Angry muttering rippled through the crowd. Joshua stepped up to Simpson and whispered something in his ear. Simpson looked surprised for a moment, then pleased. He clapped Joshua on the shoulder and turned to the two men.
As the noise died out again, he spoke loudly. He wanted all to hear. “We don’t want to seem unreasonable in these matters, but”—his voice rose sharply—“you Mormons have done us irreparable harm.”
“Yeah!” “That’s right!” “Make ’em pay!”
He smiled—an evil, leering smile that would have sent chills into the heart of any normal man. “But there is a way you can now make restitution.”
“What is that?” Partridge asked quietly.
Simpson swung around, calling to the crowd. “What if these men were to renounce their ridiculous faith and tell us they were sorry for being Mormons? Would we forgive ’em then?”
The question caught the crowd by surprise, but only for a moment. The thought delighted them. “Yes!” someone shouted. Others nodded. “Yes. Let them renounce their faith.”
Partridge started to shake his head. Joshua was to him in two strides and thrust his face close to the bishop’s. “Deny the Book of Mormon,” he cried, “and you shall go free this moment. Refuse, and we shall drive you from the county.”
“I cannot do that,” Partridge answered, almost in a whisper.
Joshua grabbed the front of his shirt. “What?” he screamed into his face. “What did you say? I don’t think the people heard you.”
Bishop Partridge’s chin came up. “I said I cannot deny the Book of Mormon,” he said loudly and firmly.
Charles Allen swallowed twice, staring straight ahead at nothing, not daring to meet the eyes of either Joshua or the crowd. But the courage and serenity of Bishop Partridge had obviously strengthened him, for he spoke with the same conviction. “Nor can I,” he said.
Simpson swung around. “Did you hear that, people? Is that the answer you wanted?”
“No!”
Suddenly there was a cry from the back of the crowd. “Let us through! Let us through!”
Heads turned and people inched back to make a passageway. Two men came pushing through and entered the circle. The first carried a wooden paddle in one hand and a large bucket of tar in the other. The other had two pillows tucked under his arm. “I say we tar and feather them!” the first shouted.
Here was something tangible, some way for the group to express their rage. Instantly cries of acclamation rent the air.
Simpson raised his hand and waited for quiet. He turned back to Partridge. “You have two choices. Either you deny the Book of Mormon or you leave the county. And if you choose the latter”—he gestured toward the two men—“we shall see that you leave us in style. Which shall it be?”
Edward Partridge took one step forward. When he spoke it was loud enough for all to hear, but his voice was perfectly clear and calm. “I cannot and I shall not deny that which I know to be true, nor can I agree to leave the county. The Saints of God have suffered persecution and mockery in all ages of the world, and I am willing to suffer for the sake of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.”
His head swung around and his eyes met the sullen and angry stares of the crowd. “I have done nothing to offend anyone here, and if you choose to abuse me, you abuse an innocent person.”
That brought an instant response from the crowd. Someone near the front began to curse and swear at anything Mormon. Another man shouted, “Tar and feather him, then let him call upon his Jesus.” Others were crying, “Let him speak. Let him speak. We can’t hear him.” In a moment the noise had swelled to the point that it drowned out Partridge’s words.
Bishop Partridge stepped back, his head high, his arms at his sides. Joshua just stared for a moment. He didn’t like the sudden cries of sympathy Partridge’s courage and demeanor were eliciting. Raw anger surged up inside him. This man before him exhibited exactly the kind of blind fanaticism he saw in Jessica now. Their attitude was: “I’m the faithful. I have done no wrong. Let me suffer for my Jesus.” This was the end product that Joseph Smith and his wild stories produced. This was the final result. When he thought of his own daughter being raised to this—
He whirled around. “Strip them of their clothes!” he commanded.
Three men jumped forward and ripped off the Mormons’ hats, coats, and vests.
“All right,” Joshua hissed at the two men who had pushed their way through the crowd and stood ready with the tar and the feather-filled pillows. “Do it!”
