The Work and the Glory (472 page)

Sister Morley turned, weeping now. “Please. Not my house. We’re leaving. There’s no need to burn it.”

But the forced joviality in Williams was gone now. His expression was stony, his body rigid and unbending. He watched as the men finished their work. The cooper shop was ablaze now, and the torch man came running to start on the house.

“No!”

Solomon jerked around. One of the men who had been helping them load the wagons was staring at the cooper shop, his mouth working. “No! Not the shop!”

He suddenly darted away, racing for the shed.

“Brother Hallett!” Father Morley shouted. “Come back!”

“Get him!” Williams bellowed. Half a dozen rifles jerked up and there was a deafening roar as one after another fired. Clark Hallett darted back and forth, like a bantam rooster trying to escape the chicken hawk. Spurts of dust were kicking up all around him. Without hesitation he plunged through the door of the shop, grabbing at a sack that was not yet burning. He disappeared into the smoke, beating at the flames, shouting wildly.

Williams swore, jerked a pistol from his belt, and took aim at the shadowy figure barely glimpsed through the smoke and the fire. Without a sound, and with no conscious thought behind the action, Solomon Garrett launched himself at Levi Williams. His shoulder caught him squarely in the back, knocking him sprawling. His mistake was that he did nothing more. He wasn’t trying to fight Williams, only stop the senseless shooting at Clark Hallett. But two of the men who had carried the furniture out of the house leaped on Solomon, clubbing him to the ground with their rifle butts.

Williams got slowly to his feet, breathing hard. He came over to where the two men stood over Solomon, their rifles pointed at his chest. “Hold!” he said. He stepped closer, looking down at Solomon. Solomon was on his back. There was a deep cut over his eye and blood was streaming out of it. His nose was bleeding and his lower lip was also cut. He tried to stir and winced in pain, grasping at his ribs. Williams bent over him, peering more closely at him.

“Who are you?” he demanded. “You’re not from here.” He turned his head to Morley. “Is this a new family? Who is this?”

Solomon heard the crackling of fire and felt the heat beating against his face now. The house was burning furiously and the flames were already eating into the roof. Isaac Morley deliberately did not look at it. He was staring at Solomon, debating what to do.

Solomon saw instantly where this could lead. This was no time for bravado. “My name is Solomon Garrett. I’m from Ramus. I am the supervisor of common schools for Hancock County. I came here to talk about opening a common school.”

“You a Mormon?” Williams sneered.

Solomon licked his lower lip, then nodded. “I am.”

“Want us to kill him, Colonel?” one of the men who had beaten him said hungrily. His muzzle moved up slightly to point at Solomon’s head.

Not moving a muscle, Solomon continued to stare into the eyes of Colonel Levi Williams, knowing that he was only seconds from possible death.

After a moment, Williams finally straightened. He waved the men back, his eyes never leaving Solomon’s face. “Mr. Garrett, this is your lucky day. Let me tell you why.” He glanced for a brief moment at Father Morley, then at Brother Hancock. “And you all listen and listen good to this. We know we aren’t strong enough to raise an army to go against Nauvoo. So our intent is to do just what we’re doing here. Move in on your settlements. Burn your houses. Shoot your livestock. Spoil your crops. You won’t have any choice. All of you will be like wise old Father Morley here and will flee to Nauvoo for protection. When others see that it’s working—that we are driving the Mormons out—then there’ll be enough support to get the state and the federal governments behind us, and we will drive you from the state.”

Triumph was heavy in his voice now. “Do you understand what I’m saying, Mr. Garrett?”

Solomon sat up, trying not to gasp with the pain. “Yes,” he said.

“Do you? You tell me what I’m saying, then.”

“You want me to go back to Ramus and spread the word among the other settlements. Convince them to move into Nauvoo immediately.”

Williams looked at his fellow mobocrats with mock astonishment. “Well, I declare. This man must be a schoolteacher. He’s smart as a brand-new twenty-dollar gold piece.” The feral look was instantly back. He reached out with one foot and pushed softly at Solomon’s chest with the toe of his boot. “I wouldn’t leave until tomorrow, Mormon. The roads won’t be safe today. But then you’d better get. You go on back home and spread the word. Tell ’em in Bear Creek. Tell ’em in Plymouth. Tell ’em in Ramus. You tell ’em we’re coming.”

Williams turned. The cooper shop was a mass of flames. The house was fully engulfed by the fire now. Giving one last contemptuous look at Solomon, and then at Isaac Morley, he walked to his horse and swung up into the saddle. It was as if the Mormons had ceased to exist for him. He looked only at his men. “Come on,” he snapped. “We’ve got work to do.”

It was a little past noon of the next day. They met inside one of the small sheds on the Morley property that had survived the fire. There were twenty or twenty-five of them—men, women, and a few children. They had come here because they assumed it would be safe. If they met where a house was still standing, it would put them all in danger. The Morley homestead was now nothing more than a smouldering set of ruins.

Above them, the sky was overcast and the rain that had started during the night was still falling. The air had turned noticeably cooler, and one needed a coat if one was to be out in it for any length of time. Behind them, the rain fell softly on the cold and blackened heaps of burnt timbers and charred logs. The acrid, biting smoke that had stung their eyes and choked their throats yesterday was gone now, at least from the Morley farm.

What hadn’t changed much in the last twenty-four hours was the situation. Less than gunshot range away, the mob was gathered in the yard of another member’s house. They could hear them shouting and yelling, firing off an occasional rifle. Great black pillars of smoke rose upward. Those who watched were almost past shock now. This had become such a common sight it was as though they could not assimilate any more horror or generate any more revulsion. All that was said were things like: “It’s Brother Whiting’s chair shop.” “That must be Azariah Tuttle’s house.” “It’s the Cox place.” At sundown the day before, when the mobbers had retreated to Lima to spend a second night with the antis who lived there, the count of destroyed homes and buildings stood at twenty-nine. With their return this morning, the count was approaching forty and still climbing.

