“Is it?” Brigham asked casually. “Are you overwhelmed, Joshua?”
Joshua’s head came around. There was no mistaking the challenge. He was instantly on the defensive, but the glow of the evening was still on him and so he decided to let it pass.
Brigham laughed heartily and clapped him on the shoulder. “Sorry. My wife tells me I’ve got to learn to be a little more circumspect, not quite so brash and direct.”
“I’ve never complained about directness,” Joshua said, choosing his words carefully so as not to step off into an area where he didn’t want to go.
“Good! So let me be direct. It’s too late in the evening to chase each other around the gooseberry bush any longer.”
Joshua stopped, now stiff and wary. Caroline, who was holding on to his arm, stopped with him. He could feel her grip on him tighten and he sensed her sudden tension.
Brigham went on a couple of steps before he too stopped and turned. “Are you still reading that Book of Mormon?” he asked suddenly.
Joshua’s jaw dropped, then instantly tightened into a hard line. He looked down at Caroline, glaring.
Brigham leaned in, his own jawline looking a bit like a bulldog’s. “Now, don’t you be giving your wife a look like that. She hasn’t said a word to me about this.”
Caroline was as amazed as her husband. “I haven’t, Joshua. I told you I wouldn’t tell anyone unless you said I could.”
He swung back on the Apostle. “Then how did you know? Was it Nathan?”
“So he knows too? I was wondering about that. That’s good. He’s probably been getting in a few good licks on you, hasn’t he?”
“How did you know?” Joshua asked again, openly irritated now.
“I was passing by one day back in Mount Pisgah while you were splitting logs. Nathan was off in the trees somewhere. I saw that you were reading something. I couldn’t tell for sure what it was, but it sure looked like a Book of Mormon to me.” He grinned suddenly. “I was taking a shot in the dark just now by guessing that that was what you were doing, but as they say, ‘Only the hit bird flutters.’ ”
“It’s Lydia’s book,” Caroline said, realizing even as she said it that who owned the book was not very relevant at the moment.
Now Brigham stepped forward and thrust his face close to Joshua’s. “I’m not going to be asking you any questions about what you believe and don’t believe, Joshua. That’s your affair. The fact that there’s been no announcement about your impending baptism would tell me you’re still not where you ought to be.”
“I’m not where you think I ought to be,” he said shortly.
Brigham ignored the correction. “So, here’s what I’ve got to say. I’ll say it, and if it offends you, then you can come duke it out with me in the morning. But it needs to be said.”
Caroline gasped softly. This wasn’t just directness. It was a full-scale frontal attack. She held her breath, expecting an explosion from Joshua any moment.
Joshua didn’t flinch. “Say what you’ve got to say, Brother Brigham,” he murmured.
Brigham’s face softened now, and it was clear that what lay behind his directness was genuine concern. “I’ve just got one question for you, Joshua. Something I’d like you to think about. If I’m off the mark, then I’ll apologize later.”
“What is it?”
“It is simply this. Why is it, Joshua Steed, that you ask more of the Lord than you do of your business partners?”
Joshua looked at him blankly for a moment. “What?”
“You heard me. Why have you set a double standard here?”
“A double standard? I don’t get your meaning.”
“When you went into business with your various ventures, was there any risk involved?”
“Sure. There’s risk with every venture.”
“Of course there is. So why did you go ahead? Did you insist on having every possible question answered, every possible drawback resolved, before you were willing to commit yourself?”
Joshua felt as if he had just been shoved up against a stone wall. “Well, I—”
Brigham went on, quiet now, but very much in earnest. “Did you require a guarantee that every cotton crop would come in at full production? that no ship would ever be lost at sea? that the cotton market would always be strong when it was time to sell?”
Caroline had stepped away from Joshua a little, trying to see his face in the darkness. His head was still up, but she could tell he was being pummeled.
“Well, if none of that, then why are you being so confounded demanding of the Lord? No earthly partner would give you the kind of guarantees you’re looking for here.”
