So near came the rumours of war that the Mormons of Haun's Mill entered
into a renewed compact of mutual peace with the Gentiles around them.
The place was about twenty miles below the town of Far West, on the same
stream of Shoal Creek. Around Far West the roads presently became very
dangerous, haunted, it was said, by armed parties of bloodthirsty
Gentiles who lay in wait for trains of Mormon emigrants coming from the
east to the prophet's city. All travellers became alarmed; Halsey
remained where he was; the people of the place accepted his pastoral
services gladly. A train of Gentile emigrants also waited at Haun's Mill
for the cessation of hostilities.
These emigrants were quiet folk and had children with them. Susannah
used to go out upon sunny days with her sturdy yearling, talking to all
mothers, Gentile or Mormon, who carried little children. The beauty of
the season, the cloudless sun, gilded these few peaceful days. Susannah
compared her child with other children, marvelled at the baby
intercourse he held with them, at the likes and dislikes displayed among
these pigmy associates; and the other mothers had like sources of
interest in these interviews.
One among the emigrants, a dark-eyed woman of about forty years of age,
was of better position and education than the others. One morning she
noticed Susannah's child very kindly, speaking of things that did not
lie on the surface of life.
"There is a seeking look in his eyes," the lady said; "he smiles, he
plays with us all, but he looks beyond for something. I have seen that
look in the eyes of children who were in pain, but yours is at ease."
"He has his father's eyes," Susannah sighed. "My husband is always
looking for a virtue that seems to me impossible."
Both women turned toward an open grassy space in the midst of the
clustered houses where Halsey was now standing, Bible in hand, teaching
a little group of children to repeat the beatitudes. Only four children,
one sickly boy and three girls, were willing to stand and repeat the
lesson; others had straggled away and were shouting at their play.
Not far from where Halsey stood some fifteen of the neighbours had
gathered together to put up a new wooden house; piles of sweet-smelling
deal lay about them as they worked.
Just then on the road from Far West a horse bearing an old man was seen
straining itself to the swiftest gallop. The old man began to shout as
he came within hearing. No one could understand what he said. He
shouted more loudly, and many women ran out of their doors to see his
arrival. Before his words were articulate a cloud of dust was seen
rising round a turning of the same road, and a large company of horsemen
came swiftly into view.
The old man's voice was raised in a cry, but only the accent of terror
was intelligible. He threw himself off his horse, brandishing his arms.
Afterwards it was known that he wanted the villagers to take refuge in
their houses, but now they only stared the more at him and at the small
army that was approaching.
Susannah heard a shot; then she was deafened by the sound of a volley of
muskets. Paralysed, she stood staring down the road, unable to believe
that the two or three hundred mounted men had deliberately levelled
their muskets and fired. Then all around her she became aware of shrieks
and sobs and prayers that went up to God. The brown-eyed Gentile lady
who stood beside her had fallen in a curious attitude at her feet.
Susannah darted into the emigrants' tent and, putting down the child,
dragged the lady within. She perceived to her horror that the lady was
shot; the bullet had passed through her neck. Not knowing whether she
was dead or dying, Susannah stretched her on the floor. Then she lifted
her hands above her head, wrung them together in agony of nerve and
thought. She remembered afterwards looking upward in the cave of the
warm tent and saying aloud "O God! O God!" many times.
The first thing she saw was her child standing watching her; both his
little brown fists were full of flowers. Hearing the sound of horses
trampling near, loud voices, and occasional shots, she bethought her
that the canvas of the tent was no protection for the child, and,
snatching him in her arms, she ran madly out into the sunshine and into
the open war.
A large number of the horsemen had already passed on down the road; the
sounds that came from them seemed to be of oaths and laughter. A number
were still galloping in and out among the houses; the ground was strewed
with bodies of the dead and wounded; the able-bodied, it seemed, must
have suddenly huddled within their doors.
Susannah remembered her husband now, remembered where he had been
standing. She forgot all else; she rushed toward the middle of the
green, drawing back only when some of the horsemen dashed across her
path to follow their fellows. They stared at her and, as they went,
called to some who were still behind them.
One of these came on, checked his horse, and looked in Susannah's face
insultingly. No doubt her eyes were dazed, and she looked to him like a
mad woman, but she remembered afterwards that the child showed anger
and babbled that the horseman was a bad man. At this the rider took out
his pistol and pointed it at the child and fired and rode off laughing.
Susannah saw the young Danite bending over her. His words were hoarse
and so sorrowful that she gathered from their tone that she was in great
distress before she understood their purport or memory awoke. "Ma'am,"
he said, "I'll take you down to your own waggon by the creek."
She found herself sitting on the ground, her child in her arms. The
child was dead; she knew that as soon as she looked at him. There was a
little trickle of blood upon the light frock over his heart, but not
much.
