“God sees all,” Braden said. “He knows what I’ve done.”
“The neighbors aren’t God. Don’t build a fire.”
“I won’t do anything senseless.”
Like steal a girl? I thought. And go after a United States marshal? “I’ll get the supplies,” I said and left him where he stood by his horse. I stomped my way through the snow to Bob. Usually I didn’t want to know the particulars about the men I took to Floral Ranch. It made it easier when I was questioned by lawmen. But Braden wasn’t like the others.
I put my hand on Bob’s neck. His ears flickered, then went back. He wasn’t happy about the circumstances. “Me neither,” I said. If Braden had stolen a girl, only God knew what he might do next. A desperate man could do most anything.
I felt Braden behind me. I turned around. He wasn’t there.
He wouldn’t harm me, I thought as I looked into the dark night. He needed me to get him to Floral Ranch. Unless he intended to sneak off and turn himself in. If that was so, he’d no reason to hurt me. But maybe that show he’d made in my cabin about turning himself in was just that: a show. Maybe he was up to something I didn’t know about.
I trailed my gloved hand along Bob’s side until I came to his rump. I untied the rolled horse blankets from my saddle, got my saddlebags, and went back inside the pocket. There, Braden stood by his horse. I eyed him. I felt him studying me the same way. He wasn’t sure about me. Nothing about me squared with his notion of a Saint. I wasn’t married. I didn’t have a herd of children. He might think the same about Deborah. For all he knew, we’d left the church. I might be one of those Saints who turned traitor. More than likely there was reward money on his head. Braden might think that money tempted me. Not finding the cut to Floral Ranch and bringing him here could be me laying a trap for him.
Neither of us trusted the other but we were bound together.
I dropped the blankets on the floor of the pocket. I dug out a bag of feed and the sack of canned meat from my saddlebags. “Keep moving your feet and fingers,” I said. “That way they won’t freeze.” I handed him the supplies. “You’ve got your bedroll and these blankets, so likely you’ll be all right. Leastways you probably won’t lose anything more than the tips of your ears.”
“I deserve worse,” Braden said. “By my own hand, I might have killed him.” There was a break in his voice. “You hear me, Brother? I might have killed a man.”
I heard him plenty loud. Murder. I said, “You know him. Don’t you?”
“Yes.” He paused. “He’s her father.”
“What?”
“The marshal’s my third wife’s father.”
His words didn’t fit right. The marshal. The third wife. I said, “She’s his daughter? The one he says you stole? That’s his daughter?”
“I didn’t steal her.”
A marshal’s daughter. My blood went hot. Before Braden could say anything more, before I could give him a thrashing for bringing his trouble to us, I went outside. Caught in gusts, snow fell and rose in swirls. I walked away from the pocket.
They’d get us. They’d use everything they had to find Braden.
The snow cracked behind me. I whirled around. It was Braden. I braced myself, not knowing what he might do.
“Brother, I didn’t know he was a marshal,” he said. “Not until after I’d married her.”
“Did you steal her?”
“What kind of man do you think I am?”
“I don’t know what you are.”
“I didn’t steal her. I was doing mission work in Tennessee with three other elders. That’s how I met her.” Braden’s words ran like a river out of its banks, spilling and going where they shouldn’t. “She and her older brother saw to the family farm. Their mother and father had business in Nashville. She’d heard other Saints preach last year and believe me, Brother, that young woman was hungry to hear more preaching about the reformed gospel.”
“He said you stole her.”
“That’s a lie. She came to us, we didn’t seek her out. She came to us. I didn’t take her against her free will.”
“But that’s what the government says? That you stole her?”
“It’s not true. She walked four miles to hear us preach. After the second Sunday, she asked me to baptize her. I did, and Brother, the joy on her face was something to behold. Mary Louise, that’s her name. Mary Louise went back to the farm and when she left us, it was like she walked on air. The following Sunday she came to services carrying what she owned in a satchel. Mary Louise knew we were leaving for Salt Lake the next day. She begged me and the three other elders to take her with us to Zion.”
