He looked down, trying to muster some semblance of grief. “Suddenly some Mormons who had stayed in town and hid jumped out from a barn behind us. Weren’t no warning at all. They just started shooting. Caleb took a ball right in the back. He was dead ’fore he hit the ground. Riley here swung around and took another one in the shoulder.”
Riley kept his face impassive. He hadn’t heard this version and was amazed at how smoothly Hugh could lie. He raised his damaged arm, just in case they hadn’t noticed it before, to lend credence to Hugh’s tale. Hugh stopped for breath, peering at Caroline with eyes that kept straying away from her face.
She watched him steadily, her face not betraying any emotion now. “Please go on.”
“We started shootin’ back, and they turned tail and ran. I was gonna go after ’em, but I had to look after my two friends. Weren’t nothin’ we could do for Caleb, of course, but Riley was hurt bad. Then those men started shootin’ at us again. It was right then that your husband come runnin’. He’d heard the shootin’. He shot at them on the dead run. Hit one of ’em, too. Saw the man go flyin’.”
He turned to Will, who was standing beside his mother, rigid as a steel beam and clenching and unclenching his fists. “Braver man ain’t never been born. Even though there was still danger, he paid it no mind. No mind at all. You can be right proud of your pa, boy. Right proud.”
“Get on with it,” Cornwell said. This was a far more colorful version than he’d been told, and the man’s fawning manner was starting to grate on him.
“Well, it was right then that it happened. The Mormons ran, but one of them must have stopped behind a nearby barn. We didn’t see him, of course. Then just like the yellow-bellied cowards them Mormons are, the man took aim and shot your husband square in the back. Didn’t give him a fightin’ chance. Just shot him in the back, then turned and hightailed it away.”
She thought she had steeled herself after hearing Obadiah tell her that Joshua was dead, but Hugh’s words had both Will and Caroline openly weeping. Even Riley was moved. Hugh looked at Will and shook his head sadly. “It’s a real shame, boy,” he said. “Your pa was one brave man, and those Mormons shot him down cold.”
* * *
Riley looked at his companion with open awe, then lifted the mug of beer in salute. “Best danged liar east of the Rocky Mountains,” he toasted.
“Shut up!” Hugh snarled, looking around the saloon. But it was late, and the few men still inside were paying the two strangers little attention.
“Well, you are,” Riley said sullenly, taking a deep swig of the dark brown liquid. “And it worked. You hear that boy start cussin’ the Mormons, his ma trying to hush him up?”
“It ain’t over yet.”
Riley’s eyebrows raised. “It ain’t?”
Suddenly Riley was nervous. Neil Gilliam was Hugh and Riley’s immediate superior officer, and it had been to him they had gone after finding and killing the arrogant Captain Steed. They had told him most of the story, leaving out only the minor detail that it had been their planned rape of the women in the cabin that had so infuriated Steed. Gilliam was seething by the time they finished their tale and was bitterly disappointed that Steed was beyond his reach now.
Then, while Riley and Hugh were taking a detail of men back to retrieve Caleb’s body—hoping that the women would still be there—Hugh’s plan had started to form. The humiliation they had suffered in the cabin was festering in him like a boil, and by the time they had returned to Gilliam, Hugh had devised a way to lance it.
Riley savored the idea of revenge too, especially as he saw how sweet and complete Hugh meant that revenge to be. But he couldn’t get thoughts of Gilliam out of his mind either. Cornelius Gilliam was not a pleasant man when crossed. His fury could be murderous. He had agreed to their proposal to go to Jackson County and tell the Widow Steed in person how her husband had shamed her and every other Missourian. But, he said, as far as he was concerned, the Mormon war wasn’t over yet, and there was still plenty yet to do before the Mormons were driven from the state. So Hugh and Riley were to get on down there to Independence, then get right back.
Now it was becoming obvious to Riley that Hugh’s plan had grown more elaborate and that Hugh had no intentions of returning immediately.
Riley cleared his throat. “Look, Hugh, Gilliam said we was to get back real soon.”
The small bearded man swung around on his companion, whispering fiercely. “You listen, Riley. All Gilliam cares about is seeing what else there is to loot up there. But it weren’t Neil Gilliam who was in that cabin the other day.” His eyes narrowed into tiny slits. “Steed came in there like he was God himself. He pistol-whipped Caleb, then killed him. He shot you down like a cur dog.”
