Benjamin straightened slowly. “Is that wise?” he asked.
“Do we have any choice? He is the only surviving member of the First Presidency. And President Marks is the stake president. He didn’t really ask any of us.” There was a weary sigh. “Besides, there are some people who are happy to hear that Sidney has returned.”
There was a heavy silence as they considered all that that meant. Finally, Benjamin stood, slowly, wearily, as if suddenly very tired. “It’s begun, then,” he said simply. “We knew it would, but now it’s begun.”
Nathan felt only anger. “The Prophet’s dead and already the vultures are circling.”
Parley nodded slowly. “Where are the rest of my brethren, the Twelve? There are four of us here now, but that is not sufficient for a quorum.” He looked away, his voice stricken now. “The voice of the Lord told me to have the people wait for the Twelve before they acted. But where are they? How much longer must we wait?” He finally looked at the three Steeds, who watched him with great anxiety. “How much longer
can
we wait?”
Chapter Notes
The audacity of John C. Bennett as evidenced by his return to Nauvoo after the Martyrdom is a little known chapter in the history of the Church. After his public exposure and excommunication from the Church in 1842, he left Nauvoo to wage a bitter writing and lecturing campaign against the Church, covering much of the nation in the intervening two years. As described in volume 6 of this series, he tried to do enormous damage to the Church. It was astonishing enough that he would even dare return to Nauvoo, but that he would come claiming a personal revelation from Joseph shows the nature of the man. (See Andrew F. Smith, “The Saintly Scoundrel: The Life and Times of John Cook Bennett” [unpublished ms., Albany, N.Y., 1994], pp. 202–3.)
In an entry from Bennett’s writings, he says he arrived in Nauvoo sometime in early August but gives no exact date. It had to be before the rest of the Twelve returned on 6 August, and it seems likely it was before Sidney Rigdon arrived, which was on 3 August (see
HC
7:223). Thus, in the novel Bennett is shown as coming to Nauvoo on 1 August 1844.
Brigham Young and others who knew Joseph well said the purported revelation was written in Bennett’s own handwriting. Evidently, Bennett took no active part in the succession crisis beyond the alleged revelation, probably because he knew how strongly the Saints resented him and he felt his support would only hurt Sidney Rigdon’s chances. After the succession question was settled, Bennett left Nauvoo again and had no more significant interaction with the Church.
Chapter 6
The roads were unbelievable—ruts deep enough in some places to hide the large wheels of the coach up to the hubs; ridges of mud that in the sun had turned hard as stone, enough to defy any set of springs ever put on a stagecoach; mud holes big enough and wide enough to look like small lakes, and deceptive enough to swallow a steam locomotive. The torrential rains during the latter part of June and the early part of July, which had caused so much flooding along the Mississippi River, were over now, but the effects of one of the wettest years in memory lingered on.
The five men traveling by stagecoach from Chicago to Galena, Illinois, a numbing journey of about a hundred and sixty miles, clung to the straps inside the coach as it rocked violently back and forth. They had left Chicago at seven a.m. the previous morning. That meant that so far they had endured thirty hours on the road, stopping only for a quick meal, a change of teams and drivers—or when the stage bogged down. Thirty hours of being viciously pummeled. Thirty long, jarring, jolting, lurching hours. And they were still about eighteen hours out from Galena.
Brigham Young turned to Heber C. Kimball, wedged in between him and Wilford Woodruff on the far side of the front-facing seat. “We should have just gone through Peoria, walked the whole way,” he shouted. “That would have been heaven compared to this.”
Kimball nodded grimly, holding himself up a little off the seat as he hung on to the strap so as to give his battered backside and legs some relief from the hammering they were taking. Galena was in the upper west corner of Illinois, actually even a little farther north than Chicago. The road snaked its way across the top of the state not far from its border with Wisconsin Territory. At Galena they would then turn south and go downriver to Nauvoo. All in all, coming this way was about a hundred miles farther than if they had angled straight southwest from Chicago through Peoria to Nauvoo. But distance was not the only consideration. Not only was there regular stage service between Chicago and Galena—which there was not from Peoria to Nauvoo—but Galena was only a short distance from the Mississippi River and a riverboat landing. A boat going downriver would save them a full day, maybe more.
