Pillar of Light

by Gerald N. Lund

  Alice smiled back at Carl. “Thank you, Mr. Rogers.”

  Carl pulled a face. “Really, Alice, since you’re going to be part of the family, you’ve got to stop calling us Mr. Steed and Mr. Rogers.”

  Alice gasped a little and went a deep crimson. Melissa looked at her husband sternly. But Carl was in a strange mood, it seemed. He ignored his wife, ignored Joshua’s glowering countenance, and turned to Will. “Well, it’s no secret, is it, Will? Don’t you love this girl?”

  Alice dropped her head, not daring to meet Will’s eyes, absolutely mortified.

  Will looked down at her, then went down on one knee to face her. “I’m glad you asked that, Carl, because the answer is yes. I love Alice Samuelson, and I’m glad she’s here, because on the way here from Galena I decided I was going to sail right on down to St. Louis and ask her father for her hand in marriage.”

  As the whole family erupted with applause and cries of congratulations, Alice’s head came up slowly. Her eyes were wide and shining with disbelieving joy. Will leaned forward, took her face in his hands, and kissed her gently. “That is, assuming Miss Samuelson approves.”

  That was enough to even put Joshua’s dismay at her announcement of baptism aside. He jumped to his feet and strode across to them. “You really mean it?” he said, clapping Will on the shoulder.

  “I do.”

  Caroline was up too. By the time she reached Alice, Alice was up and walked right into her arms. “Welcome to our family, Alice.” Caroline pulled back and smiled at her. “I told you I thought there might be something to wait around for.”

  Now the others crowded in, pounding Will on the back, grasping their hands, hugging Alice, and shedding a few tears of joy together.

  When things finally settled down a little, Kathryn suddenly started slapping the arm of her wheelchair with the flat of her hand to get everyone’s attention. As they quieted and turned to her, she held up both hands. “In light of this wonderful announcement, there is a request I would like to make of this couple.”

  “What?” Will asked, standing beside Alice, and turning to face Kathryn.

  Now the room was all but still. “I know this is a lot to ask of two people who are so much in love, but I’m wondering if you might consider postponing your wedding somewhat.”

  There were soft cries of surprise and dismay. “Postponing it?” Will asked with a puzzled expression. “What for? I mean, we haven’t even set a date yet.” He laughed. “Alice is still trying to get her breath here.”

  That won him a round of good-natured laughter all around.

  “Actually,” Kathryn said, very sober now, “I was wondering if you might postpone it long enough to plan a double wedding.”

  For several seconds it didn’t register. A puzzled look was on every face. “Double wedding?” Lydia finally said. And then her eyes flew open and her hand went up to her mouth. “You, Kathryn?”

  Suddenly she was as red as Alice had been a moment before. “Yes—that is, if I can get Peter here to propose to me, like Will just did to Alice.”

  Every eye turned to Peter but he didn’t see them. Thunderstruck, he gaped at Kathryn.

  It was Matthew who reacted first. He reached out, grabbed Peter by the arm, and propelled him toward Kathryn’s chair. “Are you daft, man? The lady just asked you for a proposal of marriage.”

  Peter took two steps forward, haltingly. His gaze was fixed on Kathryn’s face, still in complete astonishment.

  Rebecca handed the baby to Derek and got to her feet. She picked up where Matthew left off, taking Peter by the hand and leading him to Kathryn’s chair. “Go down on one knee like Will did,” she whispered. “That was a very nice touch.”

  He did, only slowly, still dazed. Kathryn was laughing at him now, and crying at the same time. “You really mean it?” he stammered.

  “Yes, Peter.”

  “But . . . but why?”

  “Why?” Joshua said softly, grinning widely. “You have to ask why at a time like this?”

  But Kathryn knew exactly what he meant. She reached out and touched his bare arm, covered now with angry red cuts and scratches. She caressed it gently with her fingertips. “Because you came,” she murmured.

  Five days later and some thirty miles southeast, Solomon Garrett came in from putting his horse in the barn. As he entered the back door, Jessica and the children were all waiting for him at the end of the hall. He smiled at the expectant look on their faces. “Well, what have we here?”

