Chapter 22
We’d barely stopped the wagon when Flora flew down the porch steps, her face dour. The sky had clouded over on our ride home, the threat of rain thick in the muggy desert air. Outlined by the blackening storm, the gables of the house grew more forbidding.
“Finally! Jacob, we need to send for the midwife,” she said.
Abby stalked down the steps behind her with a face as solid as stone.
All remaining thoughts of Elijah and our miserable encounter dissipated instantly. I remembered all too well the pains of Aunt Emma as she delivered her recent baby, her screams shattering through the house. My muscles tightened in anticipation of Prudence’s cries.
“Are you certain?” Jacob said, his tone impatient.
“Yes. Now, please, go and fetch her.”
Without waiting for his confirmation of her commands, Flora disappeared back inside the house.
Jacob scrubbed his face, then handed the reins of the wagon over to Nephi. “Take the horse and fetch the midwife.” He turned to the other boys. “Put the cart away before the storm gets stronger and then get up to your rooms. Abby, make certain Flora doesn’t smother poor Prudence.”
The heavens ripped open, sending large drops of rain cascading down.
“Of course. We wouldn’t want anyone to harm the mother of your child,” Abby replied.
Jacob gave her a long look and I was certain he would scold her, but he finally waved his hand and the family broke off to their tasks, running to avoid the downpour. I handed Edward over to Esther and turned to follow Abby.
Jacob extended his arm to stop me. “Come with me, Hazel. I need your help.”
I nodded but hesitated watching Abby’s skirts slip through the doorway. A flash of lightning cracked the sky.
Jacob tugged my arm again. “Hazel, come.”
Inside, Manwaring Manor was in commotion as I’d never before witnessed.
Children’s footsteps raced down the hallway, doors clattering behind them.
Faint screams from above penetrated the air.
The walls wheezed in a frantic rhythm as if unsure of how to handle the magnitude of life rebelling against the house’s usual static.
Drawing up after Jacob, I took the stairs two at a time to keep up with his pace. He didn’t even pause at Prudence’s door as he hastened to the end of the hallway. Instead, he pulled me into his bedroom and slammed the door shut. The house hissed in response.
This room was the smallest of them all, used as more of a storage closet to hold his clothes and private things. I’d never been admitted inside before. He went straight for the drawers and ripped one open, rifling through the pile of clothes inside.
“What are you looking for?”
“Fetch the bag from the shelf,” he said without peering up.
“A bag?”
“My large traveling bag, top shelf.”
My blood pumped at a ferocious rate.
“Are we leaving?”
Jacob didn’t respond. Mechanically, I pushed onto my toes to fetch the bag peeking over the top shelf. A cloud of dust descended around me as I tugged it down.
“Where are we going, Jacob? And why now?”
He took the bag I extended out to him and thrust it open to stuff clothes inside.
“Prudence is in labor! Please tell me what is happening,” I pleaded.
“On the bottom shelf there’s a brown box. Grab it for me.” He extended out his hand expectantly.
Biting my lip, I followed his directions and bent over searching the shelf for the brown wooden box tucked up in the corner.
I pried the lid open. Inside the carved box were two large stacks of paper money and a jumble of various colored coins.
I slammed it shut again and handed it over, the money jingling with my trembling movements.
I swallowed past the barbs in my throat and repeated, “Where are we going, Jacob?”
“We aren’t going anywhere, darling. I’m going.” He shoved the box into his bag.
“You’re going? But where? Why?”
“I have to keep myself from jail. It’ll ruin us.” He straightened up and clasped the bag shut, then peered around the room as if looking for what else he may have forgotten.
“Jail?” I croaked out.
“Come now, Hazel. You’re smarter than this. You must’ve noticed that Mr. Reginald isn’t a miner. He’s a federal agent.”
“I understand that, but what does that have to do with leaving right now?”
“You heard his threats. I’ve been marked. All he needs to do is find this house and he’ll have the evidence he needs to turn me in to the marshals for bigamy.”
Bigamy. One of the twin relics of barbarism, as the Republicans declared it. I’d studied the Edmunds Act—a hideous law created by Congress to punish our polygamous practices—when it passed only months ago and everyone knew the guilty sentence of Brother Reynolds at the Supreme Court.
“You don’t know that. They need more proof than cohabitation to arrest you. Just because this new law has been announced doesn’t mean—”
“Oh, Hazel, how na?ve you are.” His voice laced with a mixture of pity and frustration as his hand slipped up my cheek, dragging me closer.
“You don’t know that things have changed.
The damned government’s started sending enforcers now.
A man from the mine was found out only last week and carted off. ”
I’d once prided myself on being at the forefront of news in the Territory as the daughter of a newspaper man, but of course, I’d been isolated out here for months. The entire Territory could’ve disappeared and I would never have known.
“It’s all still new, Jacob. We’re so far out here from the city, he may never find us.”
“I know these kinds of men better than you and they will stop at nothing to destroy Zion and our way of life. I can’t risk it.” His cold fingers caressed my skin, sending ice through my veins.
“But must you leave tonight? Perhaps we can discuss another plan of action. Prudence is delivering your child!”
“It’s regrettable, but it must be so. I know you’ll take care of her.
” He drew his hand back, leaving an uneven wake between us as he moved away.
“Reginald will only be around a few months and then he’ll move on.
I know his type. I’ll speak to the Brethren and follow their examples. When it’s safe, I’ll return.”
“What about the mine?”
“The foreman can run it well enough through my correspondence.”
He had an answer for everything. I knew I needed to listen and obey, to cease my arguments, but my body tightened, pulling back as a quiver on a bow.
