The Fugitive Son (21 page)

She fell asleep more peacefully than than she had in quite some time.

September 1857
Mountain Meadows, Utah Territory

A
NDY ARRIVED
at Mountain Meadows just as the sun was rising over the eastern hills. The Fancher Party had evidently come into the meadow in the dark, and the immigrants were too tired to set up a formal camp. From his lookout above the valley, he noted the wagons were parked close to each other, but not in any sort of organized system and certainly not in a defensive position.
They must not be expecting any trouble,
he mused.

Surveying the peaceful scene below, Andy guessed there were between 120 and 140 people camped there. He could hear children already up and playing, mothers preparing breakfast over open campfires, and men taking care of their numerous stock. Looking more closely, he noticed there were a few wagons that hadn’t been in the group previously. Perhaps they were wagons of apostate Mormons trying to escape Deseret or possibly gentiles who wanted out of Utah. There were plenty of both kinds of people in the land of the Saints these days, apparently.

It looked like between 400 and 600 head of cattle were wandering near the camp. Andy figured the rest of the herd was up in the hills. The scene was a bucolic one; cowboys tended the stock, while other workers fed the horses and oxen that had pulled the wagons. Andy decided he might have time to ride down and warn the campers before the Indians or the Mormon Legion showed up to harass them. But just as he spurred his horse into position to rush down the hillside, a shot rang out.

The first shot struck and killed a little boy who had just started to eat breakfast. Another deadly barrage came from a nearby ravine, striking down several more of the party. Guards rushed out of the wagons, carrying the wounded and dead into relative safety. Andy hoped against hope that this initial assault would be the only one. Maybe it was intended to scare the travelers.

He watched helplessly, mesmerized by the awful scene. The hardy immigrants quickly fired back from behind their wagons. As he got a better view, Andy realized the attackers were apparently Paiutes, who were clearly losing the battle. He saw at least one warrior and two chiefs fall, demoralizing the Indians, who quickly fled northwest into the mountains. Either they lacked the manpower or the will to finish the battle. Maybe if the Indians managed to steal a few horses and the cattle that were still up in the hills, they’d give up and leave. Hadn’t Kanosh assured him they didn’t intend to kill anyone? Did the other tribes have the same restrictions?

During the lull in the battle, the surprised immigrants quickly reinforced their position, creating a circular fortification with their wagons and digging a trench for cover. Andy watched as another barrage of bullets came from the rocks at the base of the nearest hills. The attackers continued sniping as the immigrants fired back. But who were the snipers? Andy had watched Kanosh and his braves leave the area. Were the Saints reverting to their old trick of disguising themselves as Indians?

The battle continued sporadically, but neither side was gaining any ground. As the sun rose higher in the sky, the shooting stopped. Inside the camp, adults were busy tending to the wounded and reinforcing their position, but the children were clearly terrified. Fifty or more children ran terrified throughout the camp, some wounded and bleeding. Mothers and fathers screamed at the children to get back inside the wagon fortress. Dead animals littered the meadow surrounding the wagons.

Andy was bewildered. Who was behind this slaughter? And what could he do to stop it? As the day wore on, the initial ambush became a siege, with both sides trading sniper fire all day. Apparently desperate for water, the guards made several attempts to reach the ravine a short distance from the encampment. Each time the men were shot down in cold blood. Finally, the immigrants sent two young girls, dressed in white and carrying a white flag. They, too, were struck down by gunfire, bright red blood staining their little dresses. As night fell, the gunfire stopped and all was quiet.

Never having felt so helpless in his life, Andy prayed and pondered. Was there nothing he could do? If he rode down into the besieged camp, they would instantly recognize him as a Mormon and probably shoot him on sight. Would it do any good to ride into Parowan or Cedar City to get help? Or were all the brethren in on the plot? Some of the Fanchers had been through this way before, so surely they suspected this was not an Indian raid. They would be familiar enough with the Indians in the area to know that, while they were prone to stealing cattle and horses, they were not generally cold-blooded killers, nor would they slaughter cattle just for sport. And the angry mobs that had met them as they passed through town after town, with their threats and refusals to sell them supplies, must have given them some indication that this siege could be Mormon-driven.

Remembering that the prophet had told Pa and him that the Indians had been given to him to use “as the battle axe of the Lord,” Andy feared the worse. Brother Brigham must have entered some kind of agreement with the Indians to attack the train with the cattle as their prize. But did he intend for them to slaughter the party as well? Or had he depended on the southern settlers to do the dirty work? Flashes of their conversation came back to Andy. Hadn’t the prophet said they needed to “use up” this train load of Arkansans? And hadn’t Pa quoted Major John Higbee’s words to the ward in Parowan that all the immigrants must be put out of the way on orders of the prophet?

If Brother Brigham truly had given such terrible orders to the settlers, how could he stop them? No one would listen to a half-baked kid over the orders of the prophet. He remembered trying to calm down some of the settlers just a few days ago. It was a miracle he had managed to escape with his throat intact.

Turning his horse toward Parowan, Andy begged Heavenly Father for wisdom. Riding alone in the moonlight, he felt a deep sense of foreboding. The evil was so pervasive throughout the area, he could almost taste it.

