©-2005 Dan O'Connor

...............Thievin Rascals

Carthage, Illinois
1844

“All right, you thievin’ rascals, duck yer heads down, there’s a rafter right above yer heads!”  Once safely inside, the jailer took off the black hoods the sheriff had used to blindfold the men to keep them subdued en route from their capture to the Hancock County jail.  They were the same hoods that would be used in a few days to make it seem more humane, when they were to be hung for bank robbery, that is, after their intervening fair trial.  They would have been tried and hung this very evening, except that Judge Johnson, Carl Johnson, was a circuit court judge and he was all the way over in Cumberland County officiating at the hanging of some horse thieves.

“Who’s he?” Clem said.  He pointed to a pallid looking man over in the corner of the jail cell, pouring over a set of books.

“Why that’s Joseph Smith,” the jailer said.  “He’s that religious nut you’ve probably been hearin’ about.  Claims God and John the Baptist have come to see him, perhaps even in this very jail cell.  We seldom get such important visitors as that!  I’ll tell you that much for sure.  He thinks he’s a prophet of God.”  The jailer was a skinny man, so skinny that he looked emaciated spoke in a mocking tone.

“Whatcha up to Brother Smith?” he said, as he looked over at the pale looking man, who looked to be about forty years old, dressed neatly in black pants and a white shirt with a black vest, covering part of his shirt and open at the sleeves.  It was so hot that sweat beaded on the prophet’s forehead. 

Joseph Smith barely looked up.  “I’m translating the Bible,” he said.  “I’m afraid I might not have much time left in this life and I’m trying to get as much of it translated as I can before it’s too late.”

“Pardon me for bein’ so presumptuous,” the jailer said, this time with a smirk on his heavily blemished face.  “But ain’t the Bible already been translated?”

“Yes it has,” Joseph Smith said, “But they got it wrong in places.  I’m going over it and making a few corrections, a few very important corrections.”  He looked back down at his work.

“Well I’ve brought you a couple of helpers,” the jailer said as he locked the door and left.

The room wasn’t what you’d typically envision as a jail cell.  It was mostly cedar and hot and humid, as it was July of 1844.   There was a single window in the apex of the room, which had no bars on it.  It was on the third floor and a large rectangular window, but faced away from the direction from which what little breeze there was outside was blowing.  The rumblings of a distant storm moaned near the horizon.

Clem shouted at the man, who had resumed his work.  “What’s this I hear about you bein’ a prophet and all?  Does that mean you’ve seen Jesus?”

Clem sounded rowdy in that he’d imbibed a fair amount of white lightnin’ prior to the holdup gone awry.  The smell of alcohol on his breath had not grown faint, as yet.  It was as though he wore it like a badge, like the shiny silver badge the sheriff wore, when he showed up on the scene and halted the bank robbery.  Maybe if Clem hadn’t been drinking beforehand, perhaps his pistol wouldn’t have misfired and the two men would have gotten away.

Or, maybe he would have shot and killed the Sheriff.  Then the two of them might already have been hanged, the officiating of Judge Johnson dispensed with, as an unnecessary adjunct to the legal proceedings.

These were things that Clyde Call, Clem’s accomplice, would have an opportunity to ponder over the course of the next several days until Judge Johnson’s return.  Clem would have a lot to ponder, such as “Why did I listen to this no account scoundrel in the first place?”

The two men had met at a bar over in Decatur.  Well, it wasn’t like that was the first time they’d met.  They’d known each other since Clyde’s parents took to share croppin’ the land next to  Clem’s family spread.  Clem was born a boy of means, but always had a crazy streak in him—predictably opting for adventure over common sense at every turn.

Clyde’s thought processes were much simpler, much more oriented toward normalcy.  He’d agreed to the bank robbery because he’d been jilted, jilted in a marriage proposal to Rita Marie Wallender, a fiery young woman of Mexican heritage that he’d taken up with on a casual basis, as a fellow field hand, and ended up falling passionately, feverishly, unequivocally in love with—her fans, her fan dancing, her fanfare, her fan dangles and of more recent interest and familiarity, her fanny itself.

She took up with a distant cousin, “her own kind,” as she referred to him and walked out and left Clyde with little or no satisfaction of the kind he was getting used to, craving, and wasn’t sure he could live without.  This left him despondent, angry with the world, ready to lash out and “of a mind to settle up his affairs and head west, perhaps all the way to Californy.”

The bank had not three days before refused him a loan to buy a wagon and a horse that he could have used to hire himself out to all the farmers within a ten mile radius surrounding his home, and possibly won Rita’s heart in view of his impending prosperity.

“As a matter of fact, I have seen Jesus,” Joseph Smith replied to Clem. 

“Oh, yeah, where was that?”  Clem asked.  “Down at the livery?”

