“Do
you
think there’s truth to it, Pa?” Nathan asked incredulously. “This is all part of the same pack of lies that Bennett is pandering around.”
“Is it?” Carl asked quietly.
“Yes!”
“Maybe you’d better ask Joseph.”
Nathan shot up, putting both hands on the desk. “Who is filling your head with that kind of stuff, Carl? Melissa Schindle? Martha Brotherton? Who? I want to know.”
“Nathan!” Benjamin roared. “Sit down!”
The sound reverberated in the small room and shocked them all into silence. Nathan slowly sat back down. “Now,” Benjamin finally said, “let’s hear Carl out.”
Carl seemed very reluctant now. “This is all very tentative.” He looked at Nathan. “But this is not coming from Joseph’s enemies.”
“I’m going to Joseph with this,” Nathan muttered. “This is not right.”
“No you’re not,” Joshua exclaimed. “You’ll just tip his hand. This stays just among us until we find out the truth here.” There was a faint smirk. “Or is it you who is afraid to know the truth now?”
Benjamin sighed. “That’s enough, Joshua.”
“Why?” he flared. “I listened to the evidence against Bennett. And I
was
disappointed that his claims weren’t true. But I accepted it! And now, when it looks like it might go the other way—”
“Suppose,” Carl said, “someone started spreading vicious rumors about you, Joshua, and I learned about them. Would you want me to tip your hand?”
Joshua’s mouth opened, but as he stared at Carl it finally shut again. Then he let out a muttered, “Yes.”
“I would too.”
“All right, then,” Joshua went on, “how about this? Nathan can go to Joseph with the whole thing on Bennett. I told the man that if I found out he was lying to me, I’d do everything I could to bring him down. So take him down.”
“I will,” Nathan cried.
“But on this other, we say nothing until Carl looks into it some more.” He gave Nathan a hard look. “And whatever he finds, we accept, whether we like it or not. Agreed?”
“It won’t work,” Carl answered. “I told you, I’m an outsider. If this is happening, it is known only in the tightest of circles. Church leaders only. They are not talking about it and most certainly not to some person who isn’t even a member.”
Joshua’s disappointment showed on his face. There was no disputing the point. They all fell silent, mulling over how to get at a solution.
And then Nathan stunned them all. Still staring at the floor, he said quietly, “I will investigate this one.”
Joshua spun around. Carl stared in disbelief. Even Benjamin was shocked speechless for a moment. And then he saw the wisdom of it. This was for Joshua. He began to nod. “Yes, that would work. Nathan knows the leaders well. He is a trusted friend of Joseph’s. If there is truth in this, Nathan is the one to find it out.”
“Nathan doesn’t believe a word of it,” Joshua snorted. “What kind of investigation will that be?”
Nathan was looking at the floor now. He didn’t look up. “It will be as fair and as impartial as Carl’s. That’s what it will be. You have my word on it.”
Nathan and Benjamin found Joseph in his office above the store. They had gotten only a sentence or two into their report when Joseph held up his hand. “I’d like Hyrum to hear this. Can you wait?”
When they nodded he was up and gone. Ten minutes later he returned with his brother. Both looked grim. When they were seated, Joseph nodded to Nathan. “All right, start at the beginning again. Tell us everything.”
For half an hour Nathan talked in a low voice, interrupted only when Benjamin added details Nathan had forgotten or when the two brothers fired questions at him. When Nathan finally finished, Joseph looked as though he had been whipped. He sat with his head in his hands. Hyrum was fuming. Benjamin decided it was time they leave it to them. “Is there anything more you want us to do, Joseph?” Benjamin asked.
It was as though he had to come back to them from a long way away. “What was that?”
Benjamin repeated his question. Joseph slowly shook his head. “No, not at present. Give us some time, brethren.” He reached out and laid his hand on Benjamin’s arm. “Will you tell Carl that we are deeply indebted to him? This is what we’ve needed. Exactly what we’ve needed.”
“I will.”
There was a deep, pained sigh, and he looked down at his hands. “We have been long patient with John C. Bennett. We have given him every opportunity to repent, to change his ways, and this is what he does.”
