Читать книгу Tributary - Barbara K. Richardson - Страница 15

CHAPTER 7

Strange to be smitten by a thing so small: the little gold frame all by itself on the mantel above Ada’s fireplace. I felt I knew Stephen—her only begotten, her darling son—though I’d only seen this one picture of him sitting on a mountain of a horse. Cowboy on a black beast, smiling. A steed so big none of Utah showed behind it. Stephen Nuttall clearly loved that horse. You could see it in the set of his chin.

Ada relished telling tales about her son. How he’d bumped a saddle up the front porch steps, age three, all by himself. How he’d banged on his mother’s pots with a spoon during Brigham City’s first Sabbath meetings, held inside her cabin. However was Ada to know the Brethren didn’t cater to their children’s musical talents, or that the Sisters never played catch-as-can with their sons on their swept dirt floors? Ada caught hell, as usual, and her husband was chastened by the Stake Council for having lax influence over his wife. Two years later, he’d married wife two and gone.

Stephen loved his father, and longed for him to come. Ada said the weekend visits lasted until the boy was eight. Then William Nuttall laid his hands on Stephen to baptize and bless him and, having fixed the boy firmly in the Lord’s great plan, Brother Nuttall walked out on him and Ada for good.

This set an echo in me, this loss of a parent when you had no say. I asked Ada how Stephen took it. Not a second to think on it, she said, “Stephen stepped up and took his father’s place.” Which awed me. He’d raised his mother’s livestock, kept the horses groomed and fed. At twelve, he rode herd for the First Ward, and by fourteen, he owned his own mount. Then Stephen hired on with sheepherders out of Malad—roaming and earning his way. My admiration became pure envy, hearing this. He’d slipped the reins of the Church as easy as a wet dog shakes off a river. Stephen had seen Idaho and Montana and the near corner of Wyoming. He came and he went as he pleased. Every Christmas, he would ride home to visit his mother, cut her a tree up Box Elder Canyon, light the candles on the high branches. He sang her “Silent Night.”

I called Ada’s photograph “Love at Home” after the Mormon hymn. How splendid that a mother and son could be so close. I never told Ada, but I hoped that I might meet him one day. Felt that we might share some things. At very least, a love for Ada. I never told her. I never did.

Late one summer day, Brother Stocks came to my cabin. His body blocked the doorway. He stood looking in at me with his good arm cradling his bad. His chest was immense, his body full of power but for the little twisted hand within his rolled up cuff.

“Brother Stocks,” I said.

He weaved a little on his feet.

I gripped the broom I held. It was day, but daylight offered no protection. My screams for help would reach no one.

“You sew them garments?” he asked.

“Yes I do. For the Co-op. Bishop Dees called me to it.”

He turned away. Greasy cowlicks covered his head. He swiped his nose at his shoulder and looked back. “I need me some.”

“They carry sizes at the Co-op—”

“None of them sizes fit.” He jerked his hand away, letting the short arm swing free. The flash of anger told me how often his crippled right hand had failed him, how, day after day, it had beggared hard work and the religion of success.

I eased the broom behind me, out of his reach.

Brother Stocks inhaled. Then he heaved all his breath out. “Ain’t no one could fit this accursed body—” In two strides, he quit the door.

“Brother Stocks,” I called. He turned in the yard. “If you would step inside, it’ll just take a measurement or two.”

I moved around him, measuring chest and shoulders and both arms, though I had only to measure the shorter one where the child-sized hand bent sharply in, blush pink. The narrow fingers fit together like the claws of a bird. I gazed at the hand, at its absolute softness. I thought to touch it—the hand that never ripped a plank or drove a nail.

