Few people traveled to Junction in January, not if it could be helped.
The knocking was faster, louder.
I was a woman alone.
Behind me, on the cookstove, butter sizzled and popped in the skillet. I moved the skillet off the burner, then got my paring knife. January, I kept thinking. Never before in January.
My chest rattled from the force of my heart. Maybe this man wasn’t like the others. Maybe he carried a bigger kind of trouble.
Answer the door, I told myself. Even if it wasn’t the right time of year. Even if this felt wrong. Hurry. I couldn’t let him give up and go to the next cabin. That was my sister’s and I didn’t want her pulled into this. Grace and her husband, Michael, had three little boys and expected their fourth child in the spring. They didn’t need trouble on their doorstep.
The knife in my hands, my feet began to move. I bumped into the kitchen table; the kerosene lamp on it rocked. I reached out with my free hand to steady it, then circled around the table. My wool skirt wrapped around my ankles as if to hold me back but a few paces later, I was at the door. It wasn’t latched.
Fumbling some, I slid the bolt into the catch.
“Who is it?” I called through the door. The knocking stopped. I said, “What’s your business?”
Silence. Then, “I’m on my way to my brother’s.” A man’s voice. “By Pleasant Creek.”
His words came out in broken pieces, his teeth likely chattering from the cold. I understood him, though. His words were a code that told me he was a brother. A Latter-day Saint. But still, I thought. January. It didn’t fit the pattern of the past four years.
Through the door, he said, “I only need directions. Then I’ll be on my way.”
This time of year?
I said, “Pleasant Creek’s a good ways off.” This was my part of the code. It told him he’d come to the right place. Yet, it gave nothing away.
The man said, “So I’ve been told. By my brother.”
He’d just reaffirmed that he was a Latter-day Saint, a brother. If he wasn’t, though, if he intended to trick me or if he was a cattle rustler or a thief, I’d said nothing suspicious. I was saying and doing like I would for any stranger.
“My brother Joe lives there,” he said.
This was a reference to the Prophet Joseph Smith. Still, I held back. Something wasn’t right. As soon as I opened my door, I’d let in his trouble. Yet if I didn’t, he’d go to the next cabin, my sister’s. She and her family were new to Junction. They didn’t know anything about the men who came to my door asking for help, and I intended to keep it that way.
“Sister,” he said through the door. “Wherefore, if they should have charity they would not suffer the laborer in Zion to perish.”
Scripture from the Book of Mormon.
I slipped the knife into my apron pocket and with the toe of my boot, I pushed aside the small rolled rug that I kept at the threshold to block the draft. I opened the door a few inches. Cold air gusted in.
He wore a long coat. In the shadow cast by his wide-brim hat, his features were lost but I could see his beard. He wasn’t a tall man but he was broad through the chest. I felt his wariness. I felt him taking my measure. His safety was in my hands. And mine was in his.
I looked past him. His horse stood without moving, its head drooped. The day’s light had begun to fade. Snow clouds hung heavy. This man wouldn’t be going to Pleasant Creek today. Not with darkness coming on soon.
My nerves churned. Turn him away, I thought. Send him on to Nels Anderson who lived past my sister’s place on the other side of the creek. Nels would put him up for the night. I’d be done with him.
I couldn’t. Right now, I was the only one who knew about him. If he was what he claimed to be, if he was like the other men who came here, I had to follow the plan.
“It’s bitter out,” I said. I nodded toward his horse. “The barn’s in the back. There’s feed and water. And blankets to warm your horse.” I paused. He’s dangerous, a voice whispered in my head. Don’t let him in.
Yet, he knew the code. He was a brother. A Saint. It’d be wrong to turn my back on one of my own.
I gathered myself and said, “I’ve got dinner on the stove and there’s some to spare.”
“Heavenly Father, thank you.”
More code. This was how we Saints began our prayers.
My smile was tight as he turned to take his horse around to the barn. I closed the door and bolted it. I wasn’t going to take the chance of him coming in without my say-so. I knotted my shawl closer to the base of my throat. My husband’s rifle was mounted on the wall near the door.