Nathan waited half an hour before he finally saw Brigham come out of the door of the woodworking shop and start for home. Thankfully, Matthew did not come out with him. Nathan stepped out from behind the tree across the street and walked swiftly until he nearly caught up with him. Brigham, hearing his footsteps, turned, then stopped.
“Well, Brother Nathan. Good afternoon.”
“Afternoon, Brigham.”
Brigham gave him an odd look. “Just happening by?” he asked.
Nathan grinned. Brigham was pretty shrewd. He didn’t miss much. “No, actually I was waiting for you. Do you mind if I walk with you?”
Again there was that long searching look, then a brief nod. “Love to have your company.” They started off again, walking slowly.
“How’s Mary Ann?” Nathan asked. Like Nathan’s mother, Brigham’s wife was named Mary Ann.
“Fine.”
“And the children?”
“The children are fine. Mary Ann’s in a family way again.”
“Really? Congratulations. This will be your sixth?”
“Seventh.”
“Good. And she’s feeling all right?”
There was a sardonic smile. “She’s feeling fine. The children are fine. My cow’s had a touch of the bloat, but she’s better now. My horse is doing well. The roof leaks from time to time, but I plan to get at that this afternoon, as a matter of fact.”
Nathan flushed.
Brigham laughed shortly. “Just come right out with it.”
“All right. I’d like to ask you some questions.”
Brigham glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. Brigham had stopped by the printing office earlier in the day to see John Taylor on a matter, and John had told him that Nathan Steed had been around asking questions. “To what end?” he finally asked.
Nathan decided that there was no being coy with Brigham Young. “There are rumors and stories floating about. You know my brother Joshua. Well, he’s aware of these. He is greatly troubled and will use this to stop Caroline and Will from being baptized.”
Brigham slowed his step until they were nearly stopped. “I appreciate your being honest with me, Nathan. Have you asked Joseph?”
Nathan flinched a little. “Uh . . . no. Not yet.”
Brigham’s round features softened. “I understand why you’re doing this, Nathan.” He laid an arm across his shoulder. “We can talk about it, but you need to know this. I can’t and I won’t speak for Joseph. There are some things you are going to have to ask him and him alone. Fair enough?”
“Yes, of course.”
Brigham smiled, teasing him a little. “Now, just to stay on safe ground here, why don’t I ask the questions.”
Nathan had to laugh. In a way that would be a relief. “All right.”
“We’re agreed that the whole thing with John C. Bennett and his spiritual wifery is a fraud and that Joseph never gave him permission to teach any such doctrine? You have no question about that?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Good. So what troubles you is whether or not Joseph is actually teaching that it is all right for a man to take more than one wife?”
“Yes,” Nathan said emphatically. “Is he?”
“Do you agree that if God chose to restore that practice, he could do it?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“I didn’t say he had, I’m just trying to clarify where you stand.”
“Yes. I believe God could do it, of course. But I don’t think he would, Brigham. Not anymore. It’s . . . it just doesn’t seem right. A man having more than one woman to love.”
“Let me reason with you as Joseph reasoned with me. Are you a believer in the resurrection of men and women?”
“Of course.”
“Do you believe that in the resurrection we will be much as we are now, only in a glorified state? That men and women, parents and children, will recognize one another there?”
“Yes, I believe that completely.”
“And do you believe that in the resurrection we will have the same filial feelings toward each other, that parents will still love their children, that husbands and wives will love each other?”
Nathan considered that more carefully, but the answer was still the same. “Yes, I do.”
“So, let me ask you this. You love Lydia and your children with complete love and devotion now?”
“Completely.”
“Suppose Lydia were to die. Is it possible that you would remarry after a time?”
“Well, yes, I suppose.”
“And do you think you could have the same tender feelings for and total devotion to that woman as you do with regard to Lydia now? And that if you had children with that woman, you would love them as you love your current children?”
Now Nathan sensed that he was being moved into a box and he answered more carefully. “Yes, I suppose that could be the case.”
Brigham had turned very solemn. “Did you know that Mary Ann is not my first wife?”
Nathan started a little, then remembered. “Yes, I do remember that.”
“I buried my beloved Miriam on a hillside in New York State. Do you think that because I truly love my Mary Ann now that it diminishes my former love for Miriam in any way?”
“No.”
