Redeye (15 page)

This was not the end. He continued for some time, until finally Uncle P.J. stood and said we had to get on our way to deliver saddles.
At about the same time a group of Mormons arrived and needed to cross on the ferry. At least I think they were Mormons. Somehow I could tell.

“I told you not to get him started,” said Uncle P.J. as we rode away.

“Don't you think it's interesting?” I asked him.

“No, I don't. I think it's craziness.”

In a short distance we came to the little trading post. A woman was sweeping the porch.

As we drew near, I saw her more clearly. Her skin, under a big bonnet, did not have the harsh leathery composition of many women out here—a consequence of the dryness. This woman seemed altogether out of place in this harsh nature.

“Greetings,” she said. “Alight and have a cool dip of water.”

“Might as well,” said Uncle P.J.

We parked the team, alighted, and introduced ourselves. Her name was Harmony Beasley, she said. “Whereabouts in Carolina do ye hail from?” she asked me.

“I'm from Raleigh.”

“Oh yes, of course. The capital. Come inside for a sit.”

Her little store had huge round rafters, far larger than needed, I would have guessed, and two coal oil lamps hanging from the ceiling. The floor, though dirt, was mostly covered with Indian rugs and animal skins. She asked me to sit down in one of three roughly made chairs. She sat on another, took off her bonnet and pulled back her hair. She was a beautiful woman, as I mentioned before, perhaps forty-five years old, though her appearance was
such that, at over ten paces away from her, you would believe that she was not over thirty or thirty-five. Her cheekbones were prominent, setting her blue eyes back into her face so that they seemed deep set and produced lights of their own. She had a slight dimple in her chin and another in one cheek. While she and I sat, Uncle P.J. studied over several suits of clothes that were hanging on the wall, for sale. I think he's looking for such for his new business.

I admitted my astonishment at the landscape of the west, and spoke of my family, my little sister Content, who may one day follow me out west, my recovery from the death of my mother. She was very easy to talk to. A very comfortable person. She asked me to come back to see her, said that she loved having visitors.

After this brief indoor visit, we came back outside. She pulled me aside, toward her garden, away from Uncle P.J.

“Please do not be alarmed at what I am about to say,” she said. “Bishop Thorpe may ask ye to marry him.”

I was shocked. Not only was I shocked at what she said, but at the fact of who had said it—someone once the Bishop's wife. “What? Oh no, I don't think so,” I said. Then I wasn't altogether sure that she had really said what I thought she had said. Was this another odd western, or Mormon, custom?

“Hold this in your heart,” she said. “He is a gentle man. Ye aren't married, are ye?”

“Oh, no.”

“And do ye have a calling to come to these parts?”

“A calling?” Suddenly I wondered if she really were somehow speaking for
God
. She was so . . . kind . . . and sturdy. I needed to step back somehow and think.

“A calling from God to come to these parts,” she said.

“Not exactly, but I am a Christian. I was saved at Raleigh Methodist Church, but I'm only out west on a visit.”

“It could be, you know, that ye have received a calling and have yet to realize it. Our marriages were not sinful, though the government made them out to be. We've received guidance from God and the Saints. And if ye have truly been chosen of God, then you are already a Mormon and will come to see the rightness of our ways.”

I didn't want to go against her somehow, but I was almost reeling from the strangeness of our conversation.

“Are you married to him?” I asked her.

“I was, but no longer. He is now unmarried in the light of the new government laws. We have been told by our president to abide by all U.S. government laws and we shall do that. But I know that Markham is in need of a new wife.”

“Then why doesn't he marry you?”

“Oh, that would be . . . unnecessary. What is important is that he is a great and gentle man. You would find our ways and beliefs very comfortable to your soul.” She looked away toward the road. “Your uncle is waiting. I hope to see ye again.”

I was . . . what? Flabbergasted is the only word close to what I felt, concerning a
marriage
proposal from the
Bishop
. Could
Harmony Beasley, besides being a lovely woman, also be a bit touched?

