1000 words from
Liberty: A Historical Novel
“All right, it’s time for you fellas to climb down this ladder,” Tillery said. “A couple of you better help Rigdon. He don’t look like he can manage the climb by himself.” He had surely noticed Sidney clinging to Hyrum to keep himself upright.
“I’ll go down first,” Alexander said. “You men help Sidney get started and I can get hold of him and lower him the rest of the way.” But that was not an easy task; Sidney had put on weight these last few years. Hyrum and Lyman held Sidney under his arms as he started down the ladder. Sidney grunted with the effort and then seemed to lose strength and begin to sink, but Alexander got hold of him and he didn’t fall.
Hyrum and Lyman followed Sidney and then Joseph said, “After you, Brother Caleb. I’m surely in no hurry.”
Caleb wasn’t eager to go down either. As he descended into the dark, the stink of the room struck him first. He recognized the stench of rotting straw and mildew, but worse was an outhouse odor. When he stepped off the ladder, two slits of light from narrow horizontal openings at the top of the walls allowed him to make out a floor covered in straw, but little else.
Once all the men had climbed down, Tillery followed. He was carrying a candle that cast flickering light into the darkness illuminating a few blankets piled in the middle of the room and wooden “honey buckets” in two of the corners. The idea of six men using those buckets, and nothing more, was disgusting enough, but Caleb also wondered whether he would have a chance to clean up at some point—at least wash himself with soap and a basin of water.
“This place ain’t fit for hogs,” Lyman Wight told Tillery. “How do you expect us to live down here?”
Tillery walked toward Lyman, held the candle toward his face. “I say it is fit for hogs. I also say, that’s what you men are. You’re murderers and traitors, and you’re the lowest kind of so-called humans that ever come to this state.”
Lyman stepped toward Tillery, so close that the candle was only inches from his chest. Caleb had often seen Lyman when his eyes were cool and resolved, but he also recognized the look he was seeing now: rage. Lyman’s voice was fierce when he said, “There’s six of us down here, Tillery, and only one of you. Maybe we’ll start murdering right now, and we’ll leave you in this pit to rot while we go on our way.”
“You could do that, Wight. No doubt about it. But the minute you step out of this jail my guards will be on you, and if they don’t kill you, the men in this town will mount up and chase you down. You won’t get a mile from here before you’ll be scattered over the ground with buzzards ripping at your flesh.”
“And what if God’s on our side, not yours? Maybe your local boys will be no match for that.”
“It’s exactly that kind of talk that’s got you where you are right now. Keep trying it and see where you end up.”
“Let’s end this kind of talk,” Joseph said from out of the dark across the room. “We aren’t going to murder anyone, and we aren’t afraid to stand trial. We know we haven’t committed any crimes.”
“What will that matter?” Lyman roared back at Joseph. “Do you think these people care one bit about justice? They just want to kill us—and they’ll start with you.”
Tillery laughed. “We do want y’all to die. But you’ll get your day in court first. And that day will come after you put in a long winter down here in this nice pigsty.”
Lyman continued to stare, his eyes clear in the candlelight, but he didn’t make a move toward Tillery.
Joseph’s voice was calm when he said, “Mr. Tillery, I assure you that we’ll cooperate with you. I’m wondering, though, whether we have enough blankets. We’re all cold from the ride we’ve taken today in the back of that wagon, and this room is freezing. We’d appreciate it if you could bring us some heavy quilts.”
Tillery turned, the candle swinging, the flame casting shadows in a pivoting circle. “There’s covers for you right there,” he said, and he stretched his arm to cast light toward the stack of blankets. “You can build a fire if you want, but the smoke don’t vent out of here too good.” These last words caused him to chuckle.
“I see the blankets,” Joseph said. Caleb knew Joseph was controlling himself and being careful to sound reasonable, but he was also becoming angry, and Caleb had learned that Joseph had a breaking point. “It appears that we might have one for each of us, but that won’t do. Our friend Sidney is not well, and he’ll need more warmth than that.”
It was only then that Caleb recognized that Sidney, in the dark, had slumped onto the straw on the floor. Tillery turned so the yellow light fell on Sidney, who was on his side, his knees pulled up, his body shaking.
“You must bring us more blankets,” Joseph said with restrained force. “Either that or let us sleep in the upper room, where you have a stove.”
“You’re all gonna sleep down here. That’s what the sheriff told me. And there’ll be no climbing up that ladder. I’ll pull it up when I leave and I’ll lock the trapdoor. You’re forgetting that you’re prisoners and you’ve committed more crimes than I can name off. The way you been stealing and killing and burning houses, ya’ll are lucky we’ve let you live this long.” He turned back toward Joseph and stared into his face. “So don’t talk to me about more blankets.”
“Mr. Tillery, we are prisoners. We accept that. But we are also—”
“Hogs! I told you that’s what you are, and that’s how I’ll treat you.”
Joseph took two strides toward Tillery, stood the way Lyman had, his face gleaming in the candlelight. “You will not speak to us that way again,” he said, his voice still restrained, but powerful.
“I’ll speak to you any way I want. And you won’t—”
“Silence!”
The room did fall silent.
I chose this passage from Liberty: A Historical Novel because it serves as introduction to the story. The book will be published in the spring of 2024. It is my attempt to portray the experience of Joseph Smith as he, with five other Latter-day Saint brothers, survived the winter of 1838–39 in the Clay Country jail in Liberty, Missouri. My only concern in choosing these particular pages was that they might suggest certain myths about the jail: that the prisoners had to stay in the “dungeon” the entire time, had no heat, and suffered from lack of food. Research has established that conditions improved during the time the men were held and that the attitudes of jailers gradually softened. (And by the way, notice that I didn’t have the men stoop beneath the low ceiling in the lower jail; that’s another myth.)
What intrigued me about the Liberty Jail experience is that Joseph Smith evolved during those months. His first letter to the Saints was full of denouncements of former Church members who had testified against him in a pre-trial hearing. He sounded irate at that point. The question that intrigued me was how the same man, four months later, could write a letter—or, more precisely, be open to receive a revelation—that contained some of the most sublime language and precepts ever offered to the Saints: the revelations that continue to inspire us in Sections 121–123 in the Doctrine and Covenants.
I don’t know Joseph’s unspoken thoughts, but I think I have gained a fairly complete picture of the leader he became during the remaining years of his life. It’s that progression I try to present in the book.
But it was a difficult novel to write. Joseph’s deepened spirituality was a subtle mental and emotional process to portray. And life in a jail does not offer many “actions” to demonstrate his growth. The truth is, I’m not sure I accomplished what I set out to do. Readers will have to judge. What I do know is that I probably revised this novel more times than any book I’ve written. I tried to be forthright in presenting the dark foulness of the confined space, but within that darkness I tried to find Joseph’s light of affirmation and faith.
If such a plot—in a world of blockbuster movies and superhero fantasies—sounds to you like something rather boring to read, you might be right. But I hope it will help readers comprehend both the man and the prophet, Joseph Smith. 🕮