“How old is he?” David suddenly asked, the first he had spoken during the meal.
“Just over sixty,” Patrick said.
“And crippled,” David muttered under his breath.
He evidently had said it louder than he intended, because every head at the table turned to look at him. “What was that you said, David?” Sarah asked.
“How can he go?” he said, “when it is so difficult for him to walk?”
“He gets around just fine,” Abby said tartly.
“Getting around Cedar City is one thing,” he said, wishing he hadn’t started this, but angry enough to finish it. “A two-hundred-mile trek across very difficult terrain is quite another.”
“But isn’t that his choice?” Abby shot right back.
“It is,” David snapped. “But that doesn’t make it right. It does affect others, too.”
“David,” his father said, “Ah think that be e’nuff. It be naw yur decision.”
“Look,” David said earnestly. “I’m not criticizing Brother Nielson. From what you say, he is a man of great faith. It’s admirable that a man of his age and with his handicap would be willing to accept such a call. But that doesn’t mean it’s the wise thing to do. This trip will be more challenging than any of us can imagine. I’m just saying that I think it is a mistake for the Church leaders to ask him to do something like this.”
Patrick had been watching David carefully. Now his head lifted. “Silas plans to ask Bishop Nielson to be the wagon captain for the Cedar City/Parowan/Paragonah contingent.”
David snorted in soft derision. “Figures,” he said.
“Brother Nielson is as strong as an ox,” Carl ventured. “And he gets around pretty well.”
David raised his hand, warding off any further comments. “I’m sorry. Dad’s right. It is none of my affair. It’s just that . . .” He let it hang there in the awkward silence. “Never mind.”
“Do you know why he’s making this ‘mistake’?” The last word was said with heavy sarcasm. David turned. Abby was across the table from him. She was clearly ready for battle.
“It doesn’t matter. It’s not my decision. I’m sorry I dared to express an opinion.”
That only made her anger flare higher. “As you know, the Nielsons came with the Willie handcart company in eighteen fifty-six.”
“I know,” he said, tired of it all. “I know they suffered tremendously. And I have nothing but the greatest admiration for them.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” she said coldly. “Why? Why would a sixty-year-old man with twisted, frostbitten feet volunteer to go on yet another difficult trek?”
“Because of his family.”
“No, not good enough. He could let them go, then visit them later. Or he could keep them home. Tell them to refuse the call as well.”
“You tell me, then, Abby. Why would he?”
Everyone around the table was frozen into silence, and several other tables of people kept glancing over at them, sensing the tension.
Abby’s head was up and her voice trembled a little. “On the day they had to pull their handcarts up and over Rocky Ridge in order to reach the rescue wagons, Jens and Aunt Elsie, as we all call her, lost their only son, who was just Billy Joe’s age. He froze to death. They also lost a young girl named Bodil Mortensen, whom they were bringing with them for another family. She went out to gather firewood. They found her frozen by a clump of sagebrush. Brother Nielson’s feet were also badly frostbitten at that time. They never healed properly.”
She faltered a moment. “That night, when they tried to put up their tent, Brother Nielson was the only man left in the tent group. The other four had all died. It was bitter cold and snowing hard. The canvas was stiff and unmanageable. The ground was frozen so hard that they couldn’t drive the tent pegs into it. They were exhausted, freezing, and emotionally shattered.
“Brother Nielson was struggling to get that tent erected—and remember, these were twenty-man tents. They were large and heavy, difficult to set up even in the best of circumstances. But as he struggled, he couldn’t do it. He asked some of the largest and strongest women to help him, but they couldn’t do it either.”
She had to look away, and David saw her swallow quickly a couple of times. When she turned back, her eyes were glistening. “I shall try to quote him as best I remember him saying it. ‘When it looked like we all should die, I offered a prayer to my Heavenly Father. I remember my prayers as distinctly today as I did then. I said that if the Lord would let me live to reach Salt Lake City, then all the rest of my days should be spent trying to be of use to Him under the direction of the priesthood.’”2
She sniffed once, then went on, her voice very low. “Going to San Juan will be Jens and Elsie Nielson’s sixth move since coming to Utah, David. Now, if that bothers you somehow, perhaps you should take it up with Bishop Nielson directly and tell him you think it’s a mistake for him to fulfill a promise he made to the Lord over twenty years ago.”
David returned to the hotel about half past seven to find his father in the room practicing writing his words. David had excused himself from dinner and gone for a long walk out of town, where he could avoid seeing anyone. He had deliberately stayed away this long so that he wasn’t back for supper with the family. Now he slipped into the room without a word.
When his father looked up and saw him, he gave a soft grunt of acknowledgment but said nothing more. That was fine with David. He washed his face, got a drink of water, then sat down on the bed with a pad of paper and a pencil and went to work outlining what had to happen this coming week.
About ten minutes later, he looked up and said, “When we get back to Cedar City, I’ll be going south to Springdale to get those mules. I’ll be gone a week to ten days.”
His father turned slowly. “Do ya need me ta go wit ya an’ ’elp?”
David shook his head. “No. I’ll be fine.”