He could be both a Saint and an outlaw. There were some Saints who robbed and took what wasn’t theirs.
I’d used Samuel’s rifle only to scare off snakes and wolves but I took it off the wall mount and propped it in the kitchen corner. I put the skillet back on the burner and added the venison I’d been cutting into chunks. I wiped my hands on a dish towel to settle the shake in them. Using the paring knife, I sliced a potato and added it to the skillet. It was simple food but he wouldn’t complain. The men who came to my door never did.
Polygamists, the newspapers in the east called these men. Felons, the federal government branded them. People who were not of our faith—we called those people gentiles—didn’t care one bit that plural wives and multitudes of children were thought to increase a man’s blessings in Heaven. Gentiles called plural marriage an abomination. They said it was vile and passed laws to get rid of it. Waving the Bible—the very same Bible as ours—they sent federal deputies to Utah Territory to arrest men who had plural wives. If the men were convicted, and most were since the judges and juries were gentiles, they went to prison. From their jail cells they were made to pay hundreds of dollars in fines. If they didn’t have the money, their wives sold their homes, businesses, or farms to pay the debt. Homeless, these women and their children were left to the mercy of others to take them in.
That was why some of the men said they ran, why they came here to hide in Utah’s canyon country. They did it for their families.
I stirred the stew and put the lid on the skillet. I could be arrested for helping this man who might be accused of being a felon. If I got caught, I could go to jail and lose my home. I was willing to help him, though, and the others who came to my door. But not because I believed plural marriage was holy. I did it for their children.
An icy draft blew through a thin crack that ran alongside the kitchen window. I drew my shawl closer and filled the bread basket with the biscuits I’d made earlier. I set the basket on the center of the table. I got the table lamp and put it on the cooking counter with the two other lamps. When the man came back, I didn’t want to see his face.
In my recollections of the men who came to my cabin, they were all alike. They memorized the route, and the names of towns and outposts where they could count on a meal and feed for their horses before traveling south toward the deep canyons in Utah Territory. Their unshaved faces were drawn with worry and tiredness. The last eight miles they’d just traveled was enough to bring any man to his knees. It was what we called the Wastelands, our only direct route in and out of Junction. Massive rock formations rose like castles from far-off lands. In places, boulders piled on top of other boulders and the earth itself was splintered with deep cracks too wide for a horse to jump. A trail came and went as it wandered around rocks and dipped down into deep rocky ravines and dry washes. It didn’t take much to get lost, even for those of us who lived here.
The men didn’t tell me their names. I didn’t tell them mine. One by one, they sat at my kitchen table, their shoulders tight and their gazes darting toward the door. I imagined what they were thinking. I was thinking it, too. The hunters, federal deputies, were out there.
My cabin’s two windows were small, and it was the only time I was glad that even on sun-filled days the light inside was poor. I needed to keep their features in shadows so I could forget the
m after I sent them to Floral Ranch on Pleasant Creek. The ranch, even deeper in the canyons than Junction, was owned by a family. It was eleven miles off, a far distance in the canyons. That was what made it a sanctuary for the men with plural wives.
More men than I cared to count had come through Junction looking for Floral Ranch. But not once had a hunted man come to my door in January. Until now.
The man sat at my kitchen table facing the door while he ate. His gaze darted from the window in the parlor half of the room to the window in the kitchen. The table between us, I stood by the cooking counter with my arms crossed. His dark beard covered the lower half of his face making him look like so many others who’d sat at my table.
I never ate with the men. Even when my husband, Samuel, was home, I didn’t. It would be too familiar, too close. The same was true for talk. I said only what was needed and the men followed suit. When the deputies showed up with their hard-edged questions, I had to be able to tell them I didn’t know anything about the people they were looking for. I had to be able to look them in the eyes when I said it.
