by Zane Grey
“What is your name?” asked Judge Stone, leaning back and fixing the cavernous eyes upon her.
“Ruth Jones,” was the cool reply.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty.”
“Where were you born?” went on the judge. He allowed time for the clerk to record her answers.
“Panguitch, Utah.”
“Were your parents Mormons?”
“Yes.”
“Are you a Mormon?”
“Yes.”
“Are you a married woman?”
“No.”
The answer was instant, cold, final. It seemed to the truth. Almost Shefford believed she spoke truth. The judge stroked his chin and waited a moment, and then hesitatingly he went on.
“Have you — any children?”
“No.” And the blazing eyes met the cavernous ones.
That about the children was true enough, Shefford thought, and he could have testified to it.
“You live in the hidden village near this town?”
“Yes.”
“What is the name of this village?”
“It has none.”
“Did you ever hear of Fre-donia, another village far west of here?”
“Yes.”
“It is in Arizona, near the Utah line. There are few men there. Is it the same kind of village as this one in which you live?”
“Yes.”
“What does Fre-donia mean? The name — has it any meaning?”
“It means free women.”
The judge maintained silence for a moment, turned to whisper to his assistants, and presently, without glancing up, said to the woman:
“That will do.”
Ruth was led back to the bench, and the woman next to her brought forward. This was a heavier person, with the figure and step of a matured woman. Upon removing her bonnet she showed the plain face of a woman of forty, and it was striking only in that strange, stony aloofness noted in the older men. Here, Shefford thought, was the real Mormon, different in a way he could not define from Ruth. This woman seated herself in the chair and calmly faced her prosecutors. She manifested no emotion whatever. Shefford remembered her and could not see any change in her deportment. This trial appeared to be of little moment to her and she took the oath as if doing so had been a habit all her life.
“What is your name?” asked Judge Stone, glancing up from a paper he held.
“Mary Danton.”
“Family or married name?”
“My husband’s name was Danton.”
“Was. Is he living?”
“No.”
“Where did you live when you were married to him?”
“In St. George, and later here in Stonebridge.”
“You were both Mormons?”
“Yes.”
“Did you have any children by him?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“Two.”
“Are they living?”
“One of them is living.”
Judge Stone bent over his paper and then slowly raised his eyes to her face.
“Are you married now?”
“No.”
Again the judge consulted his notes, and held a whispered colloquy with the two men at his table.
“Mrs. Danton, when you were arrested there were five children found in your home. To whom do they belong?”
“Me.”
“Are you their mother?”
“Yes.”
“Your husband Danton is the father of only one, the eldest, according to your former statement. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Who, then, is the father — or who are the fathers, of your other children?”
“I do not know.”
She said it with the most stony-faced calmness, with utter disregard of what significance her words had. A strong, mystic wall of cold flint insulated her. Strangely it came to Shefford how impossible either to doubt or believe her. Yet he did both! Judge Stone showed a little heat.
“You don’t know the father of one or all of these children?” he queried, with sharp rising inflection of voice.
“I do not.”
“Madam, I beg to remind you that you are under oath.”
The woman did not reply.
“These children are nameless, then — illegitimate?”
“They are.”
“You swear you are not the sealed wife of some Mormon?”
“I swear.”
“How do you live — maintain yourself?”
“I work.”
“What at?”
“I weave, sew, bake, and work in my garden.”
“My men made note of your large and comfortable cabin, even luxurious, considering this country. How is that?”
“My husband left me comfortable.”
Judge Stone shook a warning finger at the defendant.
“Suppose I were to sentence you to jail for perjury? For a year? Far from your home and children! Would you speak — tell the truth?”
“I am telling the truth. I can’t speak what I don’t know.... Send me to jail.”
Baffled, with despairing, angry impatience, Judge Stone waved the woman away.
“That will do for her. Fetch the next one,” he said.
One after another he examined three more women, and arrived, by various questions and answers different in tone and temper, at precisely the same point as had been made in the case of Mrs. Danton. Thereupon the proceedings rested a few moments while the judge consulted with his assistants.
Shefford was grateful for this respite. He had been worked up to an unusual degree of interest, and now, as the next Mormon woman to be examined was she whom he had loved and loved still, he felt rise in him emotion that threatened to make him conspicuous unless it could be hidden. The answers of these Mormon women had been not altogether unexpected by him, but once spoken in cold blood under oath, how tragic, how appallingly significant of the shadow, the mystery, the yoke that bound them! He was amazed, saddened. He felt bewildered. He needed to think out the meaning of the falsehoods of women he knew to be good and noble. Surely religion, instead of fear and loyalty, was the foundation and the strength of this disgrace, this sacrifice. Absolutely, shame was not in these women, though they swore to shameful facts. They had been coached to give these baffling answers, every one of which seemed to brand them, not the brazen mothers of illegitimate offspring, but faithful, unfortunate sealed wives. To Shefford the truth was not in their words, but it sat upon their somber brows.
