Carl was sure that because he wasn’t a Mormon they could escape any serious problems. But Melissa knew better. She knew what the mobs were like. Women and children engendered no mercy. Jessica, carrying Rachel in her arms, had been driven barefoot some twenty-five miles across a frozen prairie, leaving bloody footprints in the snow. Amanda Smith lost not only her husband at Haun’s Mill but a ten-year-old son as well. Her seven-year-old lost a hip when another man jammed a rifle into the blacksmith shop where the boy was hiding and blew the hip away. Women were ravished to the point of death. Children were left to starve.
Why did Carl think these people would be any different? Yelrome had been burned to the ground within the last year. Edmund Durfee, an elderly, unarmed man, had been shot down by men too cowardly to face him. Some of the very men who now howled for action against the Mormons were the same ones who had painted their faces and stormed the stairs of Carthage Jail two years before. Ask Joseph Smith about mercy, she thought. Talk to Emma or Mary Fielding Smith about how much tolerance you could expect from Mormon-haters. Was she willing to stay by Carl’s side when his bullheadedness put her and the children at that kind of risk? She didn’t think so.
On the other hand, could she simply walk away from Carl? If he wouldn’t bend, if he continued to adamantly refuse to consider going west—or anywhere else, for that matter—what would she do? They had shared the same bed now for fifteen years. She could not imagine life without him. Even in the consideration of it, the pain was so sharp that she had to cover her mouth to stop from crying out.
And there it was. So simple. So terrible. Lose Carl, or put her children at risk. Which part of her did she surrender—being a wife or being a mother? With that terrible dilemma weighing in upon her, she finally lay back and fell into a fitful sleep.
She awoke fully and realized she was perspiring. Her hair stuck to her forehead, and the mattress felt cold and clammy beneath her neck. She sat up slowly, brushing back the hair from her eyes. Her body was sluggish, showing the signs of deep exhaustion. She turned toward the window. It was still dark, and through it she could see stars. She guessed it was somewhere around three or four in the morning.
Quietly she slipped out of the house and padlocked the door again. Looking up and down the street to make sure she was alone, she darted quickly to her house and onto the porch. Now, moving with infinite care, she opened the door. Taking off her shoes, she tiptoed down the hall, stopping at the bottom of the stairs to see if there was any sound. There was not. She continued on into the kitchen and carefully rummaged through a drawer until she found a candle and a match. Making sure the kitchen door was shut, she lit the candle, then went to the shelf above the fireplace and got down her Bible. Carl would be up in an hour or two. There was no sense in waking him now.
Tired to a depth that she had not known before and unwilling to think anymore about what she had to do, she opened the book to the New Testament and began to read. There was no purpose in it other than to help her pass the time until she had to face him again.
She read idly in the Gospel of Matthew for a time but found herself looking up and staring at nothing. Finally, with a deep sigh, she set the book beside the candle and dropped to her knees. She closed her eyes, her thoughts still a jumble, and then finally she began.
“O Father, my dear Father in Heaven. I come to thee in the midst of the night—a night of darkness, a night of terror, a night of pain and indecision. I know not what to do, Father. I fear deeply for my children. I have seen what our enemies have done. I know that just because we are thy people doesn’t mean there is always protection. I do not question that, O God. I trust in thy wisdom and thy mercy. But I fear for the safety of my children. Help Carl to see that we are in great danger.”
There was a long silence; then, “I miss my family, Father. How I love them! How grateful I am that I was privileged to be born to such goodly parents! But I have my own family now, Father. I have Carl, and I know that he too is a blessing from thee. What do I do? I have wavered from the faith, but now I am determined to try to do thy will. What is thy will, O Lord? Must I leave Carl to find safety for my children? Must I put my children in danger in order to honor my vows with my husband? O Lord, my heart quakes at the very thought of either of these terrible choices. Bless me to be wise. Help me, Father. Help me to know what to do. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.”
She rose slowly and sat down again. For a long time she stared at nothing. The image of a headstone beneath an oak tree on the far side of the river came to her mind. “Papa, help me. Help me to know what to do.”
There was no answer but the silence and the darkness. She reached for the book again and began to thumb idly, hoping that her eye would catch something that might be an answer. After ten minutes, she shut the book again, as deeply in turmoil as when she began. She set the book in her lap and bent down, putting her face in her hands.
Then a thought came to her. It came from a long time ago in her past. She remembered sitting around the fireplace one night back in Palmyra. They had been reading the Bible. Her head came up slowly. It had been something about women. She opened the book again, striving to remember. Was it something Jesus said? She slowly shook her head. She didn’t think so. One of the Apostles, then. Peter, James, Paul. She began to think of them one by one. Peter maybe. Or was it Paul? Paul had written so much more. She began to flip through the pages, holding the book closer to the light now, feeling a sudden eagerness.
There was no way to know exactly what she was looking for, and so no way to know where to find it. But she saw that there were brief one- or two-line summaries at the head of each chapter. With that, she turned to the book of Acts and slowly began to read every summary. It took her over half an hour, and she had about decided that her memory was playing tricks with her. Then the words seemed to jump out at her.
It was the introduction to the third chapter of the First Epistle General of Peter: “Wives to honor their husbands. Obedience brings blessings.”
Pleased and surprised, she leaned more closely to the candle and began to read to herself. “Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands.”
She stopped, half frowning, half smiling.
Subjection
was not what she was looking for. Thus the frown. But the smile came from a memory that came stealing in as softly as a kitten’s footsteps. She had been maybe sixteen or seventeen. They were gathered around the fire—it had been a winter’s night, she thought. Her father had been reading in this very chapter. “I don’t like that word,” Melissa had blurted out. She could remember his annoyance. He had stopped reading and looked up. “What word?”
“
Subjection.
