bless her for her goodness.”

  Derek looked down at the man with the rifle. “And God bless you, John Webster.”

  There was a curt nod; then Webster turned and walked over to kneel down beside Pulsipher Scadlock. “Get some water from the creek, Willie,” he said. He did not look up as Matthew and Derek rode back out to the road and turned south toward Bonnerdale.

  * * *

  “How’s your neck?”

  Without thinking, Matthew turned to look at Derek and winced as he did so. The welt around his neck had turned into an ugly mass of bruised and scraped flesh. It looked like some kind of horrible clerical collar. But Matthew forced a smile. “I think it’s stretched an inch or two. Jennifer Jo’s going to have to go up on tiptoes to kiss me now.”

  Derek chuckled. “What ever made you spur your horse that way?”

  Matthew sobered. “I don’t know. It was just a flash of thought. Suddenly I realized that Scadlock had made a mistake. He should have tied the rope to something solid or gotten on another horse and wrapped it round the saddle horn. He’s a big man, but I’m near to a hundred seventy-five pounds myself, I’d say. I just suddenly pictured that much weight hitting the end of the rope and knew that he couldn’t hold it, especially if he wasn’t ready for it.” He shook his head. “It takes longer to describe it now than it took for it all to come clearly into my mind.”

  Derek said nothing. There was no need to. They rode on for several more minutes before Matthew spoke again. “When we get back to Little Rock, I’d like to start home.”

  “I think it’s time,” Derek said. “Seems like we wore out our welcome here.”

  Chapter 13

  By the time Derek and Matthew returned to Little Rock and closed out their affairs and started home, it was the twentieth of February. It took them three more days to cover the one hundred and forty miles to Memphis, where they caught a riverboat. Two days later they disembarked at St. Louis. The ice running in the Mississippi farther north was starting to come in big enough chunks that it could tear a hole in the keel. Anxious now to return before their babies were born, they walked, rode, hitched rides with freight wagons or local farmers, and spent as little time eating and sleeping as they could possibly get by with. It was roughly a hundred and eighty miles from St. Louis to Nauvoo, an eight- to ten-day trip overland. They made it in seven. Late in the afternoon of March fourth, slogging along in a drizzling cold rain, Derek Ingalls and Matthew Steed returned to Nauvoo, having been gone four months, two weeks, and two days, and having traveled approximately fifteen hundred miles, the better part of that on foot.

  The fortune that had smiled upon them so often during that time, and especially on the day they were pursued by Pulsipher Scadlock, continued to smile down upon them. Neither Rebecca nor Jenny had given birth by the time they arrived. It was barely five days later, on March ninth, 1845, that Rebecca Steed Ingalls gave birth to a squalling little girl whom they immediately named Leah Rebecca Ingalls. One week later, almost exactly to the hour, on March sixteenth, 1845, Jennifer Jo McIntire Steed brought forth another little girl. After some considerable debate, they named her Emmeline Steed, for Jenny’s grandmother back in Ireland.

  About three weeks later, just after midnight on the sixth of April, the fifteenth anniversary of the organization of the Church, Jessica Garrett gave birth to a whopping boy. They named him Solomon Clinton Garrett—Solomon for his father, and Clinton for Jessica’s father, who had died two years before in Independence, Missouri, not having seen his daughter since she had fled Jackson County some eleven years previously.

  In all three cases, the babies were healthy and strong. In the case of Jessica, having the baby healthy and strong brought a collective sigh of relief throughout the family. Jessica was just two months shy of her forty-first birthday when she gave birth. This would almost certainly be her last child. It was a joy to know it would also be without any problems.

  In all three cases, when the letters arrived in Nashville from the new parents, Mary Ann waited until Benjamin was gone somewhere, or asleep, and then she wept because she could not see and hold her newest grandchildren.

  On the twentieth of March, 1845, Savannah Steed, the firstborn child of Joshua Steed and Caroline Mendenhall Steed, turned eight years old. When her father asked her, some days in advance, what she wanted for her birthday, she answered without hesitation. “To be baptized.”

  Joshua merely laughed and brushed it aside. When she refused to give him any other answer, he finally bought her a beautiful little gray Shetland pony with a finely tooled saddle and matching bridle. That worked its magic for over a month and she said nothing more. But as May came and the river ice disappeared, many children—and, in some cases, new converts—who had waited through the winter went down to the spot near the ferry dock and were baptized into the Church. That did it. Though the pony was loved and dearly treasured, Savannah now realized she had been bought off.

  And life became miserable for Joshua.

  “Papa?”

