“I’m ready.”
She straightened and turned in surprise. There were still half a dozen things to be packed. Their tent was still up, the only one among those belonging to the Steeds that was not taken down as yet. The oxen were down at the creek. “What about all this?” she asked, then turned back to her work.
“Caroline,” he said again. “I’m ready.”
Something in his voice brought her head back around. She pushed back a loose tendril of hair, looking just a little exasperated with his persistence.
Laughing softly, he walked to her and took her hands. “It came, Caroline. Just now.”
“What came?” And then her jaw went slack and her eyes snapped wide open. “What came?” she asked again, not daring to believe.
“Everything you’ve prayed for.”
She just stared at him, as though his words had flown past her, over her head and not into her mind. Then her lower lip started to tremble. “Do you mean . . . ?” she started haltingly.
“Yes.” He lifted a finger and touched her lips, smoothing the tremor, smiling down into her eyes.
She was still fumbling, dazed and bewildered. “Are you saying that—”
He cut her off exuberantly. “Yes!”
“That you’re going to be—”
“Yes!” He laughed and picked her up in his arms. “Yes, Caroline! Yes! I have my answer. I know now. I want to be baptized.”
With a sob of joy, she threw her arms around him and crushed him to her. Then it was too much for her. She pushed back, still in his arms. “Do you really mean it, Joshua? You’re not just teasing me?”
“I wouldn’t tease you about something this important,” he said gravely.
Suddenly the tears came, welling up from some fountain deep within her and spilling in wet streaks down her cheeks. Her lips moved, but no words came out. She was gazing at him, her face filled with incredulity.
He bent down and kissed her gently, tasting the salt of her tears. “It’s true, Caroline. I know now. I know for myself. Your prayers are answered.”
“Oh, Joshua!” she whispered. “I can’t believe it.”
“Nor can I.”
He saw past her now that they had attracted the attention of the family. Mary Ann had stopped what she was saying to the children and was staring at them. Lydia was motionless, her eyes wide. This was hardly the normal greeting a husband got after going down to the creek to water the oxen.
He laughed aloud at the expression on their faces. “Josh,” he called to his nephew. “Would you go find Brother Brigham and ask him to come see us?”
He looked surprised. “Yes, Uncle Joshua.”
“And get your father and Uncle Matthew and Uncle Derek. I know they’re working, but tell them something urgent has come up. Tell them I need to talk to them.”
“Papa?” Savannah had come around from the wagon now. She saw that her mother was crying and instantly rushed forward. “Papa, what’s the matter?”
In two long steps he reached her and swept her up in his arms, crushing her against him. “Nothing is the matter, Savannah,” he whispered into her hair. “Everything is going to be all right now.”
The family was seated around him in a close circle. Every face was turned to him. Caroline sat in the midst of the women, most of whom were weeping joyfully with her. The men were still breathing hard from their run back to camp. When Josh had told Nathan that Aunt Caroline was crying and that his Uncle Joshua wanted them and President Young to come urgently, he had turned and sprinted for camp, his heart filled with dread. Now he looked as though he were still recovering from a stunning blow to his solar plexus.
“I think we are ready, Joshua,” Mary Ann said. “I think we are all very ready to hear the full story now.”
He smiled at her, feeling her love spanning the distance between them as tangibly as if it were one of Matthew’s bridges. “I wish Papa were here.” His eyes dropped. “And Olivia.”
“They’ll know,” Mary Ann whispered. “They’ll know.”
“I guess I need to go back a ways,” he started, “if you are going to understand how all this came about.” And so he began. He started with Nathan’s bullheaded insistence that they go back to Nauvoo and get Caroline, and his promise that if Joshua would just trust in God a way would be provided for that to happen. “When we found those families stuck in the mud and made the trade we did,” he went on, “I was amazed. Something in me wanted to believe God had a hand in it, but I couldn’t bring myself to accept that.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe what a hardheaded fool I’ve been.”
“Hardheaded, yes,” Nathan said with a warm smile, “but not a fool.”