Giggling wildly, the first man jumped to the task. He scooped from the bucket a large blob of tar, now sticky and oozing in the heat of the July afternoon, and gleefully smeared it on the left side of Bishop Partridge’s face. He had to lean hard to get the tar off the paddle, and the movement pushed Partridge off balance. But only for a moment. The Bishop planted his feet more firmly, clasped his hands behind his back, and turned his head so the man could more easily get at him.
This submissiveness caught the crowd by surprise. There were a few whistles, an oath or two, and some catcalls, but they had expected resistance, cries for mercy, or at the very least, anger and cursings in return. But Partridge stood without flinching as the tar was smeared into his hair, on his face, over his arms. He did not even so much as grimace, just stood there in calm repose, gazing out over the heads of the crowd, peace written across what little could now be seen of his face.
To Joshua’s dismay, the cries of the crowd quickly died. As the second man took out his knife and ripped open one of the pillows and dumped its contents over the head of Bishop Partridge, there was not a sound. Charles Allen submitted to the indignities in the same submissive spirit, as the somber crowd watched in silence.
The Mormons stood there together when it was done, two figures covered with black smears and chicken feathers, looking like some strange, unrecognizable bipeds taken from some child’s nightmarish dreams. They should have looked utterly ridiculous, but the effect was just the opposite. Their meekness gave them majesty, their resignation in the face of revilement a dignity that even Joshua could not deny.
In silence, one by one, the members of the mob turned away, some glancing back over their shoulders at the work they had wrought, the shame evident on their faces. Joshua and Simpson sensed that there was nothing more to be done here and walked swiftly away. In a few minutes, Edward Partridge and Charles Allen stood alone in the public square.
Three days later, the mob spirit exploded again. About five hundred men—waving a red flag and armed with rifles, pistols, whips, dirks, and clubs—gathered from every direction. On signal they went looking for the Mormons. This time their violence was not restricted to Independence. They spread out across the countryside, torching haystacks, setting fire to the ripening grain fields. Men were caught and threatened with whipping. Houses, barns, and businesses were ripped apart and their remains left scattered across the ground.
Six of the Mormon leaders offered themselves as ransom if the pillaging would stop. But it was not enough. Threatening to whip every man, woman, and child in the Church, the Missourians thrust an agreement before the six men. In the starkest of terms it outlined their demands. By April following, there would be no more Mormons in Jackson County. The choice was capitulation or terror, surrender or rapine. With heavy hearts, the leaders took up the pen and signed the agreement that declared they were to leave the land of Zion.
Ironically, on the very day the six men were putting their names to the contract of expulsion, in Ohio another group of Saints were gathered, this time under happier circumstances. Benjamin Steed, newly ordained as an elder in the Church, was privileged to be a participant. His wife and family looked on happily, Mary Ann with tears in her eyes. In great solemnity, led by Joseph Smith and following the order of the priesthood, the officiating elders grasped the ropes on the block and tackles and hoisted four large blocks of stone. These had previously been brought from the stone quarry south of town and carefully dressed and finished. Now the elders swung them into place and lowered them onto the four corners of the footings that had been completed a short time before.
The cornerstones for the house of the Lord, the first built in nearly two thousand years, were in place. A great shout of joy went up from the assembled throng.
A day or two following the outrages of July twenty-third, Oliver Cowdery was dispatched to Ohio to inform the leadership of the tragedy unfolding in Missouri. On August second, several days before Oliver would arrive in Kirtland with the terrible news, Joseph Smith received a revelation concerning the “brethren in the land of Zion.” Among other things it said:
Therefore verily thus saith the Lord let Zion rejoice, for this is Zion, THE PURE IN HEART: therefore let Zion rejoice,...for behold and lo, vengeance cometh speedily upon the ungodly, as the whirlwind, and who shall escape it:...for the indignation of the Lord is kindled against their abominations, and all their wicked works: nevertheless Zion shall escape if she observe to do all things whatsoever I have commanded her, but if she observe not to do whatsoever I have commanded her, I will visit her according to all her works: with sore affliction; with pestilence; with plague; with sword; with vengeance, with devouring fire.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Nathan and Lydia sat side by side with Nathan’s parents in one of the upper rooms of the Newel Whitney store. They were crowded in with another fifty or sixty Saints who had gathered in response to a hurried call from the Prophet. Oliver Cowdery had arrived that afternoon. It was a bittersweet reunion, for Oliver brought news of the situation in Zion.
