Saints (34 page)

Joseph watched from the window as Don Carlos capered in the store yard, swinging an ax above his head. He charged like a bloodthirsty soldier and savagely embedded the steel head in a thick log, spattering wood chips in all directions. Then Don Carlos turned, pretending to be exhausted. His friend, a young new convert from England, applauded. Suddenly, as if he had heard a noise from the log behind him, Don Carlos whirled and let loose a flurry of chops at the log. At last, satisfied that the thing would pose no further threat, he stood in triumph on the log, whirling the ax over his head, holloing. Through the window Joseph could faintly hear his shout. And he caught himself being jealous.

“What are you watching?” Emma asked.

“Don Carlos.”

“Mm.” Emma came and stood beside him. “If he spent more time selling advertising, maybe the paper would earn his little family a decent living.”

“He’s so young,” Joseph said.

“Don Carlos forgets he has a wife and three daughters. He plays like a boy.” Emma looked at him piercingly. “You love him too much. We should never have named the baby after him. You think they’re both your sons.”

Joseph’s laugh was half a sigh, but he felt neither amused nor sad. He was really a little afraid. Emma read his emotions so easily sometimes—how much, then, did she know about the secrets he kept from her? But mostly he was afraid because he wasn’t as young as Don Carlos anymore.

“You’re only thirty-five yourself,” Emma said. So Emma understood that, too.

“Halfway through my three-score and ten.”

“You’ll live forever.”

“So will everyone.”

She touched the hair that curled a little at the nape of his neck.

“Emma,” he said. “Will anything stand to say that I once lived?”

“You are the greatest man in a thousand years.”

It touched him, and so he teased. “Why only a thousand?”

She did not laugh. She had a disconcerting way of knowing when his jokes were not jokes. “Don’t wish for Don Carlos’s youth and beauty, Joseph. Everyone gives a smile to him—but they’d give their lives for
you
.”

“Sometimes I’d rather have the smiles.”

“Then stay home more with me and the children.” She laughed, but she could not hide from him behind humor, either.

“Abraham’s wife Sarah became a sharp-tongued woman in her loneliness,” Joseph said. “I’m glad that you have not.”

“I was born a sharp-tongued woman,” Emma said.

Well, it was true; Joseph had no argument. “Why else do you think I enlisted your sword on
my
side?”

Outside, Don Carlos had seen Joseph in the window. He waved. Joseph beckoned him inside. Don Carlos glanced at his Englishman, and Joseph beckoned again.

“They’re up to their knees in mud,” Emma observed.

“Tell them to take their boots off.”

“May I tell them to take their pants off, too?”

Joseph laughed. “If you like. But that Englishman looks like he might just think you mean it.”

“I
do
mean it.” And Emma retired to the kitchen to receive their visitors.

Joseph watched the two boys as they came in. Boys, he thought, though at that same age Joseph had fancied himself a man. How did he ever expect anyone to take him seriously at such an age? And yet they
had
taken him seriously. They even let him ruin their lives, some of them. What is it like to be young, without the weight of prophecy on your back? For ten years I’ve dragged a church behind me, like an over-f sledge. Would I have a spring in my step like Don Carlos’s, if I had been free at his age? No. Never like that. For if I hadn’t had responsibility, I would have had the worse burden of not knowing what to do. I was too serious at heart, like that English fellow. Except that I didn’t let it show, the way he does.

Emma really didn’t want them in the kitchen, so Joseph quickly maneuvered them into the drawing room while she prepared the dinner. Don Carlos stood with his backside toward the fire, telling some extravagant story that Joseph knew would end nowhere—Don Carlos always forgot where he was going with a tale. Usually it didn’t matter—Don Carlos loved to hear himself talk, and everyone else loved to hear him, too. But this time Joseph hadn’t the time. “Introduce me to your friend,” Joseph said, interrupting.

“Was I being dull?”

“Dull as a rock in the road. I don’t know how your friends can bear having you around.”

“This is Charlie Kirkham. He’s the worst woodcutter in Nauvoo.”

“I’m pleased to meet you, sir,” Charlie said. He gave a slight bow.

Joseph, by main strength, didn’t laugh. Instead, he bowed back. Why make the lad ashamed of his dignity? And yet Joseph couldn’t stop himself from putting on his best back-country manners in response. “Howdy-do,” he said. “Right proud to have your acquaintance.”

