“It’s a stranger. I found him on the bridge. He’s bad off.”
“Sister Deborah’s here? Inside? Now?”
“She’s looking after him. She’s all right.”
Michael made a motion to go to the door. “No,” I said. “Don’t go in.”
“Why not?”
“Commotion of any sort turns his breathing more ragged. Sister Deborah can hardly leave his bedside. When she does, he takes up gasping. If you go in, he could get so riled that he could choke himself to death.”
“Heavenly Father. What happened?”
“His horse showed up here. I went looking for the owner and found him in the snow on the bridge.” My lies came out smooth. “His breathing isn’t right. There’s a big knot on the back of his head. It could be his horse threw him and he cracked his skull.”
Saying that made me hear the crack. It made me see the marshal in the snow. His eyes were fixed on me. He was begging for help. Braden was on his knees on the other side of the marshal asking God to forgive him.
Michael said, “Is he one of us? Is he wearing temple garments?”
I cussed to myself. I should have seen this question coming. An unconscious man, a stranger to Junction. Anybody here would have looked for the garments. But Braden and I hadn’t needed to look. Saints who’d been endowed into the church were the only ones who wore them. Gentiles called them long johns but they weren’t. We wore the garments every day even when it was hot. Sacred symbols, a V and a backward L, were stitched over each breast. Those symbols were there to remind us of our vows to stay faithful to the church.
I said, “He’s not one of us.”
“A gentile,” Michael said.
“Seems so. Whatever he is, he’s bad off.”
“What’s he doing here?”
“I don’t know. He’s too hurt to talk.”
“A gentile,” Michael said again. I couldn’t see his face in the dark but I knew he was working to make sense of it. He said, “When did you find him?”
“Dusk. Around suppertime.”
In the night cold, I felt Michael give me a long look. His hands went to his face. He took off his spectacles and wiped them on one end of his neck scarf.
He put them back on. “Let me get this right. You found a gentile on the bridge that’s near my cabin. He must have gone past our place but he didn’t stop. He crossed the creek. Or tried to.” Michael paused. “He knew where he was going.”
“It’s best not to speculate about intentions. He’s bad off. Keep it to that.”
“He’s looking for somebody. Isn’t he?”
Michael was walking this to a place where he wasn’t welcome. I figured he’d heard about the men we helped and about the lawmen. Men with plural wives had been hiding in the canyon country for four years. Saints might not talk but they knew how to whisper behind their hands.
Michael said, “He’s after someone.”
The man didn’t have any business pressing me for information. It was like we’d voted him bishop and it was his place to know. I didn’t appreciate it. I said, “I don’t know the hurt man’s intentions and neither do you.”
Michael coughed, then said, “Who else knows about him?”
“The Bakers. I asked Sister Rebecca how we could help him.”
“They’ll never believe you found him unconscious.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I think you do, but all right. I won’t say more, other than this. We need to tell all the neighbors about him.”
“No.”
“Hear me out.”
“Go home, Brother Michael.”
“Listen to me.”
“Go home.”
“He has friends,” he said. “They’ll come looking for him, you know that. But let’s say you didn’t know. If he were truly a stranger, you’d tell the neighbors about him. There’d be no reason not to. If he were indeed a stranger, you’d call in the women to take turns caring for him. The men would form a posse to see if he’s part of a party. There could be others with him in need of help. We have nothing to hide. That’s what his friends must think when they arrive. As a town, we have to do all we can for him. He’s a stranger found on the bridge. That’s all the neighbors need to be told.”
Telling the neighbors wasn’t how it worked. It went against the grain. Agreeing with Michael went against the grain, too. Yet his plan had some merit.
I stomped my feet to bring warmth back to them. Michael turned a little away. He tucked his gloved hands under his armpits. He was giving me time to think. If Samuel were here, he’d tell me what he thought of Michael’s idea. Maybe he’d disagree with Michael and say how it was best to stick to the plan as usual. But there was nothing usual about this. Samuel might say this was the time to work it the opposite way.
