The Fugitive Son (14 page)

She’d been woefully naïve about what the trip would entail. Only one day out and she was already exhausted from the grueling overland journey, the hard bench, and the bone-jarring bumps along the trail. She remembered one of the diaries she had read of an earlier traveler who had made the cross-country trip. “Worse and worse the road!” the harried woman had written. “Half a dozen men by bodily exertions are pulling the wagons down the hills! We made but 600 or 800 yards a day.”

Back in Kentucky as she had prepared for the westward expedition by reading everything she could find on the subject, Elsie had dismissed such diary entries as exaggerations, but now that she was actually on the trail, she wondered if the diary writers had described it in harsh enough terms.

The sun long gone, Isaac took his bedroll and spread it under the wagon, while Elsie clamored aboard and snuggled into her featherbed. Relaxing to the cool churning of the nearby creek and the constant whine of locusts, she pondered the vast unknown territory that lay ahead. Was she truly up to this task? Or was she, as Isaac had teased, too delicate and spoiled to survive the ravages of driving a wagon across the wide expanse of prairie and desert?

She fluffed her feather pillow, pulled the comforter closer around her shoulders, and curled her body until her knees were nearly hitting her chin.
Not only will I survive, I will thrive!
she promised herself.
I am a Condit, born of sturdy, Kentucky stock – not some pampered Southern belle complaining about a few bumps in the road. One day is already behind me, and each day will bring me closer to my brothers. No matter what the future brings, God will see me through.

With her resolve settled, Elsie fell into a deep, restful sleep, her future securely in the hands of the Almighty God.

Parowan, Utah Territory

A
NDY’S GAZE
swept around the crude cabin. A plain carpenter’s bench ran along one wall, topped with a water bucket and dipper, a few battered utensils, and a handful of chipped pottery dishes – apparently the kitchen area. Another wall held a stack of buffalo robes, above which several pegs held the family’s meager wardrobe.

Hettie had covered the bare dirt floor with various animal skins, making a rather comfortable floor cover for the hovel. Hettie’s gaze followed Andy’s. “Ain’t much, but it’s home,” she pronounced.

“Doesn’t Pa help you with any of this?” Andy asked, looking at the burgeoning evidence of a hard-tack existence. Fresh fruits and vegetables sat in bushel baskets, waiting to be washed and preserved; animal feed was stacked in yet another corner; and mountains of firewood awaited chopping and splitting just outside the cabin’s single door. Add to that laundry and cooking for a large brood of children, and Aunt Hettie must be a busy woman indeed.

“It’s the life I chose,” she said, without any sound of regret or bitterness. “When I came with my folks back in ’48 from Nauvoo to Great Salt Lake City, the Saints were openly practicing the Principle, so I knew what I was gettin’ into.”

She shot him an inquisitive glance. “You did know it was already going on years ago in Nauvoo, didn’t ya? That’s partly the reason old Joseph met his Maker before his time in the Carthage jail. Seems the newspaper editor discovered that Mighty Joe was testing his church leaders by telling them God wanted him to take their wives and daughters to wife. He figured if they was that loyal to him, he could trust ‘em.”

She shook her head. “Imagine a man willingly giving his wife to the prophet! Or his young virgin daughter to a crusty old man.”

Andy swallowed, aghast at her open disdain and contempt for the Prophet Joseph Smith, the man who held the keys to the kingdom in his hand. He wondered whether he was duty bound to correct her or if he should just let her rant. Perhaps living out here alone with the children had touched her mind. Finally, he answered her. “I was just a little shaver when I went with Pa and the Prophet Brigham to find the place God intended to be our new Zion, so I didn’t know much of went on in Nauvoo. Of course, I do know about Prophet Joseph’s martyrdom in the Carthage jail. I’ve heard that story most of my life.”

“Martyrdom!” Hettie harrumphed. “You’ve heard the Saints’ sanitized version of what happened, you mean. Like I said, old Joe landed in the jail because he broke the law and burned down the newspaper office, angry that the editor had the gall to print the truth. He wasn’t no martyr. He went out in a blaze of gunfire, begging for mercy from the Free Masons among the mob.”

Andy glanced nervously at the door, afraid Pa would come back and hear the conversation. “Does Pa know you feel this way?”

She shrugged. “’S’pose he does. We don’t talk about things like that much. In fact, we don’t talk much at all. Like I told you, I’m only his wife in the sense that I bear his offspring. When the prophet ordered me to marry him, I agreed – not because I needed a husband, but because I wanted young’uns. I knew I’d make a terrible wife, but I also knew I’d make a durned good mother.”

Responding to the shock on Andy’s face, she asked, “How many polygamous wives do you talk to?”

He shook his head. “None that I know of. If Pa has other wives, I’ve never met them. Mostly I’ve been on the trail with the menfolk.”

Hettie tried to explain. “The way I see it, there’s several different kinds of wives. A few of them, like me, just want kids and don’t need or want a man around telling them what to do. Others fall in love with a fellow and live with a broken heart because they have to share his affections. Still others are forced into the situation and would love to escape, but fear their lives and their souls are in danger. Finally, there are the true believers who think the prophet is their link to God and are willing to do anything he says because they believe it pleases Heavenly Father.”

