Ollie's Cloud (45 page)

“If you are an imposter,” Oliver says in a low whisper. “I can save your life. If you are truly a Prophet, however, there is nothing I can do for you that I have not already done. Which are you, then? A Prophet or an imposter?”

Joseph points the pistol at Ollie. “Rather than answer your question, maybe I should shoot you.”

“That would answer my question,” Ollie says softly. “But the truth is, I am already dead. And there is only one bullet in that gun. I suggest you use it wisely.”

Joseph puts the pistol into his pocket and turns his back on Oliver. “You’ve come to torment me.”

“I’ve come to look into the eyes of a Prophet.”

Joseph wheels and stares into Ollie’s eyes. “Then
behold!
” he says.

“I am not disappointed, then.”

Ollie turns to leave, taking a few steps toward the staircase. As his left foot stretches out for the first step, Joseph stops him from descending with these words: “Would no imposter ever play out his role to the final curtain?” Joseph is toying with his visitor, refusing to let him reap the reward of certitude.

Ollie retracts his foot and studies the prisoner one last time. He dislikes this man, has made up his mind about him. “I am disappointed after all,” he says. “Goodbye, Mr. Smith.”

And then he is gone.

At four o’clock that afternoon, Oliver is seated on the porch of Will’s Smithy, about a hundred paces from the Carthage jail. He has been listening for a single gunshot from the pistol he gave Joseph—but
nothing!
The blank he had placed in the chamber of the pistol would have left a mark and a ringing in Joseph’s ears, but would have revealed volumes—more volumes than the famous golden plates that Joseph claimed he found after an angel’s tip.

Expressionless, Oliver watches a mob of a hundred men appear down the road. They are marching toward the jail. Thirty or so have blackened their faces grotesquely, but Oliver knows who some of these men are: Jacob Davis, Levi Williams, and Mark Aldrich. The Carthage Greys have been stationed conveniently a half-mile from town by General Minor Deming, too far away to interfere meaningfully. And in any event, they are certain to take no serious action against their relatives and friends.

The mob approaches the Carthage jail. Oliver watches Thomas emerge from a saloon across from the jail, ever the observer. The mob is now fifty feet from the front door of the jail. Five of the guards flush from the building, pointing their rifles at the mob.

A voice shouts, “Turn around. Go home.”

Another voice calls out, “There’ll be no lynching here today, boys.”

But the mob presses closer, now twenty feet from the guards, who point their rifles just over the heads of the insurgents and fire. Even from this distance, Ollie can see that some of the guards are smiling as they shoot.

The mob forces its way past the guards, wrenching away their rifles, throwing them to the ground with great showmanship.

After several seconds there are more shots fired, and Oliver knows what has happened. In his mind he can see Levi Williams leading a group of men up the stairs, and then firing into Hyrum’s cell. Where will the Prophet’s brother have been struck first? The chest? The face?

More shots are fired, and Ollie watches the stout form of Joseph Smith suddenly perched on the second-floor window sill. He fires his gun at the mob below but is caught in a cross-fire. Two bullets strike him in the back, one in the collar bone and a fourth in the breast. He teeters for a moment, one leg and arm outside the window, and then plunges to the ground, landing on his left side.

A voice shouts, “Dead!” Another voice inside the jail yells, “Dead here, too.”

At last the Carthage Greys appear. The mob disperses quickly but no one is chased by the militia.

Thomas Sharp writes furiously in his notebook. The plan has worked. Joseph Smith is dead and Thomas Sharp surely will find just the right words to describe what happened at the Carthage jail.

Chapter 46

Oliver Chadwick feels no joy, no exhilaration, no pleasure in the death of Joseph Smith. In fact, he feels devoid of emotion. The rhythmic rocking of the train reduces time to a thin rail, and he is transported backwards to London, to a time when Mum had wrapped her protection around him and avenged those who meant him harm.
What do you think of me now, Mum?
His grandmother had shown him unyielding strength and an uncompromising sense of justice. She had exquisitely calculated her punishments and administered them without mercy, for she knew that no mercy was deserved.
I wish you were here, Mum; I miss you so much.
She always acted for Ollie’s advantage; she was the only dependable person in his life. His rock.
Give me some of your confidence, Mum, some of the conviction you had in your own decisions.
He is afraid that he is not strong like Mum. Otherwise why would doubts bedevil him?

He feels no remorse for his role in the killing of the Prophet, but questions its strategic merit. If Smith becomes a martyr, than perhaps he will have inspired the hated Mormons to heroic deeds. Rather than stunting their growth, he may have removed an obstacle to growth.

