With a cry of inexpressible joy, she dropped to her knees, unmindful of the wet earth, and held out her arms. “Well,” she said hoarsely, “don’t just stand there. Grandpa and I haven’t had a really good hug in over a year.”
The younger children let out a shriek, and in seconds Benjamin and Mary Ann were swarmed under as their family came to welcome them home.
As Alice and Will walked slowly southward along Granger Street, a tiny breeze sprung up, blowing off the river. Alice gave a little shiver and pulled her coat more tightly around her. It was barely four in the afternoon and the sun still had two hours before it would set, but the wind was blowing out of the west and had a distinct coolness to it. It held the promise of frost by morning. It was the twentieth day of October, and the last signs of autumn were everywhere evident. Off to their right, a field was covered with orange polka dots, the last of the pumpkins waiting to be harvested. Just behind the rail fence on the other side of the road, dry brown cornstalks, some of the few that had survived the great hailstorm of early September, rattled softly in the breeze.
“And you have no idea what this is about?” Alice asked with some nervousness, even though she had previously asked the same question of Will three times.
“None.”
“Are you sure the messenger asked me to come too?”
He reached inside his jacket and retrieved a folded paper. He opened it to show Savannah’s neatly lettered hand. “‘President Brigham Young wants Will and Alice to come to his home this afternoon at four o’clock. It will take only about half an hour.’”
She sighed. He had only read that to her half a dozen times. “Oh, Will, you must think me an absolute ninny, but I just can’t figure what President Young wants with both of us.”
“Maybe he’s heard about your decision to be baptized and wants to counsel you on the matter.”
“Do you think so? Would the President of the Quorum of the Twelve take time to do that with someone he doesn’t even know?”
“He is the President of the Quorum, and he is very busy,” Will agreed, “but he is also close to our family.” Then he had another thought. “Maybe he wants to be the one to marry us.”
“How could he? Would he come to St. Louis?”
He laughed and put his arm around her waist. “Alice, I don’t know what it is. I’m just plain guessing.” Then he looked up. They were approaching Kimball Street, and Brigham Young’s fine two-story red brick home was in sight. “Well, it won’t be long now.”
Brigham was in the small study at the back of his house, working at a desk filled with papers. He had his boots off and woolen socks on. As his oldest daughter knocked softly and opened the door, he turned, squinting in the dimming light. Instantly he rose and padded over to greet the two people who stood behind her.
“So this is the famous Alice Samuelson that Matthew speaks so highly of?” he said, smiling warmly as he took Alice’s hand.
“How do you do?” Alice said, giving a slight curtsy.
“I’m very pleased to meet you, Sister Samuelson.” He inclined his head slightly. “I understand that you are to be baptized soon, so may I call you Sister Samuelson?”
“Of course.”
The Apostle turned to Will and gripped his hand firmly, pumping it up and down. “Ah, Will. I was thinking about you earlier. Do you remember that day we spent some time together on the open deck of that ship?”
“I remember it as though it were yesterday.” He turned to Alice. “We were coming back from England. There had been a terrible storm. The ship was pitching and yawing violently all night long, throwing people about like rubber balls. Everyone was sick. Then the Twelve gathered together in the hold and said a prayer. In a short time, the storm was gone and the sea was like a plate of polished china.”
Brigham sighed again, taking Alice’s hand and moving her forward toward one of the chairs. “Can’t say as I miss the sea. For an old New York woodsman and glazier like myself, having something solid under your feet means a lot.”
“I have never sailed on a ship,” Alice ventured, “but I get nervous even on the riverboats thinking about how much water there is beneath my feet.”
“Exactly,” Brigham said fervently. “Exactly my sentiments. Well, you two young people, sit down. I appreciate you coming. I almost came to your house, but I thought it best if we were alone.”
“We were glad to come,” Will inserted quickly.
“Good.” The President sat down across the desk from them and leaned forward. His blue-gray eyes sized them up quickly, and then he leaned back. “Tell me your plans, you two. I understand from Matthew that there’s to be a double wedding in St. Louis.”