We delivered the saddles, two saddles to each of three farmers on the far side of the town—a scattered little village, though very neat, with a large store, a meeting house, something called a tithing office, a large granary, and high stacks of hay. So very neat and organized. So unlike Mumford Rock. As we drove along I felt an urge to tell Uncle P.J. of my conversation with Harmony Beasley. He was blissfully ignorant. Yet I felt compelled by Mrs. Beasley's soft intensity to keep her words a secret.

Harmony Beasley was not in sight as we drove back by her little store.

We had no sooner started back over on the ferry when Bishop Thorpe drew me aside—away from Uncle P.J.—and said to me, “I believe with all my heart that ye have been called here.
I would like for ye to join me in celestial marriage
.”

“I . . .”

He was looking deep into my eyes, with a calmness beyond words. The thought raced through my mind that I should relax and let God speak for me, yet I was also somehow becoming convinced that perhaps I
was
face to face with a true people of God—the Mormons, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

He continued, with a smile, “I do know that God is moving within me, that it is the will of our Saviour and the Saints that you and I live together for the glory of God.”

“I have to go back to North Carolina, sir. I am only visiting. I certainly couldn't—”

“I understand that. I am not . . . in no way, child, do I wish to encumber your freedom. My only cause for what may seem forward is that God is moving within me at this moment. Please take these . . . these matters into your heart and ponder them and seek out the truth about our Kingdom, and please forgive all signs of forwardness in my behaviors and know that all intentions I have toward ye are kind and gentle. All my friends, male and female, would love and cherish ye in Jesus Christ and the Saints.”

“Do you mean . . . female—all your wives?”

“I am unmarried. And I feel led to forever keep you safe and in comfort.”

“But I'm not even a Mormon.”

Uncle P.J. was hearing none of this. He thought it was yet another sermon and was avoiding it.

“If we are married ye will be a Mormon, my dear. I only ask and pray that ye think on it for a short while. Do not answer me now. Think and pray on it. For as long as even unto a year.” He said all this with sincerity and gentle force, holding my arm above my elbow, looking deep into my eyes. I had no choice but to say I would contemplate the request. My thoughts were these: This is a part of the west. These are a clean and organized people. This is where I am.

I have been wooed by several beaus back home, with poor Sammy Perry asking finally for my hand in marriage. But Sammy
was so . . . so nice, so lacking in force and will power that I could not bring myself to concur to marry him, and besides I was sorely needed at home during that time.

This
proposal was so unexpected, my first out west, and yes, so flattering that I did promise Bishop Thorpe that I would ponder his words. I could do no wrong by pondering the request. We lived miles away and I could think on it from my little cabin.

Suddenly I thought of the Englishman. He was so reserved and proper. And so handsome. But the Bishop . . . the Bishop had a certain power about him. And I was certainly old enough to consider the sincere advances of an older man.

On the ride back to the store I tried to get up the nerve to tell Uncle P.J. what had transpired. We were riding along a beautiful stretch between the ferry and the Copeland store. The distant Sangre de Hermanas mountain range to the north—or is it east?—is especially beautiful from along that road. I asked him what he knew about the Mormons, besides all we'd heard from Bishop Thorpe.

He was quiet for a minute. “It all started, as I understand it,” he said, “when they had this man that got killed back in Illinois somewhere. Joseph Smith. He had these visions he said, and saw God and Jesus, and said he found these brass things with all this stuff written on it that said they was supposed to set up a kingdom. I stay clear of it.”

I couldn't hold it back. “Bishop Thorpe asked me to marry him.”

“
What
?” He looked at me. “That old goat. All them wives is against the law, and—”

“That's all been settled by the new laws.”

“Well, I don't . . . Star! What are you . . . Did you get bit by a
stupid
snake? Have you gone loco? If your papa were alive, why he'd . . . You wouldn't want to do that, Star. You just got out here. You just got moved in your cabin. It's a nice cabin and you're just fine where you are.”