Oliver Cowdery stood near the front of the room. He spoke quietly and slowly, his voice filled with immense pain and horror. It was as if he had been struck with the center beam of a hay crane and hadn’t fully recovered. The press? Destroyed. The printing office and W. W. Phelps’s home? Razed to the ground. The Book of Commandments? Gone, save for a few copies. The Gilbert and Whitney store sacked, Bishop Partridge tarred and feathered, the Saints shocked and filled with fear. It was a grim report. Horror and stunned disbelief filled the room. Joseph, who sat on the front row with Emma, just kept shaking his head, the pain etching deep lines around his eyes. Emma was weeping silently, as were many of the other women.
When Oliver finally finished and slowly sat down, Joseph stood and let his eyes sweep across the faces in the room. “Brothers and sisters, this is terrible news indeed.” He stopped, looking dazed. There wasn’t a person in the room who didn’t have someone close—a brother or sister, a parent or child, other relatives, close friends—living in Zion. “I recommend we adjourn this evening. I trust that thoughts of our brethren and sisters in Zion will weigh heavily in your prayers tonight. I would like a council of the priesthood to convene here tomorrow morning at ten, so we can consider what course of action we now should take.”
The moment Joseph was finished, Nathan was up and over to Oliver. Nathan was shocked at the other man’s appearance. He had aged five years. His eyes were dull and listless, and there were dark circles under them. Part of that, Nathan knew, could be attributed to trail weariness. Oliver had just completed a journey of over eight hundred miles, a goodly portion of it on foot. But it was more than that. He was drained, spiritually, emotionally, physically.
Others were starting forward, and Nathan had no time for preamble. He had to know. He took Oliver by the arm and turned him half around, so they were not facing the group. “Oliver,” he said in a low voice, “tell me. What is the news of Jessica and the baby? Were they hurt in any way?”
Oliver managed a wan smile. “No, that is one happy thing to report. Jessica is safe.”
“Thank heavens,” Nathan breathed.
Oliver brightened a little. “Rachel, her baby, is not really a baby anymore, you know. She’s nearly a year and a half now. She has beautiful, dark curly hair, and the brightest, perkiest pair of blue eyes you’ve ever seen.”
“And what about my son?” Benjamin Steed asked from behind Nathan.
Nathan turned, his heart falling. Both of his parents, along with Lydia, were standing next to them now. That was the question he had hoped to ask before his parents came up to hear. Now it was too late. His father, face as grim as though he were waiting for a pronouncement of a death in the family, looked steadily at Oliver. “What of Joshua? Did he have a part in this?”
Oliver looked first at Benjamin, then at Mary Ann. His shoulders rose, then sagged. “Joshua Steed is a member of the citizens’ committee that was largely responsible for what happened. He helped draft the secret constitution that called for the expulsion of the Saints.”
Nathan was watching his mother and felt a piercing stab of pain. Mary Ann fell back a step, as though she had been struck in the face. He had never seen her so stricken, so vulnerable to the pain that swept across her soul.
But Benjamin wasn’t satisfied with Oliver’s answer. “Was he there? On the day the mob destroyed the press? Was he part of that?”
Oliver hesitated, then finally nodded slowly. “Yes.”
Benjamin nodded, his jaw tight, his lips pressed into a hard line. Blindly, Mary Ann turned and stumbled away.
Lydia whirled around, fighting to keep her voice under control. “Why you, Nathan?”
He threw up his hands. “Because Jessica is our family, like it or not.”
“Your father said he was going to send money. What else can you do?”
“I can make sure she’s safe, that she has a home.”
Lydia had a hairbrush in her hand. She had been brushing her hair when Nathan had returned from the council meeting held at the Whitney store and announced that Joseph was going to send a delegation to Zion to investigate the situation. When he told her he planned to volunteer himself, she exploded. Now she slammed the brush down on the chest of drawers with a sharp crack. “Oliver said that Jessica was safe.”
“She was when he left. We don’t know what’s happening there now.” Nathan walked over to her. He reached out to take her into his arms. “Lydia, let’s not fight about this.”