She said nothing.
The sirens kept coming.
“Go,” she finally said. “Get us out of here.”
He fired up the Mustang’s engine.
Tires spun, then grabbed a firm patch, and they sped away.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Now that, darlin’, is going to blow your mind.”
FORTY-THREE
WASHINGTON, D.C.
ROWAN WAITED UNTIL STEPHANIE NELLE HAD LEFT THE READING room and the doors were closed before he focused on the book. He felt awe that Lincoln himself had held what lay on the table and pondered the meaning of lessons from long ago.
It shall be brought out of darkness unto light, according to the word of God. Yea, it shall be brought out of the earth, it shall shine forth out of the darkness and come unto the knowledge of the people, and it shall be done by the power of God. For the eternal purposes of the Lord shall roll on until all of his promises shall be fulfilled.
A prophecy, voiced just before the sacred golden record was hidden in the earth, where it was found centuries later by Joseph Smith and converted to the book before him.
Rowan had dedicated his life to his religion. His parents and theirs before them had all been Saints. Rowans had served the prophets, enduring both good and bad. Many had died to preserve what those before them had created. Why should this generation be any different? Charles R. Snow had done nothing but retreat and conform. His leadership had been irrelevant and uninspiring. The church remained fractured, with offshoots in Missouri and Pennsylvania, and smaller ones scattered around the world. Each believed in Joseph Smith as prophet and founder. They accepted the Book of Mormon. But they disagreed on many fundamental issues.
And they were not wrong.
So many tenets Joseph Smith and Brigham Young instituted had been either abandoned or repudiated by later leadership in Salt Lake.
Most prominent was the belief in plural marriage, which many fundamentalists still held as central to their religion.
As he believed.
The prophet Smith decreed the practice essential, and no later decision made for political and public relations reasons could reverse that. For Rowan, personally, monogamy was fine. But a Saint should have the choice, as the Prophet Joseph decreed.
The time had come to reassemble as many of the faithful who wanted under one banner. But that could not be done while the U.S. government still wielded power. Each state should be free to chart its own course, especially in matters of faith and religion. Congress had no business in the hearts and minds of individuals.
If the people only knew.
He’d served thirty-three years in the Senate. Sadly, nothing ever seemed to get done unless it benefited a select few, the government as a whole, or both. Nothing ever passed simply because it was good for the country, or the states, or the people. Those were the farthest things from most legislators’ minds. Every congressman quickly learned that his or her only goal was to gather enough resources for the next election. Beyond that? Not a worry, until the next election was over. How many times had he watched as one lobbyist after another metamorphosed a good bill into a bad one. He’d never accepted one penny from a lobbyist. He rarely talked with them, and when he did, it was always in a group so there’d be no misunderstanding as to what was said. His reelections were paid for by individual donations from constituents inside Utah, all of which were reported in minute detail. If the voters were dissatisfied with that arrangement, they were free to elect someone else. But for the past thirty-three years, the people of his state had chosen him.
He stared down at the book.
Brigham Young had written in the note sealed within the cornerstone that Lincoln told my emissary that he had read the Book of Mormon. As a young legislator in Illinois, Lincoln had known Saints. He actually helped obtain approval for the Nauvoo city charter, which granted them unprecedented autonomy. For thirty-two years, starting with Franklin Pierce and ending with Chester Arthur, presidents of the United States showed nothing but harshness toward the church. Lincoln’s five years were the sole oasis. In death his stature with Saints only grew. He emerged constantly at conference talks, in lesson manuals, in anecdotes. Rowan never realized the full extent of the connection until he began this quest.
But now he understood.
Did this book hold the key?
The moment he’d read Brigham Young’s note he knew where he had to look. Two months after our bargain was sealed Lincoln sent me a telegram that said Samuel, the Lamanite, stood guard over our secret, among the Word, which gave me great comfort. Three words—among the Word—had made him immediately think of the book kept safe in the Library of Congress, the one Lincoln himself had read.