Your Heart to Understanding

By Hazel M. Thomson

(Previous chapter)

Chapter 4

Synopsis: Selena and Belle Baldwin, sisters, arrive in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake, after traveling across the plains in a company commanded by Lon Holiday, captain of fifty, and Josiah Blodgett, captain of ten. Selena, whose fiance died at Winter Quarters, is bitter over her loss and cannot be comforted. Belle and Josiah are married immediately after the arrival of the wagon train in the Valley. They decide to accompany the saints who are leaving for San Bernardino, California, to make a settlement there. Selena is invited to accompany Belle and Josiah, and Lon, still in love with Selena, decides to go with the company.

Lon was silent for some time, waging a battle within himself, between what he wanted to do and the thing he felt was right and honorable. Belle, too, lapsed into silence, taking a deep interest in the country around her, as she did wherever she traveled.

As they watched the beautiful mountains, both Lon and Belle could see the lead wagons pulling off to the side to stop for the night. Some of the people in the wagon train would find friends here at Provo. This night there would be singing and dancing and the renewal of friendships. Cabin doors would be thrown open to bid the travelers welcome, and hot meals would be provided through the hospitality of these saints, so recently on the trail themselves.

“I can’t do it. Belle,” Lon finally said.

“You can’t do it? But why, Lon?”

“Selena doesn’t know her own mind right now. I can’t ask her to marry me yet.”

“I’m giving you fair warning, Lon. I know how long you have been in love with my sister, but if you stand by and let this Alfred Quale step into Selena’s life you’ll not be doing her any favor.”

“How can you be so sure, Belle? He might be a whole lot better Latter-day Saint than I am. What do you have against him, anyway?”

Belle looked at Lon in amazement.

“I can’t understand you, Lon Holiday, to take such an attitude in this. I guess I’ve been wrong from the start. I thought you were in love with Selena.”

“I am in love with her, Belle, and that’s the very reason I can’t take advantage of her unhappiness and ask her to marry me when she’s in such a state of indecision about everything.”

“I’ll get down now, if you please,” Belle said. “Sorry to have bothered you, Lon.”

“Belle,” pleaded Lon, as he drew the horses to a halt, “please don’t misunderstand me. You know what Selena means to me.”

“I know that if this Alfred keeps coming around, and she decides to marry him it will be your fault,” said Belle as she jumped to the ground and headed for her own wagon.

After the meeting at which the final organization for travel was worked out, everyone being notified as to whether they were to be in Brother Lyman’s group or the remaining half of the wagons which Brother Rich would lead, there was a party of good will held for the travelers.

When the dancing began there was Alfred, just as Belle had feared, offering his arm to Selena. Where was Lon? Belle wondered. He had been right there by Josiah just a moment ago.

As Selena accepted the invitation and moved onto the roughhewn boards that served as a floor in this building used both for recreation and worship, Belle looked up at Josiah. Their eyes met, and Josiah knew immediately what was worrying his wife.

“You heard them make him captain of ten again for the trip. He said he had to go check the wagons under his command while he is still here where there is an anvil and forge if they are needed.”

“Selena dancing with that Alfred, and Lon out checking wagon wheels! Well, I don’t know why I should worry if he refuses to!”

The trip at first had been taken leisurely, traveling through the settlements, but the visiting for a night with friends was coming to an end. Lon, never really enthusiastic about leaving the Great Salt Lake Valley, felt again a wave of uneasiness as he listened to the words of Brother Rich.

“The company is too large to travel together,” he said. “In order to prevent drawing too heavily on the desert springs at any one time, there must be some little distance between the first and second sections of the group. However, we will have places of meeting along the way. When the first section reaches Parowan, it is to wait for the other to arrive. Further plans will be made then for crossing the desert.”

The assignments had already been made, but the names were read again in order to have no misunderstandings. Lon knew he would be traveling with Brother Rich, while Josiah was included in Brother Lyman’s group.