Riley thought about reminding Hugh that it was the English boy who had shot him in the shoulder, but he decided to let it pass.
Hugh was working himself up all over again. “We was right on the verge of gettin’ some real action,” he snarled, “but Steed stopped us from doin’ that too. And them was good-lookin’ women.”
“Yeah,” Riley said wistfully.
“Well, he’s dead, and just shootin’ him down and shamin’ his name ain’t good enough for me.”
Riley looked around quickly, then leaned forward. “What if he ain’t dead, Hugh? They still ain’t found his body.”
Hugh slammed down his glass of beer with a sharp crack. That won him a look from the other patrons of the saloon, so he held his tongue until they turned away. Then he shot Riley a withering look. “Not dead!” he exclaimed. “You was there with me. You saw him bleeding like a gutted pig. No man’s gonna survive that kind of ball.”
“Well,” Riley muttered, “we still shoulda put another ball into him.”
“Right,” Hugh said in disgust, “with someone comin’! Whoever it was, we’da had to kill them too or have them tellin’ Lucas or somebody that it was Missourians that killed one of their own officers.”
“At least we’d be sure,” the bigger man said, still worrying but fearing to make his partner angry.
“
I’m
sure!” Hugh snapped. “He’s dead, and I don’t want no more talk about it being otherwise. And we can’t make him pay any more, but his family’s gonna pay. His family’s gonna pay real good.”
The other man set his beer down slowly. He licked his lips, suddenly nervous. “What’re ya gonna do?”
Hugh was staring off into space, his eyes like two tiny points of ebony. “The name Sampson Avard mean anything to you?”
The other man looked blank.
“Never mind. He was a Mormon too. And let’s just say Sampson Avard’s going to give us a little helping hand in this matter. He won’t know anything about it, but he’s gonna be real helpful to us.”
* * *
On Tuesday morning, the day after the arrest of the Church leaders in Far West, General Clark again ordered the Saints to assemble in the main square. He paraded the prisoners before them, then had them stand before their wives and children. And then Clark gave a speech. Though he himself had not been in the field until after the war was over, he had written a speech to the conquered. This time the Steeds had left the children at home, but Mary Ann, Lydia, Jessica, and Rebecca stood near the front row trying to get a glimpse of Benjamin. Peter stood farther behind, still half-fearful that additional arrests were going to be made and, in spite of his younger age, not wanting to be too conspicuous.
“Gentlemen,” Clark said loudly, “we have the last of those who have committed crimes against the state under bonds now. And they shall be punished. But now I feel to show you some mercy. Those men whose names were not on our list, you now have the privilege of going to your fields and providing corn, wood, and so on for your families.”
There were cries of surprise, and a murmur of excitement rippled across the group. Jessica turned to Mary Ann with a look of great relief. The loss of Benjamin had left the family stunned and shaken, but with or without Benjamin, food was becoming a critical problem. They had two babies, six other children, and five adults—counting Peter—to feed and, with the city under siege, no way to get more. Breakfast had been served only to the children. The adults were holding themselves to one meal per day. So this was at least one glimmer of good news.
“Those who are now taken will go from this place to prison. There they will be tried and receive the due merit of their crimes. But the rest of you are now at liberty, as soon as the troops are removed that now guard the place, which I shall cause to be done immediately. It now devolves upon you to fulfill the treaty that you have entered into.”
Treaty!
Jessica had to stifle a laugh of derision. They had been betrayed, deceived, and decimated. Only Hinkle had had the gall to call the betrayal a treaty.
“The orders of the governor to me were that you should be exterminated and not allowed to remain in the state, and had your leaders not been given up, and the terms of the treaty complied with before this, you and your families would have been destroyed and your houses left in ashes.”
“Instead of just looted and left in ruins,” Mary Ann muttered to no one in particular.
