“I can’t believe it,” Lydia whispered in horror. “How old was he?”
“About the same age as me,” Benjamin answered.
Joshua turned to Caroline now. “I think those cowards from Warsaw have done all that they’re going to do to me,” he said, “but I’m not taking any chances and leaving you here alone.”
“We want you and the children to move in with us until Joshua comes back,” Nathan explained.
Caroline just looked at Nathan, barely comprehending what was being suggested. Finally, she turned to her husband. “And you’re going to go to St. Louis in spite of all this? Joshua, if they catch you—”
“They’re not going to catch me. I’m going to cross the river into Missouri and give Warsaw and Quincy a wide berth. I’ll travel under a different name.” He took her hand. “I’ll be all right. Really I will.”
“Don’t go, Joshua,” she pleaded. “Please! I don’t care about those businesses. We’ll be all right. We can get by.”
He took a deep breath, looking around the circle now, looking as tired and defeated as Nathan had ever seen him. “There’s something else you need to know, Caroline.”
She half closed her eyes, not wanting to hear any more.
“When I was buying up those businesses down there—the construction company, the cabinet mill, and so on—so we’d have employment for the family when we left here?”
“Yes?”
“Well, I borrowed a lot of money in order to do that. Not even Walter knew that.”
Nathan leaned forward, his face intent. “What are you saying, Joshua?”
He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, pressing them in tightly as though he were trying to staunch a wound. “I used the freight business as my collateral.”
Benjamin, who was standing behind Mary Ann, looked as if he had been struck. He groped for the chair back and then sat down slowly. “How much?” he asked.
“Fifty-six thousand dollars.”
There was an audible gasp from each of them.
Joshua went on now, thoroughly weary. “I’ve paid back about ten thousand of that. Actually, I wasn’t going to trade in that cash I got from Walter for specie. I was going to use it to pay down the debt.”
“And now it’s gone,” Lydia said in a small, horrified voice.
“And the freight business with it,” Nathan said, equally horrified at the implications of what Joshua had just told them.
“I’ve got more than enough to cover the balance with my equity in those other businesses,” Joshua explained, still looking at Caroline. “More than enough.” There was a long pause. “If . . .” It hung there, like a bomb about to explode. “
If
I can get fair market value for them. But if Ben Barber gets a whiff of what’s happened . . . ?” He didn’t finish it. “I have to go, Caroline, and I have to go now.”
She lowered her head, the sickness showing on her face. “I understand, Joshua.”
Chapter Notes
Edmund Durfee, a faithful Latter-day Saint from the early days of Kirtland, was killed in the Morley Settlement on 15 November 1845 in the manner described here (see
HC
7:523, 528;
Edmund Durfee,
p. 22). He was one of the first, if not the first, to be martyred for the cause of truth following the deaths of Joseph and Hyrum Smith.
Chapter 26
The carriage driver pulled the single seater hack up in front of a large brownstone building. He leaned down from his upper seat and peered at Will and Alice. “This is it.”
Will climbed stiffly out, feeling the cold all the way down into his bones. Half snow, half sleet was coming down out of a leaden sky. He helped Alice down, then reached for their two bags and set them on the cobblestone street.
“That’ll be four bits, please.”
Will fumbled in his vest pocket and found a half-dollar and handed it up. “Thank you.”
The man touched his hat, then clucked to the horse. The carriage rattled away.
The man who opened the door to their knock was a slight man, not quite as tall as Will’s nearly six feet, but twenty or thirty pounds lighter. He had a high, receding hairline, and wore a Greek-style beard, with one tuft of whiskers just below his lower lip. He was young, in his mid-twenties, Will guessed. Will thought he looked familiar, but wasn’t sure.
“Yes?”
“We’re looking for Mr. Samuel Brannan.”
“I’m Mr. Brannan.”
That helped explain the familiarity. Will had probably seen him while he was in Nauvoo. “I’m Will Steed, Brother Brannan,” Will said, “and this is my wife, Alice.”
“Yes?” There was no sign that the name meant anything to him.
“We’ve just come from Nauvoo.”
