“Good evening, Sister Rebecca. Is your good husband at home?”
Matthew was still peering inside the cabin, puzzled at what he saw. “Is everything all right, Becca?”
There was movement in the corner and a faint moan. “Come in, brethren. It’s all right. Come in.”
Rebecca looked first at Matthew, then to Brigham, and finally to Heber. It was Heber who had converted and baptized Derek and Peter while he was on his first mission to England. He was almost like a father to the two boys and considered Rebecca as if she were one of his own flesh and blood too. “He’s got the shakes,” she whispered.
“What?” Matthew blurted. He and Derek had been digging ditches until just a few hours ago. Derek had looked a little more tired than usual, but had said nothing.
Heber nodded solemnly, then stepped forward and laid his hand on Rebecca’s forehead. “You’ve got the fever too,” he declared.
She looked away, and then in a weak, barely audible voice, she answered. “Yes, I’m afraid I do.”
On Sunday, July seventh, three days following the visit of Brigham Young and his fellow Apostles to the Steeds, a meeting was called. Joseph’s charge and blessing to the Twelve five days earlier had stirred their hearts and strengthened their determination to leave as soon as possible. With Joseph’s blessing, they determined they would formally bid farewell to the Saints before departing for England.
The meeting lasted until about five-thirty that afternoon, and those present went away rejoicing. When Matthew and Jenny returned and reported on the meeting to Derek, now too weak to even rise from his bed, he was terribly depressed. He was certain the Twelve would have to leave without him. In reality, there was no need for him to worry about that, for the ague had begun its deadly work on both sides of the river. Brigham fell sick shortly after his return to Montrose. Wilford Woodruff returned to find his wife and baby critically ill. Within a few days of the meeting, virtually every member of the Twelve either was sick himself or had serious sickness rampaging through the family. Any plans for an immediate departure were forgotten.
Nor was the little Steed homesite and its four cabins spared. Derek was too weak to raise his head off the pillow. Rebecca was worsening and Lydia had to take baby Christopher and nurse him for her. The day after the Sabbath, Benjamin broke out in a cold sweat. By late afternoon he was huddled in bed, shaking violently. Then it moved to Nathan’s home. Their third child, little Nathan, was hit particularly hard and was gravely ill. Next, their own baby, Elizabeth Mary, started in with it and so Lydia had to pass Christopher on to Jessica. He would have to drink milk from a bottle as best he could. So far Jessica was spared, but Mark, her younger stepson, was in bed and barely moving, and what was a blow to everyone, Jenny and Kathryn McIntire came down with it next and could no longer help with the children.
By mid-July it had become an epidemic. It was as though the legions from some dark, foul place had been unleashed on the community, moving from house to house, from tent to tent, from open bedroll to open bedroll, touching old and young alike with their accursed plague. First it was dozens, then hundreds, then literally thousands who were stricken. The demons of the plague selected member and nonmember alike, but the Saints were particularly hard hit. There had been too many months of malnourishment, too many winter nights without heat, too many trips to polluted wells and dirty streams. Nauvoo, Montrose, Quincy—all up and down the Mississippi, the desolating sickness swept across the land.
Lydia stopped and peered at the scene that lay before them. She brushed a hand across her eyes, thinking that her vision was betraying her.
“Oh my heavens . . . ,” Jessica breathed.
They had heard that Joseph and Emma were taking some of the sickest of the Latter-day Saints into their home to care for them, but nothing had prepared them for what they were seeing now. The Old Homestead had a large yard, with grass that swept right down to the reeds along the riverbank. Now the yard had disappeared under a sea of sick humanity. This was what stopped Jessica and Lydia so abruptly. The house was surrounded by small tents, makeshift lean-tos, a few carts, and one or two wagons without covers. They took considerable space, but every inch not occupied by those temporary shelters was filled with blankets and quilts, bedrolls, sheets—anything that could provide some cover over the ground. There was hardly room to step between them. And on every bed, in every tent, stretched out in every wagon and lean-to were the sick of Nauvoo. It was like a vast, open-air hospital ward. People lay huddled together, cloths or towels pulled over their faces to ward off the sun. Some slept fitfully; others moaned softly; a few thrashed back and forth as the fever raged in their bodies. Here and there someone knelt beside the sickest ones, spooning broth into their mouths, or mopping a clammy brow with a wet cloth.