Was it only his heightened imagination, or did the silence and the suspense grow more intense when a deputy led that dark-hooded, white-clad, slender woman to the defendant’s chair? She did not walk with the poise that had been manifest in the other women, and she sank into the chair as if she could no longer stand.
“Please remove your hood,” requested the prosecutor.
How well Shefford remembered the strong, shapely hands! He saw them tremble at the knot of ribbon, and that tremor was communicated to him in a sympathy which made his pulses beat. He held his breath while she removed the hood. And then there was revealed, he thought, the loveliest and the most tragic face that ever was seen in a court-room.
A low, whispering murmur that swelled like a wave ran through the hall. And by it Shefford divined, as clearly as if the fact had been blazoned on the walls, that Mary’s face had been unknown to these villagers. But the name Sago Lily had not been unknown; Shefford heard it whispered on all sides.
The murmuring subsided. The judge and his assistants stared at Mary. As for Shefford, there was no need of his personal feeling to make the situation dramatic. Not improbably Judge Stone had tried many Mormon women. But manifestly this one was different. Unhooded, Mary appeared to be only a young girl, and a court, confronted suddenly with her youth and the suspicion attached to her, could not but have been shocked. Then her beauty made her seem, in that somber company, indeed the white flower for
which she had been named. But, more likely, it was her agony that bound the court into silence which grew painful. Perhaps the thought that flashed into Shefford’s mind was telepathic; it seemed to him that every watcher there realized that in this defendant the judge had a girl of softer mold, of different spirit, and from her the bitter truth could be wrung.
Mary faced the court and the crowd on that side of the platform. Unlike the other women, she did not look at or seem to see any one behind the railing. Shefford was absolutely sure there was not a man or a woman who caught her glance. She gazed afar, with eyes strained, humid, fearful.
When the prosecutor swore her to the oath her lips were seen to move, but no one heard her speak.
“What is your name?” asked the judge.
“Mary.” Her voice was low, with a slight tremor.
“What’s your other name?”
“I won’t tell.”
Her singular reply, the tones of her voice, her manner before the judge, marked her with strange simplicity. It was evident that she was not accustomed to questions.
“What were your parents’ names?”
“I won’t tell,” she replied, very low.
Judge Stone did not press the point. Perhaps he wanted to make the examination as easy as possible for her or to wait till she showed more composure.
“Were your parents Mormons?” he went on.
“No, sir.” She added the sir with a quaint respect, contrasting markedly with the short replies of the women before her.
“Then you were not born a Mormon?”
“No, sir.”
“How old are you?”
“Seventeen or eighteen. I’m not sure.”
“You don’t know your exact age?”
“No.”
“Where were you born?”
“I won’t tell.”
“Was it in Utah?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How long have you lived in this state?”
“Always — except last year.”
“And that’s been over in the hidden village where you were arrested?”
“Yes.”
“But you often visited here — this town Stonebridge?”
“I never was here — till yesterday.”
Judge Stone regarded her as if his interest as a man was running counter to his duty as an officer. Suddenly he leaned forward.
“Are you a Mormon NOW?” he queried, forcibly.
“No, sir,” she replied, and here her voice rose a little clearer.
It was an unexpected reply. Judge Stone stared at her. The low buzz ran through the listening crowd. And as for Shefford, he was astounded. When his wits flashed back and he weighed her words and saw in her face truth as clear as light, he had the strangest sensation of joy. Almost it flooded away the gloom and pain that attended this ordeal.
The judge bent his head to his assistants as if for counsel. All of them were eager where formerly they had been weary. Shefford glanced around at the dark and somber faces, and a slow wrath grew within him. Then he caught a glimpse of Waggoner. The steel-blue, piercing intensity of the Mormon’s gaze impressed him at a moment when all that older generation of Mormons looked as hard and immutable as iron. Either Shefford was over-excited and mistaken or the hour had become fraught with greater suspense. The secret, the mystery, the power, the hate, the religion of a strange people were thick and tangible in that hall. For Shefford the feeling of the presence of Withers on his left was entirely different from that of the Mormon on his other side. If there was not a shadow there, then the sun did not shine so brightly as it had shone when he entered. The air seemed clogged with nameless passion.
“I gather that you’ve lived mostly in the country — away from people?” the judge began.
“Yes, sir,” replied the girl.
“Do you know anything about the government of the United States?”
“No, sir.”
He pondered again, evidently weighing his queries, leading up to the fatal and inevitable question.
Still, his interest in this particular defendant had become visible.
“Have you any idea of the consequences of perjury?”
“No, sir.”
“Do you understand what perjury is?”
“It’s to lie.”