  Jessica held up the letter she was holding. “This came today. It’s from Lydia.”

  “Oh? And how are things in the City of Joseph?”

  Jessica smiled. Out of habit almost everyone still called it Nauvoo, but since last April conference when the name had been officially changed to the City of Joseph, her husband never slipped. It was always the City of Joseph.

  “Can I tell him, Mama?” young John cried out. “Please?”

  “I want to. I want to,” Mark chimed in.

  “No, I get to,” Luke said with finality. “I brought the letter home from the postmaster.”

  Little Miriam, now just two, stuck her hand in the air and started dancing up and down, even though she had no idea what she was vying for. Solomon laughed and scooped her up in his arms. “This must be very good news,” he said to Jessica.

  She nodded happily. “The best, Solomon. The very best.”

  “Papa?”

  “Yes, John.”

  “Can we go to Nauvoo and see Alice and Kathryn get married?”

  They were at the supper table now. John barely waited for the blessing on the food to be said before making his request. Solomon nodded. “Of course. We wouldn’t miss that.”

  Jessica smiled at her son, the only child she had borne with John Griffith before he was killed at Haun’s Mill. “Kathryn has asked Rachel to be one of her bridesmaids. Do you know what that means, John?”

  “No.”

  “Well, it means that—” She stopped, realizing that what she was about to say wouldn’t make much sense to a seven-year-old. “Actually, it is someone who is there at the wedding who . . .” She shook her head. “How do you explain what a bridesmaid is?”

  Rachel turned to her brother. “It’s someone who dresses up in their prettiest dress and stands by Kathryn when she’s being married so she’ll have someone to share in her joy.”

  “Oh.” That made sense.

  “When will the wedding be?” Mark asked.

  Now Jessica spoke up. “They didn’t say. Alice wants to be baptized first, and she is going to write to her parents and tell them. It will take a couple of weeks to get their reply.”

  “That kind of surprised me,” Solomon said. “I would have thought Alice would go back to St. Louis to tell her parents about the baptism and the wedding.”

  “Reading between the lines,” Jessica answered, “I think she wants to break it to them by letter first and see what they say.”

  “That may be the wisest move if Joshua is right about how her father’s going to react.”

  “Do you have to be baptized before you can get married, Mama?” Mark asked.

  She laughed. “No. Alice just wants to, that’s all.”

  Solomon had a thought. “If Mother and Father Steed come home in a month or two to get their endowments, as President Young has said, I’ll bet they’ll wait until they’re back.”

  “Of course they will,” Jessica said. “I hadn’t even thought about that yet.”

  “When will that be, Papa?” Rachel said, looking disappointed.

  “Not until late October, or perhaps early November.”

  “Then we can’t go see them until then?” The disappointment was heavy.

  Solomon looked at Jessica, who smiled, then nodded. “Oh,” he answered, “I think this news is so good, we should go over and see the family right away. What do you think?”

  That won him an instant chorus of acclamation. “Oh, yes, Papa. Yes.”

  “When co
uld we go?” Rachel cried.

  Jessica watched the excitement that swept around the table, not wanting to douse their enthusiasm. “Remember, school is scheduled to begin in two weeks. And your father is going to leave in a few days to see how the common schools are coming along.”

  Solomon decided to rescue Rachel. “I’ll tell you what. Today is the eighth of September. I leave on the tenth, but I’ll be back on the thirteenth, or the fourteenth at the latest. Then we can leave the following day. How’s that?”

  “How long can we stay?” Luke demanded to know.

  “Four or five days.” Then, at the look on Jessica’s face, he added, “Starting school a little late will be all right. How many of your students are going to complain at that?”

  “Oh, Mama, can we?” Rachel said, turning to Jessica. Her eyes were shining with excitement.

  Jessica laughed. “Your father is the best judge of these things.”

  “Yea!” Mark shouted. He started doing a little wiggle-dance right in place in his chair. “We’re going to Nauvoo! We’re going to Nauvoo!”