”
For a moment he had seemed confused. She rushed on. “Why should a woman have to do what the man says?” she demanded. “Why can’t both have a say?”
A flash of irritation had darkened her father’s face, but to her surprise it was her mother who spoke up. “Do you think
subjection
implies that you are inferior?” she asked.
“Well,” Melissa had answered, “it sure sounds like it.”
“Do you think your father views me as inferior to him?” Mary Ann persisted.
“No.” That had come from several of them at once. There was no question about that. Benjamin Steed treated Mary Ann as if she were a queen in the home.
“Some men abuse their position as head of the home, and that is wrong,” Mary Ann went on. “But the evil is in the abuse, not in the fact that he is the head and the wife is subject to him. There has to be a head, Melissa. That’s all that Peter is saying here.”
The remembrance brought a sharp pang—how she missed the sweet wisdom of her mother and the gentle love of her father! She sighed, then continued reading.
“. . . that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; while they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear.” She stopped and read that again, puzzled by the awkward language. “If any” had to refer to the husbands, she decided. Then her mouth rounded and there came out a soft, “Oh.”
“If any obey not the word . . .” That had to mean husbands who didn’t accept the gospel. She was almost startled by that. That was Carl! She stared, reading it again to make sure she was correct. Then the next concept hit her. “If any obey not the word, they also may
without the word
be won by the conversation of the wives.”
“Conversation” was no difficulty to her. This was a word used in several places in the New Testament. As a child she had been taught that it was an old English word which did not mean “talking to one another” but rather “conduct, behavior, or the way a person acts.”
She began to speak aloud now as she put it into her own words. “So if there are husbands who don’t accept the gospel, they may be won
without the word—
” She stopped again. Without the gospel? That seemed strange. Then again, understanding flooded in. “Oh,” she cried softly. “They can be won without preaching to them. The husband can be won—or changed—by how the wife lives or by her conduct.”
Marveling at what was happening, she read the next verses. “While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear. Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands: even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are.”
With a growing sense of wonder, she read the whole thing again, slowly and carefully. What was Peter saying? Not that the word, or the gospel, wasn’t important, but that a woman could win a man in other ways—not the ways of the world, through outward beauty and adornment, but rather through being more like Christ, by following his example of patience and faith and meekness and obedience.
She was nodding now, feeling a rush of light and joy that pushed back the gloom which had so enveloped her this night. Melissa set the book down and for a long time sat quietly in the chair, lost in her thoughts. Then she read through the scripture one last time before she blew out the candle, got down on her knees, and once again began to speak softly to the Lord.
When she heard Carl get out of bed, she immediately ran up the stairs. When she opened the door, he was standing there waiting for her, looking a little unsure as to what he should do. She smiled and went to him, putting her arms around him.
“I’m sorry, Carl.”
“No, I’m the one who’s sorry. Where were you?”
“In Mama and Papa’s house.” She put her finger to his lips as he started to say something else. “It’s all right. I got an answer.”
“To what?”
“To what I should do.”
“And?” he asked slowly.
“I’m not going to leave you, Carl. We’re going to see this through together.”
For a moment, he just stood there, not sure what to say. Then finally his arms came around her and he put his face against her hair. “I couldn’t bear it if you did leave.”
“Neither could I,” she whispered. Then she pulled back and looked at him, her eyes wide and beseeching. “But you have to promise me something, Carl.”
“What?”
“You have to promise me that no matter what happens, you’ll put the safety of our children first.”
There was no hesitation. “And yours too.”
She laid her head against his chest. “Yes.”
“I promise,” he murmured. “I promise that with all my heart.”
Chapter Notes
Edwin Bryant’s party reached Fort Bridger late on the night of 16 July. The Donners would not reach it until 27 July. Since their last visit with the main party on the Fourth of July at Beaver Creek, the pack mule party had gained eleven days on the wagon companies. On 18 July Bryant wrote in his journal: “We determined, this morning, to take the new route, via the south end of the great Salt Lake. . . . Although such was my own determination, I wrote several letters to my friends among the emigrant parties in the rear, advising them
not
to take this route, but to keep on the old trail, via Fort Hall.” (
What I Saw,
p. 144.) We know from other sources that one of those letters was written to James F. Reed (see
Chronicles,
p. 108). There is no existing copy of that letter, and so the contents as written here are speculative. However, the details shared here by Bryant come from his journal account of this time. (See
What I Saw,
pp. x, xi, 133, 135, 142–44.)
The scripture Melissa reads is 1 Peter 3:1–6.
Chapter 17
Peter walked steadily alongside the oxen. Even though it was past five o’clock in the afternoon, the sun was beating down with merciless power, baking everything living and dead underneath its powerful rays. Peter took off his hat and swiped at the gritty dust along the inside rim. Then he took out a bandanna and wiped his forehead. It came away dark and grimy.
“It’s unbearable, isn’t it?”
He turned and smiled up at Margret Reed and her oldest daughter, who were riding on the spring seats inside the wagon and who had the canvas sides of the wagon rolled up to let in at least some air. He could see dark rings around the rims of their bonnets and knew that they were as hot as he was. He smiled ruefully. “We didn’t know how sweet the Valley of the Sweetwater really was, did we?”
Margret pulled a face. “Oh, what I’d give for an evening’s bath in those wonderful waters!”
“At least we’re going downhill now,” Peter observed.
Ironically, it had taken them almost half a day to realize that fact. Two days before, they had camped at the last crossing of the Sweetwater. Not far from where they stopped, the Sweetwater turned north toward the Wind River mountain range, which was the source of its headwaters. They knew they were close to South Pass at that point, and a general excitement swept through the company at the thought of seeing that famous dividing point along the trail. There they would leave the Atlantic watershed and enter the Pacific. But to their great disappointment, they couldn’t find it.