“I had no idea it was this bad,” Jessica murmured, her voice filled with a horrified awe as they walked slowly toward the cabin. Lydia just shook her head. The sight of all the suffering around her made her nauseated, and she reached out for Jessica’s arm.
“Are you all right?” Jessica asked anxiously, peering at the paleness of her face.
Lydia started to nod her head, but then she knew that bravery alone wasn’t going to do it. “I need to sit for just a moment,” she stammered.
Jessica took her by the elbow. “Let’s get you into the shade there by the house,” she said. Then as she started steering Lydia around and through the people, she saw Emma Smith. “Oh, there’s Emma. Over by the well.”
Emma was drawing up a pail from the well just east of the house. She saw them at the same moment they saw her, and one hand lifted in greeting. She immediately set the bucket down and came toward them.
“Come,” Jessica said to Lydia. “A drink will do you good.”
“Lydia,” Emma said as she came up to them, “are you all right?”
“It’s just the heat,” Lydia said, forcing a wan smile. Her head turned in spite of herself, and she feebly waved one hand toward the surrounding scene. “And . . . this.”
“Yes,” Emma said, brushing at a trickle of sweat just below the line of her hair. “It’s unbelievable, isn’t it?”
“There are so many,” Jessica said as they reached the step of the house and she helped Lydia sit down.
Emma walked quickly to the pail of water she had drawn. She got a dipper that was sitting on the edge of the well and filled it. When she came back, she handed it to Lydia and sunk wearily down on the step beside her.
Lydia drank deeply from the dipper, savoring every swallow. The water was cool and sweet and tasted wonderful. She felt herself begin to steady almost immediately. “Oh,” she sighed luxuriously, “that is good!”
“Yes, it’s a wonderful well.” Emma untied her bonnet, pulled it off, and let it drop to her lap. Jessica watched her with a little anxiety. Emma normally wore her lustrous black hair in thick ringlets at the back of her head. Now they were limp and almost shapeless in the heat and humidity. Her eyes were missing that vibrancy that was part of her natural beauty, and there were large dark circles beneath them. She looked exhausted.
“Here,” Emma said, taking the dipper and starting to rise, “let me get you one too, Jessica.”
Jessica snatched the dipper from her hand. “You sit right there,” she commanded. “I’ll get a drink for myself.”
A young sister whom Lydia recognized but couldn’t name came up beside them. She hung back, not wanting to interrupt. “What is it, Mary Beth?” Emma asked.
“Are there any more wet cloths?” she asked. “My husband says he is burning up.”
“I haven’t been inside for a while,” was the response. “See if there are any left in the kitchen. On the table.”
“Thank you.”
Jessica drained the dipper, then returned. She sat down on the grass in front of Lydia. “Where’s Joseph?” she asked Emma.
A shadow crossed Emma’s face and she looked away.
“Not Joseph too!” Lydia cried.
“Yes, last night. He can barely move.”
“We heard that it was Father Smith that was ill,” Jessica said.
Now Emma’s despair was almost total. “Him too,” she whispered. “We thought we had lost him yesterday.”
“And now?” Jessica asked.
“A little better, but still very bad. We are praying very hard for him. Thankfully, Mother Smith is doing better.” Lucy Mack Smith and her youngest daughter, also named Lucy, had come down with cholera shortly after arriving in Quincy, and both had been very seriously ill for some time.
“What about your children?” Lydia inquired.
Emma bit her lower lip. “Young Joseph is just starting in with it. Little Frederick has been quite bad for two days now.” She looked out across the chaos around her, and then to no one said, “Sister Zina Huntington died last week.”
“No,” Jessica exclaimed. With their own illness consuming them, she had not heard that. So the deaths had begun.
“Will it never end?” Lydia burst out, feeling Emma’s burden as if it were her own.
Emma reached out instantly and laid a hand over Lydia’s. “It’s all right, Lydia. I’m doing all right.”
“Is Joseph in the house?” Jessica asked.
Emma smiled briefly, half in sadness, half in great love. “No, he’s in one of the tents out back. The two boys are with him.”
Jessica merely nodded. A woman had told her that Joseph had moved his family out into a tent to make room inside the house for the more desperately ill. Every bed, and most of the floor space, inside the house was quickly filled once the sickness began. Then they started putting the overflow in the yard around the house. It was not surprising to Jessica that Joseph would not reclaim his rights to his own house even though he himself was ill.