  Joshua was at the small blacksmith shop they kept on the premises of his freight yard, helping prepare a horse for shoeing. He was bent over, the left front leg of the horse pulled up and held between his knees while he clipped around the edge of the overgrown hoof so it would take the shoe. At the sound of her voice, he jerked up, letting the horse’s leg slip out of his hands. “Savannah, what are you doing here?”

  “I want to talk with you, Papa.”

  “You what?”

  “I need to talk with you, Papa.”

  He shook his head, as the blacksmith stopped to watch. Th
e man, a grandfather of fifteen, smiled and waved. “Good morning, Savannah.”

  “Good morning, Brother Meyers.”

  “Savannah, how did you get here?” Joshua asked her.

  “I walked.”

  “By yourself?”

  “Yes. Mama couldn’t come.”

  He threw up his hands. “Did she know you were coming?”

  Savannah looked away, suddenly interested in the bellows that Brother Meyers had started to pump again. “What does that do?” she asked.

  “Savannah!”

  “Yes, Papa?”

  “Does your mother know you’re here?”

  “She does now.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I wrote a note.”

  The blacksmith guffawed, then at Joshua’s look quickly turned around and began to select a pre-hammered shoe that would be closest to what they would need.

  “You get yourself home right now, young lady.”

  The dark red curls bounced vigorously as she shook her head. “I need to talk with you, Papa.”

  He stepped back to the horse, turning his back on her, and picked up the front leg again. “I know what you want to talk about, and the answer is no. I’m busy, Savannah. I can’t talk.” He picked up the clippers again and started in on the hoof where he had left off.

  She stepped closer. “Ew! Doesn’t that hurt him?”

  He didn’t look up. “Savannah, I mean it.”

  She looked up at the horse’s face, as if she hadn’t heard him. She watched intently as the clippers snipped off another piece of hoof. “Why doesn’t it hurt him?” she asked of the blacksmith this time.

  “Because the hoof is much like our fingernails,” he said, “only much thicker, of course. Does it hurt when you cut your fingernails?”

  “I don’t cut them. I always chew them off.”

  Joshua just shook his head as Meyers hooted. The blacksmith brought the shoe over and laid it against the horse’s foot as Joshua set the clippers aside. The shoe was too round and it extended past the edge of the freshly clipped hoof. Meyers took a pair of tongs, put the shoe in the pincers, and shoved it into the glowing coals.

  “What are you doing that for?”

  “Watch, and I’ll show you.”

  Joshua had to smile. This wasn’t just her way of stalling. Whatever it was she had come to talk to him about—as if he didn’t know—was forgotten for the moment as she watched with fascination something she didn’t understand.

  “The bellows pump more air into the fire,” Meyers explained, pumping the bellows with one hand and adjusting the placement of the shoe in the fire with the other. “That makes the fire get very, very hot and this gets the iron in the shoe very hot. When the iron gets hot enough, then its softer and I can hammer it into shape. Watch.”

  After waiting another minute, he withdrew the shoe, which was now glowing cherry red.

  “Oh,” Savannah gasped in amazement.

  Meyers swung around to the big anvil, picked up a two-pound sledgehammer, and began to tap the shoe firmly, sending off hot sparks.

  “Won’t it burn the horse?” she asked, her eyes wide.

  “Nope.” He hit it again, held it up for scrutiny, pounded on the edge a couple more times, then turned and thrust the shoe into a tub of water. There was a fierce, momentary sizzle, and a wisp of steam rose from the water. After a brief pause, he withdrew the shoe and walked back to the horse. Joshua lifted its foot again. The fit was better this time, but still not sufficient. Back into the fire the shoe went.

  “All right, Savannah, you’ve seen how he does it. Now, off with you. Your mother will be worried.”

  “Papa, I want to be baptized.”

  He sighed wearily. “Savannah, I’ve told you and I’ve told you. When you are a little older and can understand things better, then if you want to join the Church like Olivia and Will did, I won’t say anything. But until then, no. For the hundredth time, the answer is no.”

  “But, Papa, I am old enough. I’m accounterable.”

  He cocked his head slightly. “You’re what?”

  “I’m accounterable.”

  Meyers was watching, smiling again. “I think the word you want is accountable, Savannah.”

  “Yeah, that’s it. Accountable.”

  “And just what is that supposed to mean?” said Joshua.

  “It means that when I turned eight years old, Heavenly Father said I was accounter— accountable.”

  “I know that, Savannah, but do you even know what it means?”

  She rose up, her face offended. “Of course I do. It means I’m old enough to know right and wrong.”

