The 19th Wife (19 page)

THE
19
TH WIFE

CHAPTER SEVEN

Blood Atonement

Every now and then my mother and I journeyed to Great Salt Lake City to shop in the well-stocked outlets of Main Street. These were not frivolous trips—not as you, my young ladies of the East, might think of a shopping journey—but, rather, necessary excursions for survival. The stores in Payson, if you were to call them such, carried such crude supplies that in some ways it might have been more convenient were they not in business at all.

On one such trip we—my mother and I, accompanied by Aaron and Connie—stayed overnight to hear the Prophet preach in the Tabernacle in the morning. For those who have not visited the City of the Saints, the Tabernacle is an enormous hall with a low, rounded roof that will remind you of nothing so much as a giant tortoise. It is one of the Great Buildings of the World, and, God willing, shall survive centuries of man’s folly to show itself to future ages. Unfortunately, the world-famous turtle-roofed Tabernacle would not be built for another ten years. No, on this particular trip in 1856, as the Utah Reformation was boiling over into violence, the Tabernacle was a more modest affair (although it was a vast improvement over the first Tabernacle in the Territory, which was nothing more than a shady spot beneath a bowery). Yet, no matter the edifice, the Saints would always turn up by the thousands to hear their Prophet, Brigham Young.

By now I was of the age to form a mature and reasoned opinion of the great man. He loomed over my childhood as a beloved grandfather might: omnipresent and seemingly limitless in his influence over our lives; loving but also somewhat frightening; and as constant as the sun and moon combined. Before we moved to Payson, I would see him on Sundays or on occasion in Temple Square, and he would nod hello, for he was always friendly with children. Every child in the Territory knew where he lived, in the Beehive House behind a high stone wall. Many others have depicted him accurately, at least in visage, so there is little point in my expanding upon previous efforts. Except I shall note the appropriate metallic color of his eyes and the generally square and solid shape of his entire personage. In my youthful imagination I could not render a more apt representation of God.

On this particular Sunday the Old Tabernacle was full of expectancy. The Reformation had been sweeping the Territory for several weeks, fomenting a fervor of introspection, admission, and re-baptism. Twenty-five hundred Saints had come to hear their Prophet on how they could further atone. Surely some, though how many we can never be certain, were also looking for counsel on how to help their neighbors atone more effectively. Brother Brigham provided ample advice, for when he took the speaker’s stand, his subject was atonement. I can assure you, nothing ignites an audience’s heart like the discussion of someone else’s penitence! Working himself into a magnificent outrage, Brigham Young announced, “There are sins that can be atoned for by an offering on an altar, as in ancient days; and there are sins that the blood of a lamb or calf, or of turtle-doves, cannot remit, but they must be atoned for by the blood of the man.”

As if his point were not clear, the Prophet continued, “The time is coming when justice will be laid to the line and righteousness to the plummet; when we shall take the old broadsword, and ask, ‘Are you for God?’ and if you are not heartily on the Lord’s side, you will be hewn down.”

He continued, although I cannot be certain if it was on this particular day, “Will you love your brothers and sisters likewise, when they have a sin that cannot be atoned for without the shedding of their blood? Will you love that man or that woman well enough to shed their blood? That is what Jesus meant. This is loving our neighbor as our self; if he needs help, help him; if he wants salvation, and it is necessary to spill his blood upon the earth in order that he may be saved, spill it.” (To my doubting Reader, I assure you these words are correct quotations and not mere paraphrasings. Brigham’s words from the pulpit have always been dutifully recorded and distributed. You may search any archive in Deseret to learn that here I am transcribing his words verbatim without any enhancement or coloring.)

This was the doctrine of Blood Atonement—any man, woman, or child who did not believe in the doctrines of the Church, or the words of its leaders, could rightfully be destroyed by the sword. The Saints, already hot with religious fever, received the Prophet’s words as Wisdom and Truth. Brigham had established his new doctrine and sent the Saints on their way to kill in the name of faith. Terrified, I broke into tears. Although I was young, Brigham’s meaning was clear to me.

After the services we walked over to Main Street, where a restaurant sold ice-cream for twenty-five cents a glass, a high luxury well beyond my mother’s crimped budget. Yet she knew I needed a distraction. As I probed the ball of ice-cream I asked, “Why does Brother Brigham want to kill?”

“He didn’t mean it,” my mother said. “Not like that.”

“He meant it,” said Aaron. He had finished his ice-cream and was digging into his wife’s. “Brigham means what he says.”

“Generally, yes,” said my mother. “But this time he was speaking in metaphor.”

Aaron looked confused, while Connie fidgeted with her curls. I thought, No doubt God had carefully selected them to be together.

Perhaps my mother’s assessment was correct. Even so, the Prophet’s tirade had a profound effect on me, and on many others. Here was the leader of our Church, the Governor of our land, a man in control of nearly every institution that made up our Saintly civilization, announcing from the pulpit that murder was justified in order to save souls. There, before my own eyes and ears, he asked men to murder! If he did not mean it, he should have said so.

Since then, I have heard the arguments against my interpretation of events: Brigham’s words have been taken out of their original context (true, he often preached mercy and compassion); he was speaking in metaphor (perhaps, for it is true no one rushed out of the Tabernacle that day and lifted his sword like Laban); Blood Atonement was a product of its time, for the fiercely independent Saints were on the verge of war with the United States of America (could be, but does that justify it?). Excuses—that is all these are.

