Pillar of Light

by Gerald N. Lund

  Joshua looked at his brother. “I’m going to try and talk her out of leaving, Nathan. At least leaving right now.”

  “I won’t fight you on that,” Nathan answered, “but I think we both know what she’s going to say.”

  “Maybe so, but I’m going to try.”

  “Fine.” Nathan gave him a piercing look. “And if she won’t change her mind?”

  Joshua shrugged. “That’s decided. I’ll be going with you until you get to wherever it is Brigham Young has got it in his head to stop. Then I’ll come back to my family.”

  “You don’t have to go, you know,” Matthew said. “Jenny and I will take care of her.”

  “She can also come with us,” Nathan and Derek said at the same moment.

  Joshua turned away, looking at the wagons. After several moments, he spoke, his voice far away and distant. “When I see Pa again, how could I ever face him and tell him that I let Mother go alone? Especially after what he did for Savannah.” And then before anyone could answer, he turned to Carl. “We’d better go to your barn and make sure that fourth wagon’s ready.”

  Carl nodded and they moved away. When the door to the barn shut again, Nathan looked at Derek and Matthew. “Did you hear that?” he asked with a satisfied smile.

  “What?” Matthew asked.

  “He didn’t say if he sees Pa again.”

  Derek and Matthew reared back a little, then smiled too. “Yes,” Derek said, “he did say when, didn’t he?”

  With that quiet gentleness that was as soft as fine goose down and as unbendable as the best of tempered steel, Mary Ann Steed let it be known that she would not be staying behind with Joshua and Caroline, nor would she consider delaying her departure even so much as one day in hopes that the weather would temper somewhat. She too tried to convince Joshua that she would be fine with either Matthew or Nathan and that he should stay in Nauvoo with Caroline. But in that, Joshua was as immovable as his mother.

  They finished packing the wagons, hitched the mules and the oxen and the horses, and moved them out to the street in front of Joshua’s house. Then they gathered inside Joshua’s house, more than thirty of them crowded into the sitting room for one last time. By silent acclamation, they turned to Nathan to say what had to be said.

  He cleared this throat, knowing that this was going to be difficult. “We went through the pain of saying good-bye once,” he started. “And now that pain is mingled with the pain of the loss of our father and grandfather. I don’t think any of us have it in us to go through another prolonged farewell. I would therefore suggest that we have one final family prayer, and then quietly say our farewells here. It is very cold outside, and coming down to the river will be a difficulty.”

  He paused to see if anyone disagreed with that. When no one did he nodded gravely. “Then let us kneel and petition the Lord to be with us.”

  When they reached the top of the bluff above Montrose, Iowa, Joshua, who drove the lead wagon, pulled out of line and turned to the left, driving the mules across the snow-covered landscape. The other three wagons turned off as well and followed in a line.

  Joshua was peering ahead but still almost missed it. It was Mary Ann who pointed to the rounded hump of snow. “There,” she said quietly. “There by the small oak tree.”

  He pulled the team to the left a little. “It looks like the marker has fallen down.”

  She nodded. “Probably in that terrible wind we had.”

  Swinging the mules clear around so they were headed back the way they had come, Joshua pulled them up. He hopped down lightly, then reached up to help his mother. As the others came up behind them, the two of them moved over to stand beside the grave. Joshua dropped to one knee, brushing at the snow with his hand. In a moment he found the short length of wooden planking on which crude letters had been scraped. He made no effort to stand it upright, but rather laid it on the snow-covered rocks they had used to cover the burial place.

  He turned and looked for Nathan, and waved a hand. Nathan was at the back of his wagon and Solomon and Matthew were with him. They waved back and disappeared behind the wagon. In a moment they reappeared. Nathan carried something large and flat and heavy. Matthew had a pick. Solomon had a shovel. The rest of the family had climbed down now as well and moved in behind the three of them as they came over to the grave site. They spread out to form a silent semicircle around Mary Ann and Joshua.

  Nathan stepped forward to stand beside Joshua. Now all could see that what he carried was a large, flat black piece of slate. “Here,” he said, starting to hand it over to Joshua.

