Saints (35 page)

Of course it was a joke. Joseph forced himself to laugh. It was a joke and Charlie had brought it off well, with a straight face. But even so, Joseph knew that it wasn’t funny. That part of him that decided what to believe knew that Charlie had told the truth. Charlie’s sister was—dangerous? No, that wasn’t it, the Spirit wasn’t
warning
him. What then? She was important, that’s all. And she was a match for Joseph Smith.

Joseph couldn’t let himself brood about it for long, though. As soon as Charlie Kirkham was gone, Joseph faced Don Carlos and asked, “What was that bullheaded nonsense about what my brothers have to do to get noticed?”

Don Carlos was grinning his I’m-too-sweet-for-you-to-yell-at-me grin. “Just joking.”

“If you were joking then I’ve got a five-day-old fish in my pocket.”

“Mostly joking, anyway.”

“When you learn to keep your mouth shut, Don Carlos, then you’ll get a responsible assignment.”

“You can trust me, Joseph, better than you think.”

“I think I can trust you with my life,” Joseph answered. “It’s whether I can trust you to take care of anything else that I wonder about.”

The door opened and Emma came in. “I thought he was staying to dinner?”

“Who?” Joseph asked.

“Charlie, that English boy.”

“No. He’s coming to the party tonight, instead.”

Emma pursed her lips. “You might have told me in the first place.”

Joseph saw Don Carlos out of the corner of his eye, looking amused. The boy thinks he’s too clever by half. “He’s bringing his sister, too.” As long as Emma’s annoyed, let her have the full dose.

Emma immediately smiled. “Dinah,” she said.

“You know her?”

Emma laughed. “When have I had time to go calling among the new Saints from England? But word passes. I hear she was a tower of strength among the people coming over on the
North America
. I hear she has visions, and the gift of tongues. I haven’t talked to anyone who doesn’t love her.”

“Then I expect,” Joseph said, “that we’ll love her, too.”

“I don’t know,” Emma answered. “You aren’t famous for recognizing the true worth of a woman.”

“I married
you
, didn’t I?”

“There are those who reckon that’s the final proof. I think the way they put it is, ‘Let Brother Joseph buy a bull for you any day, but go yourself if you want to buy a cow.’” Emma laughed as she said it, but it did not amuse her. And when she told it, she glanced at Don Carlos.

Joseph had patience about many things, but not when it came to insults about Emma. “Who says that!”

Behind him, Don Carlos chuckled. “Not many. Usually they tell it with boar and sow.”

Joseph turned on his brother. “I hope that every man who’s said such a thing had his nose broken by any brother of mine who heard it!”

Don Carlos grew solemn immediately. “Just hearsay, that’s all.”

“From now on, you might start concentrating more on the hear, and less on the say.”

“Make sure I meet Dinah Kirkham when she comes,” Emma said. “I mean to make use of her.”

“And I mean to use her brother,” Joseph answered.

Don Carlos spoke so quietly that Joseph reckoned he didn’t mean to be heard. “I only mean to love him.” The words stayed with Joseph for more than a few minutes. Use him; love him; were they such opposites? Joseph tried to think of a way he could truly love someone without working beside him; how he could work well with someone and not love him. Impossible, he decided. There is no difference. Only a child like Don Carlos would think you could love without using, give without taking. Even Jesus, who gave all, thought Joseph, even Jesus demands so much from me.

It was a rare hour when Joseph had nothing to do. In fact he had a dozen things to do even now, but he could not do them. While Emma hurried in the kitchen, cleaning up after dinner and preparing for the party, Joseph stalked through the house, rattling cupboards with every step. He was hunting, but had no notion what he sought. His quarry kept eluding him in the reaches of his mind. He felt the beginning of a struggle; the muscles of his arms needed flexing, needed someone strong to try against. He lacked only a worthy opponent.

Emma stormed out of the kitchen and found him in the parlor. “Go outside,” she said coldly. “The good sisters helping me in the kitchen are convinced that all this pacing around like an angry stallion is because you’re having a revelation of the end of the world.”

As always, Emma’s advice was excellent but unpalatable; Joseph left the house immediately, but feeling more disgruntled than before. The mud made it slippery going. He almost fell getting out of the dooryard. He was ready for a fight.

