The Rock Child (8 page)

So she began to play with her idea.
Maybe, maybe
…

She watched him without knowing what she was watching for. Why didn’t he break the silence nervously? Most people would. What a curious man.

Her thought was becoming a plan.
My skin is nearly the same color as his. Our hair is the same black
. She turned the idea round and round. She looked at it with her mind and felt of it with fingers and heart, like feeling the 108 beads of her rosary.

He was waiting. He had inner stillness. Maybe he was worth the risk.

“I no know whether you want help me. I not of your family, or even of your race. You take a risk. I offer you in return nothing.”

He nodded. She felt a pang of alarm, because she felt her warning might only be a temptation.
I must ask him and get his free consent, truly free. Otherwise, all will come to grief
.

“If I be caught, I probably am return to Hard Rock City as thief. Then Tarim me bail out jail, take home, drop charges, and make me his whore. For rest of my life. Contract say if try escape, serve rest of life.”

She looked into his eyes, trying to see. Her scar hurt sharply. She touched it and got a sense of augury.
Danger? Or opportunity?

“Big fear not be caught. Tarim maybe so angry tell them OK kill me. I think I have no chance with Tarim now.”

Asie nodded.

“Maybe kill you, too.”

She took her heart in her hands and dived into the sky of hope. “We look Indian, you and me? Man-woman. Maybe you walk with me few days? Man-woman, no suspect. Walk to Salt Lake?”
And protect me from Porter Rockwell
.

Just what you expect on any business day.

I woke up this dawn as an employee at Boss John’s mercantile, room, board, and fifty cents a day, a life to the lullaby of boredom. In every direction, to every horizon, stretched deserts of the ordinary.

By noon, if that’s the time, a few things have come up. I’ve heard a concert from the river and the birds, and no everyday birds. A woman from the other side of the world has waltzed into my life, and she’s asked me to go traveling with her. She says to Salt Lake. She means San Francisco. And why the hell not to Tibet?

My funny bone was tickled now, seriously tickled.

I studied Sun Moon. No damn idea. She didn’t have any idea. So I took consultation with myself.

Sweet gizzards, I couldn’t go back to my old life—I lost the whole wagon, all the supplies, and the mare. Now I
had
to go on the lam from Boss John.

Another thing, bigger. Why would I want to go back, now that I heard real music? Nothing wrong with the folks in Brigham City especially. But I felt as much like going to see Seward’s Folly and traffic with the Eskimos as go back to life among the Saints.

Talking to myself like that, I sat there. I meant to consult with myself like a reasonable fellow. But a notion came into my head. I thought of the call of the fish hawk, my bird friend. Fish hawks were here this time of year, but gone in the winter. I could make the fish-hawk call. It was a dot-dash kind of call. Starting slow and flat, it built, rising in pitch and in loudness and feverishness, and then it trailed off. I’d gotten fish hawks to answer my call. I’ve wondered what I was saying in their language. I took thought. Maybe I oughta try to find out. Maybe I should go
wherever the fish hawks go in the winter. Wherever that was. West, the bird scientists said.

Or maybe I was just loony. I’d danced a twirl with death, and now everything seemed different. Couldn’t say different
how
. But helping a person from the far side of the world seemed as sensible as anything else. Or going to the far side of the world. Way more fun to be free-lost than go back to my old life.

I realized I was looking at Sun Moon blankly.

“We can travel as sister and brother,” she added. I wondered how old she was. Her eyes had seen a world of trouble, and showed it. Still, her face … I judged her to be similar to me, though I didn’t know for sure how old I was. “They look for a Chinese woman alone, not two Indians.”

I love you
. It felt good, the loving. I still wasn’t sure what kind of love it was, but I thought maybe it included more than she’d want. And me, twenty-something and never touched a woman. In Deseret womanhood seemed untouchable unless you were a Saint, and white and delightsome. I looked Sun Moon up and down.

Then I put that thought away.
Yes, we’ll go together. Go to Tibet if need be
.

“We must buy right clothes,” she went on. “We must look right.”