The long meeting was drawing to its close, and there was still no sign of President Young. Then Brother Pratt, who evidently had just arrived at the meeting, stepped into the firelight. He conversed in a whisper with Brother Lyman and Brother Rich. The crowd waited expectantly. This was the moment that they had been anticipating since leaving Salt Lake, that of hearing a farewell message from their President, who had been out of the city at the time, making visits to the newer settlements.

The announcement was short — simply that President Young would not be present. Lon waited through the closing hymn and the prayer. He saw Josiah and Belle leave to return to their wagon. Across the firelight he watched Selena walking away from the group beside Alfred Quayle, his hand on her arm.

Lon could not go yet. He must know. He went at once to where the three apostles stood.

“Brother Pratt,” Lon said. “We had hoped to hear from the President. He is in the settlement, isn’t he?”

“He is,” Brother Parley answered. “I called upon him myself. He is most disturbed at the size of the group.”

“But why?” asked Lon. “Didn’t he, himself, place Brother Rich and Brother Lyman in charge of the undertaking? Would he do that and not be in favor of our going?”

“He told me that he expected about twenty men, with their families, to go. His statement was that ‘the sight of so many of the saints, running to California, chiefly after the god of this world’ sickened him and he felt unable to address them.”

Lon turned away, shaken. Half-way to his wagon he stopped suddenly and raised his eyes to the star-filled skies. Aloud, with no one to hear except the night wind, he vowed a vow.

“I have started this,” he said. “I shall help move this company on to California. Nothing shall come between me and the God of heaven, and one day I will return.”

Just saying the words aloud seemed helpful to Lon. He felt a reassurance that always, wherever he was, he would never permit his actions to cause him to lose his newly acquired testimony of truth.

As Lon neared Josiah’s wagon, on the way to his own, he saw Belle coming toward him.

“I think you should go right this minute and ask them to change you back to Brother Rich’s Company, so you will be with us and Selena.”

“I can’t do that. Belle.” There was quiet determination in the words. “I must help as captain of ten where I’ve been assigned.”

“You can help just as well in our company. I can’t see that it makes a mite of difference.”

“But it does. First of all. Brother Lyman has Captain Hunt with him. He has been over the route twice before and will be a valuable help to the group, to all of us, in fact. But the leaders are making it a point not to put all the men who have been captains of groups in the lead company. I must stay where I’ve been placed by those in charge. Brother Rich is the only man we have who has traveled this route.”

Belle recognized the finality of his decision and the uselessness of argument. “Lon, sometimes I wonder whether Selena really means anything to you.”

In the darkness it was impossible for her to see the look of pain cross Lon’s face. He waited a long moment before he spoke.

“Next to the gospel itself, I love Selena more than anything in this world, Belle. And I’ve been worried all along that I had done the wrong thing in going to California. President Young’s deciding against speaking to us tonight has helped confirm my fears. But I’ve started this thing, and now I have a job to do. You say I could do it just as well in the other company. That’s not the only consideration. Refusing to take counsel is the first step along the road to apostasy. I can’t let this happen in my case. Whatever is asked of me, that is the thing I must do.”

Belle fell in step beside Lon, and the two of them walked together back to Josiah’s wagon. Selena and Alfred were seated on a log in front of the wagon. Belle went on to the back of the wagon and entered it. Lon spoke to the other two, lifted his hat and would have walked on when he heard Alfred speaking to him.

“I heard them read your name with the rear company. Holiday. Did you get it changed back all right?”

Lon looked at Selena. She was staring into the fire, not seeing either of them. Lon’s heart ached within him at the thought of being separated from her so much more than he had been. He well realized that only upon rare occasions would the two groups be together throughout the remainder of the trip. He turned back to face Alfred Quayle.

“I didn’t ask,” he said.

Alfred whooped. “What!”

“I didn’t ask,” repeated Lon.

“Man, don’t you realize that the grass will be all gone and the water holes dry, time that last company comes along?”

