LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

Clair, how I came to take up distilling? The tithing office in Saint George. They took in hundreds of barrels of grapes in tithing each year, and what was they to do with them? Let ’em rot in the heat? No, the Brethren made the best of what God gave them. They stomped those grapes into wine, and used it for feasts and occasions when the Prophet came. Brigham loves a good party. Then they sold all the surplus to the Gentiles passing through.”

      This was my first lesson in Mormon history, my introduction to the larger scheme. Ada Nuttall held the jaws of the Church open for me to see, the powerful thing I had grown up with, ward of its care, telling myself that feeds on dew and pollen, that feeds on air. Well, once I’d seen the indent of its teeth, she made me stop to reconsider its maw.

      I asked her where her husband was.

      “I lost him to plurality.”

      “He was Brigham City’s first Bishop?”

      “Willie? Yes, he was, indeed. For two years. I threw him out in ’fifty-four.”

      “But weren’t you sealed for time and eternity?”

      “Oh, we’re still married, honey dear. It’s just that William lives in Ogden, thirty miles south, with his mild-tempered, moon-faced, second-choice wife.” Ada stopped to scrape the dough from her little finger onto her front teeth. “I threatened to wring the neck of any child born to him outside my womb. So he set up house with the Forsgren girl in Ogden and crept home, weekends, to help raise our son Stephen. Willie slept out in the tool shed. A patriarch of shovels!” Ada grinned. “Sheepish toward me, but that was how we’d sliced the pie.”

      “So he became Bishop in Ogden?”

      “No. Seems Willie had not shown the proper zeal for the new Principle of Plurality. The Brethren said he’d been overled by a headstrong wife. No, they voted against disfellowship, but they took away my husband’s calling. And Erastus Pratt, willing servant of the Lord—who by then had bedded himself three wives—well, Pratt became Brigham City’s second Bishop.”

      “Couldn’t your William have said no? Some Brethren don’t choose polygamy, Ada. Florrie Gradon’s father hasn’t.”

      Ada cinched her apron and looked right at me. “Brother Gradon is the Stake choirmaster. And that’s all he’ll ever be. Polygamy ain’t demanded of every man, honey. Only those who hope to rise and rule. Willie always was a ruler.”

      “And what happened to your son?”

      “Stephen?” She flushed with pleasure. “He rides herd north and east of here, but the boy ain’t ever too busy not to visit his mother at Christmastime.”

      “He’s your only?”

      “He’s all a mother could want.”

      I walked home dazed, vibrating in my boots with Ada’s version of Celestial Marriage. A patriarch of shovels! Like most of her translations of the gospel, it struck me as just right. I had no idea where Ada’s view of history would take me, but it felt like a creek of promise, like the tumbling Box Elder that banks at Reeder’s Grove. I confess it, I thrilled at the going.

      CHAPTER 4

      I bellowed out hymns, ironing my way through my laundry. I had taken to ironing all my clothes—the smell of sizzling cotton pacified me. At each light tug, the folds of my underwear lay open, stiffening at the touch of the iron. Four pair. I searched my bucket for the fifth. I scanned the floor and around the room, and stepped out back to the clothesline I had strung from the eaves to a stake in the ground. Gray snow ringed the sagebrush. Nothing white on the line or in the scrub.

      I looked up at a sky so piercing blue it made me wince. Then it rushed in on me: someone has gleaned a token of me. Lord bless it and vinegar pies. The Bannock had returned.

      That Sunday after Sacrament Meeting, Bishop Dees asked to speak with me in private. His were the eyes of a well-fed creature, open wide to things. Green flecked with gold. I kept my gaze below them. The points of his moustache moved like spears when he spoke. “Sister Martin, word of your industry has preceded you here. Brother Gradon tells me he has trained you personally at the keyboard. I am calling you to be Ward organist while Sister Burt is in her confinement.”

      A guttering snort hit the back of my throat. I had played the organ in Florrie’s front room half a dozen times. “But Bishop—” Deep humiliation would carve its way into this call. My stain would fascinate and repulse the congregation. The boys would howl at me up on the stand.

      Bishop Dees employed no force, used no persuasive words. He only smiled. His smile did battle with my fear. I wanted to be left to myself. I also wanted to be good. I said, “But Bishop, must I sit on the stand all during service?”

      “Well, yes. Staying awake, that is the greater challenge, Sister. But you’ll sit at the organ, so you’ve only to keep the one eye open.”

      I looked up at the stand. I would sit right side to the congregation. Only the right side of my face would show. Gratitude flooded in. I must have smiled, and that smile been taken as a yes, because Bishop Dees bowed and then I curtsied—curtsied!—and he took his leave.

      The organ is not a celestial instrument. Not in my hands. Not with my feet. I played it, poundingly, to march thoughts heavenward:

      Oh ye mountains high, where the clear blue sky

      Arches over the vales of the free,

      Where the pure breezes blow and the clear streamlets flow . . .

      I hadn’t realized how poundingly until, at hymn’s end, the chorister grabbed the handrail, composed his face, and turned to me. “Sister Martin, you’re sure to help the musically infirm to keep the beat.”

      And then, an odd sensation. The congregation laughed, lovingly, as if I were one of them. As if we all were worthy of God’s grace. It softened me greatly for the blow that followed. In the opening announcements, Bishop Dees said that three Bannocks had been killed in a herder’s camp near Malad. No lives or cattle lost, as the Brethren were armed and ready. “But the lesson is a grave one. Stand ready. Vengeance raids are likely. Our prayers go out to the people of Malad.”

      A piteous wheeze rose from my throat. Bannocks? I covered my mouth, but the keening rose in pitch and force. My body shook. Hot tears ran down my hands as a memory emerged, one I had lost for years, of the raid I’d heard of near Bear Lake: a Bannock raid that left a five-year-old girl with her eyes gouged out, scalp taken, and ears and legs cut off. The pieces of the child’s body had been scattered among the bodies of the other Saints.

      Bishop Dees placed his hand on my shoulder. The crying slowed. My throat relaxed, just enough for my breathing to settle.

      “We should all of us feel as deeply for the welfare of our Brothers and Sisters up north as Sister Martin does. Let your concern make you ready.

      “Now, the second announcement seems to have taken care of itself. Two sheepherders up to Mantua have a dog can’t herd anymore, lost the sight in one eye and too old to run the edges. They asked if any of our members needed protecting. Seems to me Sister Martin could use shoring up in her sense of safety there on the Bench, so if none of you Elders sustains any objection, I’d like to give that dog to Sister Martin, a ‘thank you’ for the weeks she’ll be Ward organist here.”

      The Bishop gazed out over the congregation and turned to his Counselors on the stand. No objection came. “Well, then. I hereby set apart Cotton Thomas’ dog as guardian for Sister Martin. The Brothers will bring him to town soon. May our Heavenly Father further and bless him in his calling.”

      I awoke that evening to the crackle of fire outside my cabin. I threw a quilt around my shoulders and found a broom to swat the flames. In the doorway, I paused to watch the grass and sage send ash spiraling off into the darkness. Then I ran outside, barefoot. Hands caught my breasts. They wrenched me back. Snow blurred with flame as fingers raked my nipples.

      I swung hard, hit bone.

      “Sow!” He tore the broom away.

Скачать книгу