I promised to deliver three pairs of custom garments to the Co-op wrapped in brown paper. The Brother left as quickly as he’d come. For days, I thought about his hand, the one without a claim to worldly successes. I doubted Brother Stocks loved it. He had cradled it, but not tenderly. Perhaps at night, when its inconvenience faded, and he let go the looks of others, let go his bitterness at being made different, maybe then the hand became an ally, a dear friend, sign of the freedom of the heart to wonder, only to wonder, stay gentle, stay small.

~~~~~

The Prophet Brigham Young decided to extend his Central Line north from Brigham City to Fort Hall, Idaho. His new Utah and Northern Rail would connect Zion to the sheep and cattle lands of Idaho, and eventually reach up to the rich mines in Montana. Mormon goods and Mormon crops could flow out to those settlements, and Gentile cash could flow back down. In time, the Prophet hoped, a watery flood.

Ada asked to take me to the ground breaking ceremony. I tried to tell her how little love I had for human wonders, but Ada said I could bring a rock for company. A heavy one, the size of my addled head.

The night of August 26th, 1871, was clear, with a three-quarter moon, when I met her at the cemetery road for a ride down to the Barrens. Pocatello Jim hummed a tuneless tune in back. I climbed up, and he stood and did a little dance in the wagon. His legs pumped under him, his feet scattering hay, but no sign of life showed in his torso or his arms. The legs cavorted, then ran wild as Jim’s eyes widened in mock terror: Captive, they said, we are captive to the will of our lesser half! I didn’t know Shoshone, but Ada had taught me a little hand talk. I signed attention-getter, striking my open left hand with a few fingers from my right and waggling them at him. Jim shook his braids and covered his mouth, the cries of a three-year-old coming from behind his palm. I looked to Ada to interpret.

“Surprise,” she said. “He’s as surprised as you are, at the dancing feet.”

I signed good, to give Jim leave to end the game. He slid into a pile and leaned back against the wagon, panting. His right hand lay flat on top of his left, chest-high, which was obvious: I am just exhausted.

“He’s a silly cuss,” I said, laughing, as Ada started the team.

“Point of pride, to his people. Shoshone don’t reprimand with blows. It’s humor keeps the tribe in line. A good dose of ridicule can strike deep.”

“They don’t visit like they used to when I was little. I remember the encampments out west of town. Singing and games, though the Widow Anderson never would let me get close enough to really see. Where have the Shoshone gone?” I looked at her closely. “Ada, where are Jim’s kin? Why is he all alone here, working for you? I don’t suppose we sent them out of this valley with ‘a good dose of ridicule.’”

“It ain’t safe anymore, Clair. White settlers hate ’em. Ranchers hate ’em. Even the Mormons lost patience with a people so wild. They’ve got a reservation, now. Most of Jim’s people prefer to keep to their kind.”

“That was the treaty they signed?”

“The treaty of Box Elder sealed it up tight, yes.”

I gave Jim a drink of cider from Ada’s old jug. You could not tell from his stern countenance if he ever felt lonely. Ada was indeed a powerful force, but could she replace a whole tribe?

We drove west through town. The Lombardy poplars shone like torches down Forest Street, silver with moonlight. At the bridge, the surface of the runoff ponds lay milky with stars.

Ada pulled off into the chaparral amid shouted directions. Wagons left and right, people everywhere. We stopped the team some distance from the rest and Jim hobbled the horses. “We’ll meet you back here, Poker, after,” Ada said. She and I merged into the crowd.

A bower had been built to frame the stage. A dozen chor-isters stood assembled. Brass instruments flashed with the light from passing lanterns. Brother Gradon, Florrie’s father, sat at a small pump organ. The crowd was easily a thousand strong.

We lay a blanket in back and settled in as the horns blew their first notes, a high winding curve that seemed to be mapping loneliness. The channels of loneliness. The deep loneliness of Christ. In church, they said his death betided comfort, but I only ever felt sorrow. How he could stand to die misunderstood, one such as him. Where was the deep and abiding comfort in that?

The horns sharpened. The crowd stood to roar its greeting as two men mounted the stage, one thin, the other broad as a grist wheel, whose presence had been kept secret from us. Apostle Lorenzo Snow and the Prophet Brigham Young stood grinning at the crowd, happy as little boys holding striped lizards.

The shock of recognition, the burst of pleasure from the assembly more than gratified the Prophet—it deified him. He looked out, waved his fist and the brass horns played their last.

The Apostle offered the opening prayer. Then Brother Gradon struck the first notes from his organ for the opening hymn. It sounded like no hymn had, ever. The chords reared up a wall of sound, as if the wood encasing the pipes must burst—but the wall was not to stay and the notes came down, friable as sandstone, as soft shale. Out of that grumble of dashed chords came the cry of two sopranos. Alleluia! Alleluia, Praise and Glory to our God, for His judgments are true and just.

The horns made answer, draping low, and the male choristers entered the song. His judgments are true and just. They stair-stepped up and down, taunting the women to try and stop them. Now Brother Gradon stood in front, conducting, while the horns mourned all of the world’s dull unforgiving work, and the altos fled before them, lost, cold birds. Glory to our God, Praise and Glory. Brother Gradon flung himself, arms wide, down the length of song and the music, in answer, held him up. It held the crowd up, held us safe against gales of trouble and doubt. I wept at our good fortune, our sure

