Charlie looked at Cahoon. "You can tell the Saints that if they don't want Brother Joseph alive, they aren't worth his dying for."
Cahoon glanced at Charlie, then glanced away as if he were unworthy of notice. It was Joseph who had to be persuaded, Cahoon knew. He wouldn't waste time arguing with anyone else.
"Brother Joseph," he called, and followed the Prophet.
Joseph was leaning on the cabin wall, stroking the muzzle of one of the horses tethered there. "Charlie," he said, "you didn't tell me your horses were a bunch of old nags. I've given better horses than this to the knacker."
"I'm not a very good judge of horses," said Charlie.
"So I see.
"Brother Joseph," Cahoon said. "You've never seen the people as scared as they are now, with word going around that you've left the city."
"They only want me, Reynolds. If I'm out of reach their threats won't come to anything."
"And then what, Joseph? What do the Saints do then? Leave Nauvoo, leave another temple unfinished, give up our homes again? The governor gives his personal guarantee that you'll be protected."
"Last time I trusted a governor, I nearly ended up in Missouri hanging on the end of a rope."
"That was Governor Carlin. This is Governor Ford."
"The kind of man likely to get elected governor of any state isn't worth the money he was bought with." Joseph looked Cahoon in the eye. "If I give myself up, Cahoon, the Saints will never see me again."
"Sister Emma doesn't think so," Cahoon said. "Sister Emma thinks it's your responsibility to act for the good of the Church."
"That's what I'm doing."
"Sister Emma told me that you always said if the Church would stick to you, you'd stick to the Church, and now trouble comes you're the first to run!"
Joseph reached out and took Cahoon by the lapels. "Emma didn't say that."
"No," Cahoon admitted. "She only told me people were saying that. She says that the people are losing heart. Some folks say that if you can't even stick around when you've got the governor on your side, you're no good to the Church alive or dead."
"They're just scared," Charlie said. "They won't feel that way in a few days."
"There are mobs out there!" Cahoon shouted. "I don't want no immigrant telling me how we're going to feel in a couple of days! I made that march across Missouri, and I sure as hell ain't gonna do it again, not if the Prophet's sitting fat and sassy out in Iowa somewhere making flapjacks so we can have a nice hot breakfast when we get there!"
Charlie was about to answer when Joseph silenced him with a hand on his shoulder. "If my life is of no value to my friends, it isn't worth much to me, either," Joseph said. He turned to Hyrum and Port. "What should I do?"
Port rested his hands on the pistols at his belt. "You're the oldest, I figure you know best. But however you make your bed, I'm lying in it with you."
Joseph chuckled. "But I'm not the oldest. You are, Hyrum. What should we do?"
"Let's go back."
"No," Charlie said.
"You got no vote, Cahoon said.
"You're the President and I'm the Patriarch," Hyrum said. "We ought to act for the Church's sake whatever happens."
"We'll be butchered," said Joseph. He wasn't arguing, just stating a fact.
"The Lord's hand is in this, Joseph. Live or die, it'll be how the Lord wants it to be."
Joseph started toward the river. Rockwell stopped him. "That skiff ain't worth a damn. There's some men fetching a better boat from upriver. Be here in an hour or so."
Joseph looked around as if uncertain where he was. "Charlie," he said. "Ride to the wagons and get some paper. I need to write some letters. Might as well use your handwriting."
Charlie was no horseman, and the horse was none too surefooted herself. Charlie kept kicking her and then wishing he hadn't as she lurched and stumbled along the uneven path. He was petrified the whole time, sure that he would end up with a broken leg somewhere, and all for some paper. No one would write any epic poems about his self-sacrifice in undergoing agony so Joseph could write some letters. More likely a nursery rhyme.
Charlie K Was killed today While going for the paper.
He kept trying to think of a rhyme for paper. Taper. Caper. Epic poem or not, the paper was what Joseph had sent him for, and by God Joseph would have it as fast as Charlie could possibly get it.
When he got back to the cabin, Joseph wasn't there. Hyrum saw Charlie's expression and put him at ease at once. "He hasn't gone, Charlie. He's off in the woods praying."
Rockwell, Richards, and Cahoon were waiting, too. "You let him go alone?" Charlie asked.
Rockwell snorted. "If I had my way he wouldn't go to the privy alone, but nobody tells Joseph what to do."
"I think," Hyrum said, "that if Joseph had his choice how to die, he'd rather be found praying than any other thing."
Charlie set the paper on the stones of the cold hearth. The room was underfurnished. He had meant to take care of that, but there hadn't been time. Now it wouldn't matter.
He felt Hyrum's hand on his shoulder. "Thanks for bringing the paper, Charlie."
"I wish it had been an army of angels."
"I guess the Lord got out of the military business after the Old Testament." Hyrum drew him to the door, led him outside. "Charlie," he said, "I wish you hadn't seen Emma's letter."
"I wish I hadn't, either."
"I'm afraid you don't understand why she wrote it."
"She doesn't give a damn about his life."
"That's why I wanted to talk to you, Charlie. Emma's always been a bluntspoken woman. She says what's on her mind."
"She's bringing him back to die."