“I’m sorry to be so ill-dressed for a meeting I’ve—hoped for—”

“I’d rather meet a man with mud on his pants than any high-toned hypocrites, I can tell you. The only thing I can see wrong with you is that you have no judgment about the company you keep.”

The Englishman’s eyes went wide, as if he were searching his memory for some unfit acquaintance.

“He meant me,” Don Carlos said. “Charlie can read and write, Joseph.”

“A scholar?”

Charlie demurred. “A bookkeeper.”

“Around here that makes you a mathematician. I should hire you to run my business affairs, maybe.”

Don Carlos whooped. “Change all the minuses to pluses and you’d look right prosperous.”

Annoyed at his brother’s indiscretion about his finances, Joseph turned his back on Don Carlos and excluded him from the conversation. “Brother Charlie, there’s things for a man good with figures to do.” He smiled. “We’re all here to build up the kingdom of God. If God has given you talents, it’s not to keep them to yourself. So don’t be modest, lad. Tell me what you can do when you’re not stunting around with the village idiot.”

“I—I read and write, that’s all. I write a fair hand, and spell rather well.”

“He’s been helping a bit at the paper, in his spare time,” Don Carlos said.

“And no doubt being underpaid for it,” Joseph said. One barb about finances certainly deserved another.

“I enjoy it,” Charlie said.

“What else could you do, if you weren’t doing Don Carlos’s work for him?”

“I can do correspondence. I’m best at financial matters. I can figure in my head faster than—” He paused, aware that he was being immodest.

“Faster than me, no doubt,” Joseph said.

“I meant to say, faster than most bookkeepers can do it on paper. I think it’s my only real gift.”

Joseph looked him in the eye and felt something, some unease. Was it in the boy, or in himself?

Behind him, Don Carlos softly said, “He’s more than he looks.”

Joseph ignored him. “Do I know you, Charlie?”

“I—don’t think so, sir—we’ve never met—I would have remembered.”

“You say ‘figure’ and I say it ‘figger.’ Is yours the right way?”

“I’m English, sir, and you’re—”

“I know what I am.” Joseph watched how the boy struggled to say the right thing, tried not to offend. “You don’t like the sort of work you’re doing for a living, do you?”

“I have no complaint,” Charlie said, glancing at Don Carlos.

So he doesn’t like it, but doesn’t want to say so, Joseph thought. It’s unnatural, how good he is at being careful. And with that Joseph decided to push him, to see when he would forget how much he wanted to be liked and speak his mind. “Come on, now,” Joseph said, letting a taunting tone into his voice. “You’re meant for better things than we have to offer in Nauvoo. How could you possibly like sweaty work when you’re used to working in a nice clean suit?”

“I don’t think it matters much whether I like it, does it?”

To Joseph’s delight, behind his dignity Charlie was getting a little angry. “Not to me, anyway. I have enough to worry about without wondering whether everyone is content with his lot. Do you have any strength in you at all?”

Charlie flushed, then looked desperately at Don Carlos. Joseph did not have to look to know that his brother was wearing a simpleton’s grin. Don Carlos knew from experience what was happening, and knew to keep silence till it was over.

“Come on,” Joseph said. “What kind of man
are
you? I’ll bet I can throw you in three seconds. Can you stand against me?”

Joseph reached for Charlie, to grip his arms. Of course there’d be no honor in wrestling this slightly built young man, but Joseph had long used wrestling as a way of finding what a man was made of. Few men refused him; no man had ever beaten him. Joseph didn’t expect the Englishman to be a challenge; he only hoped for the boy to show his courage.

Charlie did not back away, but he did not make a move to join in a contest, either. “I didn’t come to stand against you, sir. I came to work beside you.”

Don Carlos laughed quietly.

“I’ve heard all kinds of excuses,” Joseph said. “Don’t want to muss the furniture, these are my best clothes, it isn’t seemly, I hurt my wrist yesterday—but you’re the first man I’ve met who out and out admitted he was a coward.”

At last the fire flashed in the boy’s eyes. “Call me what you like, sir, but I think any man looking at your body and comparing it to mine would say it wasn’t a match but a human sacrifice. Still, if you find pleasure in defeating someone who has never wrestled in his life, go ahead and throw me. But when I hit the ground, sir, I won’t be your friend.”

