The 19th Wife (31 page)

By July we were nearing Denver. That’s when Brigham called me to his office. I thought he was going to pay off the job in advance because my work was quality work and everyone said so. “You’ve done such a fine job,” he said. “I want you to take over the line running to Montana. They’re in real trouble and might not finish this year. I’ll give you three dollars for every pole delivered, and a dollar for standing it in the ground.”

A man who’s recently made real money has but one inclination, and that’s to make more. That same day I drove a load of poles north myself. I spent about two weeks straightening out the job and pulling up the bad poles and filling in old holes and digging new ones. On the Denver line the Prophet’s office paid me twice a month. But once I started driving north the payments stopped. I needed those deposits to pay my men. After three weeks I was low and could barely pay them out. After four weeks I spent everything I had to keep the men on the roll and the line extending north.

When I went to see Brigham about the dried-up payments, his secretary kept me waiting for a long time and then told me to come back the next day. The next day it was the same. I couldn’t wait another day in Salt Lake. I needed to ride back up to the job. Even though I wasn’t being paid I knew I couldn’t stop driving the line. In summer winter feels far away, but not if you’ve got a line of poles to get in the ground before frost. That’s what I was thinking as I left Salt Lake, and that’s all. I never thought I’d never see my money. I’ve seen swindling up close. I’ve heard all about it and always shook my head, wondering how a man could be so foolish to hand out his money to a crook, because a crook looks like a crook and talks like one too. And that’s how I thought about swindling. I don’t have the kind of mind to imagine the Prophet cheating, and I’m both sorry and glad I don’t.

It took a month to see the Prophet. By then I couldn’t hold down my anger. My men were chewing me up and some had walked off and the job was behind. They accused me of swindling and some talked of stealing my teams. When I finally got to see Brigham, I blew apart. “I’ve got thirty men laying your poles and I haven’t seen a penny from you since I sent them north.”

“From what I hear, your poles are rotting. On top of that you’re behind schedule. Now why would you expect me to pay for that?”

That’s when I lost my head. I leapt across his desk and fisted his lapels, shaking him hard. “Give me my money!”

“Get off me.” He shoved at me but I held on.

“You’re cheating me,” I said, “and you know you’re cheating me, and there’s nothing worse than a cheat who knows he’s doing it.”

Brigham put together enough force to throw me down. I was on the carpet with my hat bent beneath me. He looked as fresh as he does on Sunday morning. “What about our deal?” I muttered.

“Produce a contract, and I’ll honor it.”

“You never offered one.”

“That’s because one isn’t necessary among old friends. Brother Gilbert, I will pay you as soon as you’ve earned it.”

Two clerks appeared to escort me from the Beehive House. They dumped me on the curb at the head of the line. Everyone on the street was looking at me. It’s not every day a man gets thrown out of the Beehive House. “He’s a liar!” I yelled, warning anyone who could hear. “He’s a cheat and a liar!” The men on line pretended not to listen and I know for certain each of them couldn’t wait to get home to repeat the story at the supper table. I’m sure the story moved up and down Deseret faster than if it had been sent on our telegraph.

The next day I rode up to the job to explain everything to my men. When I got there my foreman pulled me aside. “Thank God you’re here.” I asked him the trouble. “The poles, they’re rotting off at the ends.” We walked a line of poles. At each one he pointed up and it was true, indeed the top was black and soft. I asked my man what was wrong. “One of two things. Either the curing didn’t take…”

“Or?”

“Or sabotage.”

I didn’t know what to think, not then or now, but the truth was Brigham had been right: my poles were no good. I gathered my men up and told them the job was done. I explained as best I could the circumstances, but I no longer understood them as well as I’d thought. The men didn’t care about my troubles, whether my timber hadn’t cured or Brigham wasn’t paying or anything. “I’m a pole layer,” said one, “and I’ve laid your damn poles.” They spoke angrily, cursing my name and this damn job. They were rough men of the West, used to settling debts by any means. They surrounded me—maybe thirty at once—and they demanded to know what I was going to do. “Give me two days,” I told them. One man, a con from Nevada, said he wouldn’t wait a third.