Doing that meant I had to trust Michael. I had to trust he wouldn’t say too much to the neighbors. He wouldn’t let anything slip out that shouldn’t be said. I wasn’t sure I could hold him to do that. I didn’t know him. The first time I met him was when he moved here in October. When he took up pushing for a bishop and wardhouse, I kept my distance. But him being a pious believer was on my side. He’d do his best to protect Saints.
The neighbors would, too. Nobody had strayed so far that they’d do harm to any Saint. It had to be said, though, they’d been content to let Samuel, Deborah, and me be the only ones to help the men. Nobody stepped forward and said, “Send the next one to me. I’ll guide him to Floral Ranch.” They knew but they looked the other way. For good reason. They had more to risk. They had children. The three of us didn’t.
Michael could say too much to the neighbors. Or the truth would show on his face. Deborah said Michael wasn’t able to cover his thoughts. Not that the neighbors couldn’t figure out the truth. Even some of the older children might guess.
It came down to fooling the deputies. Like Michael said, we had to do like there was no reason to keep the marshal a secret.
I didn’t like it. Too many people. Too many chances for mistakes. When the deputies came with their questions, everybody had to say the same thing. They couldn’t give anything away.
Samuel, if he were here, would say we were in a corner but even corners had ways out. A man just had to rearrange his thinking and his way of seeing. That didn’t mean it came easy. It meant walking in the dark, not sure what was up ahead.
“It’s late,” I said to Michael. “There’s no point getting everybody stirred up now.” I paused. Samuel would try this plan. He wouldn’t discount it because it came from Michael. If he were here, he probably would have thought of it himself.
I said, “All right. In the morning tell them about the stranger I found.”
I expected that me giving into his plan would make Michael gloat. If he was, I couldn’t tell. He said, “He is, isn’t he? A stranger. He’s not from here.”
“Until today, I’ve never seen him.”
“A stranger.” Michael said it like he was trying to press the word into his thoughts. He coughed. It sounded like lung burn from the cold. He said, “There’s much in Junction I don’t approve of. But what you do for those in need of safe passage, the risks you take, you do for God. God sees all. He knows you take these risks to uphold the revelations and covenants of the church.”
I nearly laughed. God, all-knowing and all-seeing, would tell Michael he was wrong about me. Ask me, and I’d come right out and admit I didn’t believe in the revelation that sanctioned plural marriage. Neither did I believe everything church leaders said. The massacre at Mountain Meadows was the beginning of my doubt. Lydia and the baby’s deaths deepened it. What Michael didn’t know, and what I wasn’t about to tell him, was this: I helped the men because I couldn’t bring myself to quit the church. Not all the way.
Even with my doubt, I was sealed to it. When I was five days old and still in Sweden, my family and I were baptized Latter-day Saints by missionaries from America. Led by these missionaries, the
church carried us from Sweden to Illinois. It pushed us to Missouri, then Nebraska, and finally Utah. I did everything like I should. I was endowed into the church. To this day, I still wore the garments. Lydia and I were married in the temple at St. George. The church was all I knew. Saints were the only people I knew.
I didn’t help the men like Braden so I could uphold the covenants and revelations. Those covenants and revelations didn’t need me to hold them up. Plenty of others were willing to do that job. I helped the men because I couldn’t bring myself to turn against my own.
Michael said, “I’ll speak to the neighbors in the morning.” He pulled off his right glove and put out his bare hand for me to shake.
I got my glove off and took his hand.
He said, “Look after my sister-in-law.”
“I won’t let anything happen to her.”
Michael’s grip was firm. So was mine. When our hands dropped, he said, “God’s with us.”
I nodded. I figured Michael might not be so sure about God’s stand on this if he knew how the marshal really came to be hurt.
Michael started to walk toward the bridge, then stopped. He turned to face me. “Tell Sister Deborah I’ll milk her cow and feed the chickens first thing in the morning.”