Across from them, Orson Pratt and Lyman Wight leaned against each other, their heads bobbing and weaving like apples in a tub of water. Both had one hand through their respective straps; both were sound asleep. Brigham nudged Heber and inclined his head in their direction. “I think two of our brethren may have died sometime during the night.”
Wilford Woodruff groaned. “Surely you are right, for no living man could sleep through this.”
“It makes you question what the framers of the Declaration of Independence said, doesn’t it?” Heber said.
“What’s that?”
“That all men are created equal.”
There was a low chuckle from Brigham. “I must admit that right now I’m guilty of the sin of covetousness, and I—” He stopped as above them the driver gave a shout and the coach lurched to a shuddering stop.
Wight and Pratt came awake with a startled cry. “What is it?” Pratt asked, looking around wildly.
“Are we here?” Wight asked in bewilderment.
“Hardly,” Brigham replied. He pulled the curtains back and tried to see what it was that had stopped them. There was nothing in view. “Time to get our poles, brethren,” he said as he opened the door.
“You’d think the stage line would be paying us for this trip,” Lyman Wight grumbled, “as many times as we’ve had to pry this thing out of the mud.”
“Well,” drawled Heber with a wry smile, “it sure beats sleeping.”
As they climbed stiffly out of the coach, Brigham noted that they were not stuck in the mud or mired in water. The prairie grass looked soggy and almost marshy, but the road beneath the wheels, though it was dark and moist, was hard-packed and firm. “What’s the—,” he started to ask of the driver above him; then his eyes moved forward and there was no need to finish the question.
They had come to a low spot in the prairie, a long swale where the ground dipped, providing a gathering place for the rains to fill each spring. But this had not been just any spring, and the low spot had become a miniature swamp a hundred yards across and maybe a quarter of a mile in length. The road ran straight through the middle of it. The water was no more than a foot deep, and the coach, with its high wheels, should have been able to negotiate it without problem. But ten or fifteen yards ahead of where the stage had stopped the road was blocked by a wagon, mired up to its axles. Four men waded around it, trousers wet to the waist, bawling and yelling in some strange language at the three yoke of oxen hitched to the wagon. Across on the other side, several more wagons waited. A dozen more men and women shouted their encouragement to the ones in the water.
“Uh-oh,” Heber said beside him. “They’re really in there.”
“No wonder,” Lyman Wight said, pointing. “Look at how heavily that wagon is loaded.”
Above them, the stage driver was swearing softly but steadily. His companion looked down at the passengers. “Norwegians,” he said. “On their way to northern Iowa Territory, I’d guess.”
That explained the strange language, Brigham thought, watching as the men took out their frustration on the animals. Two of them had whips and were laying it across the backs of the animals, shouting and yelling in incomprehensible syllables. Two more were at the back of the wagon, pushing and grunting. It did nothing to get the wagon moving. The oxen were bellowing, eyes rolling, crashing against one another to try and avoid the lash. When they did lunge forward against the traces the wagon didn’t budge, and they fell back, panting and moaning.
“That’s never going to move,” Wight was saying to the two men above him on the coach’s seat. “They’re going to have to unload that wagon, take it out empty, then reload it.”
The driver swore again, nodding. “Half a day at the least. As if we’re not late enough already. Crazy Scandinavians.” His voice dropped back into muttering, but now his words were no longer distinguishable.
“Can we get by it?” Wilford Woodruff asked.
The second man, sitting beside the driver, shook his head. “No. The road’s barely wide enough for two wagons and they’re square in the middle of it. We get off the roadbed and we’ll sink so deep you’ll be swimming inside the coach. And then we’ll have to wait until Christmas, when it freezes up again, to get out of there.”
“Is there a way to get around the swampy area?” Brigham asked, watching the Norwegian teamsters with obvious distaste for how they were treating their animals.
The driver shook his head in disgust. “Not without backtracking who knows how many miles. Look!” He waved his arm in a great circle. “Only a d—” He caught himself at Brigham’s warning look. “Only a stupid fool would venture off the beaten track right now. The whole state of Illinois is one vast bog.”