  As they settled down to eating again, Jessica looked at her husband. “Where all do you plan to go?”

  “I’ll go straight to Yelrome because that will likely take me the longest time. Father Morley is anxious to have their common school get started on the right foot and he has many questions. Then I’ll slip on up to Green Plains before starting back. I don’t think Bear Creek is ready, but I’ll talk to them on the way.”

  A look of concern had darkened Jessica’s eyes. “You’re not going into Warsaw, are you?”

  “No. Not this time.”

  “Good. And you’ll not be stopping in Carthage?”

  “Nope. Just passing through it on my way there and on my way back home.”

  Her face smoothed again. Nothing more needed to be said, especially not in front of the children. There were many places in Hancock County where one could find anti-Mormon sentiment, but Warsaw and Carthage were the two centers. It was not by chance that Joseph and Hyrum had been killed in Carthage by a mob mostly made up of Warsaw militia. And things were stirring again. Since his acquittal the previous spring for the murders of Joseph and Hyrum, Thomas Sharp, editor of the Warsaw Signal, had been whipping up the anti-Mormon sentiment again. Only now he was getting more and more popular support.

  “Pa?” Mark said, setting his fork down. “Is it true that Yelrome is named after Brother Morley, only spelled backwards?”

  “Of course it’s true,” Luke answered for his father.

  “Yes, son,” Solomon agreed. “Yelrome was settled by Father Morley, and so his people decided to call it Yelrome, which is his name spelled backwards.”

  Mark’s face screwed up in puzzlement. “But it doesn’t work.”

  “What doesn’t work?”

  “Yelrome spelled backwards is E-more-ly, not Morley.”

  “They added the e to make it Yel-rome and not Yel-rum,” Solomon explained.

  “Oh.” Mark thought about it. “That’s kinda dumb. Why not do it right?”

  Luke shook his head. “Because Yel-rum is dumb!”

  “Hush, Luke,” Jessica said gently. “Don’t you be talking that way to your brother. Now, you all finish up supper. Rachel and I have to start getting the textbooks ready.”

  Chapter Notes

  Nauvoo is known to have had severe thunderstorms at this time. On 20 August 1845, a man was struck by lightning and killed in Nauvoo (see HC 7:436). Thomas Bullock, who often recorded comments on the weather in his journal, wrote an entry under the date of 3 September, the same date depicted in the novel: “The most terrific hail storm I ever saw came on. Thunder awful, lightning tremendous. The hail fell, and lumps of ice two inches in circumference smashed 26 panes in my house, cut the corn into ribbons, leveled every thing else in the garden. It came from the N. West and lasted about 3 quarters of an hour.” The following day he wrote that virtually every glass window in Nauvoo that fronted the north was smashed. (See “Journal of Thomas Bullock,” pp. 15–17.)

  Chapter 16

  Thomas Sharp had the eyes of a hawk—bright, glittering, taking everything in with intense, darting glances; then, fixing on their prey, they would become like two rounded pieces of glowing obsidian. His nose was large and hooked, his mouth tight and drawn down, all of which further added to the impression of a raptor on the hunt.

  He sat at the front of the single large room at the Green Plains schoolhouse. It was jammed with men. They lined the walls and spilled outside. Some stood at the open windows peering in. Most of them he knew. Most of the crowd was either from here in Green Plains or from Warsaw, six miles to the northwest. There were a few from Carthage and other surrounding settlements. But even the ones he couldn’t have identified by name were familiar faces. More important, named or unnamed, the faces were hard, bitter, angry. In that one thing the crowd was as one—they hated Mormons and were willing to do something about it. When the time was right, they could be molded for his purposes, but for now Sharp was content to listen and watch.

  Colonel Levi Williams and Frank Worrell were the ones doing the talking at the moment. Or rather they were shouting. Ostensibly, the meeting was called to discuss protecting their property rights from encroachment by the Mormons. But it was quickly turning into an anti-Mormon rally. Sharp watched Williams harangue the crowd. This was the colonel’s town. As he railed at them, he kept calling on men by name. “Abner, you’ve been wronged by the Mormons, haven’t you?” “James, wasn’t it you that had a cow stolen by a couple of Mormon boys?” “Walter, are you ready to have the Mormons steal away your property rights?” And so on. He was working them well, with Frank Worrell chipping in from time to time.

