Land of the saints, p.2
Land of the Saints, page 2
Before Bridges’ opponent in the gunfight had a chance to realize what was happening Lee Turner went after him as well. Mike Mallon couldn’t decide whether to stand and fight or run for his life. He was caught in the very midst of this indecision when Turner drew his own pistol from the holster at his hip and slammed the two-pound chunk of iron into the side of Mallon’s head. The other man did not fall at once, so Lee Turner repeated the operation twice, bludgeoning Mallon into insensibility. Then he went back to tend to his son.
Strapping up James’s ankle was a painful and distressing business, but Lee Turner knew that it had to be done properly. He gave the boy a piece of rawhide to bite down on, then he set to. If a bone in the leg or ankle sets crookedly, then a man can end up with a limp for the rest of his natural days and Turner wasn’t about to let such a fate befall his only son. He placed two lengths of wood on either side of the shin and bound them as tight as could be.
The real problem came the following day, when the wagons set off soon after sunup. There was no kind of suspension on the carts and the bumping and rattling caused the boy sheer agony. It was plain that if his ankle was to heal up properly, then he would need to spend a couple of weeks laid up, hardly moving at all.
After the day’s travelling, which had left the boy ashen with pain, Turner talked the case over with his wife, out of the hearing of James and Margaret.
‘Here’s how it stands,’ said Turner. ‘That boy needs to lay still for a spell. We’ll be in Fort Hall tomorrow and I think my sister will help. He can stay there for two – maybe three or four weeks.’
‘You think that the rest of the wagon train will delay, just for our son?’ asked his wife.
‘I don’t think it for a moment. We will continue and then James can follow on later to Sacramento.’
‘I don’t like it,’ declared Harriet Turner. ‘I don’t like it one little bit.’
‘Neither do I, but I don’t see that we have another choice.’
Chapter 2
The town of Fort Hall lay a little to the north of the Utah Territory. It was not that large a place and Lee Turner’s sister had moved there when it was still little more than an army post. Martha Craven was delighted to see her brother and his family. At the sight of her nephew’s injured leg, all her maternal instincts were aroused and she promised that she and her husband would take good care of the boy and arrange for him to travel on to California just as soon as he was well enough. She had not herself been blessed with children and so lavished enormous love and attention on any young people with whom she chanced to come into contact.
Once the wagon train reached Fort Hall the majority continued on to Fort Vancouver, while a smaller group headed south-west to California. Two days after they arrived Lee Turner and his wife and daughter set off again in the company of thirty other wagons towards the Utah Territory.
James Turner was feeling pretty sorry for himself, but was bearing up as best he could because he wished to show his father that he could withstand manfully whatever life threw at him. The two scouts, one of whom had shot him – although nobody knew which of them it had been – had done their best to make amends. They had made their peace with Lee Turner, allowing that he had been perfectly justified in striking them. When they were about to leave Fort Hall, Bridges and Mallon, who had by that time made up their differences with each other as well, came to see James and presented him with a gift, as a token of their regret.
Mallon handed the boy a wooden box, saying: ‘Me and Mike is real sorry about your leg. We wouldn’t o’ hurt you for the world.’
When James opened the box he nearly dropped it in amazement. There, nestled within, was a 28-calibre Colt Sidehammer pocket revolver. Mike Mallon came forward and handed James a flask of powder, box of copper percussion caps and a bag of lead balls.
The boy stared with shining eyes at the pistol; in all his born days he had never seen anything quite so exciting. He stammered his thanks and his father, who had been standing near at hand, came forward and shook the two scamps’ hands, thanking them as well.
After Bridges and Mallon had gone, Lee Turner said: ‘That must have set them back a pretty penny.’
‘They shot our son,’ his wife reminded him. ‘They’re lucky they didn’t kill him and end up hanging from a tree.’
‘Still and all,’ said Turner, ‘it was handsome of them.’
As for James, he was examining the revolver closely. Around the cylinder was engraved a scene that depicted a settler and his family fighting off six Indians. The weight of the thing was perfect for a lad of his age; it would fit in his pocket just fine, without any need for a holster.
Aunt Martha had acquired a pair of crutches from somewhere, so James hobbled along to see his family off. His leg was paining him greatly and for all that he regretted being unable to accompany them south, he knew in his heart that he needed to rest and recover for a few weeks until the bone had knitted together properly.
‘You surely are meeting your reverses like a real man,’ said James’s father at their parting. ‘There’s fellows your age would be weeping and carrying on about this little episode, but not you. I tell you straight, I am right proud of you.’ He placed his hand on his son’s shoulder and added: ‘You be sure to mind what your aunt tells you and try not to be a burden to her.’
‘I’ll sure do my best, sir’
‘I know you will, son.’
His mother and sister made more of a fuss about leaving him and both had tears in their eyes, which embarrassed him. His father caught his gaze and then rolled his own eyes upwards, as though in mild exasperation. James felt that his father was signalling to him that he must expect such foolishness from womenfolk and endure it stoically. It was another indication of the new man-to-man relationship that he now shared with his father. It was worth any number of broken legs to feel that he was no longer a little boy but practically a grown man. Perhaps he would, even so, have shown a little more emotion, even shed a tear or two on his own account, had he known that he would never again set eyes upon his mother and father.