Deborah’s animals had slipped my mind. “She’ll appreciate it,” I said. Then I was thinking how Junction had failed Michael. He hadn’t been able to bring us back to the church. Now Junction was in a different kind of trouble. This could be a chance for Michael to redeem himself in the eyes of the church leaders. He could report his part in helping us uphold Joseph Smith’s holy revelation about plural marriage.
Doing that came with risks. Michael said so himself. He had to know he could lose his home and find himself in jail. He didn’t know it could be worse. He didn’t know about the kidnapping charge. Or how the marshal came to be hurt.
Whatever Michael’s reasons for helping were, he was part of it now. I said, “A stranger found on the bridge. That’s all there is to this.”
“There’s no reason to think otherwise.” Michael tipped his hat to me. I tipped mine to him.
“Look after her, Brother Nels.” He left, his footfall crushing the snow.
Standing outside of my cabin, I listened as Michael crossed the bridge. He got me to change the plan but he hadn’t pressed about who the marshal was hunting. He probably believed I’d gotten the hunted man to Floral Ranch days ago.
I looked up at the cliffs that anchored Junction to the floor of the canyon. I couldn’t see the cliffs in the dark but they were there. I wanted to believe the same about Braden. He was keeping his word. He wouldn’t go off on his own with the notion of turning himself in. Surely the man understood the trouble that would bring to all of us.
Michael’s footfall faded. Nearby, the upper branches of the lindens scratched and creaked in the light wind. It was still snowing. Getting Braden to Floral Ranch in the morning might not go any better than it had today.
Trouble wasn’t supposed to find me here. That was what I thought the first time I saw the cliffs and the floor of the canyon. It was the summer Samuel married Deborah. A few days after their wedding, a feeling of restlessness came over me. I put my carpenter tools away and hired on to help move cattle to pastures north of here. When the drive was over, I didn’t go home to Cedar City. I went south to do some looking around on my own. I stumbled into the Wastelands. It didn’t take long to figure it’d be the death of me with its dusty soil and pillars of rock cliffs. Then I came across what I took to be an Indian trail. I followed it for three days, what there was of it. It came and went, and at times I had to backtrack to find it. I’d just about decided I’d seen enough dust and rock when I heard water off in the distance.
It was the convergence of a creek and river on the floor of a canyon. Years later, I found out they were the Sulphur and the Fremont. The soil was good, there were trees, and the red cliffs held the sun’s warmth. I set up camp by the Fremont. I fished, hunted, and didn’t see another person. I stayed until the days shortened and something inside of me said it was time to go home. Once I was back in Cedar City, I took up my carpenter tools and did all manner of work to earn my living. Years passed. I married Lydia and believed I would never see this place again. Then she and the baby died. A day after the burial, I closed our cabin, took only what was needed, and made my way to where the creek and the river came together.
Now, I squatted and scooped up a handful of snow. Barehanded, my fingers burned from the cold. I stood and tried to pack the snow into a ball. It was too dry and wouldn’t stick. I spread my fingers wide. The snow fell between them.
I looked up. No stars or moon. I was a fool to believe any place sheltered a man from trouble. I was a fool to believe a smart man could always outwit trouble.
Even one as smart as Samuel. He might be buried in a snowdrift high in the Fish Lakes.
I kicked the snow, cursing myself for letting my thoughts dip into a deep pit. I had enough to worry about. The marshal was sick in my cabin. I had to get Braden hidden at Floral Ranch. And right now I had to go inside and explain to Deborah how Michael planned to tell the neighbors about Fletcher.
Praying didn’t come easy for me. It’d never done me much good. Tonight, I bowed my head like I was in church.
Heavenly Father. Help us.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
DEBORAH – THE PROMISE
January 13, 1888
It was still dark outside when I heard Nels stir. I lay on the floor next to the bed with my eyes closed. The blanket that covered me smelled of hay and horse.
Last night, Nels put his bedroll along the door. He was as far from me as he could be. He’d slept in his clothes, and I’d stayed in my dress. Now, his clothes whished as he straightened them.