The hunted men were always skittish but this one nearly hummed with nerves. He flinched each time the fire in the cookstove popped. He kept looking over his shoulder toward the open door that went to my bedroom. Things weren’t right here, I could almost hear him think. There should be a husband. The gold in my wedding band caught the lamplight and I felt sure he’d noticed it. He might think I was a widow but that probably didn’t feel right to him. The cabin, small as it was, should be filled with children, some nearly full grown. I wasn’t young but I wasn’t old, either. I was thirty-six and my brown hair hadn’t begun to gray. I could still have little ones, even a baby in my arms.
I looked to be a woman on her own. Little about me fit his notion of what a Latter-day Saint woman was.
He didn’t know what to make of me. I saw that in the narrow-eyed way he watched me as he ate. He didn’t know if he should trust me. I could tell him I wasn’t going to turn him in. I didn’t care about the reward money that was probably on his head. I could tell him I wasn’t a convert but was born into the church. I’d grown up seeing my father’s outrage when Saints turned against Saints. I could tell him I married when I was nineteen and since then, I’d prayed for a child but not all prayers were heard. I could say I was alone because my husband was a wheelwright who had gone to southern Utah for his work and been forced to come home through steep mountains to the north of here.
I kept still. The less I said, the better. The less he knew about me, the safer I was.
The man took his food in gulps. His right leg jittered. The jangle of the spur on his boot worked on my nerves. Even if he were a cattle rustler or a thief, I wouldn’t turn him in. That’d only stir up the interest of the government. All I wanted, what all of us in Junction wanted, was to be left alone.
January, I thought, the word circling in my mind. Lawmen never gave chase during the winter. The reward money to capture a man with plural wives wasn’t worth it.
I watched his hands as he ate. A cattle rustler, I thought. A train robber. A killer.
The hair stood on the back of my neck. I inched a little closer to the rifle in the corner. Stay steady, I told myself. He was a Saint. He’d quoted Scripture.
I kept my gaze on his hands. The cabin’s light was dusky, and I couldn’t make out scars or nicks on his hands but they were broad. His knuckles were swollen. Farmer’s hands, I thought. Not a train robber’s. Just a man with more than one wife.
Most men in the church didn’t have plural wives. Those who did usually could afford only two. Maybe this man had wives by the dozen. There might be so many children he wasn’t sure of their names. That might have so angered the government that his arrest couldn’t wait until the spring.
Or he was an outlaw. One who quoted from the Book of Mormon and when I’d set his plate before him a few minutes ago, he’d bowed his head and prayed his thanksgiving before eating.
Out the windows, it was full dark.
The stew gone, the man ate a biscuit, his leg still jittering. He ate another biscuit. As he did, his leg went still and his shoulders began to slump. Weariness pulled at his eyes. Unexpected pity rose up in me. He might have been traveling for a couple of days. This could be the only hot food he’d had in a good while. Last night he might have slept out in the open. And in the cold of January.
The food gone, he took a deep pull of air. Then he was a flurry of movement, pushing away from the table, getting to his feet, and me backing closer to the rifle.
“I appreciate the hospitality,” the man said. “If you’ll tell me how to get to Pleasant Creek, I’ll be on my way.”
He stood across from me with the table between us. If I could, I’d send him to the ranch on Pleasant Creek this very moment. It wasn’t that simple, though. Nothing in the canyon country was. It was a place with few straight lines. Most everything called for a plan and here in Junction, we had one for helping the men. It called for measured caution. We took one step at a time.
“I’ve never been to Pleasant Creek,” I said. “I don’t know the way. But there’s a guide who knows. He’ll take you in the morning.”
“I have to go now.”
“It’s too late, too dark. The guide won’t chance it at night.”
“I’ll take that up with him. Where can I find him?”
“He won’t take you, not at night. The ground’s rocky. The horses could snap an ankle. The landmarks are hard to read even in daylight. So’s the trail. Ravines are deep and unexpected. You could fall to your death.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before? When I first got here while it was still dusk.”