It was smooth-travelling to the border between Oregon and Utah; at least, as smooth as a journey can be in a wagon pulled over open country by four oxen. There was no indication of where the border ran between the two territories but, a week after leaving Fort Hall, Turner was sure in his own mind that they must be in Utah. From time to time they saw troops moving back and forth but they did not seem to be in a hurry or fearful of attack. It was, Lee Turner guessed, more a show of force by Washington than any real war. They just wanted to let Brigham Young and his ‘Saints’ know that they were still part of the United States, whatever crazy religion they might be following out here in the wilds.
As they moved further into Utah it became very plain that the migrants were not welcome. At intervals throughout the voyage west the wagon train had stopped near small towns, and in those places the storekeepers and farmers had always been glad of their custom. It was very different here.
Ten days out from Fort Hall they passed by a fair-sized town surrounded by a patchwork quilt of fields and cultivated land. Every so often they would halt and somebody would approach a farmhouse with the intention of buying eggs, milk, bread or anything else that might be offered. They were met by stony hostility. At one farm a man appeared cradling a scattergun in his arms. He warned them to keep moving and gave them to understand that he had no dealings with ‘gentiles’. At another farm two ferocious dogs were loosed against them.
The town itself – they never did learn what it was called – was even less welcoming by far. Two of the scouts rode towards it and were met by a party of armed men, who intimated that they had best turn back the way that they had come and that right sharply. Everywhere there was an air of suspicion and suppressed anger. Whether it was directed against the wagoners personally or was just typical of how these folk lived it was impossible to say.
Six days after leaving the town the wagon train was getting close to the state capital, which was called Salt Lake City. There was no point even going near this, according to the scouts. The citizens of Salt Lake City had no dealings at all with ‘gentiles’, which was what they called those who were not followers of the Mormon religion, and did not want them in or near to their city. They decided to pass to the west.
While the discussions were taking place two riders approached from the south. There was some slight uneasiness, following the encounter with the armed men earlier but, as the men came nearer, it was seen that they were wearing cavalry uniforms. They rode up and greeted the scouts, who were talking over the route with Lee Turner.
‘Who’s in charge of this outfit?’ asked one of the cavalrymen.
‘You might say we’re kind of a democracy,’ said one of the men thus addressed. ‘That is to say, we don’t rightly have anybody in charge.’
He laughed.
‘This is no time for fooling around,’ said the trooper urgently. ‘You need to move right away from this area, soon as you like.’
‘What’s the story?’ asked Turner, curiousy.
‘I can’t tell you the whole of it,’ said the man, ‘except that there is like to be trouble here shortly. We will lead you a ways and set you on the path out of here.’
So it was that the two men from the US Cavalry rode with the scouts and directed them to a route that passed the mountains surrounding Salt Lake City. Turner called one of the soldiers over to ride alongside him.
‘The folk round here do not seem happy,’ he said. ‘They are wary of strangers. Do you know why that should be?’
‘For one thing, they’re afeared of being seen to talk with outsiders, lest they appear to be spies or traitors themselves,’ replied the soldier.
‘How’s that?’ asked Lee Turner. ‘I don’t rightly understand you.’
‘Nigh on all the people round here belong to the Saints. Some are stricter than others, though, and Young, him as they call the prophet, has men who answer to him. Their job is to go out and about, marking who might be disloyal or planning to betray the faith. Men vanish sometimes and they say that his agents have taken them and executed judgment.’
‘They got no sheriffs or marshals hereabouts? No police or courts? Aught of that kind?’
‘They don’t need such,’ the cavalryman replied, looking grim. ‘They have the Danite Band – or the Avenging Angels as some call them.’
‘This all sounds blazing strange,’ remarked Turner. ‘I don’t mind owning that I never heard of such a thing. Are these Avenging Angels like the law? Is it their job to arrest wrongdoers?’
‘To arrest and execute would be closer to the mark. They take off those who are suspected and cut their throats. They ain’t all that much bothered about thieves and other low types though, rather those who might be what you’d call backsliders, drifting away from the true faith.’
‘Seems to me as it’s long past time that such goings-on was stopped.’
‘Yes,’ said the young trooper, ‘and we’re the boys for the job. That’s why they sent us over here, to kind o’ remind Mr Young that he’s still in the same country as the rest of us. It’s not healthy for folk to start ignoring the federal government; leads to all sorts of mischief.’
It was getting dark by the time the wagon train stopped and the troopers announced their intention of spending the night with the travellers and then guiding them on in the morning. Turner sought out the man to whom he had earlier been speaking.
‘What’s this trouble you’ve been hinting of?’ he asked him bluntly. ‘I’ve a wife and daughter to fret about; I might need to make my own plans. Is it Indians? The Mormons?’
‘It is, as you might say, a bit of both,’ replied the cavalryman. ‘Here’s the way of it.’
He paused for moment to marshal his thoughts, but Lee Turner was destined never to learn what those thoughts might have been because, just at that moment, a red splash disfigured the cheek of the man standing in front of him, and a fraction of a second later there came the sound of a distant musket shot. The young soldier fell dead at Turner’s feet.