“I’ll take my chances,” Lon answered evenly. He turned to Selena and held out his hand. “Goodbye, Selena. I hope the rest of the trip will be pleasant for you.”

As the trip progressed, Lon found himself wondering at times, whether he should have asked to remain with the other company. Still, there was always the satisfaction of knowing that he had done as he had been asked. He was beginning to believe that Quayle had other designs, once he arrived in California.

Had Lon only known it, Josiah in the wagon train ahead, was beginning to get much the same impression. Quayle had made himself quite a constant rider with Selena. True, she laughed at his jokes, and even Belle had grudgingly admitted that it was more pleasant to have Selena acting like this than in such a state of depression.

It was one evening after supper when the women were doing up the dishes that Alfred made the remark that caused Josiah to suspect that Belle had been right in her feelings concerning him.

“These wagons move so infernally slow,” Alfred said. “Hope there is still some left when we get there.”

“Some?” asked Josiah, looking up from the gun he was cleaning. “Some what?”

“Gold! Oh, I know right enough that we’re a few years behind the rush, but they’re still making strikes occasionally. And I mean to make one!”

“But I thought you knew,” said Josiah. “I thought everyone in the wagon knew that we’re not going to look for gold. We’re going only to build another settlement to the glory of the Lord.”

“You may be,” answered Alfred, looking far away toward the blue mountains to the south and west. “Not me. I’m going to build up the glory of Alfred Quayle. And believe me, it’s going to be quite a glory!”

Josiah repeated his conversation with Quayle, confirming Belle’s fears about the man.

She was remembering Josiah’s words of just a few short days ago.

“Why are you so pessimistic. Belle?” he had asked. “Just because you had Lon Holiday all branded and tagged for your sister, you can’t see her with anyone else. You’ll have to admit Quayle has cheered your sister up considerable. He’s quite a joker.”

“Oh, he’s a joker, all right,” Belle had agreed. “He can make Selena laugh, but I don’t think he could ever make her happy.”

“Well, he wouldn’t be my choice for Selena, Belle, but you’d better get it through your head that we’re not doing the choosing. If she decides on Quayle, reckon we’ll just have to welcome him into the family and like it.”

“I might have to welcome him into the family, but I don’t have to like it,” Belle said. “Oh, it makes me so mad that Lon wouldn’t even ask to be put in our company .”

“It was a point of honor with him. Belle,” Josiah had said. “He felt it was his duty and when Lon Holiday feels something to be his duty, there’s nothing or no one going to stop him from doing it.”

The close association Lon was having with Brother Rich became a source of pleasure to him, interspersed with his worries concerning Selena in the company ahead. The apostle had been over the route they were traveling some two years before. He remembered many things of interest which he shared with Lon, as the two of them walked together by the side of Brother Rich’s wagon and his six yoke of oxen.

Lon found it impossible to ride comfortably in his own wagon and see some of the sisters walking beside their own teams of oxen, so often he walked as one or another of them drove his horses.

“It’s the desert that will really test our strength, Lon,” Brother Rich had said. “If we can only get across it with all our people and animals, everything else will work out fine.”

Will it? Lon found himself wondering. The days began to drag and he was most impatient to reach Little Salt Lake Valley and the lead company and Selena.

They had been over three weeks on the trail when he heard Brother Rich shout, “There it is! That’s Parowan up ahead and the other company.”

When they pulled up and stopped for camp, Lon could hardly force himself to take the time to check his ten wagons before he went in search of Josiah’s outfit. He hoped he would find Josiah and Belle with just Selena and no company. Especially without the particular company he had in mind. He was just ready to leave when Brother Rich came. “Lon! I’m glad I found you in camp. I need you to go in to Parowan and see if you can find any barrels or canteens that we might be able to get. When we get to the desert we will need every container that will hold water. Several of us are going. Can you come along?”

“Why, of course,” answered Lon, disappointment hanging heavy upon him. This might take the entire evening. The lead company would be moving out in the early morning.

(To be continued)