“I—” He stopped, then started again. “I don’t see it quite that way, President. I—”
“I know you don’t. But you think about it. You ask yourself if that’s not your problem. Knowing you, I think you want every part of the ‘deal’ inked and guaranteed, every t crossed and every comma put in place. And what I’m saying is, that’s asking more of the Lord than you would ask of a business partner.”
He straightened, smiling now. “Well, that’s about enough damage for one night,” he said. He laid a hand on Joshua’s shoulder. “The Lord wants you in the kingdom, Joshua Steed. Of that I have no doubt. So don’t make it too difficult for him to bring you in, all right?”
He turned abruptly to Caroline. “Well, I told you. My Mary Ann says it’s my greatest failing. Too brash. Too direct.” He leaned over and kissed her cheek, startling her greatly. Then he looked at Joshua. “But I’m only that way with people who really matter to me.”
Chapter Notes
Though specific details were supplied by the author, and though the encounter between Savannah and the Indian girl is part of the fictional structure of the book, the scene involving the Saints and the Indians is based on an actual experience. On the morning of 8 June 1846, the Latter-days Saints came upon a Potawatomi Indian village. It is recorded that one of the Indian braves demanded payment for the right to cross their lands, but Brigham convinced the Indians otherwise when he promised that the Saints’ passing would leave the land better off than when they came. (See CN, 15 June 1996, p. 5.) Brigham Young always felt strongly that the Indians were to be viewed as brothers and sisters and treated with respect. Because of that, the reputation of the Mormons became widely known among the tribes, and the Saints experienced very little Indian trouble on the trek west.
Chapter 26
When Caroline slipped out of the tent the next morning, it was full light, though the sun had not come up as yet. She stretched, looking around. In one or two places people were stirring. A few fires were already burning with pots hung over them. Men were looking to their wagons; sleepy-eyed boys stumbled around trying to look busy. But these were the exceptions. Because of the late night, the bugle had not sounded as usual and the camp was slow coming awake.
She found Joshua behind the wagons, sitting on a trunk, fixing some of the harnessing. He looked up as she came around to join him. “Good morning,” he said.
“You didn’t sleep much.” She kept her voice light.
“No, not much. Are the children awake?”
“Not yet. I thought I’d let them sleep a little longer.”
“Good.”
She nodded, not asking what she was dying to know. “I’ll start breakfast.”
“Have you got a few minutes?” he asked casually.
She tried to keep her face impassive. “Of course.”
He slid over and made room for her on the trunk. As she sat down, he looked away from her, down toward the river where they would begin working on the bridge this morning. “Do you agree with Brigham?” he finally asked.
She felt her heart twist a little. Now, there was a bear trap of a question if she had ever heard one. “Well, I’m not sure that I would agree with everything he said,” she temporized, trying to collect her thoughts.
“Caroline.” His look said it all.
She took a breath. “Joshua, first let me say this. We believe in miracles in the Church. I believe that Heavenly Father sent that terrible cold that froze the Mississippi River late in February so more of our people could leave Nauvoo in a hurry. I strongly believe that our finding those families stuck in the mud and making the trade with them for the wagons and all the goods we needed was not just a lucky accident. I believe that your life was spared when you were shot in the back in Missouri and that the priesthood blessing Nathan and your father gave you was directly responsible for that.”
His hands were working the harnessing now, massaging the leather, even though he did not look down at it.
“But the greatest miracle of all, Joshua, is the changing of the human heart. And you have changed, Joshua. Surely you can see that.”
“In some ways,” he admitted.
“No, more than some. You have changed deeply, fundamentally. I can’t even picture the person who was married to Jessica, who did all those horrible things you have told me about. I can barely even remember the man I married. You have changed a great deal even since then. I watch you with Savannah and Livvy now, with Charles, and I just thrill to see what you are becoming.”
“So, does that mean you agree with Brigham or not?”
Her shoulders straightened and she looked directly at him. “I guess I am a little baffled. If it were the old Joshua fighting against the idea of accepting God, I could understand it. But why is this new person struggling so much? You’ve left your home. You’re out here with your family following a prophet of God. You’ve read the Book of Mormon. What is it that is holding you back, Joshua? Is it fear of the risks that come with membership? On the surface, at least, it looks like what Brigham said, that you want the Lord to answer every single thing before you will commit.”
