The Work and the Glory (267 page)

The Smiths

• *   Joseph, Sr., the father.• *   Lucy Mack, the mother.• *   Hyrum, Joseph’s elder brother; almost six years older than Joseph.• *   Mary Fielding, Hyrum’s second wife.• *   Joseph, Jr., age thirty-three as the story opens.• *   Emma Hale, Joseph’s wife; a year and a half older than Joseph.• *   Joseph and Emma’s children: Julia Murdock, Joseph III, Frederick Granger Williams, and Alexander Hale.• *   Don Carlos, Joseph’s youngest brother; ten years younger than Joseph.•
Note:
There are sisters and other brothers to Joseph, but they do not play major roles in the novel.

Others

Peter Ingalls, Derek’s younger brother; almost fifteen.

• *   Heber C. Kimball, friend of Brigham Young’s and a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

Josiah McBride, Lydia’s father.

Hannah Lovina Hurlburt McBride, Lydia’s mother.

Nancy McIntire, a convert from Missouri.

Jennifer Jo McIntire, older daughter of Nancy; seventeen years old.

Kathryn Marie McIntire, Jennifer’s sister; four years younger than Jennifer.

Abigail Pottsworth, a convert to the Church during Heber C. Kimball’s first mission to England in 1837.

Jenny Pottsworth, Abigail’s daughter; almost fourteen as the story begins.

• *   Parley P. Pratt, an early convert and a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.• *   Willard Richards, called to the apostleship in July 1838 but not ordained until the Twelve reach England.• *   George A. Smith, ordained to the apostleship 26 April 1839.• *   John Taylor, an early convert from Canada; ordained an Apostle 19 December 1838.• *   Wilford Woodruff, ordained to the apostleship 26 April 1839.• *   Brigham Young, an early convert and a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

Though too numerous to list here, there are many other actual people from the pages of history who are mentioned by name in the novel. Sidney Rigdon, Theodore Turley, Joseph Fielding, John Benbow, and many others mentioned in the book were real people who lived and participated in the events described in this work.

Key to Abbreviations Used in Chapter Notes

Throughout the chapter notes, abbreviated references are given. The following key gives the full bibliographic data for those references.

American Moses
Leonard J. Arrington,
Brigham Young: American Moses
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985.)

CHFT
Church History in the Fulness of Times
(Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1989.)

HC
Joseph Smith,
History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,
ed. B. H. Roberts, 7 vols. (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1932–51.)

JD
Journal of Discourses,
26 vols. (London: Latter-day Saints’ Book Depot, 1854–86.)

Leaves
  Wilford Woodruff,
Leaves from My Journal,
in
Three Mormon Classics,
comp. Preston Nibley, Collector’s Edition (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1988.)

LHCK
Orson F. Whitney,
Life of Heber C. Kimball,
Collector’s Edition (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1992.)

Mack Hist.
Lucy Mack Smith,
History of Joseph Smith by His Mother,
ed. Preston Nibley (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1954.)

MWM
  James B. Allen, Ronald K. Esplin, and David J. Whittaker,
Men with a Mission:  The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in the British Isles, 1837–1841
(Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1992.)

Nauvoo
  David E. Miller and Della S. Miller,
Nauvoo: The City of Joseph
(Santa Barbara and Salt Lake City: Peregrine Smith, 1974.)

PPP Auto.
  Parley P. Pratt,
Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt,
ed. Parley P. Pratt, Jr., Classics in Mormon Literature (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1985.)

Restoration
Ivan J. Barrett,
Joseph Smith and the Restoration: A History of the Church to 1846
(Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1973.)

Revelations
Lyndon W. Cook,
The Revelations of the Prophet Joseph Smith: A Historical and Biographical Commentary of the Doctrine and Covenants
(Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1985.)

Women
  Richard Neitzel Holzapfel and Jeni Broberg Holzapfel,
Women of Nauvoo
(Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1992.)

It was a season of joy to those present, and afforded a glimpse of the future, which time will yet unfold to the satisfaction of the faithful.

—Joseph Smith, history, entry for 2 August 1831

Chapter One

Will Steed was staring at the low marshlands that formed Georgia’s coastline at this point along the Atlantic seaboard. The land—if you could call it that—was about a mile off the port side of the ship. He felt a little rush of excitement, noting that the packet ship had already begun its slow turn, nosing toward the spot where the coastline fell sharply back to mark the mouth of the Savannah River. About twenty miles up that river was the city of Savannah. A few miles beyond that was the Abner Montague cotton plantation. Longtime friends of his mother, Abner and Julia Montague had taken Caroline Steed and her children in after Joshua had been killed and the family had to flee from the vengeance of the Mormon Danites.

The excitement was suddenly mingled with bitter shame. Almost four months before, Will had sneaked away from the Montague plantation, stealing a hundred dollars from his mother and another fifty from Abner Montague, and set off for St. Louis to find his father’s killers. How naive he had been. How utterly stupid. He had found them, all right, and narrowly escaped being killed himself. His mother had tried to convince him of the folly of a fourteen-year-old’s trying to right things. Well, that folly had landed him here, a virtual slave as a crew member of the packet ship.

But it was almost over. Twenty miles upriver was Savannah. Twenty miles upriver was freedom. Will had lived in Savannah for a good share of his life. Once they were docked, it would take only moments for him to slip away and escape detection from even the most vigorous search. And then he would make his way back to the Montague plantation for a sweet reunion. He would fall to his knees before his mother and beg for her forgiveness, and then everything would be all right again.

“You ever been to Savannah, Steed?”

Will jumped. He hadn’t heard the bosun and the other two men come up behind him. He turned back, forcing an incredulous look. “Don’t you remember? I’m from Missouri.”