For a long, searching moment, his father just looked at him. Then his head bobbed up and down one time. “Awl reet,” he said, and turned back to his reading.
Notes
^1. Most of this information on Silas S. Smith comes from Jenson, LDS Biographical Encyclopedia, 1:801–2. Kumen Jones, who served under his leadership on both the exploring party and the main expedition, also described his character and qualities as a leader (“Notes on the San Juan Mission,” 7–8).
^2. The account of Jens Nielson’s prayer that night near Rock Creek, Wyoming, comes from his own history (see Lyman, Bishop Jens Nielson, 4). After their arrival in Utah, the Nielsons helped settle Parowan, then subsequently lived in Panguitch, Circleville, back in Parowan, and finally in Cedar City. Thus the move to the San Juan was their sixth move in just over twenty years (see Carpenter, Jens Nielson,21–30).
Chapter 35
Tuesday, April 8, 1879
David was back from Springdale nine days later with twelve mules in tow. He had so much dreaded returning to face the family after the fiasco in Parowan that he had almost driven the mules home by way of Denver. It turned out to be not as bad as he had feared, but nowhere near as good as he had hoped. He first went to Patrick and Sarah and made apologies for having been so obnoxious at dinner. He used as his excuse the fact that he had been deeply shaken by Silas’s invitation that morning. They were both understanding and said not to worry about it. However, he could sense Patrick’s disappointment that he had so quickly dismissed Silas’s invitation.
Sarah, on the other hand, seemed happy that he wasn’t going to leave them for six months, but was more bothered by what had happened at dinner. She was cordial, but occasionally he sensed a little distance. David suspected that in time that would pass.
The strain between David and his father was still there, but neither of them brought up what had happened that Sunday, and gradually things settled back to some kind of normalcy there as well.
When David apologized to Abby, she coolly brushed him off, saying that he was under no obligati
on to account to her about accepting a call or not. As for Jens Nielson, she had felt compelled to confront him on that because David was not only absolutely wrong but totally out of line in saying it. Thereafter, both were happy to stay pretty well clear of each other.
Surprisingly, Molly took it the best. Like her mother, she seemed to feel an enormous relief that David wasn’t going to leave them for six months. As for the other issue, she seemed as anxious to avoid further discussions on their spiritual compatibility as David was. Whenever they were together alone, which wasn’t that frequently, she kept the conversation on neutral ground.
Billy Joe was the only bright spot. The supper-table experience seemed to have passed right over his head. He always came on the run when he saw David, and he was quick to share the latest triumph in his training of Paint. When he wasn’t in school, he often became David’s partner in whatever project was under way. That was encouraging in a way, because it meant that at least Sarah and Patrick did not yet see David as a negative influence on their son.
He went to church with the family on the Sunday after his return. To his dismay, as they came outside after the meeting, they ran headlong into Jens Nielson and his family. David was formally introduced all around, managing to avoid meeting Abby’s eye during the whole process.
He was saved from further awkwardness when he learned that Joe Nielson and Kumen Jones were both signed up for the exploring party expedition. Kumen was going to be a scout; Joe, one of the teamsters. He took the opportunity to ask questions about their departure and avoided any further conversation with Bishop Nielson.
Other than that, the last week had been what David thought of as “hunkering down” time—quiet, uneventful, and conflict free. Today would be the same. He was taking some of the horses and mules to spring pasture up Cedar Canyon.
As he stepped off the porch of the boardinghouse into a light rain, he was momentarily tempted to go to the post office and say hello to Molly. Then he remembered that Molly was working the hotel desk this morning and the post office in the afternoon. That increased his chances of bumping into Abby, so he turned instead toward the livery stable.
It was late afternoon when he stabled Tillie again and walked out of the livery stable. The rain had stopped and the air was sweet and fresh and crystal clear. He pulled out his pocket watch. It was five minutes to five. He immediately changed directions and headed for the post office. If he was lucky, he would get there just as Molly was closing, and perhaps they would have a chance to be alone. Maybe even go for a walk.
When he walked in, Molly was working with one of the elderly sisters, helping her address an envelope in the proper manner. He moved over into the corner and pretended to read one of the notices posted on the wall. A moment later, the woman left, thanking Molly as she went. Molly followed her to the door, locked it, then pulled down the shade. “There,” she said.
David noticed that she didn’t pull the shade on the door that led directly into the hotel lobby, but she did turn over the small card that said “Open” on one side and “Closed” on the other. Finally she turned to him. “This is a pleasant surprise.”
“Hello, Molly.” He came over and took both of her hands. “How are you?”
“Better now, thank you.”
“Because of me,” he teased, “or because the post office is closed?”
“Definitely, the post office.” She squeezed his hands. “But you’re a close second.”
Then she snapped her fingers as she remembered something. “Where’s your father today?”
“He’s not back? I took some stock up Cedar Canyon for pasture. He took the rest out west of town. I assumed he would beat me back.”
She walked over to the pigeonholes and withdrew a letter. “I sent Billy Joe over to the boardinghouse just a few minutes ago, but neither of you were there.” She handed the envelope to David. “This letter came for your father today. Can you take it to him?”