  Joshua tried to wave him off. “You do it, Nathan.”

  Nathan shook his head firmly. “This was your idea.”

  He sighed and took the heavy piece of stone from Nathan. Their mother was watching with some surprise. Joshua turned the stone slate around and faced the group. It was smoothed and polished on the front, and neatly chiseled into the face of the stone were several lines of lettering. Joshua tipped it back so the light made the words clearly readable, but he kept his arm across the bottom half, obscuring what was there. What they could see was this:

  Benjamin Steed

  Born: May 18, 1785

  Died: February 9, 1846

  “We decided,” Joshua said in a husky voice, “that we wanted something more permanent than a board to mark this spot.”

  Mary Ann’s eyes were wide and filled to overflowing. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  Joshua withdrew his arm, revealing what was written on the lower half. It was the words of Brigham Young paid in spontaneous tribute to the life of Benjamin Steed:

  He found joy in the service of the Lord.

  He was beloved of his family.

  He died saving the life of another.

  And there was one final line, which was Joshua’s alone.

  Good-bye until we meet again.

  The families were in the wagons, with the flaps closed, trying to keep out some of the cold. Only the four drivers—Nathan, Joshua, Matthew, and Solomon—waited outside, watching the solitary figure kneeling at the grave. Nathan turned. From below them came the sounds of an army on the move. There was the bellowing of oxen, the whinnying of horses, the braying of mules. Drivers shouted, children yelled, women cried out to one another. Wagons creaked and rattled across the ice. Traces cracked, singletrees and doubletrees jingled.

  On the far shore, Nauvoo sat in the sunshine, mantled in white, crowned with the magnificent building on the opposite bluffs. The river was like a silver mirror frosted by someone’s breath. In a long black line which started just a short distance from where they were and stretched all the way back across the great sheet of ice to Parley Street and beyond, the wagons of Nauvoo were on the move. A hundred wagons had already crossed, and there were twice that many more still coming.

  “It’s not exactly the Red Sea,” Nathan murmured, as much to himself as to the others, “but we’ll take it.”

  “What was that?” Joshua asked.

  Nathan flung out a hand at the panorama before them. “Doesn’t this strike you as a pretty strange coincidence? I mean, here we are in the last week of February. Some years we’re starting to see the first riverboats by now, but the ice is thick enough to carry a hundred wagons and teams.”

  Joshua grunted, squinting down at the scene before them. It was a sound that was impossible to read and Nathan decided not to press him. But Solomon was not willing to simply let it go. “Brigham says we are the Camp of Israel. Why shouldn’t we expect the Lord to bless us as he did ancient Israel?”

  “Is that what you think this is?” Joshua asked. “Another miracle?”

  “Without question,” Solomon answered calmly. “Without the slightest question.”

  “Do you not see anything strange in it at all, Joshua?” Matthew asked.

  Joshua gave him a sharp look, then, to their surprise, turned and gazed on the scene before them thoughtfully. “Strange, yes. I’ll grant you that. It is highly unusual. But I
’m not ready to write it in my book of miracles yet.”

  “Why not?” Matthew said with great solemnity. “It’s the second one in two weeks for you.”

  “The second one?” Joshua asked with a quizzical look. “What was the first?”

  Matthew turned and looked to where his mother still knelt at the graveside. He did not turn back as he answered Joshua’s question. “The first was when Papa saw Savannah beneath the water and was able to dive in and reach her.”

  Mary Ann rubbed her hands softly across the polished stone, letting her fingers touch the lines of rough-cut lettering. She knelt in the snow, oblivious to the cold, unheeding of the wetness that she felt through her dress at the knees.

  “It’s time to go, Ben,” she murmured. “We have to make Sugar Creek camp by nightfall. The family’s waiting for me.”

  Half turning, she looked out to the east, to the long, snaking line of wagons and teams and families walking along beside them. Then she looked back at the headstone, now firmly buried in the frozen ground. “I’m glad you can see all this, Ben. It’s happening. It’s finally happening.”