Still—charlatan or Prophet, Joseph Smith deserved his punishment. The rest is knowable only when looking backwards, and Oliver knows that the punishment meted out to that fat old Anglican priest, Reginald Pennick, had produced positive results. Free of the need to avenge the prurient sins of the priest, Oliver had focused on his education and career. His life had been salvaged. For just a moment, Oliver thinks about the other boys corrupted by Pennick and their likely fates.

Mum, give me strength.

After arriving back in Washington, a carriage takes Oliver from the train station to the Ellsworth house. He is exhausted but anxious to see his son. A servant opens the door and greets Oliver warmly, inviting him into the sitting room. He sits there quietly for a moment, rubbing his eyes. He hears footsteps on the creaky floor and looks up, surprised to see Phebe standing in front of him. She looks much older.

“I’m so glad to see you, Oliver,” she says, taking his hands in hers.

“Phebe—I didn’t expect you to be here.”

“Well, fate intervened, it seems. The Reverend died last week. Heart just gave out.
Broke
, if you ask me. I sent a letter, and it was forwarded here to Isaac. The Ellsworths invited me to be with Isaac in their wonderful home for a few days. No time to be alone, they said, and I agreed. With Alice and Theodore dead, and you and Isaac and Jonathon back east, there’s just no reason for me to stay in Rochester.”

Annie Ellsworth and Isaac suddenly burst into the room.

“Father!” Isaac shouts, running to Oliver and throwing his arms around him. “I’m so glad you’re home. You heard about Grandpa?”

Oliver nods.

“Grandma can live with us, can’t she?” Isaac pleads. “I told her she could.”

“Of course,” Oliver says. “She’s always welcome.”

Annie slips over to Oliver’s chair and stands beside Isaac, touching him just barely. “We read about that awful tragedy in Carthage,” she says. “We were so worried about you.”

“Afraid that you might have been hurt,” Isaac adds. “They’ve arrested some people in the murder.”

Oliver doesn’t like to think about the events in Carthage as murder. He winces slightly, shifts in his chair.

“One of the people they charged is your newspaper friend—uh, Sharp… Thomas Sharp,” Isaac adds.

Oliver hadn’t heard about this.

“What’s odd,” Isaac says, “is that this fellow Sharp wrote the first story about the mob at the jail. Turns out he might have been one of the conspirators. I’ll get the
Times
for you.”

Isaac turns to collect the latest
New York Times
from another room, but Oliver stops him. “No, son—I just want to spend some time with all of you right now. I can catch up on the news later.”

Oliver gives Annie a hug and kisses her on the forehead—
such a beautiful girl
, he thinks.

Suddenly he is overcome with a desperate need to escape—not from this loving group, but away from this country, back to the land of his great-grandmother.

Within a month, Oliver has purchased tickets to London for Jonathon, Isaac, Phebe and himself.
Time to show my son where I came from
, he tells himself.

As the patchwork family prepares to board their sailing vessel in New York, Isaac looks around at the docks. He recognizes some of the wretched inhabitants and most of the dark alleys, but no one recognizes him. He has changed—become civilized and educated. He feels no sentiment for this place, only appreciation to his father for rescuing him.

PART 4

Persia 1844

Chapter 1

With His own hands, Siyyid Salih, who has taken the title of the
Rasul
, or “Herald”, pours a cup of aromatic black tea for Jalal and the other seventeen
Living Letters
, the term He uses to designate His disciples. During the previous weeks these men and one woman have become an extended family. But today many of them seem tense, as if they know a calamity is about to shatter their ranks forever. This sense of foreboding is not apparent in the Rasul, however, Who seems almost supernaturally calm with a generous smile on his face.

Danush, the youngest of the Letters, is the first to recognize that the apprehension darkening this occasion is due to the fear that this cozy band of believers will soon be split up. Some likely will die as they undertake their missions, but this provokes less anxiety than the inevitable separation from each other—and especially from the Rasul.

The Rasul addresses the disciples. “Oh My beloved friends! Ponder the words that Jesus addressed to his disciples as He sent them forth to propagate the Cause of God. ‘Let your light shine before the eyes of men.’”

Chapter 2

The London weather is just as Oliver remembered it: dismal. A hard rain pelts him and his three companions as they exit the customs-house and slosh through the mud to a somber black carriage. The driver, stooped as if hammered down by the angry rain, turns to greet them and for just a moment this bent, sodden creature looks like Mum’s driver, the one who had fetched young Ollie and his mother on their first evening in London. But of course this is not that old man, who had died some years ago, but the man’s son, Evan, who appears through the rain like the old driver’s ghost.