"She doesn't believe that. Besides, Charlie, we've played this whole scene through before. In Missouri Joseph was in the hands of the mob, under sentence of death, while the Saints were being driven from their homes through the snow. It was a terrible time -- but one sure thing was that the Lord protected Joseph. Didn't protect a lot of others, but the Lord kept Joseph alive. Cooped up in that little jail with his people suffering so, it used to drive Joseph half out of his mind. Once he said to me, 'At least they could have the decency to kill me instead of torturing me like this.' Emma knows her husband. Whether the Lord protects him or not, if the Saints were in trouble and Joseph wasn't with them, he'd hate himself."
"It hurt him that they don't care for his life."
"Yes. The timid Saints hurt him a little. But Emma didn't hurt him. He knows Emma."
Joseph's voice came from around the corner of the building, not ten feet off. "Hyrum, is there anybody you haven't got all figured out?"
Joseph came around the building. Hyrum grinned at him like a silly boy. "I thought you were going into the woods."
"Too many bugs. They're in league with the devil. It's hard to pray when you're swatting flies. Got the paper. Charlie?"
So Charlie scribed for the Prophet one last time, rode across the river with him, and said good-bye to him at the Nauvoo wharf. Joseph insisted they arrive there where enough people would see him that there'd be no more talk of him running away. Charlie offered to stay with him, even to surrender with him.
"No, Charlie. You're the man I needed if I were going to do the sensible thing. Now you just go home to your family. They're all the duty you've got now. You just take care of them." Then the Prophet kissed him and sent him on his way. It was the last time Charlie saw him alive.
44
Dinah Kirkham Smith Nauvoo, 1844
Dinah heard about Emma's letter to Joseph before Reynolds Cahoon got to the boat -- the one thing in Nauvoo that functioned better in time of panic was the gossip mill. Dinah knew at once that he'd return and give himself up. She wasted no time condemning Emma. She did not even bother to try to find Joseph and persuade him not to surrender. All through Charlie's quiet preparations for Joseph's flight west, Dinah had known what Emma knew -- Joseph would never go through with it. The Church was Joseph's life, and he could not separate himself
from it. The difference was that Emma had the courage to tell Joseph so.
I was never worthy of him, Dinah realized then. Even now, I hate the fact that he is going. Even now, if he were here, I would plead with him to be weak, to deny his whole life, to stay alive so I could have him another week, another year. for all my life.
Joseph came to her that evening, came when it was still light in the sky. He did not bother hiding. He stood openly at her door, with several men at his carriage looking on, and he did not even bother to go inside the cabin before taking her in his arms and kissing her. Then he turned and faced the men to make sure that they had seen.
"We've been publicly denying the Principle so long," Joseph said to her, "that some folks might want to claim I never practiced it at all. I don't want it to be your word against theirs." After I'm dead. Those were the words he didn't say, but Dinah heard them.
He came inside then, and just held her, standing in the middle of the floor, just stroked her hair, her cheek. "You may just be the most beautiful woman I ever married."
"You say that to all your wives."
"If I tried to say good-bye to all my wives, Dinah, it'd be three days before the Governor got his hands on me."
"Are there so many?"
"The Lord gave me a lot of wives. Just didn't give me much time. There's quite a lot who have a ceremony to remember. Precious few who have anything else. I guess I didn't set a very good example."
"I wish you wouldn't go."
"I will, though. Like a lamb to the slaughter. But it's funny -- I was terrified all the time getting across the river to try to escape. Scared half to death. And now, when I know I'm going to die, I'm as calm as a summer's morning." He kissed her lightly. "You tell people. After I'm dead, you tell them that I wasn't afraid to die. My conscience is clean toward God or anybody. When they kill me they'll be killing an innocent man in cold blood. You write that." He grinned. "Feel free to improve it a little if you like. Heroes need grand speeches. That's one thing I always wanted, to be the hero of my own story. Got my wish."
He walked toward the door.
"Joseph!" she cried.
"Did I forget something?" he asked.
"I want to confess something."
"It's my own sins I'm worrying about right now, Dinah."
"It's a lie I told, and I want you to know the truth." Before you die.
"I already know more truth than a man can know and stay alive in this world."
"When I married you, I told you I only did it out of obedience to the Lord."
"I know. I told you the same thing."
"It wasn't true. I dreamed of you in England, I wanted you when I saw you wrestling in the mud, and if God hadn't given me consent to love you I would have loved you anyway, sin or not. I'm sorry that I lied."
He touched her cheek. "I'm sorry," he whispered, "but I told the truth."
She had determined not to cry, but now she changed her mind. "If you die, Joseph, I'm the one you died for, I and all your plural wives."
He kissed her again. "I never asked the Lord to take this cup from me." Then he smiled. "But don't take too much glory on yourself, Dinah. I won't die for you. I won't even die for the Church, or for God. If I die, it's because I saw the world true and told people the truth about what I saw. And if it takes my blood to convince them that I meant it, I hope I spill ten gallons of it."
She wiped her eyes on her apron. "You haven't got ten gallons."
"They'll be disappointed. They all want so bad to have a little of it on their hands." He opened the door.
