Saints

  "I assure you that you know nothing of what you're doing."

  "Hyrum!" Mary said. "She doesn't know that you're joking."

  He was not joking. "Of course she knows I'm joking. Don't you, Sister Dinah?"

  "I'll stay these thirty minutes," Dinah said, "if you promise me that then I'll be troubled no more about it."

  Hyrum smiled -- for the first time since he had come home. "Sister Dinah, I don't know how you could have been troubled less."

  "Please give him a fair hearing," Mary said. "We'd love to think our children were in your hands."

  So Dinah stayed with Hyrum, and John and Mary left.

  "Convince me to teach school," Dinah said, knowing that he had no interest in doing so.

  "I don't think I'll try. You're too damn proud to let anyone convince you of anything."

  She had got so used to his ironic joking with his wife that it took a moment for her to realize that he meant the rebuke. But once she knew it, she answered in kind. "If I'm so damned proud, Brother Smith, why did you want me to stay?"

  "To tell you a story."

  "I think I've heard all the stories that I care to hear."

  "It was while we were in Zion's Camp, a little army of us, traveling to Missouri to try to sustain the Saints of Zion against their persecutors -- "

  "I know about Zion's Camp."

  "We found three rattlesnakes, and some was all for killing them when Joseph comes up and says, 'The animals will never lose their hatred for man until man stops killing animals. You have no business taking a life unless you need the food, and if you kill those rattlers you're going to eat them!' And so nobody kills the snakes, and we go on talking about that sort of thing, and then we see this squirrel up a tree, and we're watching him skitter about on whatever errands he had, when all of a sudden, Boom! a musket goes off behind us and the bullet whistles over our heads and that little harmless squirrel plunks down dead on the ground, shot right in the head. And when we turned around, who do you think we saw but Joseph, and he doesn't say a word, he just turns around and walks off." Hyrum nodded with finality.

  Dinah couldn't figure out why he had told the story. "Are you trying to prove to me that Joseph Smith is a hypocrite?"

  "That's just what some of them thought. I could see it in their faces, they didn't understand. What kind of prophet is this, who says one thing and does another? I know what's going on, but I says nothing, mind you, because it isn't my test, it's theirs, to see what they'll make of it. And lo and behold, down reaches Brother Parley and picks up the corpse of the squirrel, its head blown clean off, and Parley says, 'Didn't you hear the Prophet? When we kill an animal, it had better be for food!' And so Parley cleans the squirrel on the spot, and we skin it and cook it and by damn we eat the thing for supper. Parley said a blessing over it, and every one of us took a bite." Hyrum smiled. "We wouldn't've dared to say no, Parley would've skinned us, too."

  "What is this story supposed to mean?"

  "I don't know."

  "Then why did you tell it?"

  "Joseph said to me, 'Hyrum, would you mind telling Dinah Kirkham the story of that squirrel I shot in Zion's Camp?'"

  "Is there anyone here who does anything without Joseph telling him?"

  Hyrum looked at her coldly. "There's quite a few who do things because Joseph told them not to. But they're made of the stuff I scrape from my boot."

  "Are you telling me that Joseph is just testing me, that if I say yes to him, he'll tell me it was just a test and I don't have to go through with it?"

  "Parley ate the squirrel. Sister Dinah. We all did."

  "And so you pander for him, Brother Hyrum, and he lends money to my brother and gets work for my father and I'm supposed to be so grateful I'll commit adultery with him?"

  Hyrum walked over to a chair and sat, crossed one leg over his knee, and tilted the chair back against the wall like a schoolboy. "I figured you to be a right smart lady, Sister Dinah, but now I reckon you're as dumb as they come."

  "Thank you, Brother Smith."

  "Aren't you going to walk out of here and leave the Church and go around telling everybody how Joseph Smith is a fallen prophet and his brother's no better?"

  "I think not."

  "Why not? About three-fourths of the Saints have done that at some time or another. That's how we harrow in the spring, we just go around planting seeds in the footprints of the apostates."

  "Well, don't follow me in the spring."

  "Do you know why you won't leave? Because of two children you left behind you in England for the sake of becoming a child of God here. For the sake of visions and prophecies and a light that burns in your own heart. I don't reckon you'll change your mind about that."

  I hate you for knowing my heart and using it against me. "No. I don't imagine that I will."

  "Since Joseph asked you -- what he asked you -- have you ever let yourself think, even for a minute, that it might be true?"

  "That is unthinkable."

  "Begging your pardon, ma'am, but if Joseph is a prophet you ought to give some consideration to the idea that he might not be a lecherous, adulterous son of a bitch. That's all I'm telling you, Dinah. You're one of the great ones, you know that; Sister Dinah, the Lord has a great work for you, but not if you won't become what God means you to become."

  "All I want is to be happy."

  "Funny thing. That's all God wants for you, too. But you won't be happy if you refuse the husband the Lord has given you. Would you like me to walk you home?"

  "I know the way."

  "Good day, Sister Dinah."