Evan nods politely, his wide-brimmed hat spilling water. He opens the carriage door and the four travelers scramble into the dry security of the dark enclosure. “I had expected Herbert to be here,” Oliver says to Evan.

After a lack of communication over the past year, Oliver had finally sent a letter to Herbert announcing his imminent return. There had been no reply, just as there had not been to any of the other half-dozen letters that Oliver had sent.

“A bit under the weather, the Master is,” Evan replies. “And such miserable weather to be under at that.” Evan slams the door, climbs into his unsheltered seat, gathers the reins of the horses, and launches the vehicle on its way. To himself, mostly, he mutters, “Been under the weather for months now.”

The weary party is silent for the first few minutes of the ride, but then, as if assuming Mum’s role as tour guide, Oliver begins an unbroken commentary about the unfolding panorama, and with each familiar sight, each word, he feels more at home. Even the London muck brings back fond memories. Before long Isaac and Jonathon are asking questions and joking with each other. By the time they arrive at the Belgravia mansion, the rain has stopped and a swirling fog is rising from the ground.

“It’s a bit larger than I had imagined,” Jonathon says, referring to the mansion that sits a few paces from the halted carriage. He had known that Oliver was a man of means, but the ostentation of this estate stuns him. The sprawling Rochester farm had been simple and rustic, nothing like this two-story cathedral of opulence.

“Large, yes, I suppose, for a city home,” Oliver replies. “But nothing compared to Chillington-hall. We’ll go there for Christmas. Come, let me show you to your rooms.”

Phebe steps out of the carriage, hoists her skirt above the mud, then notices that the skirt is already rimmed with the stuff and lets it fall back into the sticky brown-black goop. “I’m afraid I’ll drag in a mess,” she says.

Oliver turns and smiles. “Never mind that. We have people to clean it up. You’re just seeing to their employment.”

Oliver takes Isaac by the arm, guides him through the massive carved entrance and up the winding staircase.

“Herbert, are you here?” he shouts. There is no answer. He continues to escort Isaac up the stairs, down a long, dark hallway and into a bedroom. There he sees the same rosewood chest in the exact spot that it had occupied when young Ollie had first gazed at this room; the bed, situated just the way he had left it many years ago; the same view of the neatly groomed lawn, edged by thick trees that appear more grey than green in the dwindling light.

I was such a naïve lad
, Oliver thinks as he swoons into the swelling comfort of nostalgia.
Everything was so new then, and now it’s my past.

For Isaac, though, everything
is
new. Overwhelmed by the voyage, the new land, the mansion, he sits on the bed approvingly and grins, then yawns. He lies down and immediately goes to sleep.

When he wakes it is dark. The thick clouds have finally parted and a thin rail of moonlight runs through the room. Disoriented, Isaac sits up and hears faint but angry voices. He walks across the room, stumbles over his luggage, and opens the door. Candles paint flickering ovals on the walls of the corridor. The voices are coming from the far end, from behind a partially open door that sprays lamplight onto the hallway floor.

The voices are too muffled to make out words, so Isaac quietly walks down the hall toward their source. As he approaches the door he can identify the louder voice as Oliver’s. Another voice, softer and trembling, he cannot identify. Oliver is chastising someone; his words are harsh. Then the other man begins to weep. Isaac is frightened. What sort of behavior would merit Oliver’s wrath?

“I left you to manage the household,” Oliver is saying, “and look at you!”

The man continues to weep.

Oliver says, “I am disgraced by your behavior. Did I not allow you to continue on here, in a life of luxury, even though you murdered my father? I loved you once—thought of
you
as my father—but you betrayed me.”

Isaac cannot understand these horrible words. Is there a murderer in this house? Slowly, boldly, he pushes the door open and peers in. Oliver is towering above an older man who is seated, face in hands, on a large bed. As the man lifts his face to look into the eyes of Oliver, Isaac recognizes Herbert Eaton.

Oliver hoists an empty scotch bottle from a nightstand, holds it ominously over Herbert’s head and says, “If you want to die, there is a faster way than drinking. I will not have Isaac see his
grandfather
in this drunken state. I forbid you to leave this room unless you are sober. Not a hint of it on your breath, do you understand?”

Herbert nods pathetically.