Jiggers nodded. “Oh, yeah. That’s right.”

“Missouri’s a long way from Georgia.”

“You’ll like it. It’s a great port. Beautiful city.”

“That’s what I hear.” Will felt his pulse start to slow a little. The last thing he wanted anyone to know was that Savannah was as familiar to him as the deck of this ship. Everything depended on their not suspecting anything. It was his only chance.

Jiggers seemed to have lost interest. He motioned to the men with him, pointing toward a large coil of rope stacked in the little hollow formed by the ship’s bow. “That’s the one,” he said. “Take if aft with the other rigging.”

As they stepped forward, Jiggers turned to Will. “Can you give us a hand, Steed? This is a heavy one.”

Will nodded. The coil was almost two feet high, and the hemp, wet with salt spray, would be heavy. He was off duty at the moment, but he didn’t mind. “Sure,” he said, shrugging.

As Will leaned over and started to get his hands under the rope, suddenly the two men stepped around behind him. Surprised, he started to turn, but before he could do so, the nearest man grabbed him from behind, throwing his arms around him in a crushing grip. The other man tore the rope from Will’s grasp and reached for his legs. Will kicked out. He was barefoot—boots made for slippery walking on a wet deck—but he caught the man full in the chest and sent him sprawling.

“Get his legs! Get his legs!” Jiggers was shouting.

The man jumped up, swearing viciously, then dove for Will’s legs. In a moment, it was over. They had him off the deck, and now they easily controlled his writhing body. “Let me go!” Will yelled. “What are you doing?”

Without a word Jiggers turned and headed amidships. The others followed, panting heavily under Will’s weight. Halfway back, there was a small storage locker built into the bulkhead of the ship. It had a rusted padlock, which now hung open. Jiggers removed it quickly, opened the hasp, then pulled the door open. “In there,” he said, jerking his head.

“What about the brig?” one of the men called.

Jiggers shook his head. “The brig’s no place for a lad. Get ’im in there.” They cracked Will’s knee, then his elbow, getting him through the narrow door. The locker was small, about six by six, and Will noted in surprise that it had been mostly emptied. Along one end there were two filthy blankets and a burlap bag for a pillow. They lowered him over the makeshift bed, then dropped him the last two feet. He crashed to the deck, momentarily stunned. They backed out quickly. As Will scrambled to his feet, Jiggers started to close the door. “Sorry, Steed!” he snapped. “Cap’n’s orders.”

The door slammed closed and Will heard the padlock clank as it was put back into the hasp and clicked shut. He leaped to the door and hammered at it with his fists. “Let me out of here!” The only answer he got was the sound of their footsteps moving away. He pounded again, screaming, raging, cursing them.

Then suddenly he understood. Somehow they knew about Savannah. He fell back, cracking his head on a bucket that hung from one of the overhead beams. The pain didn’t register at all, so bitter and deep was the disappointment sweeping over him. They knew!

He sank down on the blankets, feeling sick. Twenty miles away! It may as well have been a thousand. And then, like a flash of lightning in the blackness of a thundercloud, another thought stabbed in. Today was the first day of April. Earlier he had thought it was the perfect omen. The first day of the month would be his first day of freedom. Two days ago he had passed his fifteenth birthday. Freedom was to be his present to himself.

He dropped his head into his hands. The disappointment was like raw bile in his mouth. Once again all of his planning, all of his careful preparations were for nothing. That pattern had started in St. Louis. Everything had gone wrong so swiftly there. Finding the two men he was looking for had been relatively easy for Will. Charlie Patterson, a petty criminal who haunted the waterfront bars, had sought him out and told him he could lead him to the men he was after. The only problem was that Charlie Patterson betrayed him. He was actually in partnership with the very men Will was looking for. At the warehouse, things fell apart. Thankfully, Charlie Patterson drew the line at murder. Charlie’s two partners were drunk, and one of them, provoked when Will struck him, wanted to shoot Will. When Charlie balked at that, a battle ensued. In moments, the two men were dead and Charlie Patterson was dragging Will in a blind panic down to the river. There he sold him off to a riverboat captain, who would take him downriver to New Orleans and sell him as a crew member to one of the sailing ship captains there.

When the riverboat captain sent a doctor to the coal bin, where Will was confined all the way to New Orleans, to splint Will’s broken wrist, Will thought it was an act of kindness on the captain’s part. One more proof of his considerable naivety, he thought bitterly. When they reached New Orleans, Will learned that the captain’s “mercy” came from other motives. Will was merely moved from the coal bin on the riverboat to a filthy back room in a seedy riverfront hotel. For another week he was kept there while his arm slowly healed. Then, threatening to whip Will within an inch of his life if he favored the arm in any way, the riverboat captain took the splint off and dragged Will down to the dark, musty-smelling tavern where sea captains furtively bought kidnapped boys from the unscrupulous river runners.

Once out to sea, the captain of the
Bostonia
was livid when he learned he had bought a partial cripple. Will’s arm had to be resplinted. But he was young and healthy, and by the time they had sailed to Mexico, then on to Cuba, the arm was fully healed.

From the first day the packet ship had set sail from New Orleans, Will had begun planning his escape. He knew he had to be patient. The captain had paid for two years of impressed service, and the man knew that that service was not given willingly; he expected from Will nothing less than an escape try, and when they docked in the various ports, he always assigned two crew members to escort—
shepherd
was a better term—Will until they were out to sea again. What galled Will the most now, the thing for which he berated himself most bitterly, was the fact that he had been given an opportunity to jump ship in Kingston, Jamaica, where they stopped for a cargo of rum. Once again he had his shore escort, but the two men stopped at a tavern, got themselves blind drunk, then staggered upstairs with two frightening-looking women.