“OK,” I said. “Yes.” I nodded, kind of to myself. “Heckahoy, yes.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

In that same summer, 1862, Captain Richard Burton of the British Army, not yet Sir Richard by a quarter century, came to Salt Lake City for the second time. His first journey, in 1860, was for the purpose of seeing one of the four holy cities of the world, which in Sir Richard’s view were Mecca and Medina in Arabia (sanctified Moslem places), Lhasa (the holy city of Tibet), and Salt Lake City, the mecca of the Mormons. He told about this journey in his book
City of the Saints
.

The second journey has been a secret from the world, which thought he was in Fernando Po as consul at the time. In fact he was on one of his cloak-and-dagger missions. Of all his roles, soldier, scholar, author, explorer, the one that made him happiest was secret agent.

Here’s the way he explained the whole thing to me and Sun Moon.

The British government wished to present a certain matter to Brigham Young for the Prophet’s consideration.

Among Her Majesty’s countless minions, only one was on terms of credit with the Prophet Brigham Young, none other than Captain Burton. Who, as chance would have it, was bored with his diplomatic work in Fernando Po.

How could he not have been bored? Captain Burton was by profession a soldier, by temperament a spy. He was the master of many guises.
Disguised as an Arab, at the risk of his head, he made the pilgrimage to Mecca, traveling among Arabs. At various times he had passed himself off as a Persian, a Tibetan, an Egyptian, a Hindu, and a Sufi, speaking all these tongues like a native, and master of every custom and nuance. Expert in all matters about India, Persia, Arabia, the Hind, and East Africa, he spoke twenty-nine languages. (When Sir Richard translated the
Kama Sutra
into English, one of his enemies quipped wickedly, twenty-nine languages including pornography.) Most recently, he was an explorer, the discoverer of the source of the Nile. How long could such a man remain in his study writing books? How long spend his evenings making polite conversation with local potentates? How long do without his wife, for Fernando Po was so primitive white women couldn’t live there. It was a fever-hole island off the coast of West Africa so uncivilized I haven’t found it on a map yet.

So he was dispatched in the spring of 1862 to Salt Lake. The journey was to be secret, he was cautioned. That was the part Sir Richard liked.

This is how Sir Richard told it to us, and the way he wrote it down. When he knew that his mission would never be revealed publicly, he kindly had his journals of the journey copied out for me.

These journals revealed what he didn’t tell us at the time. Captain Burton was indeed the finest Orientalist and linguist of his time, and among the finest explorers. But in the army and Her Majesty’s government generally, instead of being praised, he’d been belittled. So at forty he was a bitter man, feeding miserably on the fruits of scorn.

Captain Burton noticed that his host got down from the carriage awkwardly, like a man with chronic back pain. It amused him that the Lion of the Lord had the same frailties as other men.

The two of them walked to the top of the knoll, where they could see the entire city laid out to the south. Burton turned to the west. The sun glinted harshly off the Great Salt Lake. He expanded his chest to let the desert air in. His skin welcomed the desert sun. “Very impressive indeed,” he said. “Great strides in only two years.”

Brigham Young nodded, immune to flattery. Burton decided to leave the man his silence, whether it was rooted in circumspection, superiority, or an aching back. President Young stood facing Temple Square. Here the man had erected the visible form of his hopes for himself, his vast family, and his people, the faithful of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. As an indefatigable reader and researcher, Burton
well knew what these hopes were, to strive toward perfection, to have themselves sealed to their spouses for time and all eternity, to have their children and progeny sealed to them, creating an eternal family. He was no victim of the biases and foolishness of their enemies, who would say nearly anything to slander the Saints. No, Burton truly knew, from the testimony of the Saints themselves. He had journeyed across a great ocean and crossed a vast continent, twice, to visit Great Salt Lake City.

Burton appraised the man before him. He had appraised many powerful men in his time, men of many cultures and countries, making reports on their strengths and weaknesses to the Honourable East India Company or to his government. Some of them had been madmen, and the world judged Brigham Young a madman. As it judged Richard Burton a madman.