“Anyway,” she added, “when Charles and I were sealed at the Endowment House, I figured the best way to stay happy was to volunteer to come and help with the company sent to colonize Parowan. That way I wouldn’t have to put up with your Pa all the time and would be far away from whatever brides or young’uns he decided to have. Some of us homely ones wind up doing all the dirty work while the pretty wives get the luxuries. None of that for me, no sir! I didn’t plan to be maid to your Pa and his other families! I’m okay with raising my own brood, but I had no intention of being a scullery maid for the rest of my life.”

Andy found himself admiring her spunk, but he feared for her eternal destiny. Was it safe to talk like that and express such doubts here in Deseret?

“Don’t worry,” she assured him. “I only talk like this to them I can trust. The folks here in Parowan think I’m a bit odd, but a good, loyal Saint. I can play the hypocrite as good as the next one, I reckon.”

The door burst open and Pa walked in. “Been thinking I’ll go over to town and talk to the bishop and church leaders to see if they have anything they want me to report to the prophet when I leave tomorrow,” he announced.

“Leaving tomorrow? But I thought Brother Brigham said we were to stay and rest awhile,” Andy protested.

“He said you should stay and rest,” Pa corrected. “Didn’t say anything about how long I should stay. With all this war talk going on, I figure he’ll need me back up north. Meanwhile, make yourself useful and help your Aunt Hettie with some of the work that’s piled up around here. I’ll send for you when the prophet has a job for you.”

It was just like Pa to duck all his responsibilities, leaving all the work to others while he enjoyed himself doing “church business.” No wonder Hettie wanted to live a long ways from him. Andy tried to still his wayward thoughts. When had he become so critical of Pa? Surely Heavenly Father wasn’t pleased with his attitude, but how could he respect someone who treated others with such contempt, someone who seemed so self-centered?

To Hettie, Charles called back over his shoulder, “Me and the boy will sleep in the lean-to tonight. No use disrupting your whole household. I’ll be leaving before sunup, so you can bid the children goodbye for me.”

Andy barely heard Hettie murmur under her breath. “What he means is I’m beyond the ways of women so he doesn’t need to share my bed.” She then looked him in the eye, “And he doesn’t care a fig about his own children!”

Andy busied himself the next few days splitting wood, mending fences, and doing other chores around the cabin, amazed at how Hettie had managed so well without a man around to do the heavy chores. He pondered over her thoughts on polygamy and her opinion of the prophets and the Saints as a whole. He couldn’t understand how she grew up in Nauvoo and had such strong feelings against the prophets.

Another thought shattered his ponderings. “How can the same teaching and leaders affect us so differently? Is it because she spent more time with the women and children than I did?” he wondered. Did the women truly have a different view of the faith? Was it, as Hettie said, a religion made for men, giving them the right to do whatever they wanted?

Judging from Pa’s attitude toward his wives, Andy realized women weren’t cherished and loved in the religion of the Saints. Or maybe Pa was the exception. Just because he didn’t know how to be kind to a woman didn’t mean all Mormon men were cut from the same cloth. At that moment, Andy determined to find out. He would ride into Parowan and get to know some of the other men. He would listen and learn from them.

Andy soon discovered that the issues of polygamy and family harmony were not on anybody’s lips. The entire town of Parowan and the surrounding communities could speak of nothing but the news of war. The prophet had sent George Smith to the southern settlements to ready the Saints for action, urging them to prepare their homes for burning.

Addressing a meeting of the ward, Smith gave them their orders. “Brother Brigham has declared war against the United States, and all of Utah Territory is under martial law, effective August 1. Prepare for evacuation, make all the guns and ammunition you can, and stockpile food and provisions for your animals.”

Sermons from the bishop and other leaders grew increasingly vehement against the army, shocking Andy with their demands to “wipe out the enemy, the United States.” President Buchanan was declared the arch enemy and threats against Missourians were especially violent. The war hysteria and paranoia gripped the entire community.

Visiting around the town, Andy tried to stay in the background as he listened to the townsfolk express their worries, dismay, and anger. Visitors, among them Mormon apostles and leaders from Great Salt Lake City, seemed to be fomenting the situation, stirring up emotions and warning the local leaders.

By listening cautiously, Andy was brought up to date on much that was transpiring in all of Utah. Things that stirred him to his very soul. Apparently, Prophet Young had just found out in July that Alfred Cummings was on his way from Georgia to replace him as governor of Utah Territory.
The Deseret News
was reporting that Apostle Parley Pratt had been killed in Arkansas by the estranged husband of a woman Pratt had taken as his twelfth wife, confirming the reports Andy had heard from the returning missionaries.

Rumors circulated that federal troops were advancing, prompting Apostle Heber Kimball to declare from the pulpit, “I will fight until there is not a drop of blood in my veins. Good God! I have wives enough to whip out the United States.” Mormons traveling from the Kansas-Missouri frontier brought word that federal troops were, in fact, headed for Utah, leading to the prophet’s proclamation of martial law on the tenth anniversary of his arrival in the Great Salt Lake Valley.

What has happened to the Promised Land?
Andy mused to himself.
The beautiful Zion, promised to us as our forever homeland, where peace and safety will reign? Or is this another persecution to test our loyalty? Or did we ask for this, as the gentile newspapers and politicians are reporting, because of our crimes against America?

Andy’s head whirled as he weighed the differing opinions. From what he’d witnessed with blood atonement and polygamy, he couldn’t think either of them were pleasing to Heavenly Father, let alone ordained by him. Could he actually go to war against his own beloved country to defend such practices?