“And you must be cleaned up. Hair washed and brushed. Eyes clear. Fresh clothes on your person, not these foul-smelling garments that reek of vomit. Until then…”

Isaac steps into the room. He cannot bear to see Oliver and Herbert arguing.

Oliver is startled by his presence, and Herbert turns away, embarrassed.

“It’s all right, father,” Isaac says, “I’m not a child, and you needn’t keep secrets from me. I’m your son, after all.”

Oliver sighs and puts the empty bottle back onto the nightstand. “I didn’t want you to see him in this condition,” Oliver explains.

Isaac walks around his father to see Herbert’s red, bloated face. The man’s rheumy eyes are bloodshot and full of tears. His hair is matted in the back and sticking out like straw in the front. His dressing gown is wrinkled and stained.

Herbert wipes his nose on a sleeve and sniffs.

“Hi, grandpa,” Isaac says. “I’ve missed you.” And then he leans in and embraces the old man with both arms. “Been a tough time, huh?” he whispers. He knows about despair, and tough times, and how they bring out the worst,

The warm touch and gentle voice bring fresh tears to Herbert’s eyes, and he fights to keep from sobbing.

Oliver watches his son tenderly pull away from Herbert, then wipe the moisture from the old man’s cheeks.

“I don’t deserve you,” Herbert says, attempting a smile but producing only a sad wrinkle.

“What time is it?” Isaac asks, turning to Oliver.

“Seven or so. Almost dinner time.”

Isaac says, “I’m starved.” He turns back to Herbert and smiles. “But there’s time for a hot bath and a bit of grooming first. I’ll help you.”

“No, no, I can manage,” Herbert replies bravely. “I’ll call for hot water. You two get ready for dinner and I’ll see you downstairs.”

“Are you sure? I don’t mind.” Isaac says, taking the old man’s hand.

“I am absolutely positive!” Herbert stands for the first time and manages an actual smile. “Must preserve some dignity, you know.”

“All right then. Come on, father. He’ll be fine.” Isaac leads Oliver out of the room, closing the door behind him.

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” Oliver says solemnly.

“You said he murdered your father. What does that mean?”

“It doesn’t mean anything. Herbert’s my father.”

“But your real father was a Persian.”

“Am I not
your
father?”

Isaac understands Oliver’s meaning. And he knows the discussion is over. Isaac retreats to his room and dons fresh clothes for the evening meal.

About eight o’clock, he rambles down the stairs and finds Jonathon, Phebe, and Oliver seated at an enormous table. They are dressed in their finest clothes and chatting amiably. As Isaac enters the room, they look up and smile. Oliver, who is seated at the head of the table, gestures to a chair on his left and Isaac takes it.

“Now, then, all we need is Herbert and we can begin dinner,” Oliver says. Oscar, a gray and wiry server, pours wine and delivers plates of tiny morsels that Isaac cannot identify but which awaken his taste buds.

About fifteen minutes later, as the server is pouring more wine, Oliver says, “Oscar, would you be so good as to remind Herbert that our guests are waiting on him? The pheasant will be cold by the time he arrives.”

Oscar nods, puts down the shimmering green wine bottle and stiffly walks out of the room.

The wine glasses are empty again by the time Oscar returns and announces, ashen-faced, “I’m afraid there has been an accident, sir.”

At these words Isaac flees from his seat, races up the stairway and dashes to Herbert’s room. The door is open. Inside he can see the tub that had been placed there for Herbert’s bath, and the red water in which the old man lies slumped, head back, mouth and eyes open, one arm hanging like a broken tree branch above a pool of blood and a straight razor.

Isaac stands there for a moment disbelieving his eyes. When he tries to run to Herbert, he is restrained by Oliver, who is now standing behind him.

“Let him be, son,” Oliver says. “He’s at peace now. And I trust he’s with Anne.”

It is not the occasion that Oliver would have chosen for introducing his American family to Chillington-hall, but life does not always offer choices. And so here they are, standing solemnly on the cold grounds of Chillington-hall, watching Herbert’s coffin being lowered into a freshly dug pit near Mum’s tombstone and the empty graves of Augustus and Elizabeth, whose bones still lie somewhere in Persia. Oliver can imagine that a small gathering like this one, sometime in the future, will watch his own coffin lowered into a dark hole near Mum’s grave. And then some day further on, Isaac will find rest here as well.

Oliver thinks about his mother, Anne, who had been buried in a small cemetery in New York City, and he vows to have her moved here. It is only right.

The comforting thing about cemeteries is that they bring families together.