He nodded gratefully and continued. He told them about taking Lydia’s Book of Mormon, about his questions, about Nathan’s patience in answering those questions. He stopped, looking at his brother. “I’m still not sure I understand all you were trying to tell me, little brother,” he said softly, “but as I think about it now, what mattered most to me was that my questions didn’t shake you at all. I didn’t know if what you were saying was true, but I knew that you knew, and that had a strangely reassuring effect on me.”
“You asked some very important questions,” Nathan answered.
Suddenly Joshua realized that there was someone standing behind him. He turned and there was Brigham Young, smiling in soft pleasure at him. “Go on,” Brother Brigham urged. “I want to hear all of it.”
He talked about his mother’s gentle prodding, about the night he went hunting and got an answer about life and death, about Brigham’s not-so-gentle call to repentance. He turned, smiling ruefully at the chief Apostle. “I nearly just walked away from it all that night,” he confessed. “But I couldn’t get what you said out of my mind, about me asking more from the Lord than I would from a business partner. That hit me pretty hard.”
“I didn’t sleep much that night,” Brigham admitted. “I worried that I had been too strong with you.”
“Us hardheads need a real pop on the jaw every now and then,” he said. He rubbed his cheek as if he had been actually struck. “And you gave it to me.”
He turned back to the family and told them about the day before on the bluffs, how Brigham had laid down the challenge, of his seemingly fruitless prayers and the great sadness he had as he came back and told Caroline that nothing had come of it all.
Brigham walked around now and stood behind Mary Ann. He laid a hand on her shoulder but still looked at Joshua. “When you didn’t come see me last night, my heart just sank,” he said. “I was so sure that you would get an answer.”
“I did, just not when I expected it.” Joshua took a breath. “So anyway, this morning I was kind of depressed, mostly for Caroline’s sake.” He had looked at her and that was his undoing. Her eyes were large and swimming with tears, but the absolute radiance on her face caused his voice to catch. He swallowed hard, fighting for control, then went on slowly. He described seeing his mother with the sunlight in her hair; he told of watching Savannah and Charles struggling with the food box and joking about it; he spoke of Caroline brushing out Livvy’s hair.
“They were such simple things, but it brought me a great sense of peace. I decided that even if the Lord didn’t want me yet, even though I wasn’t ready to become a member, it would be all right, because I still had all this. Then—” He had to stop. He blinked rapidly, trying to stop the burning behind his eyes. “Then I went down to the creek to water the oxen. I saw Savannah and—”
He couldn’t finish. The tears spilled out and his throat choked off. He dropped his head and stared down at the ground. The whole family was weeping now, watching this man whom for so long they had prayed for and hoped for, despaired for. To see him unable to speak, to see his face wet with tears, was enough to open up the floodgates in all of them.
Caroline got up and went to stand beside him, slipping an arm around his waist. She too was struggling to speak, but she did so, telling them what had transpired between father and daughter at the creek. She motioned for Savannah to come forward. “Savannah, I know you don’t like to sing in front of people, but I’d like you to sing Olivia’s song for the family. I think it will help them understand what happened to your father. Will you do that?”
Savannah looked up at her mother, obviously hesitant, then turned to Joshua.
“Please,” he said softly. “It was what started it all for me, Savannah. Your song.”
And then she smiled, thrilled to know that she had had a part in this. “Okay.”
She stepped away from her parents and turned to the family. All went very quiet. And then, looking up at Joshua, she began to sing.
Listen to your heart,
It will help you see
That God is waiting now for you
To turn to him.
Papa, don’t you know
That I am praying for you?
Oh, won’t you turn to him
So I can be with you?
Papa, don’t you know
That I am praying for you?
Oh, won’t you turn to him
So I can be with you?
When she finished, Joshua dropped to his knees and took her in his arms. “Thank you,” he whispered. “Thank you, my precious Savannah.”
The sounds of sobbing and sniffling filled the air now. None of them had been able to resist the sight of her singing to her father. Mary Ann got to her feet and came up to Joshua and Savannah. Joshua stood slowly. Savannah and Caroline stepped back. Then, in a gesture that represented a thousand generations of mothers, she stepped forward and took her boy into her arms.
