The Veil Read online

  Alexander nodded but didn’t speak.

  “We’re lookin’ to find a company to hitch up with,” Red Jakes said. His piercing pale eyes reminded Alexander of a hawk’s. His hair, the little he had, hung in a greasy red fringe above his ears.

  Farrington exchanged a look with Abe, but neither spoke. A half-smile curled Graves’s lips, replacing the rippling of his jaw.

  “We hear you all are headin’ to California,” Jakes said, grinning and scratching his head. “We’re a small company—thirty-one members, headin the same direction as you. We’d be much obliged to carry on with your train.”

  Graves leaned forward again. “We’ll keep our herd separate. You’ll never know we’re trailin’ along behind.”

  Farrington didn’t like the looks of either of the men any better now than he had before. “Well, men, I hate to disappoint you. But we’re running late, just as you said,” he said. “We’re a company of families, old folks, and younguns. We won’t be traveling much faster now than before.” He paused. “I don’t think hitching up with us would do you much good.”

  “We thought you might be planning on picking up time by headin’ through enemy territory.”

  “Enemy territory?” Abe asked, frowning. “What are you talking about?”

  Graves laughed. “Mormon country. I think both of our parties are too late to cross the Sierra Nevadas. By necessity, we’ll have to make our way through Utah Territory.”

  “I would hardly call the Mormons our enemies,” Alexander said, shaking his head slightly.

  Graves and Jakes exchanged a knowing look then laughed again loudly. “You don’t know much then, Cap’n,” Red Jakes said with a guffaw.

  The cattlehands and traders at the bar and other patrons at tables scattered throughout the small room now turned to listen to the lively conversation.

  “What are you talking about?” the captain asked, his impatience growing for these men and their rude manner.

  “They’re out to git us Gentiles,” Red Jakes pronounced importantly. “I hear they’re sworn to git even with all of the good ol’ U.S.A. for killing their Prophet.”

  Before Alexander could even begin to understand what the men were talking about, Graves sat back, teetering on his chair legs, and narrowed his eyes. “What we’re gettin’ at, Cap’n,” he said sardonically, “is that your company and mine are gonna be headin’ south through Utah in just a few weeks. The disposition of those people toward us Gentiles ain’t good, I tell you. Ain’t good at all. I doubt we can git through Mormon country in one piece.”

  There was a burst of laughter from the rest of the room at the ridiculous statement. Though fiercely protective and prone to drive hard bargains, the Mormons had a well-known reputation as a peace-loving people. Even Alexander smiled when Abe Barrett rolled his eyes and slowly shook his head.

  But the Missourians didn’t laugh.

  Alexander let out a deep breath and nodded slowly at the unkempt men. “First of all, I’m not certain we can’t make it over the Sierra Nevadas before winter sets in. Secondly, what you’re saying about the Mormons simply is not true. I’ve been through Utah myself and found the people hospitable. Their beliefs may strike us as curious …” The minute he said it, Alexander knew he shouldn’t have mentioned the Saints’ beliefs.

  Red Jakes hit the table. “A bit strange!” he hooted. “Why, these folks believe they can be gods! Did you know that? Gods!” he repeated incredulously.

  By now the room had fallen deathly quiet, silent enough for each man to hear Jakes add in a clear voice, “That’s why I’m proud I was in on the killing of their Prophet.”

  He paused dramatically, looking around at his audience. “I stood up for what I know to be right. Those lyin’, thievin’ Saints had robbed us of all that was decent back in Missouri. And me and my friends took the law into our own hands. I was in on the shootin’ of Joseph Smith and his brother, Hyrum, myself.”

  He let out a colorful string of curse words. “You should’ve heard that Prophet of the Saints cuss as he tried to get off some shots. But we was too good for him. He could have begged for mercy, but it wouldn’t have done him any good. He was a goner.”

  Alexander wanted to be rid of these men as quickly as possible. He cut into Jakes’s tirade before the man could go on. “As I said,” the captain repeated slowly, “we’re traveling too slow for your group. We’ll take our chances … alone.”