There were other voices now too, low and angry, protesting the blatant mutilation of the truth. Clark ignored them and went on loudly. “There is a discretionary power vested in my hands which I shall exercise in your favor for a season. For this leniency you are indebted to my clemency. I do not say that you shall go now, but you must not think of staying here another season, or of putting in crops, for the moment you do this the citizens will be upon you. If I am called here again, in case of noncompliance with the treaty made, do not think that I shall act anymore as I have done. You need not expect any mercy, but extermination, for I am determined the governor’s order shall be executed.
“As for your leaders, do not once think, do not imagine for a moment, do not let it enter your mind that they will be delivered, or that you will see their faces again, for their fate is fixed, their die is cast, their doom is sealed.”
Mary Ann gave a low, half sob, and Lydia and Rebecca both stepped up to her and steadied her.
“I am sorry, gentlemen, to see so great a number of apparently intelligent men found in the situation that you are; and oh! that I could invoke that Great Spirit, the unknown God, to rest upon you, and make you sufficiently intelligent to break that chain of superstition, and liberate you from those fetters of fanaticism with which you are bound, that you no longer would continue to worship a man.
“I would advise you to scatter abroad, and never again organize yourselves with bishops, presidents, etc., lest you excite the jealousies of the people, and subject yourselves to the same calamities that have now come upon you. You have always been the aggressors—you have brought upon yourselves these difficulties by being disaffected and not being subject to rule, and my advice is that you become as other citizens, lest by a recurrence of these events you bring upon yourselves irretrievable ruin.”
He finished, folded the papers he had been holding, and put them back inside his jacket pocket. His mouth pulled back into a haughty smile. He looked up and down the line of Saints, daring anyone to contradict him. No one spoke. “If you were to come to your senses and disperse and become as we are, all would be well. In a word, renounce this ridiculous religion and you will be left alone. Otherwise, there is no choice. You must leave the state.”
He wheeled his horse around. “Lieutenant!” he sang out. “Move ’em out.”
As the guards leaped into action and the body of prisoners started forward, Mary Ann went up on tiptoes. “Benjamin! Benjamin!”
Other women took up the cry, calling out the names of their men.
And then Mary Ann saw him. He was in the far rank. His head was turned, searching for her. “Benjamin!” She screamed it out, waving frantically. “Papa!” Rebecca was crying. “Father Steed! Father Steed!” Lydia and Jessica were waving too.
And then he saw them. He lifted one hand, pulling up the hand of the man behind him as they were tied together with a sturdy rope. “Good-bye, Mary Ann! I’ll be all right! Don’t worry for me.”
“I love you!” she shouted. “I love you.”
A guard ran up to Benjamin and raised his rifle butt up to shoulder length. “No talking!” he shouted.
Benjamin barely glanced at him. There were tears in his eyes now. He tipped his head back. “I love you too, Mary Ann,” he cried full throat.
The butt of the rifle slammed into the center of his back, knocking him forward. He went down on one knee, but being roped to the others saved him from falling.
“I said no talking!” the guard screamed at him.
Benjamin staggered to his feet. He turned and looked the man in the eye, staring at him balefully. The other brethren had turned now too. The guard looked startled, then suddenly a little frightened. Benjamin lifted his head again, not taking his eyes from the man. “Kiss the children for me, Mary Ann,” he called.
The man raised the rifle again, but then when Benjamin turned and fell into line, he lowered it and stepped back.
From behind him, Benjamin could make out Mary Ann’s sobbing cry. “I will. I will. God be with you, Benjamin Steed.”
* * *
The hammering on the door brought Caroline out of the depths of sleep with a jerk. She looked around wildly, then gradually felt herself relax. It was as if she had been drugged. She had stayed up most of the night before, numbed and cold and staring into the darkness. Then the memorial service today—there would be a full funeral once Joshua’s body was returned to Jackson County—had been even more difficult than she had expected. She had gone through this once before, when Donovan died of yellow fever. She had loved her first husband fiercely. But Joshua she had loved deeply. His death tore at her to levels of her being she had not thought existed. It had exacted a heavy price on her, and she had finally fallen into an exhausted sleep this evening.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
She sat up straight, realizing now what it was that she was hearing. Throwing the covers aside, she groped for her robe. “I’m coming!” she shouted. Then she remembered that Savannah was asleep in the next bedroom. She had cried herself to sleep, begging for her papa. “I’m coming,” Caroline muttered more softly, “I’m coming.”