“Yes,” Will explained. “Alice’s father has graciously offered to bring the whole family down to St. Louis on a riverboat. Kathryn and Peter will be married at the same time as we are. Alice and I will leave day after tomorrow to go back. The rest of the family will come down in time to be there on the first of November.”
“Will Nathan be marrying you?”
“We thought so at first, but now Grandpa Steed will.”
Brigham came forward with a jerk. “Is your grandfather home now?”
“Oh, yes. They arrived just after noon today.”
“Wonderful! Wonderful! I was hoping they would make it home in a timely manner.” He rubbed his hands together with genuine pleasure. “Tell your grandfather and grandmother to come see me, will you? Not tonight, of course. They must be exhausted. But tomorrow. They don’t need an appointment.”
“I shall tell them,” Will answered, pleased to be the bearer of such news.
The smile slowly faded and Brigham’s lips pursed together, as if he had felt a sudden pain. Then he shook his head slowly. “That makes this all the more difficult.” A deep gloom seemed to settle over him. “Sister Samuelson, I understand your father is not pleased with the idea of your becoming a Mormon, that there is some fear that if you join the Church he might sever your relationship entirely.”
“Yes,” said Alice, “but I am pleased to say that both he and my mother have relented. Will and I will be staying in St. Louis until spring, and that helped immensely. I think my father hopes that by then we will change our minds about going west.”
“But you don’t think you will?”
“Absolutely not,” Will said quickly. “We want to go where the Church goes.” Alice nodded firmly to let Brigham know that Will spoke for her too.
This time the sigh seemed to come from the bottom of his soul. “Very, very difficult,” Brigham muttered to himself.
Will was tempted to blurt out and ask him what he was talking about, but he resisted, and together, holding hands, he and Alice waited for President Young to speak.
Finally, Brigham looked up. “Will, does the name Sam Brannan mean anything to you?”
He thought for a moment. “Yes. I remember Elder Parley Pratt talking about him with Nathan. Isn’t he one of the presiding elders in New York City?”
“Yes.”
And then Will snapped his fingers. “And wasn’t he one of those that were sent back here under charges of apostasy?”
“Yes, last spring. He and William Smith and George Adams were accused of teaching all sorts of false doctrine and raising havoc in the Church back there. They were all disfellowshipped. William and George had been sent back here to Nauvoo, but Brother Brannan was still in New York. Parley Pratt, who was presiding there, sent Brother Brannan back to clear his name. Fortunately, Samuel seemed not to be the primary instigator of the troubles. He convinced the Twelve to reinstate him and went back to New York. He still serves there, so far faithfully.”
“Oh,” Will said, not exactly sure why he had been asked about the man.
Brigham was lost in thought. Silence hung in the air for several moments; then he looked up, seeming to have made up his mind. “We—meaning the Twelve—have determined that Samuel Brannan’s the man to try a bold experiment.”
“What’s that?”
“We feel strongly that we need to explore going to the Rocky Mountains by sea,” Brigham replied. At Will’s amazed look, he nodded vigorously. “Think of it, Will. If we go overland, we are severely limited in what we can carry in our wagons. Tools for farming, industry, gristmills, sawmills—all of that kind of stuff is far too heavy to cart in a wagon. But by sea! Ah, there would be virtually no limit to what we can take. We have a printing press in New York, for example. They print the
Messenger
there. Think what it would take to get a printing press across the plains. But by ship it would be a simple task.”
No one needed to talk Will Steed into the advantages of sending cargo by ship rather than by wagon. “I think that’s a wonderful idea, President Young.”
“Do you?” he asked eagerly. “You have a great savvy for ocean travel, Will. Do you really think it is a good idea?”
“I do.” Now Will understood his purpose in being there. He knew the sailing trade and knew it well. There weren’t many Latter-day Saints who could say that.
“They would sail to Cape Horn,” explained Brigham, “all the way around South America, and put in at San Francisco Bay in Upper California, which, as you know, belongs to Mexico. Then, no matter where we eventually stop, they wouldn’t be far from us. Our people and tools would already be there waiting for us.”
Alice was trying to picture a voyage that would go all the way around South America. “How long would it take?” she asked.