The marshal’s breathing rasped and wheezed. He was alive.
Nels cleared his throat. He pulled on his boots, hopping a little as he did. The floorboards shook. He was getting ready to take Braden to Floral Ranch. More whishing, then the clink of tinned cans. He was putting supplies in a knapsack. Sally’s toenails clicked on the floor. She sniffed my hair. I stayed still as though I were asleep. It was better that way. I was a woman who’d slept in the home of a man who wasn’t my husband or a relative.
Last night, Nels and I hadn’t talked about it but we both knew I needed to stay. He had to get an early start in the morning. It wouldn’t be right to leave the marshal alone.
The marshal’s teeth rattled. The cabin was cold. The cookstove door squeaked opened. Nels put wood in and blew long puffs of air to stoke the fire. Last night, speaking in a whisper, he’d told me what he and Michael had decided about telling the neighbors.
“I wasn’t for it,” Nels had said. “Not at first. But then I came to see the sense of it. We have to look like we have nothing to hide.” The way he said this made me think he expected me to put up an argument. Instead, I let the idea settle on me. It was what Samuel would do. I didn’t like the thought of Grace and the boys being part of this but Samuel would tell me to set my concerns to the side. Think about this from all angles, he’d tell me. Study it before making a judgement. I did that and after a while, I had said, “Michael’s right.”
Flames in the stove crackled, catching hold. The wood popped. Nels closed the cookstove door and walked a few steps. His coat whooshed as he put it on. Next were his scarf, hat, and gloves. I didn’t want him to go. I didn’t want to be alone with the marshal.
Nels, now dressed for the cold, seemed to hesitate. I thought he might say something, and all at once I wanted to tell him to take care of himself, be safe, don’t disappear, I was waiting for his return, and above all else, he was dear to Samuel and to me.
I held back the words. They were too tender.
The door opened. Sharp air blew in. The door clicked closed. Nels was gone.
“Godspeed,” I said as though he could hear me.
Nels gone, I got up. The marshal reeked of urine. A shudder crawled down
my spine. I should do something about that.
I held a lamp over him. Yesterday, I had tucked some of Nels’ spare clothes against the marshal’s chest to keep him on his left side. During the night he had rolled onto the clothes so that now he was partway on his stomach.
Sally poked her nose into the marshal’s blankets. “No, girl,” I said. “Get away from there.”
The marshal’s breathing turned shallow and quick. He was afraid, I thought. An image of Samuel hurt and helpless flashed through my thoughts. “You’re not alone,” I said to the marshal. “I’m here.”
His breathing eased some. I said, “I have to go outside but I’ll be back. You have my word.”
I put on my coat and went outside into the dark. Sally came with me. I breathed in the crisp air and held up the lantern I carried. It had stopped snowing. A drift against the cabin looked to be knee high. A trail of deep footsteps led away from the cabin. These were Nels’ from a few minutes ago.
Sally and I followed the path Nels had broken. It’d be slow-going for him and Braden. Getting to and from Floral Ranch could take most of the day. At least the snow had quit. Nels wouldn’t get turned around like he had yesterday.
I used the outhouse, then started the walk back to the cabin. Dread sat on my shoulders. The marshal could die today. Or get better. But I wouldn’t be alone. The neighbors, or some of them, would be here.
My cheeks burned from the cold. I didn’t know where Nels had taken Braden last night. Wherever it was, the man must be half frozen. His three wives must be worried sick. They might cluster together, their children with them. They waited to hear word of their husband’s welfare. They waited to hear if he’d been caught.
I stopped a few yards from Nels’ cabin. As early as it was, a light showed on the other side of the bridge. Grace and Michael were up. She might be cooking Michael’s breakfast before he left to milk my cow and feed the chickens. After that, Michael would tell the neighbors about the stranger Nels had found. From there, matters would take a direction I couldn’t predict.
Unless the marshal got better. I knew what would happen then.
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