only seen this one picture of him sitting on a mountain of a horse. Cowboy on a black beast, smiling. A steed so big none of Utah showed behind it. Stephen Nuttall clearly loved that horse. You could see it in the set of his chin.
Ada relished telling tales about her son. How he’d bumped a saddle up the front porch steps, age three, all by himself. How he’d banged on his mother’s pots with a spoon during Brigham City’s first Sabbath meetings, held inside her cabin. However was Ada to know the Brethren didn’t cater to their children’s musical talents, or that the Sisters never played catch-as-can with their sons on their swept dirt floors? Ada caught hell, as usual, and her husband was chastened by the Stake Council for having lax influence over his wife. Two years later, he’d married wife two and gone.
Stephen loved his father, and longed for him to come. Ada said the weekend visits lasted until the boy was eight. Then William Nuttall laid his hands on Stephen to baptize and bless him and, having fixed the boy firmly in the Lord’s great plan, Brother Nuttall walked out on him and Ada for good.
This set an echo in me, this loss of a parent when you had no say. I asked Ada how Stephen took it. Not a second to think on it, she said, “Stephen stepped up and took his father’s place.” Which awed me. He’d raised his mother’s livestock, kept the horses groomed and fed. At twelve, he rode herd for the First Ward, and by fourteen, he owned his own mount. Then Stephen hired on with sheepherders out of Malad—roaming and earning his way. My admiration became pure envy, hearing this. He’d slipped the reins of the Church as easy as a wet dog shakes off a river. Stephen had seen Idaho and Montana and the near corner of Wyoming. He came and he went as he pleased. Every Christmas, he would ride home to visit his mother, cut her a tree up Box Elder Canyon, light the candles on the high branches. He sang her “Silent Night.”
I called Ada’s photograph “Love at Home” after the Mormon hymn. How splendid that a mother and son could be so close. I never told Ada, but I hoped that I might meet him one day. Felt that we might share some things. At very least, a love for Ada. I never told her. I never did.
Late one summer day, Brother Stocks came to my cabin. His body blocked the doorway. He stood looking in at me with his good arm cradling his bad. His chest was immense, his body full of power but for the little twisted hand within his rolled up cuff.
“Brother Stocks,” I said.
He weaved a little on his feet.
I gripped the broom I held. It was day, but daylight offered no protection. My screams for help would reach no one.
“You sew them garments?” he asked.
“Yes I do. For the Co-op. Bishop Dees called me to it.”
He turned away. Greasy cowlicks covered his head. He swiped his nose at his shoulder and looked back. “I need me some.”
“They carry sizes at the Co-op—”
“None of them sizes fit.” He jerked his hand away, letting the short arm swing free. The flash of anger told me how often his crippled right hand had failed him, how, day after day, it had beggared hard work and the religion of success.
I eased the broom behind me, out of his reach.
Brother Stocks inhaled. Then he heaved all his breath out. “Ain’t no one could fit this accursed body—” In two strides, he quit the door.
“Brother Stocks,” I called. He turned in the yard. “If you would step inside, it’ll just take a measurement or two.”
I moved around him, measuring chest and shoulders and both arms, though I had only to measure the shorter one where the child-sized hand bent sharply in, blush pink. The narrow fingers fit together like the claws of a bird. I gazed at the hand, at its absolute softness. I thought to touch it—the hand that never ripped a plank or drove a nail.
I promised to deliver three pairs of custom garments to the Co-op wrapped in brown paper. The Brother left as quickly as he’d come. For days, I thought about his hand, the one without a claim to worldly successes. I doubted Brother Stocks loved it. He had cradled it, but not tenderly. Perhaps at night, when its inconvenience faded, and he let go the looks of others, let go his bitterness at being made different, maybe then the hand became an ally, a dear friend, sign of the freedom of the heart to wonder, only to wonder, stay gentle, stay small.
~~~~~
The Prophet Brigham Young decided to extend his Central Line north from Brigham City to Fort Hall, Idaho. His new Utah and Northern Rail would connect Zion to the sheep and cattle lands of Idaho, and eventually reach up to the rich mines in Montana. Mormon goods and Mormon crops could flow out to those settlements, and Gentile cash could flow back down. In time, the Prophet hoped, a watery flood.
Ada asked to take me to the ground breaking ceremony. I tried to tell her how little love I had for human wonders, but Ada said I could bring a rock for company. A heavy one, the size of my addled head.
The night of August 26th, 1871, was clear, with a three-quarter moon, when I met her at the cemetery road for a ride down to the Barrens. Pocatello Jim hummed a tuneless tune in back. I climbed up, and he stood and did a little dance in the wagon. His legs pumped under him, his feet scattering hay, but no sign of life showed in his torso or his arms. The legs cavorted, then ran wild as Jim’s eyes widened in mock terror: Captive, they said, we are captive to the will of our lesser half! I didn’t know Shoshone, but Ada had taught me a little hand talk. I signed attention-getter, striking my open left hand with a few fingers from my right and waggling them at him. Jim shook his braids and covered his mouth, the cries of a three-year-old coming from behind his palm. I looked to Ada to interpret.
“Surprise,” she said. “He’s as surprised as you are, at the dancing feet.”
I signed good, to give Jim leave to end the game. He slid into a pile and leaned back against the wagon, panting. His right hand lay flat on top of his left, chest-high, which was obvious: I am just exhausted.
“He’s a silly cuss,” I said, laughing, as Ada started the team.
“Point of pride, to his people. Shoshone don’t reprimand with blows. It’s humor keeps the tribe in line. A good dose of ridicule can strike deep.”
“They don’t visit like they used to when I was little. I remember the encampments out west of town. Singing and games, though the Widow Anderson never would let me get close enough to really see. Where have the Shoshone gone?” I looked at her closely. “Ada, where are Jim’s kin? Why is he all alone here, working for you? I don’t suppose we sent them out of this valley with ‘a good dose of ridicule.’”
“It ain’t safe anymore, Clair. White settlers hate ’em. Ranchers hate ’em. Even the Mormons lost patience with a people so wild. They’ve got a reservation, now. Most of Jim’s people prefer to keep to their kind.”
“That was the treaty they signed?”
“The treaty of Box Elder sealed it up tight, yes.”
I gave Jim a drink of cider from Ada’s old jug. You could not tell from his stern countenance if he ever felt lonely. Ada was indeed a powerful force, but could she replace a whole tribe?
We drove west through town. The Lombardy poplars shone like torches down Forest Street, silver with moonlight. At the bridge, the surface of the runoff ponds lay milky with stars.
Ada pulled off into the chaparral