“About six months,” Will answered promptly. He had never sailed that route, but he had talked to many who had.
“It would be important to start soon,” Brigham mused. “With the seasons in the south being the opposite of ours, June and July will be their winter months, the worst for sailing.”
“True,” Will said. “What are you thinking?”
“I’ve written to Elder Brannan and asked him to see if he could get a group ready to leave by early to mid-January.”
“Perfect!” Will exclaimed. “So you’re going to do it for sure?”
“Yes.”
To Will’s surprise, Brigham still seemed troubled. “It’s a long journey, President Young,” he said enthusiastically, “but if you get the right ship and crew, it shouldn’t be any problem. They would be to California by June or July.”
“And we hope to be to our new home somewhere not long after that.”
“Then it sounds like a wonderful solution to me.”
“Will?”
“Yes?”
“I would like you to go with them.”
If a boulder had dropped from the sky and hit Will in the chest he couldn’t have been more dumbfounded. He just stared at the Apostle, his jaw slack. Alice gasped audibly.
“That’s right, Will. We think Elder Brannan will do us the job we need, but we’re still a little nervous about him, after what happened. And to have someone with your knowledge of ships and the sea there in New York as he gets ready to sail . . . I know you’re young, but we just don’t have that many sailors in the Church. I think your advice would be invaluable to him and to us.”
“You want Will to go to New York?” Alice asked in a tiny voice.
Brigham smiled. “No, my dear, I want
you and Will
to go to New York. And then I want you to sail with Brannan to California.” He laughed at the expression on their faces. “I think this qualifies as catching you off guard.”
Will just shook his head, still speechless. Alice looked as though she hadn’t understood his words.
Now the humor completely disappeared. “It isn’t often a call from the Lord requires so much of two people. I suppose I could send just Will. Then you’d have to wait a year to be married. That would please your folks, I suppose. But no, what I am asking is even worse than that.”
“Worse than being apart for a year?” Alice cried. “What could be worse than that?”
Brigham moved slowly, tiredly, as he leaned forward on his elbows. “If you accept this calling—together, I mean—then you will have to leave immediately. You must be in New York no later than the first of December if you are going to be of any use in the planning of the voyage.”
“Immediately?” Will stammered. “I don’t understand.”
“If you leave in the next couple of days you can go to Chicago and catch a steamboat before the Great Lakes freeze. That will be the fastest.”
“But that means . . . ,” Alice started, her voice quavering.
Brigham’s head dropped lower. “It means that you cannot wait until the first of November to be married. It means that Will can’t stay in St. Louis working until next spring to please your father.” He put his hands over his eyes, rubbing at the lids slowly with his fingertips. “It means that you will have to tell your parents that you are going to California and may never see them again.”
They sat on the cold planking of the ferryboat dock, their feet dangling within inches of the water. It was quarter of five now, and the sun was dropping lower in the sky. With the sun in their eyes it was hard to make out the buildings of Zarahemla and Montrose across the river on the Iowa side. Will had picked up a stick as they walked along and now poked it absently into the water, writing letters on the “tablet” of the water that instantly swirled away.
“Tell me, Will.”
He wrote a quick
B
for
Brigham.
“I was just thinking about something President Young said right there at the last.”
“What?”
“He said that it wasn’t often that a call from the Lord requires so much of two people.”
“Yes, and . . . ?”
“It was the fall of eighteen thirty-nine. I was still sailing then and hadn’t returned to my family, but Derek and Matthew have told me the whole story. As you know, they went to England with the Twelve. Anyway, the Church had been in Nauvoo only a few months by then. Brigham and Heber had very simple homes—Brigham’s family lived in some abandoned military barracks, and Heber’s in a log shanty. The ague had been terrible all summer. When it came time to leave, Brigham, who was living across over there”—he gestured toward the opposite bank—“was so sick he couldn’t even walk the thirty or so rods from his house to the river. A neighbor had to help him. Someone rowed him across to here, but he was so weak, they put him to bed at Heber’s place.”
Alice had turned to watch him, her face somber in the glow of the sun.