“Sure.” He took it and looked at the return address. Box B, Salt Lake City, Utah Territory. “Hmm,” he said, slipping it into his inside coat pocket. “Didn’t know Dad knew anyone in Salt Lake.” As he turned back to her, she was looking at him very strangely. “What?” he asked.
“Do you know what Box B is?”
He shook his head. “No, do you?”
She hesitated, then shook her head. “Not for sure. Never mind.”
“So, are you up for a walk?”
Her face fell. “Mama’s helping the Relief Society with a quilt, and I promised I’d start supper. Want to come help?”
He shook his head, and she laughed aloud. “Scaredy-cat.” Then she looked out into the lobby. “But I don’t have to leave for a few minutes. We can talk here if you’d like.”
“Good. I just wanted to see you, see how your day was.”
“It was good. And yours?”
“Quite enjoyable. With the rain everything’s so fresh, and Cedar Canyon is almost as green as England. It’s beautiful.”
“Maybe we could go for a walk up there on Sunday if the weather is good.”
They were leaning toward each other across the counter, and David’s hand stole across and took hers. She looked up and smiled, then put her other hand over his. She began to trace little patterns on the back of his hand and up onto his wrist. “David?” she finally said. “Do you mind if we talk about us for a minute or two if I promise not to get all weepy?”
“Not at all. Are you feeling weepy?”
“Not really. But it always seems to come when we try to get too serious.” She pulled her hands back and straightened so as to be looking at him more directly. “Do you ever pray about us, David?”
He was thinking he should have been surprised by that, but he wasn’t. Not really. “In my own way, I suppose,” he answered after a moment.
“What does that mean?”
“I haven’t knelt down by my bed and actually spoken aloud, if that’s what you’re looking for. But I think about it all the time. I wonder, and ponder, and hope. Don’t the scriptures somewhere talk about the ‘prayer of the heart’?”
“Yes, they do.”
“Well, I guess that’s how I pray. In my heart.”
“But you don’t specifically speak to Heavenly Father?”
He shook his head.
Her expression was one of mixed hope and sadness. “I pray for us all the time.”
“I know.”
“I plead with Heavenly Father that He will help us to know if this is right, if we are meant to be together forever.”
He made a shrewd guess. “Especially after days like that Sunday up in Parowan.”
She couldn’t meet his eyes. “Yes.”
“Molly, I was being just plain stupid that day. I’m still not sure what got into me.”
“Will you pray with me now?”
David swallowed quickly, realizing that she had been thinking about this for some time, just waiting for the right moment. “You mean right here?”
She glanced quickly out into the hotel foyer again. “Why not?”
“All right,” he said after a long pause. Up in Cedar Canyon, ironically, he had decided it was time to either move the relationship forward or . . . “As long as you’re voice.”
She was motionless, her eyes wide and questioning, not quite daring to believe. “Really?”
“Do we have to kneel? That feels kind of funny, knowing people can see in here.”
She took his hands again. “No, right here is fine.”
Two hours later, David was lying on his bed staring up at the ceiling, thinking on the experience he had gone through with Molly. He was a little taken aback by his reaction to it all. It had turned out to be a sweet experience for him as well as for her. Her prayer had been quite simple. In a soft but clear and steady voice, she had thanked the Lord for bringing her and him together, and for bringing David to Cedar City so he could help their family answer their call to serve. Then a tremor crept into her voice as she began to ple
ad with Him. It reminded David of a child explaining something to a parent, even though the child knew the parent already knew it. She prayed for guidance in their relationship. She asked that they might know if they were meant to be husband and wife, and if not, to give them both the courage to accept that. But if they were—now she was weeping softly—would He please work things out between them.
The prayer was pure and sweet and filled with longing. David was surprised how much it had touched him. The single kiss that followed was much like the prayer—pure, sweet and filled with longing. As they pulled back from each other, he realized with a keen and surprising intensity just how truly wonderful a woman Molly was, and how much he wanted to do whatever it would take to make her happy.
He sat up eagerly as a knock sounded on the door. “That you, Dad? Come on in.”
His father came in, removing his coat. “Hi.”
“You’re just back?”
“Yeah. Took longer than I thought. The one pasture was pretty well flooded so I had to take them out a little farther west.”
“Good.”
“You eaten dinner already?”
“No, but I’m not hungry. You go ahead.”
John looked at him more closely. “You sure?”
David nodded and lay back. As his father started to back out of the door again, David remembered. “Oh, by the way. Molly gave me a letter for you. It’s there on the lamp table.”
He came in and shut the door. “A letter? For me?” He picked it up, looked at the envelope, then turned to David. “Salt Lake City?” His question was hesitant, unsure.
“Yeah. Who do you know in Salt Lake City?”
“Ah know aboot a lot of people thare, but none of them know me.” His father sat down, took out a pocketknife, and slit the envelope open. He looked at it, then looked up. “It be written in some pretty fancy cursive. Ya ahre goin’ ta ’ave ta read it ta me.”