“I can’t believe it. This is crazy. He could be killed.”
Rockwell let one hand come to rest on his pistol butt. “That’s why I came.” He looked at Joseph with a mixture of admiration and exasperation. “He wanted to come alone.” He reached up and removed his hat, running his hand through his long hair. “But we’ve got to hurry, Nathan. If we’re not out of here by first light . . .”
“We’re just getting ready to leave.”
Joseph heard that and straightened. “Have you given Caroline a blessing yet?” he asked Benjamin.
“We were just getting ready to. Would you do it, Joseph?”
He turned to Joshua. “Are you in agreement with that?”
Joshua was shocked. “You’d do that for me after everything that’s happened?”
Joseph looked genuinely surprised. “Of course.”
Joshua’s head dropped and he looked away in shame. “Yes, Joseph. I want you to give Caroline a blessing.”
They arrived back in Nauvoo just as it was getting dark again. To their surprise, there was a huge crowd waiting for them on Steed Row. In addition to the family, there were friends, neighbors, business associates, city council members, Hyrum and Mary Smith, other members of the Twelve, and some Joshua didn’t recognize at all. They had come to welcome the Joshua Steed family back home and to mourn with them in their loss.
It was almost ten p.m., and Joshua felt as if his eyes had been stuffed with sand and his body dragged behind a team of oxen for twenty miles. But he was resolute. In the rush of the return and getting Caroline in and settled at their old house on Steed Row, Joseph had slipped away before Joshua could say anything to him. Now things were finally quiet. Savannah and Charles were asleep upstairs. Lydia was in with Caroline, so she could keep the baby close to her, and they were both asleep as well.
He moved slowly down Water Street, then up the walk to the door of the Mansion House. He raised the door knocker and rapped it softly. In a few moments, he heard footsteps and backed up a little. It was Joseph who opened the door. If he was surprised, he showed no sign of it. He nodded, called over his shoulder to Emma, then came outside.
He sat down on the step and patted a spot next to him. Joshua sank down beside him. They sat in silence for two or three minutes, content to listen to the soft chirping of the crickets and to watch the fireflies dancing around them in the darkness.
“Joseph?” Joshua finally began.
“You don’t need to say anything, Joshua, not on my account.”
He nodded, appreciating that first move on Joseph’s part. “May I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
“First I should tell you it was Foster who told me about you and Olivia.”
“I thought it probably was. Him or Law.”
“Did you kiss my daughter?” he asked.
Joseph was startled. “No, of course not.” Then he straightened. “Oh.”
Joshua looked at him sharply. Joseph was nodding. “When we finished talking, Olivia said something that really impressed me. She was a wonderful girl, your daughter.”
“I know,” he whispered. “So what happened?”
“As we came out of the office, I was so touched by her faith and her sweet innocence, I just reached out and gave her a quick hug.”
“And did you kiss her?”
“Yes. On the top of her head.”
Joshua had to look away, his eyes burning. “And do you remember what you said to her?” he asked hoarsely.
“I told her that I hoped my Julia would someday be just like her.”
A shudder shook Joshua’s body and he gave a low moan.
“What?” Joseph asked.
“That’s what she told me and I—” He shuddered again. “I didn’t believe her, Joseph. I believed Robert Foster instead. And now she’s gone and I can’t tell her how sorry I am.”
“Yes, you can. You just go out some night, out alone somewhere, and you tell her all the feelings that are in your heart. And she’ll know.” He smiled now. “And you’ll know that she knows.”
For a long time Joshua stared at the ground; then he finally looked up. “I think I’ll do that.” Now his shoulders pulled back. He wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. “I’ll tell you this, you won’t ever have to worry about Robert Foster bothering you again.”
“Joshua,” Joseph said, his voice rising in warning.
“My daughter is dead because of him,” he said in a tight voice. “I’ll not be forgetting that very soon.”
“You listen to me, Joshua. If you do go out alone some night to talk to Livvy, don’t you tell her about that, because it will make her want to weep. You think about that, before you go after Doctor Foster.”
Joshua stood, feeling the tiredness seeping into his soul. Joseph didn’t move. He was lost deep in his own thoughts now. “Joseph?”
He looked up.
“I guess you know that Mormonism will always test my patience and strain my credulity.”