Clyde couldn’t help but be amused by the discourse between the two men.  He’d heard of Joseph Smith, read about his arrest in the Chicago Tribune, but had no idea what to make of him.  The stories spoke of a mysterious young man of considerable charisma and a buckboard load of weirdness, making outlandish claims, with five or six wives and a loyal following, hell bent on converting the world to his way of thinking.  Clyde and his family may have been of humble means, but his mother had seen to it that he learned his arts and letters at an early age.  By the time he was nine years old, he would read fluently in English, French and German, do algebra and trigonometry, ride, shoot, and hoe a patch of ground as straight as a plum line.  Perhaps Clem should have given me that gun, he thought.  I might have been able to use it to get them to back off.

Clyde didn’t want to hurt anybody.  He didn’t really want to rob the bank either.  He only had a lukewarm desire to head off to Californy.  The only thing he really wanted to do was to take out his spite for being jilted by Rita on someone who would feel it.  That mousey little man behind the teller’s cage, the one with the pointy ears and the fancy pinned striped shirt, now he would have felt it—even if it wasn’t his own money and even if it was only for a few minutes.  Clyde remembered how frightened the teller looked at the time.

Joseph Smith continued, “My sighting was in upstate New York, out in the woods.  I was only fourteen at the time.  Maybe you’ve read about it?”

As he looked at Clem, Clyde could see that it was just coming to the prophet that Clem was not a readin’ man.  Joseph seemed calm as he spoke.  Isn’t this man just a few days away from lynchin’ himself?

As he said this, he glanced out the window and could see a small band of people gather and then run off when it started to rain.  Thunder clapped and a large batch of sprinkles covered the landscape.  It was just about sunset.  Even in the confines of the jail with only that one little window, Clyde could smell the odor of wet dust turning damp as their incarceration began in earnest.  It smelled clean and fresh.

“I’ve read about your sightings!” Clyde answered.  “I’ve read about it in the papers.  They say you’ve got twenty-some-odd wives.”

“Brother Smith,” Joseph said.  “Please call me Brother Smith.  I’ve got only six wives.  And don’t think it’s all that it’s cracked up to be.  It’s just like having one wife and multiplying your problems by six.”

“One woman is all I can handle,” Clem said.  “I tried to have just three women one day—at a whorehouse over in Peoria.  It took me two days and my thing liked to fall off after one.  . . . Had to soak it in alcohol for two nights.”

Clyde thought about the problems he’d had with Rita and appreciated that there could be downsides to “enough intimacy to last a man all week,” as his father had quipped after reading the article.    “With Sundays off—to rest and celebrate the Lord’s day,” his father had added.

The wind swirled in through the window and blew out the prophet’s candle, just as night fell on the small Illinois community. 

“I’m gonna die!” Clem yelled.  “I’m gonna die!”  He started bawling.  

“We’re all gonna die,” Joseph Smith answered in a smooth and calm tone, just as calm as when he had been talking about the translation.  “This life is just a testing and proving ground for the next.”

“I’ll miss my Ma,” Clem wailed.  It was not like Clem to be overly sentimental, but the thoughts of his impending doom must have been diluting the effects of the alcohol.

“If we live righteously,” the prophet said.  “Follow the gospel and get baptized, the Lord has provided that we can one day be reunited with our loved ones.”  When he said the part about being reunited with his loved ones, his smooth, calm tone trailed off and his voice became jerky, as though he were on the brink of sobbing.

Clyde couldn’t see him in the darkness, but he sensed a deep and abiding affection between this man and his family.  Perhaps he was already feeling their loss.

“But there is life after death,” Joseph assured Clem, as his voice quickened and his tone became more reassured.  “You need to spend your final days making peace with the Lord and repenting.”

“There ain’t no chance of that,” Clem said.  “I guess I’m doomed.”  He sobbed and wailed, much to Clyde’s surprise.  Then he settled into whimpering in a low and inconsolable tone.

From what Clyde had seen, particularly over the course of the past several days, it appeared that Clem had just made his first and only incontrovertible point he’d heard since he entered the jail cell—that and the fact that they were about to be hung.

* * *

             As the sun rose the following morning, the men were awakened by the sound of hecklers gathering across the street.  The rain had stopped and Clyde could see the faint hint of a rainbow, peaking out alongside the edge of one of the few remaining storm clouds.  He hadn’t gotten a decent night’s sleep in view of the fact that the Prophet Joseph Smith had been reciting scriptures all night long, talking about Urim and Thummim, speaking in tongues, pillars of fire, Zedekiah, Nephi and Enos.   The idea of him meeting his Maker in the next few days and having that noose around his neck didn’t provide him with much comfort either.

             There was a soothing quality to the ritual of reading from the scriptures, but the convolution of the language, the battles and wars, the yea’s and nea’s combined to left Clem spooked, tired and jumpy.  He complained of a headache from all the drinking. 

            Clyde said, “What they got you in here for Brother Smith?”

            “Sedition,” he replied.

            “Seduction?” Clem asked.

            Clyde turned to him and said, “No, sedition.  It’s like treason.”

