Part 20 (1/2)
_In the Dark of the Aftermath_
He was never able to recall the events of that day, or of the months following, in anything like their proper sequence. The effort to do so brought a pain shooting through his head. Up to the moment when the yellow hair had waved in his face, everything had kept a ghastly distinctness. He remembered each instant and each emotion. After that all was dark confusion, with only here and there a detached, inconsequent memory of appalling vividness.
He could remember that he had buried her on the other side of the hill where a gnarled cedar grew at the foot of a ledge of sandstone, using a spade that an Indian had brought him from the deserted camp. By her side he had found the scattered contents of the little bundle she had carried,--a small Bible, a locket, a worn gold bracelet, and a picture of herself as he had known her, a half-faded daguerreotype set in a gilt oval, in a square rubber case that shut with a snap. The little limp-backed Bible had lain flung open on the ground in the midst of the other trinkets. He remembered picking these things up and retying them in the blue silk handkerchief, and then he had twice driven away an Indian who, finding no other life, came up to kill the two children huddled at the foot of the cedar.
He recalled that he had at some time pa.s.sed the two wagons; one of them was full of children, some crying, some strangely quiet and observant.
The other contained the wounded men whom Lee and the two drivers had dispatched where they lay.
He remembered the scene close about him where many of the women and older children had fallen under knife and tomahawk. At intervals had come a long-drawn scream, terrifying in its shrillness, from some woman struggling with Saint or savage.
Later he remembered becoming aware that the bodies were being stripped and plundered; of seeing Lee holding his big white hat for valuables, while half a dozen men searched pockets and stripped off clothing. The picture of the naked bodies of a dozen well-grown children tangled in one heap stayed with him.
Still later, when the last body had been stripped and the smaller treasures collected, he had known that these and the stock and wagons were being divided between the Mormons and the Indians; a conflict with these allies being barely averted, the Indians accusing the Saints of withholding more than their share of the plunder.
After the division was made he knew that the Saints had all been called together to take an oath that the thing should be kept secret. He knew, too, that he had gone over the spot that night, the moon lighting the naked forms strewn about. Many of them lay in att.i.tudes strangely lifelike,--here one resting its head upon its arm, there a white face falling easily back as if it looked up at the stars. He could not recall why he had gone back, unless to be sure that he had made the grave under the cedar secure from the wolves.
Some of the men had camped on the spot. Others had gone to Hamblin's ranch, near the Meadows, where the children were taken. He had sent the boy there with them, and he could recall distinctly the struggle he had with the little fellow; for the boy had wished not to be taken from the girl, and had fought valiantly with fists and feet and his sharp little teeth. The little girl with her mother's bundle he had taken to another ranch farther south in the Pine Mountains. He told the woman the child was his own, and that she was to be kept until he came again.
Where he slept that night, or whether he slept at all, he never knew.
But he had been back on the ground in the morning with the others who came to bury the naked bodies. He had seen heaps of them piled in little depressions and the dirt thrown loosely over them, and he remembered that the wolves were at them all a day later.
Then Dame and Haight and others of high standing in the Church had come to look over the spot and there another oath of secrecy was taken. Any informer was to be ”sent over the rim of the basin”--except that one of their number was to make a full report to the President at Salt Lake City. Klingensmith was then chosen by vote to take charge of the goods for the benefit of the Church. Klingensmith, Haight, and Higbee, he recalled, had later driven two hundred head of the cattle to Salt Lake City and sold them. Klingensmith, too, had put the clothing taken from the bodies, blood-stained, shredded by bullets and knives, into the cellar of the t.i.thing office at Cedar City. Here there had been, a few weeks later, a public auction of the property taken, the Bishop, who presided as auctioneer, facetiously styling it ”plunder taken at the siege of Sebastopol.” The clothing, however, with the telltale marks upon it, was reserved from the auction and sold privately from the t.i.thing office. Many stout wagons and valuable pieces of equipment had thus been cheaply secured by the Saints round about Cedar City.
He knew that the surviving children, seventeen in number, had been ”sold out” to Saints in and about Cedar City, Harmony, and Painter's Creek, who would later present bills for their keep.