“No, I don't think I would—oh dear, Uncle P.J.” I'd never seen him so upset. “But you have to admit, it's such a clean town over there, and everybody was so nice, and he's such a powerful figure of a man, don't you think?” It might do no harm, I suddenly thought, if the handsome young Englishman found out about the proposal.

“They don't put up with no nonsense,” said Uncle P.J. “They won't even drink
coffee
. You don't want to take all the nonsense out of your life. You take all the nonsense out, and it ain't what a life is supposed to be. Don't you see that?”

We drove in through the gate and I was wondering what Aunt Ann might say. She was walking Grandma Copeland around the chinaberry tree. Grandma Copeland loves to walk around the chinaberry tree and anytime somebody offers, she lets them walk her.

I couldn't wait to tell Aunt Ann—I was getting all full of it, as news.

“He did
what
?!” she said.

Grandma Copeland was between us, walking unsteadily around the tree, one foot out, then the other. Aunt Ann was holding her up. I took hold of her, too.

“Asked me to marry him. On the ferry, on the way back over from Beacon City.”

“Hold her by the elbow,” said Aunt Ann. “You hold her up there under the arm and she gets a laughing fit. You said no, didn't you?”

“I said I'd think about it. I was too flabbergasted to make a decision. I just met him.”

“For heaven's sake, child, say no. You don't want to marry a Mormon. You'd have to
become
one. Honey, you ain't been out here long enough to know how they are.”

“They're not all the same, Aunt Ann, and it's not fair to say so.”

“Don't do it,” said Grandma Copeland.

We all stopped. Aunt Ann and I looked at each other, Grandma Copeland between us, the top of her bonnet at our shoulders, and then we looked down into the bonnet at her. Her eyes were on me and her mouth all sunk in on itself, a frown in her eyes, and then she looked back at the ground and started slowly staggering along again, pulling us.

“P.J.!” Aunt Ann yelled. “Come here quick! Grandma talked!”

Uncle P.J. came running. “What'd she say? What'd she say?”

“She said, ‘Don't do it.'”

“Do what?”

“Marry a Mormon,” said Aunt Ann.

Uncle P.J. walked backwards in front of Grandma around the chinaberry tree, trying to get her to talk some more.

She wouldn't speak.

“What'd you say, Star?”

“That'd I'd been asked to get married.”

“Say it again.”

“Me?”

“Yes, say whatever you said.”

“It was Aunt Ann talking.”

“Say what you were saying, Ann.”

“I don't remember—it was about Star marrying a Mormon. I said don't do it, then Grandma said the same thing, ‘Don't do it.”

“Mama,” said Uncle P.J. “Guess what! Star . . . is . . . going . . . to . . . marry . . . a . . . Mormon.”

Nothing.

“Star . . . is . . . going . . . to . . . marry . . . a . . . Mormon.”

Grandma Copeland just walked along with us holding her, staring at the ground, round the chinaberry tree with Uncle P.J. walking backwards in front of her, trying to get her to talk. In a little bit, we set her back in her rolling chair, rolled her up the ramp to the front porch, and left her there, fanning herself with her broom-straw fan.

Merriwether Ranch
Mumford Rock, Colorado
United States of America
November 20, 1891

Dear Father,

I am in receipt of your letter dated September 30th. It crossed my latest, which you will have received by the time
this one arrives. I understand your concern about the potential lack of substance in mesa findings here. I will admit that that was my own initial response. However, I am now convinced that possibly no greater or richer ancient treasures exist anywhere in the
world
than those the cowboy Merriwether and his friends are beginning to uncover here in Mesa Largo. I have seen numerous relics since I last wrote to you and will send you an eyewitness report from the ruins. My most sincere hope is that you will reconsider your conclusions about my interests here in America. There is no danger involved, Father. None at all.