"Can't you stay a little longer?"
He shook his head. "If I've got one night left in Nauvoo, I'm going to spend it with my children. I want them to remember their father. They're young enough they might forget. But you -- I don't think you're about to forget me."
As he walked outside, she felt the ground trembling under her, heard her own name in her mind and could not think of what it meant. "What will I do without you?"
"You know what to do." She followed him out the door, stood beside him. "You just make sure that what I built, stays." He was looking westward, but she knew he wasn't talking about the Temple or the city.
He embraced her again, quickly, and then ran toward the carriage. Ran like a boy bounding across a field, as if he were chasing a butterfly, Dinah thought. As if he were excited to find out what the next part of his life was going to be.
He stopped in the middle of swinging up into the carriage. He was holding to the carriage, roof with one arm, waving the other. She waved back. Then he pointed at her. 'You!" he shouted. "I'll be waiting for you!"
"You'd better be!"
Then the carriage started moving, and he ducked inside, and the door closed, and that was the last time Dinah saw him alive.
45
Joseph Smith Carthage, illinois, 1844
The door opened and the jailer came in. Joseph had his mouth full or he would have greeted him. Joseph was getting along rather well with this jailer. It helped that Governor Ford had helped him get settled and parted with him on friendly terms -- the jailer no doubt was influenced by that. As a result, Joseph and Hyrum, the two prisoners, were kept in the relative freedom of the debtors' room, upstairs in the jailhouse, instead of being locked in a cell. They could have almost any visitors they wanted. Joseph didn't abuse that privilege, or he might have had an army there. He was not lacking for would-be bodyguards, but he did not want to endanger anyone's life but his own. He had finally managed to send everyone away except Willard Richards and John Taylor, who were not easy to get rid of. The truth was that Joseph was glad of their company.
Joseph wasn't sure, though, how far the jailer's liberality would extend. Prisoners were not usually supposed to have weapons. Willard Richards's cane was harmless enough, but Brother Markham had left a huge hickory stick that he called a "rascal beater," and Cyrus Wheelock had smuggled in a six-shooter, which now rested in the bottom of Hyrum's pocket.
"Supper any good?" the jailer asked.
"Stone cold," Hyrum said.
"Always is." The jailer looked around a minute. Joseph watched him, wondering if the man was simply doing his duty or if he meant to betray them. Joseph saw the bulge of the pistol in Hyrum's coat pocket and wondered if Hyrum would be able to shoot the man if he turned out to be an assassin.
"You know," the jailer said, "you'll probably be a lot safer in the cell."
"No doubt," Joseph answered. He looked at the little barred window on the heavy cell door and thought how convenient it would be for a murderer to stand there and fill the cell with bullets. "We'll go in after supper."
"Damnedest prisoners I ever knew," the jailer said. "I don't often have 'em sitting with their friends."
Willard Richards looked up from his plate of potatoes. "You mean I'm not a prisoner?"
"You know you're not," Hyrum said.
"It's the most insulting thing I ever heard of," Willard said. "Why aren't I important enough to arrest?"
"Don't worry," John Taylor said. "If somebody breaks in here to kill Joseph, they probably won't check to make sure they only kill legally arrested men."
The jailer was annoyed. "Nobody's getting in here, boys, so don't you fret. This jail's the most solid one in the state, or so the Governor said."
"No doubt the Governor has been in all of them to see," Willard answered.
"You just go into the cell after supper," the jailer said. "Your friends can wait right here. And if you start worrying, you just remember that the Carthage Greys are standing guard outside this jail. Ain't nobody can get to you without getting by them first."
" Now I'm worried," Joseph said.
"Our Carthage boys are true blue." The jailer went back down the stairs, leaving the door open behind him.
Joseph got up and closed the door. "Eat slow," he said. "I don't want to be locked into that little place."
"Will they try anything tonight?" Willard asked.
"I don't know." People al
ways expected a prophet to know things like that. It was no good explaining to them that the Lord didn't work that way. "But I'll sleep a whole lot easier if I know that you and John aren't in here."
John Taylor wiped his mouth on his napkin. I won't sleep at all if I'm not."
"If something happened to Hyrum and me, they'll need you in Nauvoo. The other apostles won't be back for weeks yet."
"If the Lord needs us to be in Nauvoo, he'll see to it we get there."
It wasn't worth arguing. John had his stubborn face on, and when John Taylor was stubborn he didn't bend very easily. Joseph already felt control of things slipping out of his hands. For so many years now he had felt the whole Church, all the Saints as if they were an extension of himself. An injury to one part was always his own injury; he felt the pain more than anyone. Now, though, he felt himself going numb, going paralyzed. He was separating from the greatest part of himself. The most important part. All he had left was his own body, and he felt lost. It hadn't been like that in the Liberty jail. There he had been in agony for the suffering of the Saints. Now he couldn't even be sure that they existed, not the way it had always been before. He knew what it meant. The Lord was getting things ready for his death. It meant that when he died, the Church wouldn't die with him. He should be glad of it. He was, in a way. But that single, vulnerable man he had become -- that man was afraid to die. He wondered if he would disgrace himself.