One step at a time, I told myself. Don’t let him shake you. Stay with the plan. Do like always. He wasn’t the first one in a hurry who didn’t want to listen. Using code, I said, “Bear with patience thine afflictions, and I will give unto ye success.”
His eyes narrowed, studying me. He didn’t know how to answer, I thought. He wasn’t a Saint; he’d tricked me. I put my hand in my apron pocket and gripped the paring knife.
He said, “Bear with patience thine affliction. Alma. Or Mosiah.”
These were books in the Book of Mormon. He knew I was testing him and that I didn’t trust him.
We eyed each other. Finally, I said, “I will give you success but you have to listen to me. You came to my door. A stranger. You asked for help. I’m trying to give it to you.”
The man shifted his weight. A floorboard creaked. He looked down at his clenched hands. He opened them, spread his fingers wide, then clenched and opened them again.
I said, “You have to stay here tonight in my barn. Before daybreak, I’ll send you to the guide.”
“Send me now. I’ll sleep in his barn.”
The table was still between us but I felt pressed to the wall. Don’t lose your wits, I told myself. Think.
“We welcome strangers,” I said. “Like you. Many times we have and will keep on as long as there’s need.” I picked my words with care. I couldn’t give anything away. Even if I did trust him, I wouldn’t tell him anything about how we helped men. I couldn’t tell him I’d send him to the guide, Nels Anderson, only when Nels was ready to take him to Floral Ranch. Until I sent the man on, I was the only one who knew he was here. If he was found in my barn, I could be arrested. But no one else here was part of it. Only me.
I said, “We’re neighborly people in Junction. But we ask that visitors listen to what we say about the canyons. And about travel.”
He gave me a hard look. I held his gaze. My hand gripped the paring knife in my apron pocket. He looked toward the front door, then at the windows. His gaze came back to me. “All right. I’ll stay in your barn.”
“Yes,” I said. “Yes. Good.” My words came too fast. I took in some air to calm my nerves. I said, “I’ll wake you before dawn.”
“I’ll be ready.”
“Good.” I didn’t know why I kept saying that
. There wasn’t anything good about any of this. I said, “Horse blankets are in the barn. There’s hay in the loft where you can settle down. You won’t freeze.”
“God willing.”
“God willing.”
He gave me a quick nod, then walked toward the door. The tinny sound of his spurs marked his footfall. He took his long coat down from the peg and shrugged it into place. I watched him fasten his coat buttons. It’d be cold in the barn but I wasn’t about to let him sleep on the floor by the cookstove. He was trouble. I was a woman alone.
The man wound his scarf around his neck. He watched me as I watched him. He tugged on his gloves and settled his hat. Still looking at me, the man started to open the door, then stopped. His gaze flickered toward the kitchen corner where I’d propped Samuel’s rifle.
His attention went back to me. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
He was going to confess, I thought. He was going to tell me what he’d done. I put my hand up, palm out. “No. Don’t.”
“I have to. It’s only right that you know.”
I shook my head to stop him but he kept on. “People are looking for me and they’re bound to come this way. They’re not all that far back, maybe ten miles. Close enough that I saw their campfire last night. When they get here, it could go rough.”
Fear shot through me. “How many are there?”
“Two. Or three.”
“Ten miles back? That’s all?”
“Thereabouts. If they find me, I’ll tell them I broke into your barn. You didn’t see me. You didn’t know I was here.”
I nodded. It was all I could do.
He pulled his hat lower, ready to go. His sudden agreeableness to stay the night in my barn might be a trick. He could be planning to get his horse and try to get to Pleasant Creek on his own in the dark and with snow clouds covering the stars and the nearly full moon. He could get lost, end up backtracking and turning in circles. He wouldn’t even know he was doing it. But others would, come daylight. He’d leave a trail a child could follow. Even if the ones after him didn’t find him, if he’d fallen into a deep gully and no one saw what was left of him, they’d come back to Junction. They’d know he was here first. They’d accuse every family here of helping him, a man with plural wives. Or a man who’d done something far worse.
The Glovemaker Page 2