“Do you tell lies?”
“No, sir.”
“Have you ever told a single lie?”
“Not — yet,” she replied, almost whispering.
It was the answer of a child and affected the judge. He fussed with his papers. Perhaps his task was not easy; certainly it was not pleasant. Then he leaned forward again and fixed those deep, cavernous eyes upon the sad face.
“Do you understand what a sealed wife is?”
“I’ve never been told.”
“But you know there are sealed wives in Utah?”
“Yes, sir; I’ve been told that.”
Judge Stone halted there, watching her. The hall was silent except for faint rustlings and here and there deep breaths drawn guardedly. The vital question hung like a sword over the white-faced girl. Perhaps she divined its impending stroke, for she sat like a stone with dilating, appealing eyes upon her executioner.
“Are you a sealed wife?” he flung at her.
She could not answer at once. She made effort, but the words would not come. He flung the question again, sternly.
“No!” she cried.
And then there was silence. That poignant word quivered in Shefford’s heart. He believed it was a lie. It seemed he would have known it if this hour was the first in which he had ever seen the girl. He heard, he felt, he sensed the fatal thing. The beautiful voice had lacked some quality before present. And the thing wanting was something subtle, an essence, a beautiful ring — the truth. What a hellish thing to make that pure girl a liar — a perjurer! The heat deep within Shefford kindled to fire.
“You are not married?” went on Judge Stone.
“No, sir,” she answered, faintly.
“Have you ever been married?”
“No, sir.”
“Do you expect ever to be married?”
“Oh! No, sir.”
She was ashen pale now, quivering all over, with her strong hands clasping the black hood, and she could no longer meet the judge’s glance.
“Have you — any — any children?” the judge asked, haltingly. It was a hard question to get out.
“No.”
Judge Stone leaned far over the table, and that his face was purple showed Shefford he was a man. His big fist clenched.
“Girl, you’re not going to swear you, too, were visited — over there by men... You’re not going to swear that?”
“Oh — no, sir!”
Judge Stone settled back in his chair, and while he wiped his moist face that same foreboding murmur, almost a menace, moaned through the hall.
Shefford was sick in his soul and afraid of himself. He did not know this spirit that flamed up in him. His helplessness was a most hateful fact.
“Come — confess you are a sealed wife,” called her interrogator.
She maintained silence, but shook her head.
Suddenly he seemed to leap forward.
“Unfortunate child! Confess.”
That forced her to lift her head and face him, yet still she did not speak. It was the strength of despair. She could not endure much more.
“Who is your husband?” he thundered at her.
She rose wildly, terror-stricken. It was terror that dominated her, not of the stern judge, for she took a faltering step toward him, lifting a shaking hand, but of some one or of some thing far more terrible than any punishment she could have received in the sentence of a court. Still she was not proof against the judge’s will. She had weakened, and the terror must have been because of that weakening.
“Who is the Mormon who visits you?” he thundered, relentlessly.
“I — never — knew — his — name.
“But you’d k
now his face. I’ll arrest every Mormon in this country and bring him before you. You’d know his face?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t. I COULDN’T TELL!... I — NEVER — SAW HIS FACE — IN THE LIGHT!”
The tragic beauty of her, the certainty of some monstrous crime to youth and innocence, the presence of an agony and terror that unfathomably seemed not to be for herself — these transfixed the court and the audience, and held them silenced, till she reached out blindly and then sank in a heap to the floor.
XI. AFTER THE TRIAL
SHEFFORD MIGHT HAVE leaped over the railing but for Withers’s restraining hand, and when there appeared to be some sign of kindness in those other women for the unconscious girl Shefford squeezed through the crowd and got out of the hall.
The gang outside that had been denied admittance pressed upon Shefford, with jest and curious query, and a good nature that jarred upon him. He was far from gentle as he jostled off the first importuning fellows; the others, gaping at him, opened a lane for him to pass through.
Then there was a hand laid on his shoulder that he did not shake off. Nas Ta Bega loomed dark and tall beside him. Neither the trader nor Joe Lake nor any white man Shefford had met influenced him as this Navajo.
“Nas Ta Bega! you here, too. I guess the whole country is here. We waited at Kayenta. What kept you so long?”
The Indian, always slow to answer, did not open his lips till he drew Shefford apart from the noisy crowd.
“Bi Nai, there is sorrow in the hogan of Hosteen Doetin,” he said.
“Glen Naspa!” exclaimed Shefford.
“My sister is gone from the home of her brother. She went away alone in the summer.”
“Blue canyon! She went to the missionary. Nas Ta Bega, I thought I saw her there. But I wasn’t sure. I didn’t want to make sure. I was afraid it might be true.”
“A brave who loved my sister trailed her there.”
“Nas Ta Bega, will you — will we go find her, take her home?”