That won him a deep chuckle. “I thought as much.”
“And I guess I’m going to have to wait until I get on the other side and have God tell me directly that he allows a man to have more than one wife before I will accept it.”
“That doesn’t surprise me either, Joshua.”
He pulled his shoulders back, looking up at the stars that filled the sky above them. “But know this, Joseph Smith. While those things are true, they shall no longer stand between our friendship. I am in your debt for what you did this day, and I shall never forget it.”
“I didn’t do anything, Joshua. I just felt like I needed to be with your family.”
“You came, Joseph,” he said with quiet finality. “That was enough.”
Chapter Notes
The first and only issue of the
Nauvoo Expositor
was published on Friday,
7 June 1844. The prospectus promised that a new issue would be published each week thereafter. Sylvester Emmons, not a Church member but nevertheless a member of the Nauvoo City Council, was hired by Foster and the others to serve as editor and because of that was expelled from the council. Ironically, beneath the title of the paper, the motto on the masthead reads: “The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” (See
CHFT,
pp. 275–76.)
The proceedings of the city council meeting, including the testimony mentioned here and the order to destroy the press, are given in great detail in Joseph’s history (see
HC
6:432–48).
With the Steed family not being historical figures, obviously Joseph’s trip to Warsaw is not based on actual historical events. The idea was suggested by several journal entries about this time which indicate that Joseph would go out riding with Porter Rockwell (see
HC
6:227, 399, 424, 451, 472).
Chapter 40
Joshua tiptoed quietly to the bedroom, then stopped when he opened the door. So much for thinking Caroline might be asleep. It might as well have been a meeting of the Relief Society. They had turned the downstairs sitting room into a bedroom so that Caroline would not have to worry about negotiating stairs when she began her recuperation. Now it was packed with people. Lydia and Mary Ann sat on chairs beside Caroline’s bed. Mary Ann had the baby. Jenny and Rebecca sat on the floor directly beside Caroline. Kathryn was in her wheelchair behind the others. Jessica and Rachel stood at the foot of the bed.
When the men had gone to Warsaw to get Caroline and bring her home, Mary Ann had paid a young man to ride to Ramus and tell Jessica of the tragedy. Solomon Garrett had immediately packed his family into a wagon and come to Nauvoo. Aside from their being there with the family in an hour of need, their presence had proven to be a blessing in another way. Jessica’s little Miriam had been born just a month after Lydia’s baby, and so Jessica and Lydia were now alternating nursing Caroline’s baby.
Caroline’s head was turned as she listened to the conversation and she saw Joshua before the others. “Hello,” she said weakly.
As they all turned, he went right to her. “How are you feeling?”
“Better,” she said. “I slept all the time you were gone.”
“That’s good.” He laid a hand on her cheek.
“The fever’s down,” Mary Ann said, “don’t you think?”
“Yes, I think it is.” He was encouraged. Caroline’s voice wasn’t so tremulous now. Her eyes were bright again; her cheeks had good color.
“They tell me that the funeral was very nice,” Caroline said to Joshua.
He nodded. “It was. And there were hundreds of people there. That’s why I’ve been so long getting back. Everyone came up afterwards to express their condolences and to tell me they are praying for you.” There was a touch of awe in his voice. “I couldn’t break loose.”
She looked away, her eyes tearing up. “I wanted so much to be there.”
He squeezed her hand. “I know.”
Mary Ann stood and walked to the bassinet. She carefully laid the baby down and smoothed the blanket over it. Then she turned to Joshua. “We’ll go now. We don’t want to tire her.”
“Thank you, Mother. Thank you all.”
As they started to file out, Jessica touched his arm. “I’ve just fed the baby, so she’ll be all right for a time.”
Lydia nodded. “I’ll come in a couple of hours and feed her again.”
“Thank you.”
Kathryn maneuvered her wheelchair so that she faced both Joshua and Caroline. “Have you decided what you’re going to name her?”
He shook his head. “Not yet, but I know what I
want
to call her.”
Caroline’s eyes rose a little. “What?”
He spoke very quietly. “Caroline Steed.”
There was a soft murmur of approval from the other women, but Caroline moved her head back and forth on the pillow.
“No?” he asked.