  Sharp was patient because he understood people. It was always like this. It took time to get a crowd going. It took some doing to ratchet them down to the point where they were ready to act and not just bellow. And for that, Worrell and Williams made a good team. They were highly popular—almost adulated—by the men. Both had played a central role in the killing of the Smith brothers the year before. A lot of men bragged about going after Joseph Smith, but Levi Williams had been one of the leaders of the men who stormed the jail. There were whispers that he had been the one who actually fired the shot that killed Joseph Smith, but Sharp had questions about that.

  Frank Worrell had been in command of the squad of Carthage Greys who were supposedly charged to protect the Mormon prisoners. He and his men conveniently “fled” when the mob with painted faces came running down the street. He too was a hero in their eyes.

  Yes, thought Sharp, these two were good for doing what had to be done tonight. Then, when the mood was right, the brighter mind and the sharper tongue would take over. He smiled at his own unintended pun. The Sharp-er tongue. Not a bad description. The men who descended on Carthage Jail may have looked upon Levi Williams as a leader, but it had been the Thomas Sharp speech given a few miles west of the county seat that had put the steel in their backbones and sent them racing off to storm the jail. And before that, it had been the editorials of Thomas Sharp that fanned the flames of resentment to the point where the whole county was howling for the blood of Joe Smith. Yes, he thought, Williams and Worrell might have been there to smell the gunpowder on that day of 27 June 1844, but it was the Sharp tongue that made it all possible.

  He gave them another ten minutes, then slowly rose to his feet. Instantly the roar dropped off. He moved forward and laid a hand on Frank Worrell’s arm. Flushed with excitement, breathing hard from shouting at the crowd, Worrell immediately nodded and sat down. Levi Williams took only one moment to speak further to the upturned faces. “Friends, neighbors, we are here tonight to cope with a very real danger to our community. If there has been one man who from the beginning has clearly seen that danger and helped us cope with it, it is our own distinguished Thomas Sharp, from Warsaw. Let’s hear it for Mr. Sharp now.” And then he sat down.

  The crowd went wild, whistling, roaring, sh
outing, stamping their feet until the small building shook. Sharp smiled, holding up his hands in acceptance of their adulation. They’re ready now, he thought as his hawk’s eyes swept from man to man. Yes, they’re ready.

  He stood there for almost a full minute, letting the men have their way, letting the roar roll around him. Then finally he raised his arms higher, signaling for a suspension of the noise. Gradually they gave him what he wanted and the room was quiet again. He looked around, letting his eyes move from one face to another, pausing long enough for them to know he had seen who they were and acknowledged their presence. Then he took a deep breath and began.

  “Thank you!” he called loudly, wanting even those outside to hear him clearly. “Thank you for coming in this hour of crisis.” Suddenly he slapped the speaking stand hard with the flat of his hand. “For this is an hour of grave crisis. Do you not agree?”

  “Yes!” It was ragged, because they had not expected it, but it was affirmation.

  “The Mormons threaten everything we hold dear here in Hancock County, don’t they?”

  “Yes!”

  “Do you not agree that for over a year now we have been patient in waiting for the state to do something about this problem?”

  Now they were in rhythm with him and the answers came as one voice. “Yes!”

  “Has the state done one thing to help us solve this problem?”

  “No!”

  “Oh,” he said with heavy sarcasm, “I disagree. Our namby-pamby governor sent out the state militia last fall, as you remember. To stop the Mormons? No! To disarm the Nauvoo Legion? No! For what, then? To harass us, that’s what. To prevent us from doing what every citizen has a right to do, and that is to protect our rights. Isn’t that true?” he cried.

  “Yes!”

  “Where are the Mormons now? Were they broken up after Joe Smith died?”

  “No!”

  “Have they left the state as they told us they were going to?”