Without stopping to consider the matter further Turner spun around and sprinted back to the wagon where his wife and fourteen-year-old daughter were waiting.
Back at Fort Hall James Turner was feeling increasingly restless and uneasy. There was nothing he could put his finger on, but as the days passed he grew more and more depressed and anxious. It didn’t help that his aunt insisted that he spend the greater part of his waking hours lying flat on his back, to give his leg a chance to heal. Although the most amiable and good-natured of women, she was utterly ruthless about this. Her brother had impressed upon her most forcefully the likely ill-consequences for the boy’s future health and mobility were he to overtax himself before the bones were knitted together correctly.
‘Ah, come on, Aunt Martha,’ James pleaded, just under a week after his mother, father and sister had left. ‘It’ll do no harm if’n I just spend the afternoon out on my crutches.’
‘Not while I got breath in my body you don’t,’ said his aunt firmly. ‘You want to remain a cripple your whole life long? ’Cause that’s what’ll be the result if you carry on down this road. Just lay yourself on the bed now and I’ll fetch you somewhat to read.’
Truth to tell, James Turner had never been a great one for reading, preferring to spend his time out and about, getting up to all manner of mischief. He could follow the words well enough in a book, as his mother and father had taught him, but couldn’t see much point in the enterprise. Real life was a sight more interesting than staring at a heap of black squiggles sprawling across a sheet of paper.
‘Here you are now,’ said Aunt Martha as she came bustling back into the room, ‘I’ve brought you a book by that Englishman, him they call Charles Dickens. It’s right sad, about a little orphan boy. When first I read it I had tears in my eyes. But it all works out in the end for him, so don’t you get too distressed. It’s called Oliver Twist.’ She handed the volume, a cheap Tauchnitz edition, to the boy, who took it without enthusiasm.
After his aunt had left James set the novel to one side and reached out from under his bed the box containing the revolver that Bridges and Mallon had presented to him. He took the deadly weapon in his hands and examined it closely. It was a finely tooled piece of machinery and the trigger action was as smooth as silk. He hadn’t yet had a chance to fire it, it being plain as a pikestaff, even to a boy of sixteen, that pistol shooting while you are balanced on a pair of crutches is not likely to end well for anybody.
James examined the picture which ran all around the cylinder, marvelling anew at the incredibly fine detail in a scene that covered no more than two or three square inches. He could not have known it, but this engraving was something of a masterpiece, having been undertaken for the Colt company by a man called Ormsby.
Ormsby’s usual work was engraving the designs on banknotes for the US government, so his attention to detail was exquisite. Running all round the cylinder, so that you had to turn it to see the whole scene, was a depiction of a pioneer wielding a pair of revolvers and fighting off six Seminole Indians. Behind the man his wife and daughter were escaping. Peering closely at this thrilling episode, the boy felt a sudden chill of fear: the man looked just exactly like his father. And was it his imagination, or did the woman and girl bear more than a passing resemblance to his mother and his sister Margaret?
The death of the young trooper had been followed by a ragged fusillade of shots from the surrounding hills. The spot where the wagon train had halted for the night was a grassy hollow, ringed by hills behind which were rugged mountains. From all that the wagoners could make out, men hostile to them now occupied positions in the hills and were taking pot shots in their direction.
At that range, well over a mile and a half, there could be little hope of accurate shooting; the death of the man to whom Lee Turner was talking had been the merest chance. It was still an uncomfortable situation, having musket balls flying through their camp like hail, and the men set to work to build a defensive position.
It is not pleasant, manoeuvring wagons about in the dark by brute force while under fire. Nevertheless, that was what needed to be done and the men set to. They arranged the wagons in a circle and then chained the wheels together. Having done this they brought the women and children to the wagons, so that they could shelter within the circle, unseen by those firing from the nearby hills.
When the attackers realized that they had no human targets in range they ceased to fire, being perhaps unwilling to waste powder and shot. It was almost completely dark by now as well. Turner thought that it was time he took a lead, because if their little camp were to be overrun, then his own wife and daughter would be set at hazard. He accordingly spoke to the one remaining cavalryman and between the two of them, with the advice and counsel of one of the scouts, they decided to make provision for sentries and guards. There was a fear that whoever had launched the attack would try to overrun their defences in the darkness.
‘There’s no sleeping in the wagons tonight,’ Turner said to his wife and daughter. ‘They are, as you might say, the first line of defence now. I want more than a sheet of canvas between you and whoever’s out there, meaning us harm.’
‘Who’s shooting at us, Lee?’ asked his wife. ‘Tell me truly now; I needs must know what the game is.’
‘I can’t say. Couple of fellows reckon as they saw Indians, but I can’t take oath myself on that one. If you want my opinion, I think it more like to be some of those surly devils we have passed, meaning the Saints or Mormons.’
‘But Pa,’ said Margaret, ‘why should they want to harm us? We’re only passing through. It ain’t like we been troubling them or damaging their crops or nothing.’
Turner reached out and ruffled his daughter’s hair, the way he did when he was pleased with her.