He nodded. “Thank you for answering honestly.” He pushed the harnessing away and it fell from his lap to the ground. She could feel he was starting to skitter away from her, like a wild thing that wanted what she held in her hand but was too fearful to come and get it.
“Tell me,” she said, reaching out with her hand to hold him from standing up and moving away from her. “Just answer me this one question. Is there anything you are sure of?”
Her directness took him aback a little. “Well . . . ,” he began. Then his body seemed to relax. “The other day, Nathan said something that struck me hard. He said that in the Church, families could be bound together in a way that time could not undo and death could not destroy.”
“Yes.” She wanted to cry out to him. Oh, Joshua, can’t you see? That’s what I want. But she just watched him, waiting for him to continue.
“I’ve thought a lot about that.” Now he turned toward her and took her by the hand. “You know that you and the children are the most important thing in my life, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do.” There were no reservations of any kind in that answer.
“The burning of the stable, the loss of the money, Walter’s selling me out so I lost all the businesses. I look back on those now and it’s like, so what? I have Caroline. I have the kids. That’s why I’m out here now, so that our family can be together with each other and with the rest of the Steeds.”
“I understand.”
“So the idea of being together forever is easy for me to accept. I want that very much, and if that were the only thing, I would be baptized this morning.”
She tried not to stare. He had said it so casually. “So what else is there?” she asked softly.
He stood up now, pulling free of her grasp. “I don’t know,” he exclaimed. “It all just seems so unbelievable, so unreal, so . . . so impossible.”
“When you say ‘all,’ Joshua, what do you mean?”
“This whole thing about Christ dying for us, giving his life so our sins can be taken away. I mean, I understand it better now. Nathan has helped me there. But it still seems like a fairy tale, like something that was made up so we could feel better about ourselves. How can I join the Church when something as fundamental as that is still bothering me?”
With a flash of insight that left her suddenly a little breathless, Caroline knew with perfect clarity that he was doing it again. Brigham was right. He wanted everything put in a box and sealed up tight. He wanted a guarantee up front. It was not that what he was telling her was a deception. She knew he really was troubled by certain aspects of the Atonement, but this was not the real thing holding him back.
And then, in wonder, she understood why. It was fear. He was afraid, and now she saw what it was that frightened him so terribly. He was afraid that he would surrender and give himself over to God, and that God would not accept him.
She stood slowly and faced him. She took his face in her hands. “Do you find it strange that I should love you so much?” she asked.
“I do,” he whispered.
“Would you say that my love for you was unbelievable?”
He seemed puzzled by her persistence. “Yes.”
“Unreal?” Her eyes searched his, and she saw that he understood now.
“Yes, unreal.”
“A fairy tale?” she asked in a bare whisper.
He looked away. After a long moment, he nodded mutely.
“But it is true. Do you have any question about that?”
His voice cracked a little. “No. None.”
“You just think about that. If our love for each other is something you can believe in, why can’t you believe that our Heavenly Father would have that kind of love for us, only that his love would be perfect?” She smiled and put a finger over his lips before he could say more. “And now, I think we’d better wake the children and get them up and going. You’re going to need a good breakfast if you spend all day working on the bridge.”
Melissa burst into Carl’s office at the brickyard, then pulled up short. There were three other men there. She knew none of them. “Oh. I beg your pardon.”
Carl looked surprised. “Melissa? Is anything wrong?”
She hesitated; then, far too filled with anxiety to simply back out again, she nodded. “Stephen Markham has returned.”
His brow furrowed slightly. “Stephen Markham?”
“Yes, Colonel Markham, one of the commanders in the Nauvoo Legion. He’s just come back from Brigham Young.”
He nodded. “I know. He has met with us already.”
The other men looked at each other and something passed between them. One of them glanced at Carl and shook his head ever so slightly. Carl saw it, nodded back, then turned to Melissa. “Melissa, I don’t think this is any concern of yours.”