The world was wrong, certainly about the Lion of the Lord. Burton knew President Young’s history. The man had taken over from the dead Prophet, Joseph Smith (now
madman
might apply there), in the Saints’ hour of darkness beyond darkness. He had mustered in that moment the vision, the courage, and the requisite ability to inspire. He had led the Saints across the state of Iowa and the frozen Mississippi River, then across the Great Plains, and the Rocky Mountains, not knowing where they were headed. He had designated this valley the place of salvation, and somehow had inspired his people to heroic energies. Few of the world’s enterprises in creating utopias were so successful as Salt Lake City.

Burton knew the audacity that required, the foresight, the steadiness, the intelligence, most of all the courage.

Brigham Young knew himself and his people, understood his strengths and weaknesses, knew what he wanted, and was implacable in his determination. Burton would have liked to flatter the man, cajole him, even deceive him, but he knew none of those would work. He was going to be reduced to telling the simple truth.

He felt naked.

“What have you come here for, Captain Burton?”

It was said softly, but Burton was not deceived. The Lion of the Lord had just set aside politeness. The man pivoted and fixed him with a gimlet eye. Burton knew better than to take the fragility of the pivot for weakness.

He also knew intuitively how tough the Lion could be. Burton felt a spasm of cold. He was in a country ruled for five hundred miles around by this man. An astute leader, very much so. A man of indomitable will.
A man of huge responsibilities, and determination to meet them by any means necessary. A man followed by thousands of unquestioning adherents. To make an enemy of Brigham Young in Deseret would be dangerous.

Burton took a deep breath.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained,
he told himself.
A man who sticks his neck out before a potentate may get his head cut off,
he also told himself. “Mr. President,” he said, “one art I learned in India is
maalis,
the skill of massage for aching muscles.” He did not add that his teacher was a courtesan. “I became an adept. Would you let me try?”

Burton got the pleasure of seeing he had truly surprised Brigham Young. The Lion of the Lord regarded him doubtfully. “Saints do not attend doctors. We trust to the healing hands of the anointed.”

“I am no physician,” answered Burton. He held up his big hands and flexed the fingers. “My gift resides in my hands alone.”
He’s hurting severely, or he’d have said no instantly.
“I seem to have a particular gift for backs.”

Young looked around apprehensively.

Good luck we came without a driver,
thought Burton.

Young removed his broadcloth coat. His motions wanted to be decisive, yet were made tentative by pain. “I will not go further,” said Young. He turned his back to the gentile, sat on a boulder, and put his hands on his knees.

For some minutes Burton worked in silence. His fingers found the muscles in spasm easily, and gently stretched them out. At last he said, “That’s all I can do in one session.”

Young arced his back this way and that. He put his coat back on. Burton could see that he was moving more comfortably. Now when the Lion looked at Burton, his eye might have been softer. For the first time in half an hour the hairs on the back of Burton’s neck lay down.

Young repeated, “What have you come here for, Captain Burton?”

“My government is concerned with the disturbances caused by the War Between the States,” Burton began.

President Young fish-eyed him.

Burton felt himself want to be garrulous, a sign of danger. Nevertheless, he proceeded. “The fighting augurs to go on endlessly, neither party able to gain decisive advantage. That hurts everyone. It disrupts the economies of both countries. It destroys fortunes. It makes the poor into beggars.”

“It also hurts the English mill owners, I believe,” said President Young. “Disrupts the supply of cotton.”

So the Prophet was not going to permit pussyfooting.

“Yes. The war is painful for our country. Should the North win, and in the process destroy the cotton economy of the South, it would be very painful.”

President Young looked vaguely amused. Burton understood. A great issue was being decided, the ethical and legal status of slavery. Burton himself despised slavery. And with all hanging in the balance, his government was most concerned about the profit-and-loss ledger. Ah, well, he was a soldier, not a politician.

“It is no secret,” put in the Prophet, “that your government is discreetly helping the South.”

Burton made a face. He was unaccustomed to such directness in a political matter, or to being pushed toward his own point.