To pay my men I sold my teams and my gear and the little bit of land my pa had given me. I sold everything I could to clear up with my men enough so they would never call me a cheat and a liar. I asked my bankers for a deal to pay off the debt. Karr agreed to forgive the remaining money if I paid half. But Eagleton wanted all his money and interest and penalties too. I can’t blame him for it, but I didn’t have it. When Brigham heard, he was angry I favored the Gentile banker over Eagleton. He spoke about it in a sermon. “There’s a brother here who feels he owes more to a Gentile than a Saint. I ask you: Would you trust him?” I didn’t favor anyone but that’s how Brigham saw it and how most people saw it, too.

By the spring of ’68 I was bankrupt and facing legal suits. Eagleton, with the Prophet’s blessing, was coming after me. Debt’s a cruel hole. The more you try to climb out of it, the more it caves in. That’s what I learned. And don’t go into business with the Church. There’s no way to wind up on the right side.

So with all this behind me, was I surprised to see the Presidential Carriage in my ma’s yard that day in March? I’d been expecting it for some time. I heard it from the barn—the wheels squealing, the leather reins twisting, the horses clopping to a stop. The door swung open and the Prophet eased himself out with one hand on the roof. The carriage swayed with him as he stepped down and the springs groaned and the horses flicked and twitched. My ma came out of her house and I came out of the barn and we met the Prophet on the path. “Sister Elizabeth, I’ve come to warn you about your son,” he said. “He owes a good Saint money. He’s wrongfully accused a close friend of rustling sheep. He’s cheated me with a bad job. Something’s got in him, Sister. I’ll have to take steps.”

“I’m paying out what I can,” I said. “And those sheep were mine.”

“Brother, you’re not acting like a Saint.”

“Brigham,” my ma said, “neither are you.” My ma says she’s never been angrier in her life. You might wonder why she didn’t quit the Church then, but she’s not like that. She’s always saying she lives in the middle, where everything has two meanings, and the shades are gray. There are those who say my ma pushed Ann Eliza into her marriage with Brigham. There are those who say my ma hoped to see her own standing in the Church rise by marrying a daughter to the Prophet. But those who say these things about my ma don’t know her. My ma never once cared what others think of her. She cares about one thing only, and that’s her God.

“Brother Gilbert, consider yourself warned.” Brigham climbed into his carriage and it tipped with his weight. He shouted to his driver and the team bucked and lunged forward and the carriage swung around and drove up the dirt road to Salt Lake.

“He’s not the same,” said my ma. She was white with anger. “He used to be another man.” I told her not to worry, but we both knew there was plenty to worry over.

Two days later the letter arrived.

Sir—

Let it be known that in consideration of your recent actions, and your refusal to acknowledge outstanding debts and false claims of slander and libel, your challenges against fellow Saints and honest men stand, from this day forward, as challenges to the Church itself and therefore as apostasy. A board, chaired by myself, shall gather to determine your future participation in our beloved Church, both today and in the Everafter. Any appeal should be made to me directly; otherwise you shall receive notice of the date and time of your trial.

I am still most solemnly &c. your Prophet—
BRIGHAM YOUNG

I rode up to Salt Lake. By now the rains were mostly gone and on both sides of the road the grasses were high. Most of the time I go along, doing what comes up next, but this time I knew I had to go a particular way. At the Beehive House I told the secretary my name. He was a thin old man with a long blue nose and old yellow hair. If you threw him on a scale I bet he didn’t weigh a hundred pounds. There was a long list of men waiting to see the Prophet but the old man told me to wait in the hall, Brigham would see me right away.

The hall was decorated with a red and blue runner and a glass lamp hanging from the ceiling on three little chains. How many times had I been there in the last year? Six or eight or more. Most men don’t have any business with the Prophet except listening to him on Sundays and reading the proclamations and every now and then making an appeal for a plural wife. I thought of that dream I once had: the house in the meadow, the smoke in the chimney, the wife, and the child. It all felt far away.

When I met Brigham he said, “I haven’t yet set your trial date.”

“What do I need to do?”

Brigham perched on the corner of his desk. He wasn’t going to say any more until I broke down. He wanted me in a puddle on his carpet, and there I went: “I don’t want to leave. I’ve got my family, my wives, my children. Where will I go?”