  She stood slowly, wearily. “I don’t know how I can bear it without you, but . . .” She laughed softly in spite of the tears. “I know, I know. You don’t like me talking like that. How grateful I am that we were sealed before this happened. I know that I shall see you again, and let you hold me. But, oh, how I shall miss you until that day, Ben Steed.”

  She had a sudden insight. “Have you ever thought how many of your grandchildren carry your name? There’s Charles Benjamin Steed, and John Benjamin Griffith, and Joshua Benjamin Steed, and David Benjamin Rogers, and Benjamin Derek Ingalls. Every family has a Benjamin now except Matthew,” she smiled, “and he says they will too, as soon as they get a little boy.”

  She blinked quickly, fighting the sudden blurriness. “Does that tell you how much you were loved, Ben?”

  She stood silently for several more moments, feeling now the cold wind tugging at her scarf and piercing through her dress. She was unaware that the tears had started again and were leaving cold streaks down her cheeks. She pulled the shawl more tightly around her, not wanting to leave, not wanting to have to face the family again quite yet. She looked down one last time, then turned to go.

  She started away, back toward the wagons, her steps heavy and slow. She felt as though she were too tired to make it.

  When it came she had gone only three or four steps. It came as softly and as gently as the softest and gentlest touch of a summer breeze on one’s face. It was two words. Two words only. “Mary Ann.”

  She whirled, staring at the mound of snow and the black stone that stood at the head of it. There was nothing there. No one there. But then she nodded. She didn’t need to see. There was only one voice in all the world that had ever spoken to her with such love and sweet gentleness.

  She stared for several moments, feeling a great, soaring sense of joy and peace fill her soul. Finally, she smiled, tears of sorrow now turned to tears of joy. “Good-bye, Benjamin Steed,” she called softly. “Good-bye until we meet again.”

  Chapter Notes

  In what was considered a miracle for that late in the season, a terrible cold descended on the Great Plains in the last week of February 1846. At one point the temperature was measured at twelve degrees below zero. The river froze solid, making it possible for literally hundreds of families to cross in a short time. (See HC 7:585–98; Orson F. Whitney, Life of Heber C. Kimball, Collector’s Edition [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1992], pp. 351–54; “Journal of Thomas Bullock,” pp. 50–54; American Moses, pp. 121, 127–28; and Susan W. Easton, “Suffering and Death on the Plains of Iowa,” BYU Studies 21 [Fall 1981]: 431–35.)

  Book Eight: The Work and the Glory - So Great a Cause

  The Work and the Glory - So Great a Cause

  Text illustrations by Robert T. Barrett

  © 1997 Gerald N. Lund and Kenneth Ingalls Moe

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, Deseret Book Company, P. O. Box 30178, Salt Lake City, Utah 84130. This work is not an official publication of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The views expressed herein are the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of the Church or of Deseret Book Company.

  Bookcraft is a registered trademark of Deseret Book Company.

  First printing in hardbound 1997 First printing in paperbound 2001 First printing in trade paperbound 2006

  Visit us at DeseretBook.com

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 97-76972

  ISBN-10 1-57008-358-4 (hardbound) ISBN-10 1-57345-877-5 (paperbound) ISBN-10 1-59038- 726-0 (trade paperbound) ISBN-13 978-1-59038-726-9 (trade paperbound)

  Printed in the United States of America

  Publishers Printing, Salt Lake City, UT

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  To Kim—Kenneth I. Moe—

  without whose vision, determination,

  and dedication this series would not be.

  His friendship and influence shall be sorely missed.