Those who disavow my testimony as merely (
merely!
) the tirade of a spurned wife, to them I say: You were not there! You did not hear the hatred in the Prophet’s words. You did not see his fury.

I am neither theologian nor philosopher nor historian. I can only repeat that which I heard or which I know with near certainty others heard. The above quotes, as far as I know, are not in dispute. The dispute lies in their interpretation. Placing my full trust in my Dear Reader, I shall cease with interpretation now and leave that important task to you.

Yet I ask: Even if Brigham Young was calling for Blood Atonement merely for rhetorical effect, as some have argued, one cannot believe such vicious words would have no consequence. Make no mistake, there is no doubt that he dropped these appeals into this world. As poison enters a well, contamination must follow.

Word travels as swift as the horse. We returned to our hut in Payson to discover that Mrs. Myton had already heard of the Prophet’s sermon.

“If Brigham declares this to be true, then it must be.” Such was the analysis Aaron offered to his mother-in-law.

Connie, my dear sister-in-law, managed to peep, “Are we in danger?”

Aaron ignored her. “There’s a lot of work in keeping souls clean.”

“If Brigham’s really so interested in cleanliness, he wouldn’t have sent us to this dusty old town!” That was my contribution to the debate; you can imagine its reception.

There followed more general discussion of what the Prophet had meant. My mother genuinely believed that the Prophet, although susceptible to extremes, did not mean to incite murder. My brother, on the other hand, said there was little doubt about what should be done should we encounter an unrepentant sinner. This argument was repeated in households throughout the Territory in the subsequent days. It seemed wrong, even to my underdeveloped mind, for the Prophet, no matter his meaning, to have left his followers with such violent but unclear instructions of how to proceed.

Well, a minority of men found the instructions clear enough to act upon them. It was but a week later that rumors began to spread that a certain Mrs. Jones and her son, Jacob, had gone flabby in their faith. I did not know Mrs. Jones personally, although I could recognize her on the street, for she was tall for the female species and often wore elaborately feathered bonnets. (During the Reformation, some Sisters were known to condemn others for the mortal sin of overly fine millinery.) Mrs. Jones was a widow, her husband was lost at Winter Quarters, yet she had long resisted offers to enter a plural marriage. Enough men had felt the slap of her rejection that she was already, at the outset of the Reformation, a woman whom many suspected of disloyalty to the doctrine of spiritual wifery. Her son, Jacob, was Aaron’s age but in many ways more of a man, and capable of growing a full brushy beard. Jacob held an unusual interest in the Indians, collecting headdresses and necklaces of beads. Outcast is too strong a word for Mrs. Jones and her son, yet this pair was never one with the provincial Payson.

They fought the onslaught of the Reformation as best they could. Although they attended Church meetings and paid their tithings, they resisted the public confessions and turned the Home Missionaries away from their door (Aaron happily supplied this bit of information). With Blood Atonement officially in the air, and the Prophet’s words ringing in the ears of men inclined to violence, it took but seven days for the mob to settle on its prey.

Late one night, while sleeping in our hut, we awoke to an argument down the road, a scream, a plea, the sound of something heavy falling on something soft but thick, like a mallet to a sack of flour.

Connie flung the blanket along its wire, crying, “Aaron isn’t here!” In the moonlight stood the most pitiful creature I’ve ever seen: She was trembling and tears dripped like wax down her face. “He told me to stay in bed no matter what.”

My mother’s face crumpled upon itself. “He’s out there with them,” she said. It is painful for me to recall, but my mother began to weep. Although my enemies have many times questioned my memory in accounting certain events, I will never let anyone accuse me of lying about my mother’s tears that night.

Then two pistol shots cracked in the night, and each of us froze with genuine fear. Then came silence, and the long hours of uncertainty.

In the morning, word came that Mrs. Jones and her son were dead, their bodies disfigured and defaced. Officially, the stated cause was slaughter by the Indians. Aaron, who came home before dawn, said “Jacob was always meeting up with the Indians for barter. Figures they’d go kill him one day. I heard he was stealing their feathers, or something like that.”

“You can’t lie to me,” my mother said.

“Ma, I’m not lying. Go ask the Bishop. Go ask the chief of police.”

Aaron made his point: He was only repeating the official account. Justice would not come, not here. In the afternoon, the grave-digger drove the bodies to the cemetery. The wagon passed by our hut, but my mother refused to let me look out, holding me to her breast. Connie was crying too and made Aaron hold her as she heaved.

The wagon made its way up the street. A few doors opened, the residents inside spitting at their fallen Sister and Brother. “Apostates!” they cried. “Go be with your Indians!” Others threw rotten fruit at the bodies; by the time the wagon reached the open graves, it rattled with old apples and wormy gourds. Yet the majority of residents, like my mother and me, stayed silent behind their doors, too frightened to peer out, or decry the violence, or doubt our Church. It is said that Mrs. Jones had been baking when the mob arrived at her door. There must have been a struggle, with her son coming to the hearth in her defense. We know this because the floury dough held to their fingers, and some in their hair, when the grave-digger drove them through Payson on their last ride before eternal sleep.