“Sister Smith! Sister Smith!”
They looked up. A man was near the corner of the house, beckoning frantically. “Come quick. It’s my wife.”
Emma nodded and lifted a hand. “I’ll be right there, Brother Barker.” She stood slowly, as if it cost her a tremendous effort of will. She looked down at Lydia. “It is so good to see you two. How are things with your families?”
Lydia looked away.
Jessica answered for her. “Nathan is down now. Little Nathan is very bad. The baby too.”
“What about Father Steed? Joseph heard that he was ill now too.”
“Very,” Lydia managed, fighting hard not to cry now. “He’s so weak. Mother Steed is down also. Even Matthew. But it’s Father Steed and little Nathan we are most worried about.” There was a pause and she looked away again. “We were hoping Joseph might come and give them a blessing.”
“Sister Smith,” the man called, his voice thin with desperation. “Please!”
“I’m coming.” It came out with a touch of sharpness. Then she looked back to Lydia. “I’m sorry, Lydia. Others have asked too, but Joseph can’t even rise from his bed.”
Lydia finally looked up at Emma, the pain etching deep lines into her face. “Would you ask him if he could at least pray for us? Would you ask him to pray for my babies?”
Emma nodded slowly. “Yes, of course. He can do that.” She looked around, gave a long sigh of total weariness, then turned and followed the man through the sea of bodies that filled the yard around them.
The fever broke shortly before eleven p.m.
It was as though he had been walking in those clouds of heavy black smoke that belch from the great cotton mills of New England. Now suddenly he was in the clear and the darkness was gone. He inhaled deeply, drawing in air slowly, savoring it as though it were the breath of life itself.
Reaching up, he laid the back of his hand against his cheek. It was cool and dry. Marveling at the change, he let his senses explore. He could feel the wetness beneath his head where his sweat had drenched his pillow. His nightshirt was equally wet, and he could feel the scars on his back pressing against it. Beside him, he could hear Lydia’s soft breathing, though she was turned away from him and faced the wall.
Moving very slowly, so as not to wake his wife, Nathan slipped out of bed, and stood up. He could feel that his body was weak and in need of food and water, but there was no dizziness, no waves of nausea, no blurred vision that made him feel like he was going to pass out again. His spirit soared in exultation. This was not just another brief respite, which was so typical of the ague. It had passed! He could sense that throughout his body. The fever was passed.
He padded silently over to where a bucket of water sat beside the small cupboard that held their few dishes. Careful not to bump anything, he took the cup beside the pail, dipped it in the water, and drank from it deeply. The water was lukewarm and stale, but he didn’t care. He filled the cup again and drained it. He could feel his body welcoming the liquid, as a dry patch of ground welcomes a stream turned onto it.
Satisfied, he turned and moved into the smaller room on one end of the cabin. Through the feverish haze that was his memory of the past few days, he remembered the baby’s piteous crying, little Nathan’s moaning, Lydia and Jessica bathing the small body, trying to stem the raging fever as little Nathan writhed back and forth in pain.
He moved to the small bed where his son lay, and listened. The breathing was labored and intermittent. Twice it stopped and Nathan held his own breath for what seemed like minutes until it started again. The boy half turned in his bed and there was a soft whimper of pain. Nathan reached out his hand and gently laid it on his son’s forehead. He jerked back in shock. It was as if he had touched the bottom of a hot frying pan.
Deeply alarmed now, Nathan went back out to the pail of water. Feeling in the darkness, he found a rag, then poured a cup of water on it. As he was wringing it out, he heard Lydia stir behind him. He turned.
“Nathan?”
“Yes, it’s me.”
She sat up. “What are you . . . Are you all right?”
He moved toward her. “Yes. It’s left me. I feel fine.”
“Thank the Lord,” she breathed.
She reached out for him, but he only touched her hand briefly. “Little Nathan is burning up again. I’ve got a wet cloth.”
In an instant she was out of bed. She walked swiftly to the fireplace, took down the candle, and knelt down on the hearth. The small bed of coals they used to cook still smoldered dully. Leaning over, she blew softly on the coals as she held the wick of the candle to them. It began to smoke, then burst into flame.