“All right, then. Now, let’s come back to the resurrection. Everyone is dead now. Me, you, Lydia, my Mary Ann, this second wife of yours. We are all in heaven in the resurrection. Tell me what will happen there. If I am to have only one wife, what will happen to my Miriam and the two children we had together? Or if it is Miriam that I am given, then are Mary Ann and my current children to be sent away? Could you imagine sending your Lydia off and your children with her and saying, ‘I’m terribly sorry, but I have a different wife now’?”
The logic was irrefutable, and Nathan had no choice but to shake his head. “No, of course not.”
“Then you agree in principle at least that, since heaven is a pure and perfectly holy place and those who dwell there are in the presence of God and the angels, a man could have more than one wife at the same time and not have it be an evil thing?”
“Yes,” Nathan said reluctantly, “I agree.”
Brigham squeezed his shoulder and chuckled. “That was not much of an agreement, my friend.”
“No,” Nathan said earnestly, “I can see that for heaven. But here? To have two wives at the same time? I’m not sure that is the same thing. It would be terribly difficult, and I’m not sure that it could ever be right.”
“So it’s wrong on earth, but acceptable in heaven?”
“I know, I know,” Nathan exclaimed. “What you say makes sense in a way, but . . . it just seems so wrong, Brigham. I can’t believe God would ever require it of us.”
They were stopped completely now, under the shade of a spreading oak tree. Brigham was silent, watching the anguish playing across Nathan’s face. Finally, Nathan straightened, looking directly at the Apostle. “Has Joseph . . . ?” He stopped as Brigham cocked his head in warning.
“I can’t and I won’t speak for Joseph,” he said.
“I know. I’m sorry. I understand.”
“Good.” Now Brigham smiled, the sternness gone as quickly as it had come. “Let me tell you a story, Nathan. Maybe you won’t see how this is related to what we’re talking about, but it is the same principle.”
Nathan nodded glumly, still greatly distressed. Brigham hadn’t answered anything directly, but he had as much as said it straight out and Nathan was shaken.
“In 1838, while we were in Missouri, Joseph and the brethren wished me to go among the branches of the Church and find out what surplus property the people had. I was to take that property under the law of consecration and forward it on to Far West for the building of the temple there.”
Now Nathan was paying attention. “I remember that.”
“Before I started, I asked brother Joseph, ‘Tell me, who shall be the judge of what is surplus property?’ Said he, ‘Let them be the judges themselves, for I care not if they do not give a single dime. So far as I am concerned, I do not want anything they have. This is for the Lord.’ That was good enough for me, so I went out to ask them for their surplus property as instructed.”
“And did they give it to you?” Nathan asked.
“Well,” Brigham said, a faint smile playing around the corners of his mouth now, “it was an interesting thing. When I talked with the people, I found them willing to do about as they were counseled. ‘Do you accept the law of consecration?’ I would ask. They would nod their heads and solemnly say, ‘Amen, Brother Brigham.’ ‘Are you willing to give your surplus to the Lord?’ ‘Amen and amen, Brother Brigham.’”
Now his voice had turned sardonic. “But when I then asked them what surplus property they had, it was a very different matter. One would say, ‘I have got so many hundred acres of land, and I have got so many boys, and I want each one of them to have eighty acres, therefore this is not surplus property.’ Another would say, ‘I have got so many girls, and I do not believe I shall be able to give them more than forty acres each.’ Then I would point out that that would still leave about two or three hundred acres. ‘Yes,’ came the quick reply, ‘but I have a brother-in-law coming on and he will depend on me for a living. My wife’s nephew is coming of age and will be coming out here. He is poor and I shall have to furnish him a farm after he arrives here.’”
Nathan was smiling now, amused at the picture Brigham was drawing.
“Oh, some were disposed to do right with their surplus property and gave freely. But more commonly when you did find a man with a surplus cow he was willing to give, she was of the class that would kick a person’s hat off, or knock your eyes out, or the wolves had eaten off her teats.”
Nathan had been chuckling; now he guffawed right out loud.
“And you might find a man who had a horse that he considered surplus, but the animal had the ringbone, was broken-winded, spavined in both legs, had the pole evil at one end of the neck and a fistula at the other, and both knees sprung.”