  Preface

  In No Unhallowed Hand, volume 7 of the series The Work and the Glory, we saw the Steed family wrenched once again from their homes as hatred and persecution exploded into open conflagration. The Prophet Joseph Smith and his brothers Hyrum and Samuel were dead, victims of the blind rage that swept across Hancock County, Illinois, in 1844. Brigham Young and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles took the reins of leadership and quickly proved that, as Joseph had prophesied a few years before, no unhallowed hand could stop the work of God from progressing. Work on the Nauvoo Temple, a remarkable and beautiful structure, continued with even greater urgency. Missionary work was expanded and the task of proclaiming the gospel to the world hastened even further. But as thousands continued to join the Church and come to Nauvoo—that beautiful city set on a sweeping bend of the Mississippi—the enemies of the Church were stirred to action once more. Lies and misunderstandings led to accusations and threats. These quickly gave way to violence—burnings, whippings, mobbings, and eventually murder. The leaders of the Church had no choice. They would leave their beloved Nauvoo to their enemies and turn their faces west. They would find that place which God had prepared for them, far away in the West, where none would come to hurt or make afraid. Thus it was that at the end of volume 7, after the tragic loss of Benjamin, the Steeds left Nauvoo, crossed the river for the last time on a bridge of ice, and joined the camp at Sugar Creek in Iowa Territory.

  Volume 8, So Great a Cause, picks up the story at that point. It is 28 February 1846. Conditions in the camp, just seven or eight miles from Nauvoo, are wretched. It is bitterly cold. Supplies are insufficient. Many Saints have nothing more than a bedroll to shelter them from the cold. But the Steeds have most of their family there, in obedience to the call of their leader. Carl and Melissa Rogers, however, are not with the rest of the family. Still bitter over the practice of plural marriage, even the powerful bonds of love within the family are not enough to change their minds about leaving. Joshua has determined to go west so that he can care for his widowed mother and help the family find their new home, but Caroline and the children are not with him. This is Joshua’s choice and not their own.

  On March first, Brigham Young decides that they can wait no longer. The others will have to come as they can. He gives the signal and the first wagons begin rolling westward. What should have been the easiest part of their journey to the Rocky Mountains quickly becomes a never-ending nightmare as winter gives way to one of the wettest springs in memory. Roads become mile-long bogs that consume men and animals and leave them broken and exhausted. Sickness sweeps the camps. Women give birth in the most difficult of circumstances. Soon wagons are strung across a hundred miles of prairie. And Death, as it has so many times before, rides along, always seeking company.

  Now it becomes evident why Brigham Young and
Heber C. Kimball and others were sent on Zion’s Camp twelve years before. It was an experience that will now prove to be invaluable. The knowledge that Brigham and Heber gained during the exodus from Far West, while Joseph languished in the horror of Liberty Jail, is also put to the full test. Faced with the almost impossible task of taking fifteen thousand or more exiles into the wilderness and keeping them fed and sheltered, Brigham quickly shows that the prophetic mantle of Joseph Smith has been passed on to him. He will come to be known as the “American Moses,” as names like Sugar Creek, Richardson’s Point, Garden Grove, Mount Pisgah, and Winter Quarters become part of the Latter-day Saint heritage.

  Once again, through the eyes of the Steeds, now more than two dozen in number, we see the historical tapestry unfold. With them we experience the terrible trek across Iowa, slogging onward at an average rate of barely two miles per day. They are moving west toward their destiny; but for a time, at least, it looks as though that destiny approaches at a rate that is frustratingly slow. But on they move, convinced that they are engaged in so great a cause.

  It hardly seems possible that it has now been nine full years since this project began. It was the summer of 1988 when I received a letter from a person in North Carolina whom I had never before met. Kenneth I. Moe—“Kim” to his friends and family—caught me completely off guard when he said he wanted to discuss with me the idea of putting the story of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints into the form of a historical novel. He indicated that he had read all of my previous novels and felt that I was the one to author such a project.

  It is with considerable chagrin that I have to admit that I did not greet the proposal very warmly. I was flattered, of course, and told him that I had always dreamed about someday doing that very thing. But not now. I was currently in the process of creating another novel that I found intriguing and was having an enjoyable time writing—a story set at the time of the fall of Jerusalem in a.d. 70. I also indicated to Kim that because the project he had in mind was such a huge undertaking, requiring massive amounts of research, travel, purchase of books, etc., etc., I didn’t feel that I could pull away from my other writing projects to do this. I had several children in college and needed to keep generating some extra income to handle that drain on my finances.