  "Good day, Brother Smith."

  Dinah got no more than a hundred yards on her way home when her father came jogging up a side street and fell into step beside her. Dinah was not in a mood for smiling, and so, to punish herself, she smiled at him. "I thought you were escorting Sister Mary to Vilate's house."

  "I did. But I didn't have a thing to say to either lady, and so I took my leave of them and came looking for you. And don't pretend you're glad of my company, because you're not."

  John Kirkham was even more annoying when he was being clever than when he was being humble. Perhaps because he really was clever.

  "My dear child," John Kirkham said, "you've been brooding about something for weeks. Charlie's commented on it. Anna's commented on it. You don't say much, but you can't hide it from your family."

  I do not need to have the three of you prying at me, too.

  "I, for one, do not really care what your dilemma is. I only want to put in a word of advice. Whatever it is you want to do but are afraid of doing -- do it."

  Dinah stopped walking and looked at him in disgust. "You don't know what you're saying, Father."

  "I'm saying, my darling daughter Dinah, not to let fear stop you from anything. Not fear of pain, not fear of shame, not fear of God."

  "Yes," Dinah said brutally, "you're famous for living that advice."

  "I live with the consequences of what I did."

  "And so do we all."

  "You've all done rather well, I think. But what I could not have lived with, what none of us could have borne, are the consequences if I had not done it. What if I had stayed, out of duty, out of fear? I already hated my work. I already hated myself. I was beginning to hate your mother for daring to love me and need me. How long before I hated you? And what would you children be today if you had grown up with a father who filled your lives with hatred?"

  "I would hate myself more," Dinah said, "if I did it." She wondered why she even bothered to answer his indecent philosophy.

  "At least I hate myself for what I did, instead of for what I never dared to do."

  "I don't meant to hate myself or anyone else at all."

  "What a liar you are, Dinah. Hate comes off you like snakeskin wherever you go these days. Little empty Dinah corpses all over Nauvoo, pretending to be alive. Why don't you just figure out what it is you want to do and do it?"

  "I think, sir, that I shall w
alk alone now," Dinah said.

  "And a pleasant afternoon to you, too, madam." John tipped his hat, smiled, and let her walk away.

  She did not get far. Coming down Mulholland Street from Temple Hill was a carriage that even the children of Nauvoo could recognize by now. Mud splashed up from the horses' hoofs and sprayed out from the wheels, but people still stepped closer, to tip their hats or wave and call, "Good day, Brother Joseph!"

  Dinah saw the carnage coming to cross her path and waited. Like any other Saint, Dinah felt the excitement of the Prophet's coming. He was the heart of Nauvoo, and the beat of his horses' hoofs was the city's pulse. Dinah was keenly aware of the fact that he would pass and not see her; she told herself that she was glad of it. In fact, though, she hoped he would happen to glance her way, hoped that he would see her face and be stopped in his thoughts, wonder about her, even, perhaps, hope for her.

  What do I want? asked Dinah. But it was her father's question, and so she refused to answer it.

  Could it be true that God sanctions it? asked Dinah. But it was Hyrum's question, and so she tried to avoid it, too.

  And yet in the asking she heard the answer; she wanted so badly for it to be true that she dared not trust her own belief in it. She had loved Joseph Smith from the moment she first heard of him from Heber Kimball, had belonged to him from the flesh inward since that night she prayed in her bedroom and discovered the light within her. Yet still she was afraid that it was not her conscience but her loneliness that cried out "yes" within her when she saw the Prophet's carriage. How could I accept him as my husband when I want him so? If only I hated him, then I could say yes and live this law as a sacrifice, suffering constantly so I could be sure I did not do it for pleasure. Only that way could I justify myself.

  The carriage turned at the corner where Dinah waited, to head south on Main, but to her surprise it came to a stop. The Prophet himself swung open a door and leaned out to her. "Sister Dinah, will you ride with us?"

  It surprised her how easily the word yes came to her lips.

  The Prophet jumped from the carriage and helped her step up. There were two other men in the carriage. The one she recognized was William Law, one of Joseph's Counselors. The other was a stranger in a clerical collar.

  "Reverend Hake, this is Sister Dinah Handy. Sister Dinah, Reverend Hake here's a visitor from Boston. He wanted a chance to speak to an ordinary Saint. I told him there's no such thing as an ordinary Saint, but he insisted."

  This was not at all what Dinah was ready for. An emotional confrontation with Joseph, yes -- but to have to be civil to a stranger, a visiting minister, no less, that was too much to expect of her, the way she felt right now. Still, she would do as well as she could. "I suppose I'm as ordinary as they come," she said.

  "But her speech," said Hake. "She sounds English."

  "She is," said Joseph. "She was baptized in Manchester and came here only a few months ago."

  "Remarkable," said Hake. "And she seems a woman of breeding."

  "If you think well of the Mormon women," Joseph said, "you should see the Mormon horses."