As yet no women, only a few men, had ventured forth, and the sound of
the enemy's horses and shouting were still in the air. Susannah rose up,
folding in her arms the body of the child; the momentum of her first
intention was upon her will and muscles; she moved straight on toward
the place where she had last seen Halsey.
The young Danite took hold of her sleeve when he perceived whither she
went.
"'Tisn't no use, ma'am. Some of the brothers have attended to him."
Susannah looked straight in the young man's face with perfect courage.
"Is he dead?"
But the Danite had not courage for this; he turned away and put his arm
over his eyes; she heard him grind his teeth in dumb passion.
Some of the men and women lying on the grass were moaning or screaming
with the pain of their injuries. The thought that Halsey might be in
like pain made Susannah imperative. "Is he dead?" she asked again in
precise repetition of tone and accent. "Is he dead?"
The Danite lifted his head. "He is quite dead, and I marked the man that
did it, and I marked the man that did this too." He touched reverently,
not the child, but the wilting asters that were still grasped in the
baby hand. "If I'd only had a gun--but"--he ground his teeth again and
muttered, "God helping me, they shall both die."
Susannah understood nothing then but the first part of this speech.
By this time many of the women and children had again flocked out of the
houses. It was reported that the horsemen had been a detachment of State
militia, that one of them had taken the trouble to explain to a wounded
man that they had received orders from Governor Boggs to exterminate the
Mormons. Immediately by other frightened tongues it was stated that the
armed company were halting round the turn of the road, intending to
return and shoot again when the people had come out from shelter. At
this the greater number made a stampede for a thicket of poplar and
willow saplings that was near the creek. The Danite still held by
Susannah's sleeve.
"Where is my husband?" she again asked. She had not moved since he last
spoke to her.
Some men were busy laying the dead, of whom there were eighteen, on the
floor of a shed which was not far off. Susannah and the Danite moved
about together and found Halsey lying still on the green, his limbs
decently composed, his eyes for ever shut. The bearers were about to
lift him, but the Danite interposed. He had an excited fancy concerning
Susannah's dead and what must be done for them. He lifted Halsey easily
in both his arms and walked away, Susannah following with the dead
child.
Without a word they went till they came to Halsey's camp. Nothing had
been touched since Susannah left in the morning. The Danite, remembering
the camp as he had seen it a few evenings before, looked about him now
curiously, and laid Halsey down on the very spot where he had stood to
plead for a divine righteousness.
It was not a time for words. Having deposited his burden, he looked to
Susannah, but she had no directions to give. She sat down beside her
husband, as though preparing to remain.
"I thought you'd like to lay them both out here, but I guess I ought to
get you into the bush, ma'am."
"I will stay here," she said; "you had better go to help some one else."
The cries of the wounded were still heard from the vicinity of the
houses. A crowd of the uninjured people were to be seen making their way
through the first bushes of the thicket. They seemed to be carrying the
wounded thither, for men bearing shutters, and doors upon which the sick
were stretched now started in the direction of the bush. There was need
for help, as the Danite well saw; then, too, inactivity was torture. He
left Susannah and ran back to bear his part in the common task.
When almost every other living soul was lost in the close thicket he
came again, approaching the camp with soft footsteps, peering anxiously.
Susannah had laid the child in his father's arms. Their enemies seemed
to have taken aim for the heart, for Halsey's wound was also there. She
had so laid the child within his arms, heart to heart, that no sign of
injury appeared. She sat by them now, sobbing her tearless sobs,
stroking gently, sometimes the hair of the child, more often the thick
locks of light hair that lay above her husband's brow. She was talking
to them between her sobs in rapid phrases exactly as if they were not
dead. The young Danite was sure that she had lost her wits; he leant
against a tree confounded.
Susannah was saying, "I wanted to keep baby, Angel, I wanted so much to
keep him, but I could not have taught him your way; there was no use
telling you that before, for you could not understand. When you told me
that you would go you did not tell me you meant to take baby. You have
the best right to him, dear, he is all yours, but oh! remember--remember
that I will be very lonely--very lonely--O Angel." There were a few
moments of wordless moans and sobs, but she went on clearly enough, "I
want you to know, Angel, that I never was disappointed in you--never
disappointed in you, dear; and about my lack of faith--it would have
been no use to tell you before, would it?"
She took her hand from Halsey's hair and played a moment with the rings
of gold on the baby's head lying on his breast. She laid her hand upon
Halsey's hands that she had clasped together above the child. "It is
better for you to have baby with you. I could not have taught him your
thoughts. It is better, dear, isn't it?"
