Cry of the Hawk

“None of them back east understands the one simple rul—that the only thing a warrior understands is blood and brute force.” Bridger shrugged. “Connor says that bunch of politicians back east is cutting the army down to size now that the war back east is done with.”

“’Bout time, it is too,” grumbled Hook. “Cut it down far enough for this boy to go on back home to his family and farm.”

“Shame of it is, Connor’s been relieved of command and this expedition is done,” Bridger confided. “General’s heading back to Utah.”

“Utah?” Hook asked. “Ain’t that where all the Mormons went to settle?”

Sweete nodded. “Some of these boys marching with Connor been serving out to Camp Douglas in Utah. Hell, the general himself served as military commander out there till the army called him up for this expedition.”

That enviable western post, Camp Douglas, stood on a bluff above the City of the Saints in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake. A paradise duty is what the soldiers called the place, for well-groomed plots of grass and flower beds surrounded the huge parade of packed, stream-washed gravel taken from the mountain stream diverted for irrigating the post’s own fields. Connor himself had seen the post raised as his first duty upon arriving in the land of Brigham Young back in October 1862.

While the general publicly told Young and his elders that the post was being built to protect the Overland Stage route and the Pacific Telegraph line from Indian depredations, the Mormon suspicion was that the army had been sent into the heart of their State of Deseret to keep an eye on them. Because most Mormons rankled at the recent bevy of laws Congress had been passing to outlaw polygamy in the states and its territories, Utah declared itself neutral once hostilities broke out between North and South in 1861.

“As far as Patrick E. Connor was concerned, in the Civil War, if you weren’t with him, you were against him,” Bridger went on. “The general took a special interest in keeping a close watch on the Mormons. And the dealings of that Mormon chief, the one called Brigham Young.”

“Shad’s told me about how he sent his private army out to get you of a time, Gabe.”

Bridger grinned, but with a coldness that made a drop of sweat slip down Hook’s spine.

“That’s right. One of these days, Jim Bridger would like to have him a chance to look that puffed-up prairie cock eye to eye and see just what he’s made of without standing behind his hired killers.”

“You never will, Gabe,” said Shad. “Young’s the kind who’ll never be a big enough man to stand on his own.”

Both he and Sweete chuckled when they went on to tell Hook how Connor marched into the land of the Mormons and never once worried about ruffling Mormon feathers. He was the chief political and military officer representing his government in the territory, and as such he took his job serious.

“From the first day his men started building that post up on the bluff, Connor ordered a cannon pointed down the hill at Brigham’s pride and joy—his tabernacle.”

From the walls of Camp Douglas, soldiers could look down not only on the lake itself, but the neatly platted streets and outlying farms of the Mormons where crops flourished and livestock abounded in the narrow valley. In excess of twenty thousand Latter-day Saints called it home, with more arriving every year.

“When the general started to replace his wooden buildings with stone from nearby quarries, just like the stone the Mormons had used for their own tabernacle, Brigham howled!” Sweete continued. “He came stomping up to the camp to protest to Connor that his fort was looking a mite too permanent for his liking, that the soldiers were harassing honest, God-fearing citizens, and that the army’s horses and mules were fouling the city’s water supply.”

“After the way he’s now been treated by the politicians and peace-loving turncoats back east, I’ll bet Connor will damn well welcome getting back to the land of the Saints,” Bridger said.

“Sounds like you got a chip on your shoulder for them Mormons,” Hook said. “Not that I blame you, I s’pose.”

“Me? I ain’t got a problem with a Mormon—if he keeps to himself and doesn’t stomp on what’s mine. It’s when a thieving, yellow-backed bastard like Young sends out a hundred of his Angels to burn my fort and steal my stock, murdering my hired help in the bargain—yeah, that’s when you might say I get a mighty big chip on my shoulder, young’un.”

“It ain’t the Mormons, Jonah,” Sweete went on to explain. “It’s the goddamned leaders they follow, eyes closed, swallowing all that cock and bull about every threat made to their beloved Zion.”

“What’s Zion?”

“What the Mormons call Utah,” Sweete answered.

Bridger scowled. “Zion is what the Mormons call the place that God give ’em special. ’Cause they’re special people. Like Brigham tells it—the rest of us is supposed to stay out of Mormon country.”

Boothog’s cheek burned with the fires of hell where Jubilee Usher had slapped his huge flat hand across it.