His eyes momentarily widened; then his face broke into a warm smile. “Nauvoo? Why, bless my soul.” He stepped back, opening the door wider. “Come in.”
They stepped inside and Will set down their cases. “You haven’t received a letter from President Young concerning us?”
There was a moment’s reflection. “No, I don’t believe so.”
Alice spoke for the first time. “We made very good time. The Ohio was still open almost to Pittsburgh. President Young’s letter is probably coming overland.”
“What does it say?” Brannan asked.
Will smiled slowly. “Well, we’re here to help. I think we’d better sit down and talk.”
Savannah sat on the edge of the bed, her legs crossed, elbows on her knees, her chin resting in her hands. Her mother had piled her red hair on top of her head and tied it with a ribbon. She wore a green dress with a white pinafore and looked quite bewitching, which was exactly what she hoped to be. She had come to wheedle something out of her grandfather because everyone else had told her no.
She watched Mary Ann, who was fussing around him, making sure he looked just fine. As she finished, Savannah began her quest.
“Grandpa, why can’t I go to the temple dedication?”
Benjamin turned around and smiled. “Honey, this is just a partial dedication of the temple. And it’s only for a small group of priesthood leaders. There just isn’t room for a large crowd in the attic story.”
She wrinkled up her nose. “The attic story?”
“Yes, the top floor of the temple. It’s called the attic story.”
“Why? Do they keep old things up there?”
“No,” Mary Ann laughed. “It’s just the top floor of the temple. So they call it the attic floor.”
“Please, Grandpa. You could ask President Young if it’s all right. I could sit on your lap.”
He stepped to the bed and bent over to give her a quick peck on the cheek. “I’m afraid not, Savannah. No children this time.”
“When the full temple is dedicated in April, then we will all go, Savannah,” Mary Ann explained.
“Why don’t we wait until April and do it all at once?”
“Because Brigham is very anxious to start giving the endowment, and he can’t do that until that part of the building is dedicated.” He held up his hand, cutting off the inevitable next question. “The endowment is a sacred ordinance of the priesthood, Savannah. That’s all I can tell you about it.” And then to try and deflect her thinking he changed the subject. “No word from your father yet, I suppose?”
“Not yet. It’s been almost two weeks now and Mama is very worried.”
“We all are, Savannah,” Benjamin said, following them out. “We are praying hard for your father.”
“So am I,” she said gravely. “I’m also praying that Papa will let us go west with you, Grandpa.”
“I know, Savannah. We’re all praying for that too.”
“This special meeting of the Steed family women’s council will now come to order,” Mary Ann intoned. The low buzz of conversation died and they all turned to look at her.
“My,” she said a little sheepishly, “that sounded awfully official, didn’t it?”
They laughed. In actuality, all of their women’s meetings were pretty informal. And this would be no different.
There were nine of them besides Benjamin and Mary Ann. On his return from the temple that afternoon, Benjamin had spent almost an hour telling Mary Ann all that had transpired. It had so excited her that she proposed that they convene an immediate meeting with the women of the family. So Benjamin had gone from house to house, trailing an air of mystery and pointedly suggesting this was for ladies only and that the men should stay home with the children. That ensured that the women came—with the exception of Melissa, who declined the invitation—and that they came with an air of more than a little anticipation.
“Father Steed, as you know, has just returned from the temple dedication,” Mary Ann went on. “He has something I think we all need to hear. Rebecca, would you open our meeting and ask the Lord’s blessings to be with us? Then we’ll turn the time over to you,” she finished, looking at Benjamin.
As Rebecca finished her prayer and sat down again, Benjamin stood up and moved behind his chair. He leaned forward, using the back of the chair as a podium. “Well, before I say what it is your mother feels needs discussing, let me just say a word or two about the service. It was a wonderful meeting. I wish all of you could have been there.”
“Who was there, Father Steed?” Lydia asked.
“Well, all of the Twelve who are in town, of course. Uncle John Smith was there as a patriarch. Bishops Whitney and Miller were both there. Joseph Young, President of the Seventy, members of the stake presidency, some of the temple committee. Actually that was why I was invited. W. W. Phelps was there too. And William Clayton, of course, as clerk to the Twelve.”