He knew that Lee, whom the Bishops had promised a crown of glory for his work that day, had gone to Salt Lake City and made a confidential report to Brigham; that Brigham had at first professed to regard the occurrence as unfortunate for the Church, though admitting that no innocent blood had been shed; that he had sworn Lee never to tell the story again to any person, instructing him to make a written report of the affair to himself, as Indian agent, charging the deed to the Indians. He was said to have added on this point, after a period of reflection, ”Only Indians, John, don't save even the little children.” He was reported to have told Lee further, on the following day, that he had asked G.o.d to take the vision from his sight if the killing had been a righteous thing, and that G.o.d had done so, thus proving the deed in the sight of heaven to have been a just vengeance upon those who had once made war upon the Saints in Missouri.
With these and with many another disjointed memory of the day Joel Rae was cursed; of how Hamblin the following spring had gathered a hundred and twenty skulls on the ground where the wolves had left them, and buried them again; of how an officer from Camp Floyd had built a cairn on the spot and erected a huge cross to the memory of the slain; of how the thing became so dire in the minds of those who had done it, that more than one man lost his reason, and two were known to have killed themselves to be rid of the death-cries of women.
But the clearest of all among the memories of the day itself was the prayer offered up as they stood amid the heaps of fresh earth, after they had sworn the oath of secrecy; how G.o.d had been thanked for delivering the enemy into their hands, and how new faith and better works were promised to Him for this proof of His favour.
The memory of this prayer stayed with him many years: ”Bless Brother Brigham--bless him; may the heavens be opened unto him, and angels visit and instruct him. Clothe him with power to defend Thy people and to overthrow all who may rise against us. Bless him in his basket and in his store; multiply and increase him in wives, children, flocks and herds, houses and lands. Make him very great to be a lawgiver and G.o.d to Thy people, and to command them in all things whatsoever in the future as in the past.”
Nor did he forget that, soon after he had listened to this prayer, and the forces had dispersed, he had made two discoveries;--first, that his hair was whitening; second, that he could not be alone at night and keep his reason.
CHAPTER XIX.
_The Host of Israel Goes forth to Battle_
He went north in answer to the call for soldiers. He went gladly. It promised activity--and company.
A score of them left Cedar City with much warlike talk, with many ringing prophecies of confusion to the army now marching against them, and to the man who had sent it. They cited Fremont, Presidential candidate of the newly organised Republican party the year before, with his catch phrase, ”The abolition of slavery and polygamy, the twin relics of barbarism.” Fremont had been defeated. And there was Stephen A. Douglas, once their staunch friend and advocate in Illinois; but the year before he had turned against them, styling polygamy ”the loathsome ulcer of the body politic,” a.s.serting that the people of Utah were bound by oath to recognise only the authority of Brigham Young; that they were forming alliances with Indians and organising Danite bands to rob and murder American citizens; and urging a rigid investigation into these enormities. For this slander Brigham had hurled upon him the anathema of the priesthood, in consequence of which Douglas had failed to secure even a nomination for the high office which he sought.
And now Buchanan was in a way to draw upon himself that retribution which must ever descend upon the foes of Israel. Brigham was at last to unleash the dogs of war. They recalled his saying when they came into the valley, ”If they will let us alone for ten years, we will ask no odds of Uncle Sam or the Devil.” The ten years had pa.s.sed and the Devil was taking them at their word. One of them recalled the prophecy of another inspired leader, Parley Pratt, the Archer of Paradise: ”Within ten years from now the people of this country who are not Mormons will be entirely subdued by the Latter-day Saints or swept from the face of the earth; and if this prophecy fails, then you may know the Book of Mormon is not true.”
Their great day was surely at hand. Their G.o.d of Battles reigned. All through the Territory the leaders preached, prayed, and taught nothing but war; the poets made songs only of war; and the people sang only these. Public works and private were alike suspended, save the manufacture of new arms, the repairing of old, and the sharpening of sabers and bayonets.
On the way, to fire their ardour, they were met by Brigham's proclamation. It recited that ”for the last twenty-five years we have trusted officials of the government from constables and justices to judges, governors, and presidents, only to be scorned, held in derision, insulted, and betrayed. Our houses have been plundered and burned, our fields laid waste, our chief men butchered while under the pledged faith of the government for their safety; and our families driven from their homes to find that shelter in the wilderness and that protection among hostile savages which were denied them in the boasted abodes of Christianity and civilisation.” It concluded by forbidding all armed forces of every description to enter the Territory under any pretence whatever, and declaring martial law to exist until further notice. The little band hurried on, eager to be at the front.