I’m ashamed to say I wept in his office. He stood by, letting me crack up like a woman. When my face was streaked and bent up, he passed me a handkerchief with his monogram in gold. “What do you want?” he said.

“I want to be a good man.”

“I can help you.”

A few minutes passed with Brigham pacing and going to his window and looking out at the front garden and returning to his desk to review the paper at the top of the pile. The whole time I sat in a heap in his visitor’s chair, wiping up my face.

“Ever since your sister was a child,” he began, “I’ve seen her as my own. I’ve protected her, watched out for her, made sure your family was tended to. I invited her to live next door to be near me. I asked her to join my theater so I could look at her every night. All of your troubles will be gone if you can convince her to marry me. I’m sure it’s impossible for her brother to see her beauty as I do: but she’s the most splendid woman who’s ever set foot in Deseret. Her eyes, her throat, her skin.”

There’s something to see a grown man gushing like a boy. If I hadn’t been in so much trouble myself, I’d have been disgusted by it and told him so.

“Go to your sister, tell her of my qualities, convince her that she will never want for anything. I’ll give her a house, I’ll care for her children, she’ll have an allowance and freedom. Anything she wants will be hers, but she must be mine.”

“She doesn’t listen to anyone.”

“Make her.” He shook his mouth out like a twitching horse. “You know women: they can be brought home and tamed.”

“I’m not sure that’s true.”

“No, not always, but with Ann Eliza I sense that this is what she wants.”

“And my debts?”

“Forgiven. Your position in the Church: restored. Your name: exalted. Your financial situation: vastly improved. I’ll pay you an allowance to help you meet your family needs. What do you need? A thousand a year? Two? I’ll give it to you. You tell me what you need, but bring me your sister.”

“I can’t force her.”

“That’s not what I want. I want her to see for herself what I can give. I think she fears marriage will somehow restrict her. In fact, it will be just the opposite. Make her see this. That’s all I ask.”

He stood in his window. His beard appeared pink in the sunlight and his cheeks were full and red. “Gilbert, have you thought about taking another wife?”

“Not much.”

“In this scenario, you can if you like. If you find a woman to join your household, you’ll be able to invite her in.” He was so overcome by anticipation, I thought he might kiss me. “You’ll speak to her?”

“I’ll try.”

“Go now.” He led me to the door. He didn’t open it until he’d made his final plea. “Go now, and when you’ve succeeded come to me.”

“And if I can’t?”

“You will. I know you, and I know her.”

He showed me into the waiting hall and thanked me. Outside I stood on the steps of Brigham’s house for some time. I could see into the window of his office. He was behind his desk, conducting business and negotiating something or other with his next visitor. Might’ve been a railroad deal or a building contract or might’ve been a bargain concerning a man’s soul. It was always from one to the next with Brigham Young.

I went to Ann Eliza’s house. I found her in the kitchen, feeding the boys. They were fussing over the food and throwing peas about, and my sister looked harried. “What is it?” she said. I told her I’d come back later. I went to the barn and lay down in the hay loft and lay there for some time thinking. The barn cat came over and curled up on my chest and went to sleep.

In the evening I went back to Ann Eliza. “You look upset about something,” she said. I told her I’d come from the Beehive House. I described my conversation with Brigham, and as she came to understand it she became very still and sad.

“I’m leaving tonight,” I said.

“Leaving?”

“Before he can kick me out.”

“What about Kate and Almira? What about the children?”

“They’ll get on. Pa will look after them. I can’t stay. Brigham’s made that clear.”

“What will happen to you after?”

“I don’t know.” My sister wasn’t asking about after I left the Utah Territory and the Church. She meant after death in the beyond. We understood eternity to be a welcoming place only for the Saints. This is what we believed. It’s all we knew to believe to be true.

“You can’t,” she said.

“I don’t have a choice.”

“I do,” she said.

“I won’t let you.”

“I’ve made up my mind.”

“Ann Eliza, please—” I pleaded with my sister for an hour or more but she had made her decision. I didn’t want her to, I never wanted her to, but I’m an honest man and I will admit here down in the deepest crevice of my heart I felt a throb of relief. I dislike myself for feeling it, but it’s true.