“God Almighty, man. Her father’s a federal marshal.”
“I didn’t know. She told me her mother and father were good people. But they weren’t churchgoers. They didn’t even have a Bible in the house. Her older brother wasn’t much better. Mary Louise couldn’t live like that anymore. Not after the reformed gospel was revealed to her. She said if we didn’t let her come with us to Utah, she’d follow behind us, walking. But if we let her ride with us, she’d do the cooking and washing to earn her way. There were four of us, all men. And her. How would that look?”
“She’s sixteen. You should’ve taken her back to where she came from.”
“She’d only run off and try to get to Utah on her own.”
“That would have been her doing, not yours.”
“A girl by herself? In the wilderness? I’d baptized her, she was my responsibility. I asked God to tell me what to do with this woman who wanted to live among us. The other elders prayed with me. We trusted He’d reveal what I must do, and our trust was fulfilled.” He paused. “God commanded me to marry her.”
“I figured as much,” I said, my words sharp. This was the kind of talk that’d turned me away from the church. It was a reason I’d come to Junction. I’d had my fill of God commanding Saints to do what they’d intended to do all along. I thought I’d gotten away from this talk but it had tracked me down.
I said, “What are you charged with?”
“Polygamy. Unlawful cohabitation.” Braden paused. “Kidnapping.”
My pulse roared in my ears. Kidnapping. I fought the urge to put my hands around Braden’s neck and be done with him. Deborah and I were helping a kidnapper. “You know what they could do to us?” I said, spitting out the words. “They’ll put ropes around our necks and hang us. Or put us in front of firing squads.”
“It’s why I’m hiding. You’ve got to believe me. I didn’t know her father was a lawman. She wasn’t kidnapped. I did right by her. A young woman traveling unchaperoned with four men? It’d look bad.”
“Stay back.” I walked off. The snow was knee deep in places and just up to my ankles in others. I kicked it. The snow spiraled and was carried off by the wind. I was boiling hot at myself for getting caught up with Braden. Kidnapping. It wasn’t just him who could be shot or hanged.
Four Mormon men stole a sixteen-year-old girl. That was how a gentile jury would see it. They’d not only pin them for it but they’d say I helped Braden hide. They’d claim Deborah helped, too.
The bastard. I believed his account of how he met the girl. It was what missionaries did. They preached, baptized converts, and sometimes tore up families. Like Samuel’s family. His sister, older than him by five years, didn’t want anything to do with the church. She stayed behind in Ohio when Samuel and his mother came to Utah Territory.
A family torn up that way was different than marrying the daughter of a gentile marshal. Poking a hot stick in the government’s eye couldn’t be any worse. I should turn Braden in myself. I could tell the deputies that Braden showed up with the marshal on his heels and there’d been an argument. It had nothing to do with any of us in Junction. The chase just happened to end here.
The deputies wouldn’t believe that. Government men knew about Floral Ranch. They knew about the owner, Ephraim Hanks, who hid Saints. They just didn’t know precisely where the
ranch was other than it was close to Junction. Anyone with wits enough to put two and two together could figure we had a part in helping the men get there. The government would like nothing better than to round us up and clear us out. It was just a matter of catching us red-handed.
I drew in some air. It was needle sharp. If the marshal lived and made it known how Deborah had sheltered Braden, how he’d come across me and Braden together, how the fight happened, they’d have us.
I blew the air out. It steamed white in the dark. Swallow your anger, I told myself. Stay with the plan. Like I’d told Deborah to do. Like she depended on me to do.
I went back to the pocket. Braden was outside on the trail, waiting for me. When I got close to him, I said, “You told me there were three other elders and the girl. Where’re the other three?”
“Hiding, like me.”
“Are they coming here?”
“No. We went different ways.”
“I have your word on that? You’re by yourself.”
“I’m never alone. God walks with me.”
I felt my temper rise. I swallowed it down and said, “Other than God being with you, I have your word you’re by yourself?”