He paused, letting his mind run back over the morning’s meeting. “Brigham gave the dedicatory prayer. It was brief, just as it was at conference. It would come as no surprise to you to know that he pled with the Lord to sustain and deliver us from the hand of our enemies until we can finish the temple and complete the work God expects of us there.” He grew more thoughtful. “In Brother Brigham’s mind, the giving of the endowment has to receive the same attention, maybe even more so, as the preparations for going west. It is a matter of the utmost urgency to him.”
“Now that the upper floor is dedicated,” Jessica asked, “did he say how soon they will start to give the endowment?”
“Yes, and that is why we are here. He wants the rooms ready in order to begin administering the ordinance by the tenth.”
“Of December?” Caroline asked in surprise. “Tomorrow is December first. He’s talking that soon?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t believe it,” Jessica whispered. “We’ve waited so long, and now it’s really going to happen.”
“And not only that,” Benjamin smiled, “you are going to play a role in getting the rooms ready. Brigham has called upon the sisters to help so that the work can begin on the day he has set.” He looked down at Mary Ann. “I think you should tell them the rest.”
He sat down and Mary Ann stood up. Her face was infused with excitement and happiness. “We are very blessed that, as a family, we are being given an opportunity to help in the final preparations of the temple. As you know, many of the sisters, including some of us, have been busy making curtains and other furnishings for the temple. We have also been helping sew the temple clothing. Now President Young has made another request of us.”
They were all watching her closely, the feeling of anticipation rising higher.
“I don’t fully understand this. Perhaps Benjamin can explain more, but there are different rooms that will be used for the ceremonies.”
“Yes,” Benjamin spoke up, “this will make much more sense to you once you have been endowed, and I can’t say too much about it here, but the endowment symbolically represents man’s eternal journey, his moving from premortal existence through mortality and back into the presence of God. So as part of the endowment there are different rooms, and you actually move from one room to another to symbolize the progression from one state to another. There will be a garden room, representing the Garden of Eden. There will be one room which represents the world, and one—which is the largest room in the attic—which will be the celestial room. When you enter the celestial room it represents returning to the presence of God.”
“When you received your endowment from Brother Joseph,” Jenny asked of Benjamin, “did you do all that?”
“After a fashion. Joseph administered the ordinance to a few of us in the upper floor of his store. We had to improvise somewhat.”
“It all sounds so wonderful,” Lydia said. Without thinking, she rubbed her hand across her stomach, now starting to show the first signs of the life within her.
Mary Ann continued again. “Well, here’s the problem. Brigham has asked the wives of the Twelve to supervise getting the rooms ready. As you know, a call already went out to families all around Nauvoo to contribute rugs and carpets that can be used in the various rooms. Vilate Kimball has asked our family group if we could meet immediately with some other sisters to make the cotton veil that will be hung for the main ordinance room.”
“A veil?” Kathryn asked curiously. “What will it be for?”
“You’ll have to wait and see,” Benjamin said with a knowing smile.
“Anyway,” Mary Ann said, “President Young has also asked families to contribute potted plants or small evergreen trees which can be placed in the garden room so that it will have the feeling of an actual garden. He also has asked for a few of our finest pieces of furniture and lamps that could be used in the celestial room. He is especially concerned about that room because he feels like it needs to symbolize the glory of the celestial kingdom. It must be very beautiful.”
She stopped and they all began to talk at once. Benjamin let it go on for a minute or two, then raised his hands. “It is exciting, isn’t it?” he exulted. “Think of it. The endowment has not been on the earth for nearly two thousand years, and not only will we be among the first to receive it, we shall be privileged to help prepare the place where it is to be given.”
He stood. “I shall leave you.” He grinned sheepishly. “I won’t be of much help to you now. You have some planning to do, and it sounds to me like this particular assignment has already been put in good hands.”
When Lydia opened the door and saw Joshua standing there, she took one look at his face and the cry of joy that had started within her died in her throat.