inclusion, until I looked at them, at the blank faces, the babies lost to sleep gripping their mother’s bosoms, and the plait of concern on the Apostle’s brow as he watched Brigham Young lean heavily on an elbow, eyes scanning the heavens, his big boot tapping out its own time.

I watched that slow black boot until a different time-keeping caught my notice. Near the platform, Poker Jim moved to the music. He held his arms aloft like Brother Gradon, his hips crashing in arrhythmic waves. The children nearby hopped from leg to leg, clapping at Jim’s crass enjoyment. I closed my eyes on all their silliness and their indifference. I left everything but the sound of the music, which soon ended as it had begun, with Brother Gradon at the organ, playing the chords down, gently down, like a mother singing, beautifully, to naught.

The crowd sat utterly silent. Ada took my shoulders. I leaned back and let her have my weight, heart open, eyes closed, while Brother Gradon and his players took their seats.

The Prophet walked to the lip of the stage. He stroked his beard with his great head cocked to one side. “You all of you know how much I love this city.” His voice, soft as lambswool, soon rose in pitch and vigor discussing the Utah and Northern, his great Northern Rail. Labor and wagons, graders and gravel, none had escaped his concern. The Prophet laid it out for us, laid it plain as if the rails already rang before us with the heat of an oncoming train, and Brigham City stood enriched, the shops busy and all the tables fully laden.

I saw the Prophet’s scene in my mind’s eye, but something imminent scotched the vision. Below the platform, clutching a watch chain that did not hang from a vest he did not wear, Poker Jim stood, the spit image of the Prophet. When Brigham leaned, Jim leaned. When Brigham cocked one foot over the other, Poker beat him to it. And when the Prophet grew spirited—waving his arms, challenging the assembly to accept God’s call as the architects and the builders of Zion—Jim slid in a paroxysm to and fro, his mouth about to retch, working around big, unsavory O’s.

I gripped Ada’s hand, even before the Elders grabbed Jim and hauled him out of sight.

“Ada?”

No word from her, just a nod.

“Can’t we go to him?”

Ada tightened her grip.

The Prophet stood with both arms raised. His massive hands could have stopped a flood or wrung a hundred necks as easily as given shelter. “In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I promise you, I guarantee it: any family willing to take up this great task and give labor and wares to the completion of the Utah and Northern Rail, I say all of those families will rise up whole in the Last Days and be greeted by the Prophet Joseph Smith himself. There will be feasting. Yea, you will feast with our first and beloved Prophet Joseph in the flesh, in the presence of the Lord our God, eternally.”

I strained to hear what might be happening to Jim. I wished myself beside him. I wished I had my gun.

Brigham palmed a slab of hair off his forehead, and pointed into the crowd. “Those of you who lack faith, I say if you lack faith of your own, take mine. Take mine!” He smiled and his mane shook as he slapped his silk jacquard vest. “I am all the God and all the scripture you will ever need.”

I nodded full agreement. I’d had enough of all four—faith, God, Brigham and scripture. Ada grabbed my skirts and yanked me down as I leapt up to find Jim.

Apostle Snow came to Brigham’s side, face of triumph, face of relief. “A plow and scraper with oxen await the Prophet’s signal to begin. Let us proceed to the site behind us and watch the earth be moved!” Crack of guns, Brigham threw an arm around the Apostle, and he waved the Saints to their feet.

The audience broke in two streams, right and left of the stage. I cut a quick line through the body of the crowd, careful to dodge the picks and shovels, then cut back behind the stage. No sign of Jim, no sign of the men who’d taken him. Just streams of happy, ambling folk.

I shoved a tarp up and called his name.

Ada stopped me, all terse common sense. “Remember? Remember what I told him?”

I could not.

“Meet us at the wagon. Short of death, I’d say Jim’s there.”

We covered the distance in darkness. So many wagons had pulled in, I would have searched all night, but Ada led us right to it, the horses still hobbled and no one about.

Cannon fire launched me against the spokes of the front wheel. Wood tore my hands as the team lurched forward. Then bells filled the air, cow bells and dinner bells, and the school bell, a fractured ringing, far off and wild to mark the first strike of the shovels.

Ada called, “He’s here.”

A body lay in the shadows of the wagon bed. Ada asked could he move into the light. Grunting, Jim obliged. The blood from his mouth trailed down to his belt in a streak as wide as his face. One of his hands lay crooked and his legs seemed dead. He scooted on an elbow like an insect minus limbs. Though the sight of blood had always caved me in, I crawled into the back without a thought and placed my legs under, to support Jim’s head.

Ada wiped his mouth. “Jaw’s broke.” Several teeth were missing wholesale, and his lips had swollen up. “Now Jim, what’s the matter with your legs?”

He answered in Shoshone.

“They kicked you?”

“Ose.”

“Tell it, how?”

He spoke so low, I worried for his life.

Ada said, “Punched him in the face, twisted his wrist in a knot. To finish, they kicked his buttocks till he could not walk nor stand.”

I smoothed the hair from off his cheek.

His eyes turned up to me. “Namitse.”

“Will he live?” I asked, frantic.

“He says, ‘Sister.’ Jim called you sister.”

And I cried because at last it sounded right.

“You stay in back, keep his body from rolling. I’ll drive us home and doctor him what I can.”

Jim coughed. “Niyokottsi.”

Ada bent down over him, her voice flat tired. “I know you was playing. Some folk cannot be played with.”

He spoke again, coughing harder, resting his bent hand on my knee.

“‘They do not laugh, the dead.’ That’s what Jim says. What the Shoshone say.”

“He’s going to die?” I was bawling.

“Jim’ll live. He was talking about the dead who walk and preach.”