“You do.”
His word didn’t count for much. Not with me. Yet, here I was, in a hard place where there was nothing to do but trust that his word meant something to him. I said, “Now keep your mouth clamped and listen to me. Nothing’s changed other than me knowing about the girl and her father. You understand? Nothing’s different. You’re going to stay here like we’d planned. I’ll go back to Junction to find out what’s going on there. I’ll come back at dawn and take you to Floral Ranch. This snow has to quit sometime. If we’re lucky, it’ll let up soon and I’ll be able to see the cut to the ranch. If the deputies show up at my cabin during the night, and that’s a mighty big if with this weather, but supposing they do, I don’t know when I’ll get up here. But I’ll get here. Or I’ll send someone in my place.”
In the dark, I felt him studying me. After a moment, he said, “You’re a good man, Brother. A forgiving man.”
“Forgiveness’s got nothing to do with it. I’m doing this to save Junction.”
“I know that. And so does God. He knows you’re putting others before yourself.” He put his hand out. “Brother.”
I clenched my teeth and bit back the urge to be like the marshal and say I wasn’t his brother. But I was. He and I were Saints even if I was just a partial one. We were related even if we didn’t want to be.
Not wanting to, I shook his hand, binding me to him all the more. A man charged with kidnapping. I had to trust that his story was true and he hadn’t stolen the girl. I had to believe he wouldn’t lose his head and leave during the night. Braden had to do his own trusting. He had to believe I wouldn’t turn him in for the reward money.
We were stuck with each other. The only way out of this scrape was for both of us to do what we said we would.
I let go of his hand and got on my horse. Bob stomped the ground, tired of waiting. Braden watched and just before I maneuvered Bob to turn around on the trail, Braden said, “God’s with us.”
Joseph Smith probably believed that, too. But when he and his brother, Hyrum, were trapped in a jail cell, God did nothing to hold back the men who shot them dead.
My nod to Braden was quick. I turned Bob around on the trail and fixed my sights on getting back to Junction.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
NELS – REMEDY
January 12, 1888
Making my way down the trail, Braden’s words—God’s with us—stayed with me. Gentiles probably believed God was with them. I figured none of us knew for sure where we stood. Like how I didn’t know which way matters stood with Deborah. She was on her own with the marshal. I wanted to spur Bob on, make him go faster to get me home. Nature conspired against me. The return was downhill, and I had to let Bob pick his way.
The marshal might be better. He might be accusing Deborah of helping a kidnapper. He might be dead.
Bob stumbled. He was just about played out. Midway down the trail, I got off him and walked. After we got to the floor of the canyon, I got back on. When I turned him away from the direction of my cabin, Bob fought me, rearing his head. “Quit that,” I said. “I know you’re tired but we aren’t done yet.” I had to go see Rebecca Baker, the woman who did our doctoring.
It went against the grain pulling Rebecca and her husband, Adam, into this. It meant spreading the trouble. It wouldn’t just be Deborah and me caught in this scrape. I had to see the Bakers, though, to make my story about finding a stranger on the bridge stand up. Getting advice from the woman who tended our sick was something I’d be expected to do. When other lawmen turned up, they’d see Deborah and me doing all we could. They might swallow my story.
I shifted the reins to my left hand and flexed my fingers on the right. Snow had wedged its way into the creases of my gloves but my hands were dry. Warm, too. Deborah made the gloves two Christmases back. She and Samuel had had me to their cabin for Christmas dinner. Before we sat down to eat, I gave them a picture I’d sketched with a pencil. It was of their plum orchard. Buds were about to burst open on the trees’ bare limbs. Behind the trees, cliffs rose up. I’d made a frame and even though the Christmas ham was ready to be sliced, Deborah wanted the picture put up right then and there. Samuel said, “Can’t argue with a woman when her mind is set.” He got a nail and hammer, and hung it on the parlor side of the front room.