  Meyers, a convert to the Church from Connecticut, decided to help. “The revelations say that a child is innocent and not capable of sin until they become accountable at the age of eight. That’s why we don’t baptize a person before then. Savannah is exactly right. Accountability means a person is old enough to start realizing the difference between what is right and what is wrong.”

  Joshua merely grunted, looking at Savannah. “If you know right and wrong, how come you left home and came all the way across town without telling your mother?”

  If he had thought to trip her up with that logic, he was mistaken. “Because being baptized is the right thing to do. Even Mama believes that.”

  “No, Savannah. When you’re older, maybe. But now, the answer is no. I’m not going to say it again. Now, go home.”

  “Why does my Heavenly Father think I’m old enough to be baptized and you don’t?” she shot right back at him.

  Meyers nearly dropped the tongs and the shoe along with it. He had to stifle a laugh when Joshua shot him a withering look. He turned back to the fire, saying, just loud enough for Joshua to hear, “Sounds like a pretty good question to me.”

  “Savannah,” Joshua said, walking to her and taking her by the shoulders, “I’m losing patience now. I’ve given you my answer. And I’ve asked you to go home. Now, I want you to mind me.”

  Now her face crumpled and she began to cry. “Please, Papa. Please let me be baptized.”

  “That’s not going to work either, young lady.” He turned her around, gave her an affectionate swat across the bottom, then shoved her gently in the direction of the gate. “Go home, Savannah. I mean it.”

  She walked away, not in dejection but in defiance. Her shoulders were squared, her head high. “I’m going to be baptized, Papa,” she called over her shoulder. “You’ll see. You can’t make me not be baptized.”

  It was past noon when the door to the freight office opened and Caroline stepped in. Joshua looked up in surprise. “Hello.”

  She looked around, her face anxious. “Where is Savannah?”

  He set the pen down slowly. “You mean she’s not with you?”

  “No.” She held up her hand. A wrinkled piece of paper was in it. “She left me a note saying she had come down here. She was supposed to be over at Melissa’s with Sarah. Jane Manning was going to help them make doll clothes.”

  Joshua stood and came around the desk, his face now showing worry. “She was here, pestering me about being baptized. But I sent her home over two hours ago.”

  Caroline’s hand came up to her face. “Two hours?”

  “Yes, at least. Did you check at the other cousins’?”

  “I asked them, but they all said they hadn’t seen her this morning.”

  He went to the coatrack behind the door and took down his jacket. “I’ll come with you.”

  Darkness had come almost an hour before. Caroline sat at the kitchen table, her eyes red and puffy, her face pale, staring out the window into the night. She jumped as she heard the front door open, and was instantly on her feet. By the time she reached the doorway, Will was striding down the hall toward her. “Emily found her,” he said. “She’s all right.”

  “I didn’t think of it before,” Emily said to her aunt and uncle as they walked toward the barn Nathan and Lydia had built on the bac
k of their property. “We were playing hide-and-seek last summer. One night we couldn’t find her and Elizabeth Mary. Finally we all had to beg them to come out and show us where they were.”

  Joshua nodded grimly. Caroline reached out and laid a hand on her shoulder. The rest of the family stopped at the door of the barn, hugging themselves against the evening’s chill. Joshua, Caroline, and Emily went inside, Joshua holding the lamp up high so they could see better.

  For the last seven hours, all Steed family activities had come to a halt—the store had been closed, the brickyard and the freighting businesses were left to foremen, the cabinet shop locked and shuttered as Matthew brought his workmen with him to help. Cousins scattered, spreading out from Steed Row in every direction, calling out, lifting every bush and weed, looking behind every fence, going into every shed, outhouse, barn, icehouse and root cellar. Soon more than a dozen neighbors were in on the search as well. With every passing hour, the fear grew. It was early May now, and while the day had been sunny and warm, once the sun went down it turned quite cool. Savannah had worn neither sweater nor wrap of any kind.

  Emily led the way across the main part of the barn to a corner stable. Nathan and Lydia had only one cow and one horse, so this stable was not used for animals. It was used for storage of old equipment, tools, and lumber. Emily opened the door to the stable and pointed. Joshua saw immediately where someone had crawled through the dust into a narrow opening under the accumulated junk.

  Going up on tiptoe, Emily whispered into Joshua’s ear. “She’s in there. I heard her moving.”

  “Thank you, Emily,” Caroline said.

  Emily nodded, turned around, and left.

  Joshua dropped to his knees, set the lamp down to one side, careful to put it on a bare spot on the floor, then called out softly. “Savannah. It’s Papa. Are you in there?”

  There was a muffled response.

  “Come on out, Savannah. Mama is here too. We’re not angry with you.”