“I told you,” Don Carlos said softly. “He’s more than he looks.”

“I think I have a job for you,” Joseph said.

Charlie still waited for Joseph to wrestle him.

“Put your arms down,” Joseph said. “I have work for you to do. John Bennett is in the state capital at Springfield, trying to get us a city charter that’ll keep us safe from our enemies. His work’s getting ahead of him, he needs help, I want you to go.”

“But I don’t know anything about city charters—”

“I thought you said you came here to stand
with
me.”

“I’ll go, sir.”

“Are you my friend, Charlie?”

“I’d like to be.”

“Then call me Brother Joseph. I’m not so old that I like a young man calling me
sir
. We’re having something of a party here tonight. I think I’d rather have you come to that than stay to supper. There are people I want you to meet. Do you have a wife?”

“I’m eighteen, sir. Brother Jo-Joseph.”

“Then don’t bring her.”

“I have a sister. Older than me, may I bring her?”

“Of course. And tomorrow morning you and a companion come here by seven. I’ll have you take letters to Springfield, as long as you’re going.”

“I don’t have a horse.”

“The Lord will provide. Don Carlos will tell you how the Lord usually does it.”

“When should Don Carlos and I be back?”

Joseph was startled. “Don Carlos? Where is
he
going?”

“I thought—you said he should come with me—”

“To get a horse. You’ll have to find someone else to go with you to Springfield.”

Don Carlos walked to Charlie and put his arm around the Englishman’s shoulders. “You see, Joseph’s brothers have to work twice as hard to get anything interesting to do. He has to avoid charges of favoritism.” Don Carlos looked at Joseph and winked. “There are two ways that one of Joseph’s brothers can get something decent to do. You can either be very, very good—better than anyone else in the Church. That’s what Hyrum’s done. Or you can be very, very troublesome, so that you get a job to keep you busy.”

Charlie chuckled at that. Poor lad, Joseph thought, he doesn’t start laughing until after the jokes are over. “Which one are
you
doing?” Charlie asked.

“I haven’t decided yet,” Don Carlos said. “I keep hoping the Lord will open my brother’s eyes to my obvious talents. Instead, though, Joseph prefers to give the good missions to strangers.”

This had gotten out of hand, Joseph decided; even Charlie could see now that it wasn’t a joke. So Joseph laughed, and said, “Among the Saints we’re no more strangers, Don Carlos. I call those whom God has called.”

“And has God called Charlie Kirkham?”

Such impudence in anyone else would have won him a stern rebuke, but Joseph loved Don Carlos to the point of patience. So instead of retorting, Joseph let himself be stung, and then examined the pain. It was, after all, a good question, one to which Charlie himself had a right to an answer. Was Joseph calling him because he liked the way Charlie answered the challenge to wrestle? Or was it inspiration from the Spirit when Joseph thought of sending him to Springfield? It was so hard to tell the difference; Joseph didn’t bother to try very often anymore. This time, though, he tried. He walked to Charlie, took him by the hands, studied his face.

“Do you love me, Charlie?” he asked.

Charlie started to nod, and then shrugged apologetically. “I don’t know. I—I love the gospel.”

“Then you love me.”

Charlie’s eyes were awash with tears, and Joseph felt an answering heat in his own heart. It was the burning that he had long since learned to believe was the Spirit of God. Always alive as a spark within him till some wind fanned it, and then like a fire it burned him. People told him that at such times his face glowed as if the sun shone through his skin. He didn’t doubt it. Even now he looked at his brother, sure that Don Carlos could see it, too.

He saw. “Like I said. I told you he was something.”

“No, Don Carlos,” Joseph said, his teasing mood on him again. “He’s just another pretty face.” The young Englishman was indeed a beautiful boy. But it was not the beauty of naivete. It was the beauty of someone who had endured the worst thing in the world, and was at peace with the terrors of his own heart. “Is your sister as pretty as you?”

“Much prettier,” Charlie said. “You’d like her.
She
would have wrestled you. She would have won, too.”

Joseph looked at him, appalled. How could a man say such a crude thing about his own sister?

Suddenly Don Carlos burst out laughing. “It’s a joke, Joseph. He’s having you, that’s all.”