Bountiful, Utah lay about ten miles north of Salt Lake City, on the railroad line. George Custer had come south past it on the army's triumphal march toward and then into the capital of Utah Territory. He'd paid it no special mind then: just one more no-account town among so many. Now, though, he wasn't going to pass it by; along with the two troops of cavalry at his back, he was going to go through it like a man searching his pockets for a five-cent piece with which to buy his sweetheart a sarsaparilla. His own sweetheart, worse luck, was back at Fort Dodge.
'Blast John Taylor anyhow,' he grumbled. 'Dash and double-dash him. Why couldn't the old fraud have stayed in Salt Lake City, so we could snatch him up and stretch his neck and have done?'
'Don't be such a sourpuss, Autie,' his brother Tom said. 'If it weren't for Taylor and the rest of the scoops who ran away, we'd be stuck with garrison duty instead of doing something halfway useful out here.'
'Halfway useful is right. We ought to be fighting the Rebs, not sitting on these confounded Mormons.' Custer paused and sent Tom a quizzical look. ' 'Scoops'? What's a scoop?'
'A Mormon. Heard it the other day,' his brother answered. After removing his hat, Tom mimed removing the top of his skull in the same way and scooping out a large portion of its contents. 'Have to have most of your brain missing to buy what they're selling, don't you think?'
'Mm, you're likely right.' Custer weighed the word. 'Scoops. I like that.' He laughed, then pointed ahead. 'We've got a whole scoop-ful of scoops coming up.'
Much the biggest building in Bountiful was the Mormon chapel, a wood-and-adobe structure with five spires that looked as if it might have grown from the ground instead of being built. The lands around the chapel were bountiful enough; no matter how foolish the Mormons' religion was in Custer's eyes, he couldn't deny they made skillful, diligent farmers.
People came out into the street from the chapel, from the houses, and from the barbershop and dry-goods store to stare at the soldiers. Their dogs came out with them. The troopers had shot several dogs on the way up from Salt Lake City. They'd probably shoot more here. Mormons' dogs ran from mean to meaner.
Nobody said anything as the troopers rode up. Custer knew he wasn't loved here. He didn't care. Whatever the Mormons loved, as far as he was concerned, had to have something wrong with it.
He held up his hand. Behind him, the cavalrymen reined in. Every one of them carried a loaded carbine across his knees. That wasn't just for dogs. So far, the Mormons hadn't given any trouble. The best way to make sure they didn't give any trouble was to be ready to smash it down ruthlessly if it arose.
Tom Custer said, 'I hate all these staring faces. Back in Salt Lake, at least the Gentiles were on our side. Out here, there aren't any Gentiles to speak of, and nobody's on our side.'
'We arc in the right. We must never forget it,' Custer declared. He raised his voice and called out to the people of Bountiful: 'We are searching for John Taylor. Anyone who knows where this fugitive from justice is lurking will be handsomely rewarded.' He waited. No one said a word. The wind, full of the salty tang of the Great Salt Lake, blew up little dust devils in front of his horse.
He'd expected nothing different, but the effort had to be made. His orders said so. The silence from the Mormons persisting, he moved on to the next step in the program: 'We are going to search the houses and buildings of this town for the person of John Taylor, and for the persons of other fugitives from justice in this Territory. You are required to assist and cooperate with the brave soldiers of the United States engaged in this task. Any resistance will leave the guilty party subject to summary trial and the full rigors of military justice.'
That drew a response from the crowd: somebody called, 'Where's your search warrants at?'
Custer's smile was anything but pleasant. 'We have none. We need none. Utah Territory, having been declared a region in rebellion against the lawful authority of the government of the United States of America, has forfeited the protections enshrined in the Constitution. You people should have thought more about what would follow from your actions before you attempted to coerce the national government into approving of your hideous practices. Having willfully flouted the government, you will have to earn its good graces once more by showing you are deserving of them.'
