Natanii ne’e’z

Below him and across the big river the canvas tops of the Mormon wagons were just becoming visible, though scattered across the flat as they now were, he knew that many remained hidden by the ti’is, the cottonwoods. (p. 605)

Yorgason also employed a device I first became familiar with in his novel, Secrets, about the realities of abuse in Mormon families. He made use of his characters to do some preaching, this time about sanctification and repentance, by making us an audience to their scripture study and discussions. It works well and I found myself thinking seriously about the things Eliza learned from Billy’s exhortations from the scriptures.

This spiritual journey for Eliza begins after Billy tells her that he is going to go on the mission to the San Juan River, but has told her that he would release her from any obligation to go with him. At this point in the story, Eliza thoroughly despises her husband and is happy to take him up on this release and the accompanying promise to return her to Salt Lake City. However, in their nightly scripture study, she learns something she doesn’t want to know, from the twelfth chapter of Second Corinthians:

As the now terrifying feeling of heavenly fire continued to course through her trembling body, Eliza looked at her husband–at the messenger of Satan who had been sent to buffet her. And with a shudder of fear and terror she did her best to nod.

“Verse eight and continuing.” Billy smiled. “‘For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.'”

“That’s enough,” Eliza whispered. “What…what do you think it means, Billy?”

Finally aware that something was profoundly affecting his wife, Billy quickly reread the verses. “Lawsy, Eliza,” he said when he’d finished, “it seems pretty straightforward. Paul was troubled by something he didn’t want to suffer. But when he sought the Lord to remove it, the Lord told him that his strength was made perfect in weakness and that he would be keeping his ‘thorn.’

“And then, if you remember, Paul went on to have a hard life. Back in chapter eleven of this same epistle…let’s see. Here, beginning at the twenty-third verse and continuing through the twenty-seventh, Paul writes, ‘Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeyings often, in perils in waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.’

“Eliza, darling, are you all right?”

Hardly daring to speak, Eliza merely nodded. She was not all right, not in the least. The prayers she had offered for relief from her marriage to Billy had just been answered, but not in the way she had either hoped for or expected. Nevertheless, the answer was clear, and she knew it had come directly from God and was not of her own manufacture.

Like Paul, she had been given a messenger from Satan, a thorn in the flesh, a burden she would have to carry throughout her life. She remembered once reading these same verses and feeling confident that her thorn was her nonbelieving family. A year later she had seen beyond that and concluded it was her crippled feet. But now she knew how shortsighted such ideas had been. Compared to the burden of being married to Billy, and feeling as how she did about him and his church, such thorns were in reality nothing. Like Paul, she seemed to be moving from one trial to another, each more difficult, each more demanding. But like the ancient apostle, she would surely be strengthened through endurance. (pp. 50-51)

Eliza’s contempt for her husband takes the form of internal criticism of her perception of him as lacking in masculinity. Because of growing up with same-sex attraction feelings, this facet of the story was the most compelling for me, since I, like Billy Foreman, often questioned my own masculinity. I, like Billy, was no good at the basic things ascribed to manliness in my day and age: sports, car identification, and home repair.

Of course, if Mary were asked, she’d be quick to say that a tiny bit of the ease of Billy and Eliza’s traveling was because Billy was actually starting to learn a bit about pioneering. What Mary didn’t know, unfortunately, was that even though of a morning Eliza fed the chickens, milked the cow, and baited the glass-eyed mare and roped her to the wagon, it still took Billy longer than that to harness and hitch the mules. And every morning so far or another of the men had “happened” to drop by just in time to help. It was all so humiliating to Eliza, who felt even more humiliated because Billy accepted their help eagerly, warmly, as though he were a child and not a man.

On the other hand, last night her husband had managed to properly hang the harness out on the rear of the wagon, and this morning Hansen Bayless, a young man from Paragonah who’d joined the company back in Little Creek Canyon, had praised him mightily for his layout. So he was learning, Eliza admitted candidly, and might someday pass for something less than a total fool.

Trouble was, Eliza also admitted candidly, her own plan to make Billy feel loved and to make the others in the company see that she loved him wasn’t exactly working out. Oh, it had worked pretty well for a few days. Very well, as a matter of fact, for as long as they’d remained in Cedar. But now that they were on the road, Billy’s foolishness and ineptness were bothering her more and more, and her mental criticisms were once again making their way into her vocabulary.

Of course, perhaps it was better that she was being honest– (p. 123)

The descriptions of the privations and afflictions on the journey tore at my heart as I realized how true and real that kind of suffering and faithfulness is. These pioneer missionaries sacrificed for their faith and offered much on the altar as they struggled. My feet ached with Eliza’s and my hands were in agony as Billy worked alongside the others to build an impossible inroad into the wilderness. I feared for them as I read the stories of the characters they would face when they arrived at their destination, even though they were unaware.

Much like Billy and Eliza Foreman and all of their pioneer company, all disciples of Jesus Christ are called upon to offer their lives on the altars of the Lord. Our struggles are not the same as theirs were, but to anyone who has fought the battles against same-sex attraction, the hardships of the dusty trail are strangely familiar.

This work is beautifully written and inspiring. Throughout, I saw an allegory of life that is impressive in its applicability to modern day and particularly to my own struggles as I forge ahead in my own wilderness, heeding my own call from the Lord.

Yorgason promises a Book Two, “Fort on the Firing Line.” I’m looking forward to it.

, the tall Navajo who now carried the belacani name of Frank, sat his horse in the gray gloom of dawn staring down off the bluff.