  Reverend Hake raised his eyebrows in horror, but Dinah laughed aloud. Horses, yes, Hake had been talking about Dinah in front of her exactly the way men discussed their riding amimals. "I assure you," said Hake, "that I am making no such comparison. A good woman is the noblest creation of God."

  "And Sister Dinah is one of the noblest," said Joseph. "She holds no office in the Church, but I doubt there's many offices Sister Dinah wouldn't be fit to hold."

  Hake looked surprised. "Do you ordain women, then?"

  Joseph only smiled. "And what would you think if we did, Reverend Hake?"

  "I would think your priesthood a trivial thing if you devolve it upon the fairer sex, for whom God intends light burdens."

  Dinah was annoyed beyond her ability to remain silent. "I can see that you've never been a woman, Reverend Hake."

  "I am well acquainted with the ladies of the Church in Boston."

  "They're quite lovely, I imagine," Dinah said. "They go calling and have teas. Well, God didn't create them. Money created them. God made the women you see here, and any other place where death is one bad harvest or one child-bearing or one sudden illness away."

  Joseph raised an eyebrow at her, and Reverend Hake tried to pass it off as a joke. "You can't tell me you aren't a lady, Miss Dinah."

  "After I lay the morning fire and help my mother get breakfast, Reverend Hake, I sew. All day, every day, I remake old shirts into new ones and sell them. I make a few dollars a week that way, enough to buy some of the food we eat, some of the firewood that keeps us warm in this cold. I work hours every day, and when I fall behind, as I'm doing right now, I feel it within days, because I get hungry. I'm no lady, Reverend Hake, because I know that the labor of my hands puts the food in my belly."

  She could see on his face that he now agreed with her -- no lady would say a word like belly. "Is it Mormonism that makes a woman like this?" Hake said, retreating to his former habit of talking about rather than to her.

  "I'm proud to say it is," said Joseph.

  "Well, sir, I say that it's against nature. God wants women to be treated better than this poor soul. After all, they are the weaker sex."

  Joseph leaned close to Hake. "Reverend, I don't know three women in Nauvoo who wouldn't be a match for you in a fair fight, except they wouldn't be so unsporting as to take on such a measly specimen as yourself."

  Hake stiffened. "I didn't come here to be insulted."

  "No, you came to insult us. But we're generous -- we try to give back even more than we're given."

  "I don't understand your attitude, Mr. Smith. I have friends in the press in Boston. What I report will be printed widely."

  "And what will you report? That when a man marries in Nauvoo he gets a helpmate instead of an ornament?" Then, suddenly, Joseph's voice changed. The smile didn't leave his face, but there, came something powerful in his eyes, and Dinah found herself as transfixed by him as Hake was. For a moment, Joseph spoke like a prophet, and Dinah felt within herself an answering light. "Report this," Joseph said. "That when you looked into the faces of the people of Nauvoo, the spirit of God smiled back at you from every face. Because that's the truth."

  In the face of Joseph's power, Hake's voice was weak, even though he tried to sound defiant. "I am perfectly capable of discerning the truth for myself."

  As Joseph leaned over and warmly shook the minister's hand, his tone changed again; now he was charming and likeable. "We'll have the water ready by nightfall. You're a man who can discern the truth, and we're bound to baptize you within a day."

  Hake could not help himself. Joseph was too much for him. He smiled and returned Joseph's handshake as warmly, saying, "As God is my witness, President Smith, I can't decide if you have the Spirit of God or the most devilish case of self-love I've ever seen."

  "If God was your witness, Reverend Hake, you'd be able to tell the difference. Will you have supper with me and my wife and a few friends tonight?"

  "Do you promise I won't be abused?"

  "If you behave yourself, I'll be angelic, too. Open your eyes and see what's here instead of what you want to see, and then we'll treat you as a friend, because you'll be one. Isn't that fair?"

  Hake was beaten. And as Dinah watched Joseph battle with the man, things became clear to her. Joseph had two kinds of power, and used them both willy-nilly. Now and then when he spoke it was with a power beyond a mere man, it stirred Dinah's inward fire; but most of the time, he was merely elusive, baffling the other man, beating him down with contradiction and charm. Even without the help of God, Joseph Smith would have been a dangerous man, nearly irresistible to those who hadn't the strength to be in his presence and remember who they were. For a few moments Dinah had been able to see both aspects of the man, and the difference between them. And she knew that it was not enough to decide whether to commit herself to this man or not. He could swallow her up in day
s, without even knowing what he was doing; like so many of the men who surrounded the Prophet, Dinah could easily become just another pair of hands for him, just another voice, so much under his control that without him she would not know who she was. Surely that could not be what God had in mind for her.

  The carriage pulled up in front of Joseph's house. The Prophet swung open the door. "I'll expect you for supper, Reverend Hake. Brother William will show you around the rest of our city."

  "But where are you going?" asked Hake. He sounded dismayed at the thought of being out of Joseph's presence.

  "Why, Sister Dinah and I are going to discuss the school she's establishing."