Deborah spent a fair amount of time admiring the picture. “I could step right into it, it’s that real,” she said. “And look here, how you shaded the ground so it looks to be noon, the sun directly overhead.” She turned to me. “Did you intend that? For it to be noon?”
“I did.”
“The midpoint. Where things can go on like they’ve been, or make a turn a different way.” She was quiet for a while, just looking at the picture. Then she said, “We have a little something for you.” Deborah wasn’t as pretty as some women. Her face was all angles with high cheekbones and her chin ended in a point. That changed when she smiled. Her smile made the angles in her face go soft. Her hazel eyes with their bits of blue took on a shine like they were dancing a jig. That was how she looked when she gave me a package done up in brown paper.
I opened it. Inside were gloves. They were buckskin and smelled of oak bark and what I believed was wolf oil. They were a mild yellow color that was bound to darken over time. Across the back of each one, Deborah had stitched three rows of raised cording. Fringe, six inches long, ran along the outer sides of what she called the gauntlet, the part of the glove that flared below the wrist.
Deborah said, “They’re lined for winter wear and the leather’ll hold up for hard work. And don’t say they’re too showy for you.” She nodded toward the fringe.
“No,” I said. “Not showy. Handsome.”
She bit back a smile and had me try them on for fit. “I wanted to measure your hands to make sure about the size. I looked in my record book and it’s been two years since I made your last pair. Can you believe it’s been that long? If I’d asked to measure you, it would’ve spoiled the surprise.”
I put them on. The leather was soft and had give. Deborah took my right hand. My pulse made a quick turn. Her features were set as she tested the fit, running her thumb and forefinger along the sides of each of my fingers. Her fingers were long and thin. I wanted to take off the gloves so I could feel her touch.
Samuel said, “Deborah fretted they wouldn’t be right. But she has an eye for these things, I told her that.”
She didn’t seem to hear him. She felt the palm, pushing the padding. Then her hand went around my wrist just above the gauntlet. She did the same with my left hand, me frozen in place.
“They’ll do,” Deborah said. She let go of my hand and looked up at me. I ducked my head and said my thanks, my tongue too knotted to say more.
That was just over a year ago. Not a one of us knew then what wa
s ahead of us. We didn’t know a man charged with kidnapping would come to Junction. We never figured on having a half-dead marshal in my cabin. We didn’t know Samuel would run long getting home. We hadn’t foreseen that it’d be me looking out for Deborah.
Rebecca and Adam Baker’s place was dark. The fire in their cookstove had died down enough that I didn’t smell it until their cabin took shape in the night. Impatience made me want to pound on their door but they had two children. Stirring up the little ones wouldn’t help matters. My knock was light and I took up sweating in the cold waiting for Adam to answer. He and Rebecca had moved here two years ago. Like most of us, they were looking for space between them and the church. Like us, they’d been questioned by deputies about the men and Floral Ranch. Like everyone, they didn’t talk about it and made like none of it happened. Now I was about to pull them into it, a family with two little ones and a baby on the way.
Adam called out, asking who it was. I told him it was me and he let me in. Standing in his front room, I said how I didn’t like waking him up but I had a man hurt bad in my cabin. “He’s a stranger,” I said, doing my best to keep my voice low. “I found him on the bridge. He’s in a bad way.”
“On the bridge?” Adam said. I heard his wariness. Strangers didn’t come here in January. I could tell he knew this wasn’t right.
“I figure he took a hard fall and maybe cracked his head. I don’t know what to do for him.”
“He’s a Saint?”
“I don’t know. He can’t do much more than mumble.”
Adam ran his fingers through his beard like that might help him fit this all together. He was shorter than me by half a head and younger by a good ten years or so. He glanced toward the back room. I’d gotten him up from his bed. He’d dressed in a hurry. His shirt, unbuttoned, wasn’t tucked into his trousers. His curly hair was riled in all directions. If Adam knew for certain that Samuel and I were the ones who took the men to Floral Ranch, he’d put that together on his own. He hadn’t heard it from me or from Samuel and Deborah.
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