They gathered on the east banks of the wide and muddy river at about six o’clock that evening. They had moved from their camp at Mosquito Creek and come down the bluffs into the river bottoms. All told, they traveled about seven miles before the scouts showed them the spot they had chosen for the camp. By then everyone knew the news and the camp was electrified by it. Joshua Steed was to be baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as soon as their tents were pitched and the camp was set.
Joshua’s back was sore from a hundred hands slapping him in congratulations. His right hand ached from the grip of iron-fisted men who felt as if the measure of their sincerity was the power by which they shook his hand. But in spite of the soreness, Joshua was deeply touched and welcomed each new person with a broad smile. It was a great, tremendous outpouring of affection, and it completely amazed him.
Now they were at the river’s side. Brigham had picked a spot where the bank gently sloped into a quiet spot of the Missouri River. The water eddied and swirled but moved slowly by. There were five or six hundred people in all, lined up six and seven deep. Only a few of the older boys had been left behind to watch the stock. Every other member of the camp had come to see. Joy came hard on the trail; no one was about to miss its welcome visitation.
Had Benjamin still been alive, Joshua would have picked him. But with him gone, there was no question in his mind as to whom he wanted to baptize him. They both wore white shirts—Nathan had one in his possession; Heber Kimball had found another one for Joshua. But they wore only workaday trousers. The company was not carrying any special baptismal clothing. Neither wore shoes or socks.
As Joshua and Nathan walked gingerly toward the water, Elder Kimball nudged Josh. “Did you stop to think that this might be the first baptism in the Missouri River in over a thousand years?”
Josh turned in surprise. “A thousand years!”
“Yes. Perhaps the Nephites or the Jaredites got up this far and baptized people here, so you can’t say for sure it is the first time ever. But I think it would be safe to say there hasn’t been one since the time of the Nephites, not by proper authority anyway.”
Josh was awed by that thought. “You think the Nephites once lived around here?”
“Don’t know for sure, of course, but it’s possible. The Book of Mormon says they spread across the whole face of the land.”
“That’s right,” Josh said in wonder. He turned and whispered that thought to Rachel and Luke and Emily.
Lydia and Mary Ann had Caroline between them. Rebecca and the older girls were just behind them. As Nathan and Joshua reached the water’s edge and stopped, Lydia slipped an arm around Caroline’s waist. “Does this even seem real to you?” she asked.
Caroline shook her head. “I’m still in a daze.”
“You’re in a daze?” Rebecca exclaimed. “At least you had some signs that it might be coming. When Joshua told us he had taken Lydia’s Book of Mormon and was reading it, I nearly fell off the log. I thought for a minute I was going to faint.”
“Me too,” Rachel exclaimed. “Oh, I wish Mama could be here to see it.”
Caroline nodded sadly. “That is Joshua’s one regret. Of all people, he would like Jessica to be here today.”
Brigham raised his arms then, and immediately the crowd grew quiet. He waited for a moment, then spoke loudly. “Brothers and sisters, we welcome you here at the water’s edge on this beautiful Sabbath evening. As you know, we are about to witness a momentous event.” He looked at Joshua. “One of the great giants of the forest has fallen”—there was a sudden impish grin—“and I’m happy to say that he has fallen right into our hands.”
The group laughed heartily at that. Joshua was smiling too and raised one hand in acknowledgment.
Then Brigham grew serious. “I’d like to say a few words before we proceed, if I may. As we all know now, life along the trail, though difficult and challenging, is still life. It contains the normal events that are part of any community—birth, death, sickness, celebration. We have even had a few courtships and one marriage that we know of since we left Nauvoo.”
People were nodding, sobered now too as they thought back over the past four months of their lives.
“It has not been an easy journey to where we are today. With the incessant rain, hillocks became mountains, low spots became mile-long bogs, creeks became rivers, and rivers impassable torrents. When the rain stopped, it was replaced by prairie fires and rattlesnakes. We have had times of sorrow and we have had times of joy. We have wept and we have laughed, we have toiled and we have danced.