Only five of the ten teamsters who had volunteered to go to Nauvoo to rescue the poor Saints were ready by Monday morning, but Brigham didn’t want them to delay further. The rest would follow when they could.
As Joshua checked the yoke on his oxen and the chains which were fastened to the wagon tongue, Caroline watched him silently. When he finished, he patted the horses’ noses, then came over to where she was. “I don’t want to leave you,” he said.
She stepped up to him and laid her head against his chest. “If it were under other circumstances, I wouldn’t want you to either. But I think we both know that this is what the Lord wants.”
He nodded. “Evidently. I don’t know if we can convince Carl to come with us, but at least we’ll be there to help them if they need us.”
“I’m so proud of you,” Caroline said, looking up at him.
He seemed a little surprised. “Why?”
“For being close to the Spirit.” There was a teasing smile. “This is the same man who once threatened to leave me if I joined the Church.”
“I never said that.”
“Close to it,” she retorted.
He shook his head, then pulled her close again. “I said a lot of foolish things back then, but I was never crazy enough to say I would leave you.”
“No,” she murmured. And that was true. They had experienced rocky times because of their differing views about the Church, but there had never been any question about his loving her.
“Well, the rest of the family is over there wondering what we’re doing. I’d better go.”
He tapped the near ox on the shoulder. “Go, boy,” he urged. They moved forward to where Nathan had his wagon ready and the rest of the family was waiting.
As Joshua’s wagon pulled in behind Nathan’s, Solomon and Matthew came over. “Looks like you’re ready,” Matthew said, with some longing in his voice.
“We are,” Joshua answered.
“Are you sure all four of us shouldn’t be going?”
Joshua laid his hand on his youngest brother’s shoulder. “No, I’m not, Matthew. But I know this. It will probably take us a month or more for the round-trip. If we wait until mid or late October to start building our cabins, that will not bode well for us. And you’re the carpenter, remember? It’s not that we don’t want you along, it’s just that you are needed here.”
Matthew held up his hands. “I know, I know. I was just grousing a little.”
“I understand. We’ll tell Melissa why you didn’t come.”
“You just bring them back with you,” Solomon said.
Nathan nodded slowly. “We’re certainly going to try, but I don’t have high hopes. Not with Carl feeling as he does.”
“Ready,” Joshua said.
“Then let’s roll them out. The others are probably at the ferry by now.”
“Rebecca. I need to ask you a question.”
She turned onto her side so that she faced him. They spoke softly so as not to wake the children. “What?”
“Lieutenant Smith has decided to send a detachment of men to Pueblo.”
“He has?” That rocked her. Rumors had been rife in camp for the past two days that their martinet commanding officer wanted to get rid of some of the sick men and, more important, the women and children.
“He’s assigned Captain Higgins to take command of the detachment. There will be ten of the sickest men sent along with several of the wives and children. He’s calling it the family detachment.”
“Colonel Allen promised that we wouldn’t be split up.”
He sighed. “I know. Levi Hancock explained that to Lieutenant Smith, but it got him nowhere. Colonel Allen is dead. The original plan was for us to meet up with General Kearny at Bent’s Fort, so Kearny ordered all of our supplies to go there. Now that he’s conquered Santa Fe and we’re going straight there, we have to bypass Bent’s Fort, which means we are short on rations.”
“Are you one of the sick they plan to send?” she asked quietly.
“No.”
“Then I’m not going either.”
“Rebecca, Kathryn is at Pueblo. It would be safe there.”
“I’m not going, Derek. Not without you.”
“Listen, Rebecca. It could become very difficult traveling now.”
“Are you going to Pueblo?” she asked again.
“Rebecca, you have—”
“Then it’s settled.” She reached out and touched his mouth with her fingertips, letting him know that it really was settled.
By Tuesday, the fifteenth of September, the “Battle of Nauvoo” was over. A committee of citizens from Quincy had come to the city, just as they had during the hostilities of 1845, and negotiated with both sides to see if they could find a way to peace.