I stepped forward and blocked his path, mustering every ounce of my courage.
“How can you leave your wife in her greatest hour of toil? And what of the rest of us? Your children? This doesn’t feel right, Jacob. Are you simply trying to save your own skin?”
Down the hall, Prudence’s screams reverberated louder.
More doors slammed and footsteps clicked with sharp, echoing tones.
The household was finally breaking through the long silence, roaring and straining to be known.
The house allowed the anguish of its occupants to at last be heard.
It was almost buoying, a kind of rebellion feeding my fortitude to question him.
A wide, uneven smirk split Jacob’s face. It wasn’t handsome or alluring like his usual smiles but reminded me of a creature in a forest before it consumed its prey. He stepped forward, discarding his bag as he closed the space between us.
“Save my own skin? Is that what you truly think of me, wife? I do this—I do everything—for my family. For the eternal Principle that created this family. For my God and His kingdom. Do you truly dare to question my judgment?”
“No.” I shrank back though my body screamed at me. “But perhaps if you leave, we should all return to our own families for a time.” I knew from watching my own mother the afflictions of a woman in polygamy left alone without her husband. Surely, he didn’t want that for us.
I couldn’t help thinking too of my bloody nightmare, imprinted forever in my mind. Would Jacob’s absence lead to its fruition, for Abby or any of us?
“You would have my family leave me?” he asked.
“No, but why should we suffer here without you to protect us?”
A flash filled the room and the window rattled with a strike of lightning.
Jacob’s lips twisted up. “Do you know what I found, Hazel?”
Silence beat between us as the rain pelted against the windowpane.
“I don’t know, but—”
“I found a letter. Hidden in the logs of the fireplace, addressed to a certain young man.”
My letter to Elijah. Color drained from my face.
“But … but you had no right to my things!”
“I have a right to everything. How else can I protect and guide you? I’m your husband and your head. But you were writing love letters to another man!”
I backed up until I hit the wall. He pinned me against it, arms outstretched on either side of my shoulders.
“Jacob, I—It wasn’t as it looked, I swear—”
“It wasn’t? ‘As if I could ever stop loving you,’” he quoted. “You were supposed to forsake him for me.”
“I did. Jacob, I swear I did.”
“It grieves me that you would make such a sinful choice. That you would spit in the face of our sacred covenants! What have I done to deserve such mistreatment?”
Jacob’s fingers shot out to grip my neck. I floundered, helpless against his strength.
“Listen to me, Hazel. I’m your husband. You’ve sworn before God that you will be mine for eternity. Your body, your soul, and your salvation are in my hands.”
His breath burned against my skin. His words etched into me.
“You’ve been taught the fate of a damned soul. I do all this to save you from that terrible hell because I care for you. You can’t be saved without my priesthood.
“So you see you must remain here with all of the family. It’s the only way for you stay in control of your wild emotions that would condemn you if I let you roam free. It’s for you! All of this is for you and my family to keep you safe!”
Still holding my neck with one hand, he slammed his other fist into the wall, narrowly missing my ear. I felt the walls shudder in response.
“And if you so much as murmur a word about leaving this house to the others for any reason, I will take your letter straight to Elder Crowther. What do you think the Brethren will do to an adulterous woman?”
I couldn’t speak. Such accusations were destruction—in this life and the next.
I would be thrown out of the church, society, and damned for eternity.
Certain leaders even taught a blood atonement must be made for the most wicked of sins—a death at knifepoint, shedding your blood onto the ground as a sacrificial offering to save your soul from eternal perdition. Could such a thing happen to me?
I opened my mouth to say that I hadn’t done anything to amount to true adultery, that he was mistaken. That it hadn’t been a love letter, but an exorcism. But what would my protests matter in opposition to a man’s word? His evidence would always count more than mine.
Jacob let out a long exhale, softening. “I know you’re scared, Hazel. I know you fear me leaving, but I must do what I can to save this family. Would you destroy us all with your selfish fears? Where is your faith?”
Shame potent and hot coursed through me. It flooded my gut, rising until it choked my throat more than his tightening grip. Jacob leaned closer until his lips hovered directly over mine.
“I said, where is your faith, Hazel?”
“With God,” I whispered. “With you, my husband.”
His lips crushed against mine. Hard and hungry, claiming me, owning me. His teeth caught my bottom lip and bit down. The rusted taste of blood hit my tongue.
The wall moved against my fingers and Prudence’s cries again split the air. My heart pounded against its cage for release from its prison.
Jacob drew back, his eyes shining with desire and fury.
I shrank back, praying I could somehow dissolve into the wallpaper and hide away forever.
My husband acted now like stranger to me, so unlike the amiable man I knew.
That I loved. I hadn’t known he was capable of such anger. It was terrifying to behold.
He backed up, each step slower than the one before until he reached the door.
“I have the letter in my possession, Hazel, and I can bring you before Elder Crowther at any time. Do you understand? You will stay here, and you will wait for me to return. You will chase off any marshals that come by and protect us. Is that clear?”
I nodded, and he disappeared out the doorway.
Panic fully overcame me; I could not stave it off any longer.
As I struggled to breathe, all sorts of profane and shameful thoughts flooded through me.
This was all my fault—my secret longings for another, my lack of faith and trust in my husband.
I was the vilest of sinners drowning in an ocean of my own making.
Within the hour, the midwife arrived. Jacob slipped away into the falling night with only a short goodbye to his family.
The children pressed their faces to the nursery window, watching him vanish into the darkness while we wives travailed with Prudence.
I held her hand close to my chest as she delivered her child—stillborn.
The house descended back into its oppressive silence. Only the muffled cries of a mother’s loss broke through.