And a fight was not hard to find. Joseph lived near the shore, and soon enough he spotted a group of river rats. The thieves and pirates of the Mississippi, such men had long used these reaches of the river as a hideout. Now that the Mormon city was here, they were starting to gather. They had a habit of getting baptized Mormons, committing more crimes than ever, and then, when caught, rushing to the Church for protection. Joseph had little concern for their souls—those who defiled the waters of baptism like these unrepentant scoundrels were all the more sure to be damned, and good riddance. What worried Joseph was that half the crimes along the river would get blamed on the Saints if such men continued to find refuge in or near Nauvoo.

“You’re just about the weakest, sickliest looking bunch of hound dogs that a farmer ever forgot to shoot,” Joseph said cheerfully as he approached the men.

The river rats perked up at that. They began eyeing the Prophet carefully, to measure him as a fighter. Joseph knew how deceptive his frock coat and tie could be. It was always hard for men like this to believe what Joseph could do in a match.

“I seen cats died of starvation lookin’ better than you,” one of the men said. But Joseph had spotted the real fighter among them, big as a barn door with eyes like death. He wasn’t saying anything yet. But Joseph’s arms were tingling to get around that man’s body and crush a little wickedness out of him.

Since Joseph still stood some ten yards off, they were talking loudly, and a crowd was forming. The streets could look down right empty, but let a ruckus start and the crowd would be there every time. Mostly Saints, of course. Joseph saw out of the corner of his eye that Port was there, armed to the teeth, and a few other Mormon boys who’d see to it that there wasn’t any thought of five or six men taking on the Prophet at once.

“I’m disappointed,” Joseph said reproachfully. “I called you hound dogs, and all you can call me is a cat?”

Still it wasn’t the big man who answered. “You’re just so slick-lookin’ we couldn’t figure what kind of creature you was.”

“Well, maybe you guessed right after all,” Joseph said. “Maybe I
am
a cat, and maybe I been trained to catch the biggest thieving rats I could find and give ’em a good shake so we didn’t have to look at ’em or smell ’em around anymore.”

Fighting words had been said, and now the fighter pushed his way to the front of his group.

“You said one damn thing too many,” said the man.

“Well, what a surprise. I didn’t think your master ever trained you to talk,” said Joseph.

“There’s a lot of dead men who talked a hell of a lot nicer to me than you. There’s a lot of men walkin’ around today with no noses who said howdy-do a little too insincere. There’s a lot of men walkin’ around with no ears who didn’t hear me quick enough when I said step aside.”

“Well, I can understand that. A man with no nose couldn’t tell you were comin’,” said Joseph.

Suddenly the man began to roar. “I am the meanest son-of-a-jackass ever walked across the Mississippi on the back of a buffalo! I can row the river in seven minutes with a broken paddle! I can throw a yearling bull over a fence, against the wind! If I piss upstream the Mississippi flows backward half a mile! If I piss downstream the tide don’t come in at New Orleans! I can bite the nose off a charging buffalo! I can shoot the balls off a squirrel at twenty yards! There ain’t a man alive can say he ever knocked me down, and there’s two dozen men in graveyards with a stone that says, ‘This damn fool picked a fight with Buck Rigley.’”

“I’m shiverin’ so hard I can barely stand,” said Joseph, smiling. “I’m terrified. But I wonder what you can do without a knife and without a gun, just man to man. I bet you’re down in three minutes. I figure three minutes because I’m a little tired. My horse went lame about a mile from here and I had to carry the poor fellow home.”

“You best take off your pretty coat and give it to some lady to hold,” said Buck Rigley. He was stripping off his own buckskin shirt, and peeling down his dirty underwear. Joseph took off his coat and walked to the edge of the crowd. Instinctively he made for a group of ladies—he had found they took much better care of his coat than any men were likely to.

As he approached, several of the women, laughing, informed him it was their turn to hold his coat. But instead he was drawn to a pretty woman with deep and sober eyes. She was new in Nauvoo—he would have noticed her before this if she had been a Saint for long.

“Beg your pardon, Sister,” Joseph said. “I’d be grateful if you’d hold my coat for me.”

Without a smile, just those deep eyes looking into his face, she nodded. Her expression was almost insolent and her silence felt like an accusation. So you don’t approve of wrestling, is that it, ma’am? Dignity first, is that it? Joseph was in no mood to be conciliatory. Instead, he stripped off his waistcoat and his shirt, too, and laid them both in the woman’s arms. Then, like Rigley, he peeled his underwear down to his waist and stood there bare-chested like a prize fighter. Her expression did not change. She said nothing; nor was she embarrassed, for she frankly looked over his chest and arms as if she were evaluating the merits of a horse. But she was beautiful, and suddenly Joseph was glad to have her see his body, and something inside said, She is yours.