Triumphant, Thomas Brockman, the commander of the opposing forces, set down his demands for an end to the conflict. It was more an ultimatum than a proposal. The “posse,” as he insisted on calling his forces, still had numerous arrest warrants for various Nauvoo citizens, Mormon and non-Mormon alike. Those warrants would be set aside and there would be no destruction of either persons or property, on the conditions that the citizens surrender their arms and that all Mormons, with the exception of a committee of five men and their families who were authorized to dispose of properties, be out of the city within five days.
By that time, Colonel Johnson, who had fallen critically ill during the battle, had turned the command over to William Cutler and Daniel H. Wells. Though many of the citizens were furious with the harsh demands and wanted to fight on, Wells urged them to accept the offer. They were heavily outnumbered, he pointed out. Sooner or later they would be defeated and have to give up anyway. If they did it now, lives could be spared.
But it was William Cutler who finally convinced them. He stood slowly after Wells had finished and looked around. “Brethren,” he said in a dejected tone, “it is reasonable that we leave Nauvoo. Not only for the reasons Brother Wells has so clearly stated, but also because the time has come for us to depart. God has called upon us to go, and most of our brethren and sisters have already done so. If we refuse to follow his command, then perhaps he will let the mob loose on us so that we are at last driven out. Not that they will get any glory for it. Someday they will have to suffer for the wrongs they have committed against God’s people. Let us go. I hope the day is coming when we shall no longer have to suffer from the mobs as we have done here.”
Carl Rogers, thoroughly shattered by the knowledge of how desperately wrong he had been in refusing to leave, lifted his hand and asked for an amendment. He wanted a guarantee that the sick and the helpless would be protected. When that was agreed to, he raised his hand in favor when the vote was called.
The next morning there were some brief skirmishes, but shortly after noon both sides agreed to sign the treaty. Hostilities were to cease immediately. The Saints would begin preparations for their final departure. The following day the forces under the command of Thomas Brockman would be allowed to enter the city uncontested.
When word came to the Spartan Band that the treaty had been signed, Carl Rogers surrendered his rifle to one of the members of the Quincy committee, then immediately turned around and started for his home.
Melissa stopped rocking and looked at Carl. He saw her, but went right on folding up Mary Melissa’s bedding into a tight bundle. “We can’t do this, Carl,” she finally said.
“I don’t think we have a choice.”
“Carl, you can see how sick she is. If we try to move her—”
His head snapped up. “Melissa!” The sharpness of his tone stopped her. “I’ve got some money hidden,” he said more softly now. “Once we get across the Mississippi, we’ll go downriver to Keokuk. Then we can buy tickets to St. Louis.”
“What happened to Peoria?” she said. She hadn’t meant to sound bitter, but it had an edge to it when it came out. She saw him visibly flinch and was instantly sorry. “I’m sorry, Carl. I didn’t mean that. I know you tried to get us out.”
“But I didn’t, did I?”
“I’m sorry, Carl. I’m just so worried about Mary Melissa.”
“As I am, but I am also worried about that mob, Melissa. Maybe they’ll honor the conditions of the treaty, but Brockman is a barbarian. And he leads a whole battalion of savages. We have got to be ready to move immediately if they decide not to honor their word.”
“I know,” Melissa said meekly, looking down at her sleeping daughter. For several days she had been flushed and hot. Now she was pale and listless, refusing to eat or drink anything. To Melissa, that was even more frightening. The only time she slept now was when Melissa rocked her in her arms.
Suddenly Carl cocked his head, listening.
“What?” Melissa asked.
He didn’t answer, but got up and went to the window and opened it. Now it came clearly to them, and it sent instant chills up and down both of their backs. Across the tops of the houses, looking up Mulholland, Carl saw the enemy that he had fought so bitterly for the last week marching triumphantly down Mulholland Street toward them. But there was no kind of order. The men were like a thousand banshees, yelling, whooping, hollering, shrieking, firing off their weapons into the air. It was the most horrible sound Melissa had ever heard, and she pulled the baby closer to her instinctively.
“Here they come,” Carl said tightly, and then he shut the window again and returned to his packing with renewed determination. After almost a full minute, he looked up. “That settles it, Melissa. We’re going, and we’re going now.”