“Livvy,” she said. “I want to call her Livvy.”
Joshua’s eyes were instantly burning. He looked away. “I don’t know if I could bear to call her Olivia, Caroline,” he said in a low voice.
“Not Olivia,” she answered, a tear trickling down one cheek. “Just Livvy. I want to have another Livvy.”
Joshua knelt down beside her and began to stroke her hair. Then he looked at Kathryn again. “I think we’ll name her Livvy Caroline Steed,” he said huskily.
He walked them to the door and bid them good-bye, then came back to sit beside Caroline. He took her hand.
“Tell me all about it, Joshua.”
“Are you sure you’re not too tired?”
“No, I want to hear it from you. I want to hear everything.”
He talked softly and with an occasional tear or two. She too wept as he spoke. He spent the most time telling her about what Joseph had said—how he had talked about the spirit world, and that Livvy was there now, still with all of her personality, her laughter, her love of music. Finally, Joshua had to stop.
She looked up, and when she saw his eyes, she started to cry again. “You’re not sure it’s true, are you?” she asked.
He stared at her for several seconds, then looked away.
“Oh, Joshua,” she cried. “How can you bear it if you don’t know?”
He had held it back for so long—speaking at the services, accepting the kind wishes of all the people, keeping his emotions in check. Now his hands began to tremble and his lip quivered. “I don’t know if I
can
bear it, Caroline,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “I . . . If only I could see her once more. Take her in my arms and tell her how terribly sorry I am for being such a fool.”
“She knows, Joshua,” Caroline said, taking his hand in both of hers. “She knows.”
Finally, he pulled free, sniffing back the tears and wiping at his eyes with his fingertips. “I can see why the gospel is so appealing to you, Caroline, but . . .” He took a deep breath and shook his head, the stubbornness in him not allowing him to let it lie. “But just wanting something, even desperately wanting something, doesn’t make it so. I wish it did.” His voice cracked again and he dropped his head. “I wish it did. It would be so simple then.”
Caroline reached up and pulled his head down against her chest and began to stroke his hair. “Oh, my poor dear Joshua,” she whispered. “My poor dear Joshua.”
By the evening of June seventeenth—the day of the funeral for Olivia and a week following the destruction of the
Nauvoo Expositor
press—the rumors were flying as thick as a swarm of hornets. A group of men in Carthage were supposedly preparing to attack Nauvoo. Fifteen hundred Missourians had ferried across the river to join the Warsaw anti-Mormon party; Thomas Sharp was whipping them into a frenzy and they too were going to march on Nauvoo and get Joe Smith. The Laws, the Fosters, and the Higbees were bringing a mob to smash the printing offices of the
Nauvoo Neighbor
in retaliation. With all of that, Nauvoo was like a tinderbox. Joseph had companies of the Nauvoo Legion watching the roads. He detailed some of the police to stand guard over the printing office. Other companies of the Legion started to dig fortifications around the perimeter of the city.
It was in that air of tension that Joshua appeared at the Red Brick Store late that afternoon. Joseph was in council with city officials and Church leaders, but when he was told Joshua was outside, he came out immediately. Joshua didn’t waste any time with small talk. “Joseph, I understand Nathan is going to Springfield.”
Joseph wasn’t surprised that he knew. “Yes. I’m sending a letter to Governor Ford along with affidavits describing recent threats against the Saints.”
“I want to go with him.”
Joseph looked at him for several seconds, then shook his head.
“Why? Caroline is much better. She’s got all the women here to care for her and—”
Joseph just kept shaking his head.
“Why? Lydia’s very worried about Nathan going alone.”
“He’ll not be alone. There are others going.” Joseph motioned to a couple of chairs that were out in the hallway and they sat down. “Joshua, Caroline is better only because we blessed her by the power of the priesthood. Do you believe that?”
Joshua hesitated. This was the other thing that kept him going around and around. The rational part of him knew that there was no way that Caroline could have made the fifteen-mile journey in a wagon and survived. The doctor in Warsaw had feared for her life even without moving her. And yet she was not only still alive, she was healing. But on the other hand . . . He shook his head angrily. There was no “on the other hand.” “Yes,” he said. “I don’t understand it, but I believe that what you did made the difference.”