I know something about your future, Joseph said silently to her. You will marry Joseph Smith.

As if his thought showed in his face, her expression hardened. She looked him in the eye challengingly, and he could almost hear her say, I’ll see you in hell first.

He grinned at her and then turned around to face the river rat. Rigley was already hunkered down, ready for the rush, the quick grab, the iron grip. Joseph knew the man would go straight for his eye—he was a gouger, Joseph knew the type. Took all the fun out of wrestling, to know the other man wanted to leave his marks on you.

Joseph tried to look as unready as possible, and Rigley smiled at him. He had lost some teeth, but probably not in a fight, Joseph decided, judging from the condition of the surviving teeth. Wouldn’t be a tragedy if he lost some more. Rigley rushed. Joseph instantly leaned forward, so his feet would be firmly planted, and just as Rigley was about to reach him Joseph lunged forward, low, and grasped the man around the chest, pinning his upper arms against his sides. Just as Joseph had thought—all muscle, and not a bit of skill. Rigley clawed at Joseph’s back, tried to stomp Joseph’s feet, but there was no way he could break Joseph’s grip on him. Joseph squeezed. Rigley tried to writhe his way free. Joseph squeezed harder and heard the man’s breath come out in a rush. The man tried to bite Joseph’s shoulder. Joseph responded, not by shying away, as most men would have done, but by butting him in the ear with his head. Rigley cried out in pain and relaxed momentarily, just long enough for Joseph to shift his grip lower on Rigley’s body, at his waist. Then he picked the man up, kicking and cussing and gasping for breath as Joseph hauled him to a mudhole in the road.

“Which way is the wind blowing!” Joseph shouted.

“Over here,” someone answered. Joseph got on the opposite side of the mudhole from the wind and heaved Rigley in. He made a fine large splash. The crowd roared with laughter.

“That was against the wind, too,” Joseph told him. Then he turned his back and walked away.

“Look out!” someone shouted, but Joseph knew already that Rigley was out of the mudhole and running at him from behind. Again at the last moment Joseph shifted his weight, this time downward, forward, and Rigley’s mud-slick arms and chest slid over Joseph’s back and the man sprawled on the road, a fairly firm place, this time, so that the wind was knocked out of him.

“You have to watch your step in the mud,” Joseph said. “You can take a nasty fall if you aren’t careful.”

Rigley roared and ran to the attack once more. This time Joseph was through toying with him. He avoided Rigley’s head thrust, and gave the man his thigh hard against the belly and chest. While Rigley tried to regain his wind, Joseph again pinned his arms and chest, but this time over the back, so that they were locked in a four-legged arch, with Rigley helpless underneath. Joseph liked to use this against stupid men, because stupid men never figured out that the way to break the hold was just to go limp and stop supporting their own weight—both men would fall to the ground then, and that hold would be impossible. Instead, Rigley kept trying to break free by butting forward, so that he was bearing both his own and Joseph’s weight, and Joseph could use all his strength in squeezing Rigley until he couldn’t breathe at all.

It took only a few minutes until Rigley was gasping in tiny, quick breaths; only a few seconds more, and Rigley’s ribs gave a little. He went limp then, and Joseph let him fall. Then he beckoned to the other river rats, who were looking a little sick. “Your friend pissed upriver once too often,” Joseph said. “I suggest you take him on south. If I hear of any of you north of St. Louis again, I’ll come after you. But next time I won’t be so tired, and next time I won’t be alone. You hear?”

They heard, and bore away their groaning champion.

Joseph’s arms ached from the struggle, and the breeze was cold on his sweaty, mud-coated back. He felt good. The unnameable yearning in him was sated for the moment. He raised his arms above his head and shouted to his people gathered around him, “Don’t you have just about the finest specimen of a Prophet in the whole world?” It was brag, it was a joke, and the people laughed even as they cheered. They knew that Joseph had been at some risk in order to affirm the public order. In Nauvoo, it was Mormons who were the old settlers and expelled unwelcome outsiders. In Nauvoo, it was Mormons who were strong, and the Prophet who had been jailed for six months in Missouri was powerful and free in this place. It was much, much more than a wrestling match, for the onlookers as well as for Joseph himself.