The Morleys were gone. Once it was clear that no amount of effort would save the house or the cooper shop, there was little point in staying. Solomon slept under their wagons with them—hardly the warm hospitality he had been planning on, Solomon thought wryly. They rose at dawn to salvage what little had survived the fire. By eight o’clock they were on their way north. As near as Solomon had been able to tell, they had not looked back even once.

Solomon raised his head and came back to the meeting. Brother Hancock was at the front of the shed, talking quietly with the men, getting their reports, trying to assess the extent of the damage. Solomon stood near the back of the shed, leaning against the wall. He held his side gingerly, careful not to move too quickly. He also held very still to try to minimize the blinding ache in his head. His left eye—the one just below where he had been cut on his forehead—was a mass of black and blue and nearly swollen shut. His lips were puffy and cracked. There was another bruise on his right cheek.

But that did not make him unique in this group. Many of the faces around him were blackened with soot. There were angry red burns visible on arms and hands and faces. One man’s face was more battered than his own. But more frightening were the evidences of a different kind—the shattered looks, the haunted eyes, the hopeless faces. Women wore nightdresses under men’s shirts or ill-fitting dresses borrowed from others. Two or three were barefoot. Others wore men’s boots. It was mute witness to the hatred of the men under Levi Williams’s command. Time after time families were driven out of their homes at the point of a rifle. They were not allowed to grab a wrap or a coat. Sick children, pregnant women, aged parents—it mattered not. Out into the rain they went and then were forced to watch as their houses were put to the torch.

Just behind him, Edmund Durfee and his family sat huddled on the floor. The older children were listening, but Durfee himself seemed not to be aware of anything around him. He was staring vacantly at the ceiling of the shed. Was it any wonder? Solomon thought. Twice they had come to his home. Twice they had left it afire. The first time Durfee and his family fought to save it. The second time they had barely escaped with their lives.

Someone at the window called out and they all turned to see where he was pointing. A solitary rider was coming up the street, the horse walking slowly. The rider’s head kept moving back and forth as though he had come to a town where he no longer recognized any of the familiar landmarks. President Hancock strode over to the window and peered out. A broad smile broke across his face. “It’s Charles,” he exclaimed. “Charles is back from President Young.” He turned and ran outside, waving his arms and calling softly.

“It’s his son,” one woman said to Solomon. “He sent his own son to report to Nauvoo.”

They waited until Charles and his father entered back into the shed. There were calls of hello and urgent questions about what he had found out. But to those Brother Hancock held up his hand. It held a letter. “It’s a letter from President Young. Charles brought it down with him.”

A great sense of relief passed over the group. Their plight was known in Nauvoo. Even though the mob was still just a few hundred yards away, still on the rampage, still burning their homes and businesses, they were no longer alone. It was a badly needed ray of hope.

Brother Hancock opened the letter and scanned it quickly. He nodded in quick satisfaction, then lifted it higher and began to read aloud. “It’s dated this morning, September twelfth.”

Charles, who was about twenty or twenty-one, nodded. “The President dictated it in my presence, then gave it to me about nine o’clock.”

“It’s addressed to me,” Brother Hancock said, then started to read slowly and distinctly. “‘Dear Brother: We have received your communication of last eve and have taken it into consideration in council. We have decided that it is wisdom for you to remove the women and children from Yelrome as fast as you can with what teams you have got, and we will send you more as fast as we can.’”

That brought murmurs of satisfaction and relief from the whole group, but more especially from the women.

“‘We ask that you not only remove the women and children but your grain also. Let all the brethren stay there and keep “bachelor’s hall” and watch the movements of the mob. The object of our enemies is to get opposition enough to raise popular excitement, but we think it best to let them burn up our houses while we take care of our families and grain. Let the sheriff of Hancock County attend to the mob, and let us see whether he and the Jack Mormons, so-called, the friends of law and order, will calmly sit down and watch the funeral processions of Illinois liberty. If so, they will all fall under the same condemnation. At a future day our course will be plain. Be calm and patient till all things are ready. What is a little property compared with the properties and lives of a great people, and the house and ordinances on which the salvation of that people depend?

“‘You will employ the best scribe you have, or half a dozen of them, if necessary, to pen minutely all the movements of the enemy and friends, what houses are burned, by whom, at what hour, who were present, and who saw them do it, etc., even every particular, and forward us a daily copy, if opportunity permits.’”

He stopped and looked up. “It is signed by Brigham Young, President, and written by W. Richards, Clerk.” He let that sink in for several moments, then bowed his head slightly. “This is good news, brothers and sisters. Help is on the way. We have to organize ourselves, decide who should go first on the wagons we have here and who should wait for the others.”

A man off to one side raised his hand. Solomon saw that it was Walter Cox, one of Hancock’s counselors. Cox had lost his home the previous afternoon. The branch president nodded in his direction, “Yes, Brother Cox?”

“Shall we proceed with our letter to the mobbers, then?”

Hancock started to nod, then stopped. “Brothers and sisters, we have been meeting in council as your branch presidency. We have a proposal. We propose that we send a note to Williams. We shall offer to leave Yelrome, selling our deeded lands and all the improvements thereon to the locals for as low a price as could be reasonably expected. We shall ask only that we be allowed to keep our livestock and the crops currently on our premises. For that we shall take in trade oxen, beef cattle, cows, sheep, horses, wagons, or other such things as shall help us remove to Nauvoo. We shall appoint a committee of brethren who will act as agents for us to negotiate with the settlers.”