“We wonder whether the Church should not take a position in this matter.”

“You may be too late,” said Young.

Earlier in the year, the Confederacy had advanced from Texas northward, taking the capital of New Mexico, Santa Fe, and presumably headed for Colorado. But the Union had turned them back.

“We think not,” Burton went on. “That was merely the first skirmish. Southern New Mexico, southern Arizona, southern California—all favor the South. And the mines of Colorado are important. If Mr. Lincoln will finance his war with the gold of California, Mr. Davis will have the gold of Colorado.”

Young merely regarded Burton in silence.
A good tactic
.

“We believe you might well act.”

“Why would we?” asked the Prophet.

“The Saints can have no love for the people of the North, or their government. Not after Jackson County and Nauvoo, not to mention the Utah War.” The Mormons had been hounded out of Missouri and Illinois, with the complicity of the state governments. And the United States had sent a punitive military expedition to Utah in 1857.

“A divided country to the east is no disadvantage to us. Why would we not let the two sides weaken each other?”

Now Burton played his second highest card. “Because the South will prove sympathetic to plural marriage.” Polygamy was often thought a brother institution to slavery—Brigham Young himself was reported to
have called it so. And Burton suspected that in his heart of hearts, Brigham Young was determined most of all to create a safe place for his Saints to live exactly as they wanted, including their marital practices. He would have bet on it. He had advised his government to bet on it.

Now the Prophet turned away, looked over the city, and seemed to ponder. Finally he said, “What aid could we expect from your government?”

Burton smiled to himself and gave the authorized message. “Immediately, we will provide whatever arms the Nauvoo Legion requires. Additionally, if the Legion coordinates an advance on Colorado with forces from Texas, we will assure that it is well supplied.” Burton paused to lend his words effect, then laid down his highest card. “Ultimately, I think what is at stake is more important. Her Majesty’s government is willing to consider the idea of diplomatic recognition of a new alignment on this continent, including an independent Confederacy and an independent Deseret. Each would govern itself according to the dictates of its own conscience.”

Burton held his breath. All hung in the balance now. How much did President Young resent his removal as governor of Utah Territory? How much did he dream of true independence from the United States?

The Prophet turned his fierce gaze on the captain, and Burton wondered whether the President thought him a hypocrite. He had published his abhorrence of slavery widely. On the other hand, he had written rather favorably of polygamy as he had witnessed it in Asia, and approved of it privately. He felt confident Young knew his position.

At last the Lion of the Lord led the way to the carriage, mounted easily, and took the reins. Burton climbed up beside him. “Captain Burton,” said Young, “I cannot answer you today about this matter. I must consult with the First Presidency.”

Burton doubted that Brigham Young took much advice from anyone.

“Perhaps you would come to me in the morning day after tomorrow.”

So you have already made up your mind
. Burton thirsted to know the answer, and feared the worst.

“In the meantime I am indebted to you. Perhaps you would like a tour, to see how we have built up our industries, and the Nauvoo Legion. I will arrange a guide.”

Young’s eyes glinted, and Burton couldn’t help smiling. The President
had as much as said, “Since you want to spy on our army and fortifications, permit me to show you around.”

“Yes, thank you,” said Burton.

“Wednesday morning, then? Come prepared. I have a good man to guide you.”

A factotum led Burton to the President’s office, and Young wasted no time on preliminaries. “Captain Burton,” he began, “I must tell you that the First Presidency has decided that the interest of the Latter-Day Saints would not be served by our participating in the war on either side.”

Burton nodded.
Ah, well
. He had never had confidence in this mission anyway. “I understand. I will so inform my government.” That would be easy, thanks to the new telegraph lines that stretched from Atlantic to Pacific.

“I must ask you to excuse me now. Your arrangements have been made. My man will show you around. He’s instructed to let you see whatever you like.”

The factotum escorted him out. Burton could not get accustomed to the coarse phrases Americans of the frontier used, like
show you around.
“He’s waiting for you,” the factotum said. “Odd, you two look alike.”