When he arrived at Aunt Hettie’s, he saw that Pa was already there, sleeping soundly in the lean-to. He tried to sneak into bed quietly so as not to awaken Pa, but the elder Rasmussen grunted and rolled over. “Where in tarnation have you been? Should have been in bed hours ago,” he growled.

Andy mumbled something inaudible about “out riding.”

“Don’t you have any sense at all, boy?” Pa scolded. “This is no time to be going out for a joy ride! There’s a lot of mischief afoot tonight, and you’d best not be seen out there.”

Andy wondered if Pa knew about the siege already taking place but decided he’d be better off not to show any knowledge of it. Instead, he asked innocently, “What kind of mischief?”

“Just some of the brethren taking care of some scum,” Pa replied. “Now get some sleep. We’ve got to do our duty tomorrow.”

“Our duty?”

“Don’t you remember anything?” Pa asked angrily. “The prophet assigned us to keep an eye on the immigrant train and to take care of things down here for the church. Said that was the important job he had planned for you.”

Andy climbed into his bed roll of animal skins and simply said, “Goodnight, Pa.”

Early the next morning, Andy and Pa rode to the lookout above the Mountain Meadows encampment. The weary immigrants were again under siege. This time, the attackers seemed more plentiful.

“Who’s doing this, Pa?” Andy dared to ask. “Kanosh and his men left yesterday.”

Pa studied Andy intently, as if to determine how much his son knew about what was happening. “Best not to ask too many questions, son,” he finally replied. “The less you know about this business, the better off you’ll be.”

“But can’t we do something? Those people have nothing to eat or drink…”

“We are doing something,” Pa replied. “We’re watching, and that’s exactly what the prophet instructed us to do.”

“But how can we just sit here and watch people being killed without trying to help them?”

Pa sighed, almost in resignation. “My boy, you have so much to learn about life as a Saint. Our ways are not the ways of others. It’s a hard life to be a Saint of the everlasting kingdom. This has all been set in motion by the Lord’s own prophet, and it’s not ours to question. We do as we’re told. Our blessings come from obedience to the prophet, and while his decisions don’t always match what we think to be right and good, they come from Heavenly Father himself. Always remember, when the leaders speak, the thinking’s already been done.”

Andy pondered Pa’s reply. He wanted desperately to believe Pa, to exercise the faith to believe that Brother Brigham really did know best, that his decisions came directly from God. The faith of his childhood had been so easy, so comforting. But this? Ambushing and killing innocent travelers? Shooting little children as they ate their breakfast? Heavenly Father might somehow allow those things, but he certainly wouldn’t instigate them or tell his prophet to set them in motion, would he?

As they watched the tragedy taking place below, Pa began telling Andy about the meetings he had attended the previous week, priesthood meetings in Cedar City and Parowan. Andy relished the rare moment spent with his father actually speaking to him father to son, sharing confidences. He could almost feel the closeness he had enjoyed as a boy, looking to Pa with adulation and trust. It seemed Pa was trying extra hard to help him understand, so he listened with his whole heart.

“I think the original intent was for the Indians to steal some of the cattle as a warning that we didn’t want foreigners coming into Deseret,” Pa was saying. “But when the gentiles started threatening war on us, and Buchanan decided to replace Brother Brigham with his own governor, it turned into much more than that. The prophet himself wrote to Buchanan and said we’d turn the Indians loose on any immigrants who tried to pass through here.”

“We used to treat strangers with such great hospitality and kindness,” Andy said. “Whatever happened to cause such a terrible change in our attitudes toward outsiders?”

“Buchanan is what happened!” Pa thundered. “All the talk of secession back East has caused him no end of trouble, so he turned on us Mormons as a likely scapegoat. Nobody likes us anyway, so if he can get all the newspapers stirring up people against us, they’ll likely forget that he can’t handle the slavery problem.”

“So the Saints are going to be the sacrificial animals again?” Andy asked, half jokingly.

“You could say that. We’ve been persecuted and run out of so many places. Buchanan’s got the country all agreeing with him that we’re a bad lot. Brother John Hawley came down from Salt Lake for the priesthood meetings last week and tried to tone things down a bit, but the local fellows have heard so much about the war, they’re raving mad and wanting to spill some blood.

“Brother Harrison Pearce was there, too. Did you ever meet him? He’s the captain of the local Nauvoo Legion. Now there’s a fiery orator!” Pa said. “As the biggest military authority at the meetings, Pearce’s talk set fire to the flame. He said he’d like to see all the gentiles stripped naked and lashed on their backs and have the sun scorch them to death by inches!

“Not everybody was totally enthusiastic – some men of conscience, myself included, resisted any orders to assault civilian Americans. Hawley argued against killing immigrants, saying he would have to be convinced his own life was in danger before he would take another’s life.” Pa shook his head as he watched the ongoing battle below.

“That’s when all hell broke loose at the meeting,” Pa continued. “Some of them accused the Fanchers of murdering Joseph Smith, and others yelled they were guilty of killing Apostle Pratt.” Pa lifted up his hat and brushed the sweat off his forehead. “And that’s when most agreed that the oath of vengeance we all swear in the temple demands that we slay those who persecuted us.

“But Hawley charged that none of us had any proof or assurance that anybody in the Fancher Party had participated in the murder of either Smith or Pratt. ‘You only have rumors,’ Hawley insisted. ‘And that will not do for me.’”