The earnest inflection of her voice in these interrogations brought so
wild a sense of pathos to the Danite's heart that his eyes filled with
tears and brimmed over, but Susannah's sobs were like a nervous gasping
of which she was scarcely conscious, and no hint of tears.
She lightly touched the baby hand that was lying on its father's
shoulder, still grasping the blue blossoms. "See," she sobbed, "he has
brought his flowers to you; he always loved you best."
There had been a great silence in the air about them, but now there was
again the sound of firing at the distance of about a mile. The Danite's
pulses leaped, but he did not, because of that, allow himself to speak
or move.
Susannah spoke again, resting her hand on Halsey's brow, "You know,
dear, I don't know whether you and baby are anywhere--anywhere"; wildly,
as if the appalling loneliness of its meaning had flashed upon her
dulled brain, she repeated the word.
The Danite's sympathy rose within him; he staggered forward and bent
over her. "Don't, ma'am," he said, "don't go on talking like that. I was
with my own mother when she died, when I was a little chap, and I know
how it is, and you'd much better try to shed tears, ma'am, indeed you
had."
Susannah lifted to him a blank face, disturbed but uncomprehending.
He decided what to do; the thought of action restored him. He ran with
all his might back to the houses, and, finding a pick and spade, came
again. This time, more confident of himself, he had more control over
Susannah.
"We must make the grave right here, ma'am, and do you go and gather some
flowers to put on it, for we must just put them two away out of sight
before the devils come back. It's what he would want, you know." He
pointed to Halsey and repeated the words until she understood.
It even seemed a relief to her then to move about too, and find that
there was something she could do, but she did not obey him blindly.
While in a soft place close by he delved with might and main, displacing
the earth with incredible speed, Susannah, sobbing all the time, but
tearless, went into the waggon and brought out certain things which she
chose with care--a locked box, the best garments belonging to herself,
her husband, and child, and the baby's toys.
It was no neat gravedigger's work that the Danite accomplished; he had
made a deep, large hole, but the cavity sloped at the sides so that they
could step in and out. Susannah brought her little store and lined the
earth first with the garments.
"You may want some of those things of your own, ma'am," said the Danite.
She paid no heed; when she had made the couch to her mind she signed to
him to lay Halsey and the child in it, which he did. She herself stooped
in the grave to clasp the dead man's hands more tightly over the little
one's form, and her last touch was to stroke Halsey's hair from off the
brow. She laid the baby playthings at Halsey's feet; she unlocked the
box and took from it all the household treasures that so far she had
sought to keep--some silver, a few small ornaments, a few books, and
Halsey's Book of Mormon, in which was written their marriage and the
baby's birth. She brought a silken shawl, the one bit of finery that
remained from her girlish days. She covered her dead with it very
carefully, tucking it in as though they slept; then she moved away,
wringing her hands and heaving convulsive sighs. The Danite put back the
earth.
All the grass was strewn pretty thickly with poplar leaves, gold, lined
with white, and after leaning against a tree some minutes looking away
from the grave, Susannah began gathering up these leaves hastily, so
that when he levelled the earth she could strew the top, hiding the
place from the curious eyes of strangers.
"I guess, ma'am, if there's anything you would like to take with you
now, we'd better go into the bush."
"No, there is nothing, but," she cried, "I thank you very much, and if
there is anything that would be of use to you--"
When the Danite had first laid Halsey under the tree he had taken a
white cloth from the tent and wiped the blood from the coat, that
Susannah might not be too much shocked at the sight. He took this cloth
now and tore it till the stained fragment alone remained in his hand. He
thrust it in his breast.
"This will stand for the blood of them both," he said. "I guess that's
all I want." But when he had started towards the thicket he remembered
Susannah's needs, and went back for a blanket.
The poplar saplings that bordered the creek were still holding a thin
gold canopy overhead, and the dogwood was glinting with scarlet. The
other members of the community had gone so far ahead that it was a long
time before, making their toilsome way, they came upon their former
neighbours.
The fugitives had called a halt where a brook which passed through the
bush offered some relief to the pain and fever of those who were
wounded. One of these, a little girl, had already died by the way, and
her frantic mother began to reproach Susannah, wailing that if the child
had not been saying her texts to the elder she would not have been a
mark for the enemy.
The men were cutting down saplings to make place for a camp. It was
their intention to remain, going back under the cover of night to get
food and blankets from the houses, if they were not pillaged and burned,
going back in any case to bury their dead at the first streak of dawn.
The Danite turned to Susannah. "I guess, ma'am, neither you nor I have
got any business to take us back, and there's enough of the brothers
here to do the work."
Susannah went on with the young man through hour after hour of the
afternoon farther and farther into the unknown fastnesses of the wood.
They left behind them the low thicket of second growth, and penetrated
into an uncleared Missouri forest.