  Jakes set his lips into a hard, half-sided smile. “Well, Cap’n, you’re probably right. We’ll go our way, and you just go yours.” He chuckled and pushed back his chair to stand. “You watch. We’ll probably end up in the same place anyway.” He laughed again as Graves also stood.

  They had almost reached the door when Graves turned and looked back at Alexander and Abe. “You do know about the troops.”

  “What troops?” Abe Barrett asked with a frown.

  Red Jakes lolled against the doorway, wearing a thin-lipped grin. “You haven’t heard?”

  “There’s about to be a war,” Jakes said. “With the Mormons.”

  Again there was laughter in the room.

  Red Jakes rubbed his balding scalp and stared at Farrington. “Johnston’s army’s preparing to march to war. Two thousand troops. Goin’ to war, I tell you. In Utah.”

  Farrington settled back in his chair. “We haven’t heard of it.” He glanced at some of the men in the room. “Anybody else in here heard of a Utah war?”

  Several cowhands playing poker in a corner shrugged. One said, “Nah,” without looking up from his hand. A bearded man who stood by the rough-hewn bar nodded. “I heard somethin’ about it some weeks back, but I ain’t heard nothin’ since.”

  Alexander was surprised when Abe spoke up. “Someone in the train said he’d heard it on the Santa Fe. Heard it from an old mule skinner.”

  Then a young man dressed in black and sitting in the rear corner of the room spoke up. “I heard something about it not too long ago.” He teetered on the back legs of his chair, leaning against the wall, his hat pulled low over his eyes. His eyes briefly met Farrington’s.

  “What’d you hear?” Alexander got the feeling the man knew more than he let on.

  “That troops are on their way.”

  “Where’d you hear it?”

  For a moment the man in black didn’t speak. “From a ferry captain on the Weber River—back near Bridger.” He sounded reluctant to give any more information, but he added, “It might’ve been rumor.”

  Jakes cleared his throat then cleaned something from his teeth with his tongue. He stared at the young man in black. “Strikes me as odd you’d be comin’ from someplace so close to the enemy. You one of them thievin’ Saints, boy?”

  The young man simply returned the hard stare and didn’t answer.

  Finally, Jakes turned back to the captain. “Something tells me you all are poorly informed, wouldn’t you say so, Matthias?”

  Graves laughed, looking straight at the captain. “Seems to me that an outfit so far behind schedule is probably just as far behind on the news.”

  A few minutes later the two men meandered out the doorway. The sound of their boots clomping down the wooden walkway disappeared into the hubbub of people milling about the fort.

  Lucas Knight, still teetering his chair against the wall, clasped his hands behind his head and looked across the room at the captain of the wagon company. The captains suspicions were correct. Lucas did know more than he’d let on, much more. He’d already been to Fort Kearney and inquired about the troop movement west. The man who’d spoken earlier was right—two thousand troops were preparing to march to Utah. And Lucas was heading back with the news.

  Lucas was watching the captain, trying to decide if he should speak to him privately, tell him to steer clear of the territory and why, when Red Jakes and Matthias Graves burst back through the saloon’s swinging doors.

  Jakes strode across the room to face Lucas.

  “You know how to read?” He grinned
wickedly.

  Lucas nodded.

  “You want to know why those so-called Saints …” He drew out the word as if it felt filthy in his mouth. “… those Saints are gonna catch what’s comin to them?”

  Lucas didn’t take the bait. He kept his voice low and calm. “Why’s that?”

  Jakes scratched his greasy thatch of red hair then waved a folded yellowed newspaper page at Lucas. “This here’s why. You just read this.” And he handed the paper to Lucas.

  “This here’s from that highfalutin New York Times. It’ll tell you why.”

  Lucas unfolded the paper and scanned the first few sentences. “Where’d you get this?”

  Jakes grinned. “Off a dead Saint.” He spat on the floor. “He was headin’ west in an awful hurry. Ran into one of my bullets.” Jakes laughed at his own joke. “When I took this out of his pocket I knew why he was hurryin’ along. He was riding to warn the Saints that a war’s a-comin’ to that place they call Deseret.”

