The Prophet stood and tugged on the points at the bottom of his vest. “I would like to take my supper in the shade of that tree over there, Brother Whipple. Would you throw down a blanket and set two places under the branches?”
“T-two, sir?”
Young turned to peer at Jim. “Would you do me the honor of eating with me tonight? I have so many more questions I want to ask you about the valley of the Salt Lake … and that valley you said was God’s own Promised Land. Join me, please?”
“We be glad to,” Bridger replied.
Young cleared his throat. “I don’t want there to be any misunderstanding, Mr. Bridger. I invited only you to dine with me. Not your friend here.”
“You don’t wanna eat with him, then I ain’t—”
“Gabe,” Bass interrupted. “G’won ahead with this fella. S’all right. I ain’t gonna go hungry.”
Jim studied his eyes a minute. “Awright. I’ll eat my supper an’ then we’ll make camp. Light out in the morning.”
Titus nodded, then watched Brigham Young turn Bridger away, the two of them walking toward the tree where the three young men were spreading a blanket and preparing to serve supper.
A strange people, Bass thought to himself as he sighed and turned away. You’d think a man what calls hisself a prophet of God would know where God wants him to go already, Titus brooded. Wouldn’t you think this Brigham Young would have no need to ask Jim Bridger for directions to the Promised Land?
* James P. Beckwith (sometimes spelled Beckwourth).
* Tribes of the central and southern basin and plateau region.
NINE
“They call themselves Marmons,” Titus explained to his wife as they stood at the open gates and watched the two dogs trotting toward the first of the Pioneer Party hoving into view more than a half mile from the stockade.
She did her best to mimic his English. “Mar-mo-o-o-o-ns.”
He quickly glanced over his shoulder at the Cheyenne woman and all the children who had gathered with them to watch the arrival of Brigham Young’s Saints at Fort Bridger. Then Scratch whispered in Crow.
“Gabe took to their chief right off; but I saw him as a hard-faced man,” he declared as the sun shone hot upon them.
As Bass watched the riders approaching through the trees, crossing one small streamlet after another to reach the post, he ruminated on his confidential talk with Bridger some nine days back, late that night after Jim had finished his supper with Brigham Young.
“Not a bad sort,” Gabe had observed as Titus put a few more limbs on the small fire as the summer night grew cold.
“I don’t trust him,” Titus snorted. “None of them others.”
“But I don’t read his sign same as you,” Bridger said.
“Hell no, you wouldn’t,” Bass whispered as they unfurled their robes and blankets in a small copse of willow there beside the Little Sandy. “You just et supper with that preacher, an’ now he’s even got you seein’ angels dancing on the top of a pin.”
Bridger shrugged. “Simmer down, Scratch. He an’ his brethren seem like they’re honest, God-fearin’ folk—just like Whitman.”
“Like Doc Whitman?” Scratch repeated, incredulous. “Now, there was a good man, Gabe. He wasn’t like most ever’ other preacher I knowed: looking down their long noses at you from up on high, with them accusin’ eyes full of fire an’ the air around ’em filled with the smell of sulfur an’ brimstone. No, I’ll be glad to say our fare-thee-wells to this here Brigham Young an’ his pack o’ Marmons come mornin’.”
For a moment, Jim had pursed his lips, then disclosed, “I was hopin’ to talk you into turning around from here.”
“You don’t want me to see you on to the pass, e’en down to the Sweetwater?” he had asked. “I ain’t see’d Devil’s Gate, or that ol’ Turtle Rock in a long time—”
“I was figgering you could take President Young and the rest on to the fort, Scratch,” Bridger admitted. “Since I ain’t got no choice but to keep on my way to Fort John to see about them goods we’re needing for the store, you’ll be the host for me.”
“At your post?”
Jim leaned close to Bass. “I can trust you to show ’em your best manners.”
He didn’t have a good feeling from the start, and it wasn’t getting any better. “I dunno—”
“Treat the Saints good an’ they’ll be on their way in a few days,” Bridger said. “They need some smithin’ done afore they move on. I told President Young you’d fire up the anvil for all they needed, an’ he said they could do it themselves, or pay for your work in coin, or take it out in trade. They brung ’em plenty of supplies along, so maybe you can take a look over what they got to trade for. See what the women needs the most in the store, an’ swap out your work for the goods.”
“You’re sure ’bout makin’ these Marmons welcome like this, Gabe?”
“I get back from Fort John, I’ll make it good by you.”
“Not that,” he whispered with a correcting shake of his head, “I mean, do you got your mind made up to help these here Marmons gonna set up their promised land right at your back door?”
“They ain’t gonna be no trouble, not like Utes or Bannocks, raising hell an’ running off with my stock if I give ’em the chance!” Bridger snorted. “The Saints only got a differ’nt God than you an’ me, Scratch. Hell, this here Brigham Young really ain’t no differ’nt from a Snake or ’Rapaho medicine man. Some shake a rattle or look at the dried blood in the belly of a badger for some sign of the One Above.”
Bass scoffed, “An’ this here Brigham Young listens to all that his angels tell him about what God wants him to tell all his flock.”
Jim’s brow knitted. “Where you get these notions ’bout angels an’ his flock?”
“While you was havin’ supper with your Prophet, them others had a hold on my ear, telling me all ’bout this here Brigham Young bein’ the only one what knows the true word of God meant for the ears of man,” Titus confided sourly. “Damn, but they was preachin’ hard at Titus Bass. Harder’n any preaching I ever got whipped on these ol’ ears. Made my head ache with all their Urim an’ Thummin. Hell, they claimed they was the only folks bound to sit on a throne in glory. Angels named Moroni an’ Nephi … Gabe, this bunch wuss’n all the hell an’ brimstone preachers I knowed back in Kaintuck. These Marmons don’t holler sayin’s outta the Bible like McAfferty or Bill Williams neither! They got their own book they was thumpin’ an’ drummin’ on—”
“Young showed it to me. Where they get called Mormons—from their own book on the word from God,” Bridger said with an unmasked enthusiasm in his voice. “He said they still believe in the Bible, but it’s older, an’ their book is a newer word of God, meant for them what’s chose for heaven here in the latter days.”
For a moment, Titus had carefully studied his old friend. “Young change you into Marmon?”
Jim smiled and leaned forward to say in a hush, “Hell no, Scratch. But I give the man my manners an’ listened to all he had to say. We talked some more about the country an’ the Injuns an’ crops they could grow down there south of Utah Lake, but in atween it all he was giving me a sharp lesson on all they believed an’ why he’s brought his people out of Missouri—”
“Missouri!” Scratch interrupted. “Why, them Marmons hate Missouri an’ all the folks in that country! Afore I had my fill of supper for all they was poundin’ in my ears, they told me the Garden of Eden—where Adam an’ Eve was birthed by God—why, it was right outside where ol’ Fort Osage stood, near the mouth of the Blue River, on the Missouri! No preacher I ever heard spout a sermon back in Kaintuck ever come anywhere close to saying God started the hull world back yonder on the banks of the Missouri River!”
“An’ a Snake medicine man claims he can pull a evil spirit right out of a man’s mouth so he ain’t sick no