He waved to his men, who swung down off their horses. Custer told a squad to follow him to the Mormon chapel. They searched the grounds, finding nothing out of the ordinary, and then went inside. Other than being ornamented with a large portrait in oils of Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, the interior might have belonged to any church.
One of the men of Bountiful came inside. 'Gentlemen, Mr. Taylor is not here,' he said. 'He has not been here.'
'Who are you, and how do you know?' Custer growled.
'I'm O. Clifton Haight, and I have for many years been a lay preacher at this chapel,' the man replied, 'and I know Mr. Taylor has not been in Bountiful because I should have heard of it if he were.'
'Not if he's lying low-and not if you're just plain lying, either,' Custer said. Haight assumed an indignant expression. Custer, feeling briefly charitable, ignored it. He waved. 'This church looks nice and fresh and clean, as if people had been in it just the other day, say, or last Sunday. Public worship in Mormon churches is forbidden by order of General Pope, you will recall.'
'Oh, yes, of course,' O. Clifton Haight said.
'You haven't by any chance forgotten that order?' Custer said.
'Why, no, of course not.' Haight's eyes were wide and candid. He was lying. Custer knew he was lying. He undoubtedly knew Custer knew he was lying. But he also knew Custer couldn't do anything about it. Until Pope had enough men to put a permanent garrison into every one of these miserable little towns, the Mormons would ignore every order they could. No one was likely to betray them, not when they all conspired together to set at nought the commands of the military governor.
Shaking his head in angry frustration, Custer stalked out of the chapel. His soldiers followed. His eyes lighted on a house across the square. It was built in a pattern with which he'd become all too intimately acquainted in Salt Lake City: a central structure that had undoubtedly been erected first, with several whitewashed wings spreading out from it. Pointing toward the house, he asked, 'Who lives there?'
'That's the Sessions place,' Clifton Haight answered. 'Peregrine Sessions was the first settler here, better than thirty years ago now. That house there, that belongs to his brother, Zedekiah.'
'General Pope forbade more than public worship to you Mormons,' Custer said, a certain hard anticipation gleaming in his eyes. 'He also forbade the practice of polygamy, which has made you people a stench in the nostrils of decent Americans everywhere. Looking at that house, Mr. Haight, how many wives would you say, uh, Zedekiah Sessions is likely to have?'
'I only know of one,' Haight said. 'Irma Sessions is a pillar of our little community here.'
'I'll bet she is,' Custer sneered. 'And how many other community pillars carry the name of Sessions?'
'1 know of no others,' Haight said. Custer had heard that in Salt Lake City, too. The Mormons habitually dissembled about their plural marriages.
He gathered up his troopers by eye. 'We are going to search that house for John Taylor. We are also going to search it for any evidence the abhorrent vice of polygamy is being practiced within. If by some chances we find such evidence, despite the statements of Mr. Haight here, we shall take whatever action I deem at the time to be appropriate. Come along.'
Grinning, the soldiers followed him. As they tramped toward the large, rambling house, they told lewd jokes. Custer pretended not to hear them, except when a good one made him laugh out loud.
He walked up to the front door and rapped smartly upon it. When it opened, standing before him was one of the formidable middle-aged women of the sort Brigham Young had apparently married in battalions: broad through the shoulders, broader through the hips, graying hair pulled straight back from a face that had not approved of anything since the War of Secession. Custer thought how good her head would look stuffed and mounted on the wall back at Fort Dodge next to a pronghorn or a coyote. 'You are Mrs. Irma Sessions?' he asked.
'I am. And you are a United States soldier.' By her tone, that put Custer somewhere between a Comanche and a polecat.
'My men and I are going to search these premises for the possible presence of the fugitive John Taylor,' Custer announced. 'All persons inhabiting this residence must first come forth.'
'And if we do not?' Irma Sessions inquired.
Custer folded his arms across his broad chest. 'Then we shall remove you with whatever force proves needful and bind you over for trial for defying the authority of the United States Army.' He pulled out his pocket watch. 'You