  Lucas stared for a moment at Jakes then looked back at the article. It was dated May 20, 1857.

  It was the account of a man named John Tobin, a soldier who had come to Utah Territory and embraced the Mormon faith. Lucas knew the man well, as did everyone in Deseret. Tobin had used his military experience to help train Brigham Young’s private army. For a while he had been engaged to the Prophet’s daughter Alice Young.

  Then, the article stated, something happened that caused John to renounce the Mormon faith. He realized his life was in danger and he, in the company of three companions, fled south along the Old Spanish Trail—hoping to reach San Bernardino.

  About seventy-five miles south of Parowan, they decided they would have better protection if they awaited the arrival of a mail train from the north.

  “What’s the matter. You can’t read?” Jakes broke into Lucas’s thoughts. “You’re supposed to be readin’ this to us all, not to yourself.” Jakes grinned. There were murmurs of agreement from the card players in the corner.

  “Yeah, read it.” Two old wagoners at the bar chimed in.

  Lucas shrugged. “You want to hear it, you’ll hear it.” Holding the paper to the dust-filled light near the window, he began to read. He started at the beginning, though he skipped through some of the details, reading aloud only those sections he wanted the group to hear.

  The place Tobin and his company selected for their camp was on a ledge of rocks near some bushes. About four o’clock in the morning, the moon shining brightly at the time, the attacking party crept up and fired down from the top of a rock.

  Tobin was shot in the head, a ball entering close under his eye, passing diagonally through the nose and cheek, and lodging in his neck. He was also shot in five other places and left for dead. The other men escaped into the bushes, one of them, however, having been shot in the back of the neck, and another having had two fingers shot off. When the other men returned to camp after the attackers left they found that Tobin was still alive, and with the assistance of the mail party, who soon overtook them, they carried him along…

  Quickly scanning the final paragraph, Lucas decided to leave it out. He looked up at the group watching him intently. He didn’t realize his mistake until Jakes spoke.

  “You forgot to read some parts,” Jakes said. “I wonder why that is.”

  “Makes me wonder too,” Graves, who until now had been silent, agreed. “I been noticin’ while he was readin that there’re other parts he left out.”

  “Who said I was finished?” Lucas said, his voice flat, controlled. Before anyone else could speak, he began to read the final paragraph:

  There is no doubt but that the attack was planned in Salt Lake City and that orders were sent from here to execute it. It was said publicly by the Mormons, immediately after the Tobin party left the city, that they would not live to get through to California. The Mormons here, in speaking of this transaction, wink their eyes to each other and say, “The Indians are very bad on the lower road.”

  Lucas folded the yellowed paper, knowing he was going to have to do some fancy talking to get out of the place alive. He could see by their expressions that they thought he was hiding something—that they suspected he was a Mormon.

  Feigning nonchalance, Lucas tossed the folded paper onto the table and settled back in his chair.

  Red Jakes cleared his throat. “I hear tell an officer in Colonel Albert S. Johnston’s army said that if the Mormons will only fight, their days are numbered. He said, ‘We shall sweep them from the face of the earth, and Mormonism in Utah shall cease.’”

  Lucas had heard enough. He thought of Hannah and Sophronia. And a deep anger began to boil inside him. Sweep them from the face of the earth? For what? For existing? He stood, and his chair tipped, then clattered noisily onto the floor behind him.

  Every hard-eyed gaze in the room was aimed at him. Matthias Graves stood menacingly. Fighting to keep control of his actions, Lucas started to move to the doorway, but Red Jakes moved quickly to block him.

  There was a murmur from the group, reminding Lucas of the sounds of wild animals before a fight. He moved his hand slowly to the bowie knife in its sheath on his belt.

  “Gentlemen,” the captain said suddenly, pushing back his chair and standing. “I’d like to have a word with this young man.”

  The room fell silent.

  “Now, if you’ll excuse us—” The captain looked to his friend, now standing beside him, then nodded at Lucas, a signal to head to the swinging doors of the saloon. Lucas, with the wagon captain on one side and the captains friend on the other, moved toward the exit.