            “At least I ain’t no traitor,” Clem said.

            “Neither am I,” Joseph Smith said.  “Neither am I,” as he knelt for his morning prayers.  “Why don’t you men join me in a word of prayer,” he continued.  “Dear Heavenly Father . . .”

            Just then, the jailer showed up with some gray eggs and a small pattie of meat for each man.  The bank robbers ignored the call to prayer and dug in on the victuals.

            “Hurry up, preacher, or we’ll eat yours,” Clem insisted.

            Joseph did not look up or speak to the men.  Instead he continued on his knees with his arms folded and his eyes closed.  It looked as if he were in a trance, muttering quietly to himself.

            When he finally did open his eyes after what seemed like an eternity, he said, “Go ahead.  You men go ahead and eat mine.  I’ve decided to fast today.”

            “But this could be your last day on earth,” Clyde replied.  “Don’t you want to go out of this world with a full stomach?”  Clyde was responding to the chanting sounds made by a crowd that had gathered in the morning light outside the jailhouse window. 

            “Satan!” 

“Heretic!”

“Blasphemer!”  The crowd jeered in alternating guttural tones.

“Say, when is that judge due back into town?” Clem asked the jailer when he came back to get the dishes.

“Tonight or tomorrow morning,” he replied.  “Judge Johnson is due back tonight or tomorrow morning.”

Clyde continued to chew, but took a long, long time to swallow the next bite.

“Say, preacher, watcha prayin’ about over there?”

“I’m praying for the souls of those who’ve come to torment me,” he said. 

“That’s unusual, ain’t it,” Clem said.  “I think I’d be worryin’ about how to fight ‘em off.  I’d be lookin’ for a loose plank or something to bang ‘em over the head with when they come to get me.”

“Love your enemies,” Joseph Smith replied.  “The Lord has commanded that we come to love our enemies.”

* * *

            Love his enemies or not, it became downright ugly by nightfall.  Men with torches were jeering from across the street.  Clyde recognized the effects of the liquor they had been filling themselves with in ever increasing doses during the course of the day, a day when Joseph Smith relentlessly tried to teach the two bank robbers the basic principles of the gospel.

            Clyde listened with only one ear and Clem, well, he barely listened at all, except when there was a chance to poke fun at some aspect of the prophet’s missionary work.  “I guess you got yerself what they call a captive audience today, yer Highness.  But that don’t mean I’ve gotta listen.”  And, while he spent a considerable amount of time jeering, challenging, laughing, hooting and hollering, there were times when he seemed to be considering the points Joseph Smith had made—about celestial kingdoms and angels and sitting at the feet of Jesus.

            He talked about the atonement, Jesus grieving for the sins of all mankind in the garden of Gethsemane, turning water into wine, his forgiveness of Mary Magdalene.  He prayed.  He sang hymns, which was amazing, since the crowd was jeering, but he ignored them.

            Just about nightfall, the jailer brought the men a crust of bread and a glass of ale.  Even though it had been hot all day and the men were parched, Joseph Smith turned down his share of the grog, much to Clem’s delight.

            “Don’t ya even want a sip?” Clyde asked.  “It’s been mighty hot today, Brother Smith.  I don’t see how you can stand it.   Aren’t yer lips parched like the rest of us?”

             “Those spirits are evil,” Joseph Smith replied.  “And you’d be just as well to leave off from those hot drinks for the stomach.  They’re the devil’s curse,” he said.  “They’ll weaken yer spirit.  They’ll put you out of touch with the Holy Ghost.”

            “Whew!  The Holy Ghost,” Clem said, waving his finger tips as though they were sailing through the air.  “Got to watch out fer the Holy Ghost.”

            Joseph Smith had not gone near the window all day, but Clyde had.  “That crowd’s getting’ bigger and bigger,” he said.  “And some of ‘em’s painted black.  I think you’d better come and have a look at this.”

            “Perhaps I can calm them down,” Joseph said, as he went to the window to quell the crowd.  He raised his arms.  The increasing level of jeers reported that various segments of the crowd were becoming aware of his presence.

            “I wonder where that jailer’s gone to,” Clem said.  He belched after drinking down the last gulp of ale.

            A shot rang out and hit Joseph in the head.  Blood splattered all over the wall.

            “God Almighty!” Clem said.

            “Holy Jesus!” Clyde said as Joseph tried to catch his balance, began to wobble and then fell headlong out the window.  Clyde barfed.

            A few seconds later, the jailer came rushing in, “Oh, my God,” he said.  He ran toward the window and yelled at the mob.  “See what you’ve done,” he said.  “I’m watchin’ you folks and I’m gonna write down every face I see.  I see you Tom Wilson and you Steve Wiley.”

            While the jailer was caught up with witness identification, Clem and Clyde slipped out through the open door to their cell, walked quietly down the stairs, passed a couple of men they didn’t recognize rushing up and disappeared stealthily into the night.

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