Melissa didn’t say anything. She just nodded and kept on rocking the baby, singing to her softly now.
When they reached the ferry landing at the end of Parley Street, the riverbank was jammed with people. There were only a few who had wagons or carts. The rest were people with nothing but what they carried on their backs. Some had small handcarts. One or two had a child’s wagon piled high with bundles. The lack of wagons was a blessing in a way. That meant the ferry could take that many more people on each trip. Even then, Carl’s heart sank when he saw the number waiting. It would take until long after dark to get them all across.
He strode down the line and went up to the ferryman. “Look,” he said, “I can see that you have a very difficult challenge here, but I’ve got a little baby that is desperately ill. Is there any way we can get her across before it gets dark and turns cold?”
The captain of the flatboat straightened slowly. He looked very tired. “Do you know how many other sick people there are here? And most of them are women and children too.”
Carl didn’t fight him. “I can see that. We’re not asking to be first. Just to get across before dark.”
The man sighed, then pointed to a group on the other side of the landing. “Bring ’em up here,” he said. “If the baby’s as sick as you say, we’ll see what we can do.”
“Thank you.”
By five-thirty, Carl was getting worried. The air had already noticeably cooled, and Melissa had a blanket over Mary Melissa’s face. For the past two hours Carl had been calculating the time it took for each trip of the ferry—about twenty-five minutes for the trip over, fifteen to come back across. There were still more than a hundred people, and most of them had been there before him and Melissa. At forty to forty-five people per load, it would probably be an hour, possibly an hour and a half, before it would be their turn. He looked up at the sky. They had maybe another hour before sundown. It was going to be very close.
He turned as there was a stir behind them. What he saw made his blood run chill. Down Parley Street a group of some fifteen or sixteen militiamen was approaching. A few were on horseback. Most swaggered along with rifles over their shoulders. Carl shrank back, pulling Melissa with him deeper into the crowd. “Don’t look,” he cautioned. “Just keep your eyes on the ferry.”
Word went quickly down the line about what was happening. The men had come to search for contraband weapons, or at least that was the ostensible reason. In reality they had come to add one last shot of misery with which to afflict the escaping refugees. They ripped wagons apart piece by piece, throwing everything into the dust and leaving it for the owners to repack. They shouted at the men, leered at the women, mocked the little children. They crowed about their great victory, promised to thoroughly desecrate the temple, and vowed to kill any Mormons who were left in the city by the following day.
No one contradicted them. Most would not even meet their gaze, which only caused them to roar with laughter.
Suddenly four of them split off from the rest and came walking to where the group stood next to the ferry dock. At the moment, the ferry was about halfway across the river, coming back for another load.
“And what have we here?” the first man sneered, looking with contempt on the miserable group that stood before him.
The ferryman’s assistant—perhaps his son—spoke up. “These are the sickest and the weakest. We’re taking them across first.”
“You a Mormon?” another one demanded, speaking to the boy.
“Nope,” came the easy reply. “We’re just making money off them.”
The man laughed, pleased by the boy’s pluck. Then he turned to the people. “They don’t look that sick to me.”
“They look like Mormons,” another one exclaimed. “That’s pretty sick, ain’t it?”
They guffawed.
“Don’t look at them,” Carl whispered to Melissa. “Keep your head down.”
“You there!” the first man said, jabbing his finger at an elderly man. “You a Mormon?”
“Yes, sir,” the man said, his voice trembling. Carl peered between the heads of the people, careful to watch if any of the men turned in his direction. The elderly man was shrunken and bent. He looked to be in his seventies, maybe older.
“It’s Brother Stiles,” Melissa whispered. “He used to come in the store all the time.”
“Why you running with yo’ tail between yo’ legs?” the man from Carthage said insolently.
“I was told I had to leave,” the old man replied, looking very frightened.
The man who seemed to be the leader of this band of four turned to his companions. “Now, who do you think might do a cruel thing like that?”
They hooted. “Probably them Mormons,” one of them exclaimed. “I hear the Mormons are driving out their own people down here.”