  But before they reached the doorway, Lucas heard Red Jakes yell, “We’re gonna kill every lousy varmint. Nits make lice!”

  A roar of emotion filled Lucas’s heart and mind, blotting out all reason. He whirled, and in one swift, smooth motion—just the way John Steele had so carefully taught him—he grabbed for his bowie and lunged toward the enemy.

  SEVENTEEN

  Utah Territory

  July 1857

  On the morning of her wedding day, Hannah awoke to the sounds of a desert wind sweeping across the valley. It began shortly after dawn, low and murmuring. But by noon it gusted and screamed, bending trees and blowing sand. Hundreds of tiny new apples in Sophronia’s orchard were stripped from their branches and hurled to the hot ground. The wind raked twigs and sand against the brick sides of the house, rattled the shutters, and shook the front swing.

  Hannah sat at the kitchen table with her aunt. “It’s a hard thing you’re doing, child,” Sophronia said, her eyes luminous with unshed tears.

  “I can bear it,” Hannah said. “It will be a marriage in name only. I may say the vows, but inside I’ll be rejecting every one of them.”

  “Does John know that’s what you’re planning—I mean about not consummating the celestial vows?”

  Hannah looked away. “No,” she said, pausing. “I intend to keep it that way until we reach the ranch and can figure out a way to escape.”

  “To him those vows mean a higher place in the priesthood, in heaven. He’ll not be easy with you, Hannah. He’s got a mean spirit deep inside him. He’s cruel. And I fear for you, child. I fear …” More often now Sophronia’s age showed in the deep worry lines in her face, in her frail voice, quivering now with emotion.

  “I know.” Hannah realized it was hard for Sophronia because she felt responsible for her outspoken ways, for shooting John Steele, for causing Hannah this present heartache.

  “It’s your spirit I’m worried about now, more than your body,” Sophronia said. She stood and hobbled to the window, pulled back the lace curtain and stared out at the wind-bent apple trees and the broken sticks of plants remaining in her garden. “I can’t help feeling you’re going to some outlandish altar for sacrifice to save us both,” she said. “Where is God in this, child? Once I thought I knew … now I’m wondering.”

  Hannah got up from the table, walked over to Sophronia, and circled her arm around
the older woman’s shoulders. She hugged her close. “You would do the same for me,” she said quietly.

  Sophronia nodded. “That I would, child. Seventy times seven if I could.”

  “Then let me do this for us both.” For a moment they watched the wind gust noisily, blowing more sand into the yard, then Hannah turned again to Sophronia. “Besides, I wouldn’t be going so willingly if I didn’t know something you don’t know.” A hint of laughter had crept back into her voice.

  “Whatever it is, it won’t change what’s happening to you today,” Sophronia said.

  “It might change how you see it, Sophie,” Hannah said. “Listen to this … I found out John’s ranch is near a meadow on the California Road. A heavily traveled road!” She tilted her chin upward and smiled, willing the older woman’s spirits to lift. “At the meadows, companies often stop for days on end to rest their herds before starting across the California desert.”

  “The ranch where he’s taking us tomorrow?”

  “The same.”

  “And you’re thinking what I’m thinking?” Sophronia asked. A glint of life had returned to her eyes.

  Hannah nodded. “Exactly what you’re thinking.”

  “That we may still be able to slip in among one of the companies.”

  “Yes,” Hannah said. “That’s what will get me through the ceremony today. Today is just the first step toward getting us away from John Steele, from all the rest.”

  The clock on the mantel struck noon, and Hannah and Sophronia looked at each other, both acknowledging the time had come.

  Sophronia unwrapped the wedding gown she and Hannah had so reluctantly sewn. Before slipping it over her head, Hannah fingered the delicate fabric, thinking how they had hurried through each stitch, unwilling to consider what the finished garment would symbolize.

  They had sewn the gown from yards of pale yellow satin and ivory lace that Harriet Steele purchased from the mercantile in town and presented one afternoon while calling on Hannah. Harriet tried to be pleasant, seeming to know how painful the union would be for the younger woman. She’d even brought a pattern she said was from the marriage of one of John’s other wives.