“So we’re stuck?” Woodruff asked again.
“Until they get that wagon out of there,” the driver’s assistant replied, sitting back in his seat and pulling his hat down low over his eyes.
“They’re not going to get that wagon to move even if they do unload it,” Brigham said. “Look at them. The oxen are like frightened children.” Suddenly he straightened. “I’m going to go talk to them.”
Heber jerked up in surprise. “But you don’t speak Nor—”
Brigham was already bent over pulling off his boots. He turned his head enough to give Heber a jaunty grin. “I know,” he said, cutting off Heber’s protest.
The driver climbed down now to stand beside Orson Pratt. He was half-amused, half-disgusted. Up on the coach’s seat, the assistant had lifted his head enough to watch from beneath the brim of the hat.
Handing his boots to Heber for safekeeping, Brigham strode forward into the water. Swarms of gnats and mosquitoes rose in black clouds. In moments, Brigham’s trouser legs were wet to his knees, and he moved with a sloshing, sucking sound through the muck and the water. The Norwegians saw him coming and stopped what they were doing. One of the oxen gave a low bellow, which sounded like a great sigh of relief. Brigham raised his hand briefly in greeting. There were cautious grunts in return. They were watching him warily, curiously, even a little resentfully, as if they had dealt too frequently with these brash Americans who felt like they could do anything and everything.
“Would you stand clear, please?” he said to the Norwegian who seemed to be their leader. Without waiting for an answer, Brigham took the whip from the man’s hand and motioned for him to step back. He walked to the head of the first span of oxen. He stood there for a moment, letting the animals eye him warily. Then he began to speak to the animals, his voice low.
Heber moved forward slightly, peering at his friend.
“What’s he doing?” the assistant driver said, sitting up straight now and staring ahead. “What’s he saying?”
“Shhh!” Orson Pratt commanded. “Listen.”
Brigham reached out and scratched beneath the wooden yoke on the neck of one of the oxen. It half closed its eyes, lowering the head in sudden contentment. And all the time, he kept talking to them. His voice carried clearly back to the others, but they could not understand a word he was saying. All six animals were watching him now. It was clear that they were calming down. The nervous stomping in the mud and water stopped, and their tails were no longer switching wildly back and forth.
“What’s he saying?” the assistant driver asked again.
“He’s speaking Norwegian to them,” Pratt said in awe.
“No,” the assistant corrected them. “That’s not Norwegian. I know Norwegian when I hear it.”
“Well, it sure isn’t English,” Lyman Wight retorted.
“Look!” Heber commanded.
Reaching out, Brigham took hold of the yoke on the first span. He said a few more words, then gave a sharp, “Hee yaw!” He pulled on the yoke, urging them forward. With the other hand he raised the whip and cracked it, but it was high above their heads. Now as though they were one, the oxen lunged forward. Lines tightened, singletrees snapped upward, coming out of the water with a muddy spray. At first there was nothing as the animals pawed and snorted, churning the water into a froth, finding little footing in the thick goo beneath their hooves. Brigham did not use the whip again. His voice rose now, crying out to them, urging them forward, still speaking words the watching men could not understand. The men in the water with Brigham stared in amazement for a moment or two; then their leader shouted and they ran around to the back of the wagon and began to push.
With a great sucking sound, the wagon started to move. There was a collective gasp, then a ragged cheer. The wheels were turning now, slowly, the rims coming up black and dripping. They moved forward, faster now. Brigham walked alongside the animals, shouting into their ears, waving his hand forward. The men pushing let go, not able to keep up now as the wagon rolled ahead more quickly. Forty feet, fifty feet. And then there was no longer a question. The wheels were flinging mud and water in a circular spray. The wagon was across the muddy slough and onto dry land again.
Without a word, Brigham waded back into the water to where the leader of the Norwegians stood, eyes agog, staring at his wagon. The Apostle handed him his whip and smiled.
“Thank you,” the man said with a heavy accent. Brigham lifted one hand, then turned and started back across the swamp toward the coach. The driver walked to the edge of the water to wait for him. As Brigham reached him, he stuck out his hand. “Mister, I ain’t never seen anything like that before in my life.”