Thirty seven year old
Deborah Tyler is waiting for her husband, Samuel’s return in 1880’s Utah. They live in the tiny town of Junction, a
Mormon settlement of about 7 families far from their original settlement of
Parowan, Utah. The town lies at the confluence of the Suphur Creek and the
Freemont river, a picturesque spot in red river rock country. Deborah is a glove
maker and she keeps a book displaying the hand size and glove pattern for each
of her customers. It is December and
Samuel should have been home at the end of November or the beginning of
December. Still Deborah is not yet
worried. They live at the confluence of
the Sulphur and blank Creek in the wastelands of Utah. A hauntingly dramatic location, the roadways
and horse paths are treacherous in the winter months. Yet Samuel is very familiar with the difficulties
of the journey and has a healthy respect for it. Samuel is a wheelwright. He travels the hinterlands tending to the
broken wagon wheels of fellow rural inhabitants of Utah. Nels Anderson her husband’s widowed step
brother and best friend lives alone less than a mile away over the bridge
traversing the Sulphur river. Her sister,
Grace, her husband and three little boys live just on the other side of the
orchard planted by Deborah and her husband when they first arrived. Deborah and Samuel have not been blessed with
children, but she helps her pregnant much younger sister with her three
nephews.
In the middle of December Nels and a younger colleague set
off looking for Samuel to see if anything can explain his delay. While they are gone, a stranger comes to
Deborah’s door. His comments and
repetition of scripture identify him as a fellow Mormon. He is hiding from Federal marshals and he
wants passage to a sanctuary called Floral Ranch where fellow polygamists hide
from authorities. Although hesitant
Deborah offers him shelter in her barn.
Had Nels been home she would have sent him there, but he is off
searching for Samuel. She tells him he
must wait in her barn until Nels returns.
Of the seven Junction Mormon families only one practices polygamy.
Parowan is a more observant community and one reason Junction began was to seek
a settlement with less onerous religious practices. In Parowan most families
are polygamous. In 1882 the U.S. and its
territories passed the Edmunds act which outlawed polygamous marriages. Deborah and Samuel do not agree with the
practice of polygamy. Still they offer
safe haven to their co-religionists running from the law. Deborah recalls how
it saddened her mother when her father took a second wife and how she further
declined with the birth of each one of her sister wife’s subsequent children. Still she is aware of the prejudice and
religious intolerance the broader Christian community has for the Mormon
faith. She feels uncomfortable as a
woman alone providing shelter to an unaccompanied man, but feels she owes a
fellow Mormon her protection from the elements and the law. She knows Nels
& his friend will return soon and bids the man to wait a day or so before
heading over to Nels Anderson’s cabin. She misses Samuel and thinks of him and his
travels as well as the terse letters he has already sent.
While traversing the narrow mountain passes that were likely
to have been Samuel’s route, Nels and his fellow traveler come upon a rock
slide that partially blocked the passage.
Nel’s friend thinks he spots sunlight glinting off a piece of metal buried
in the rocks that tumbled to the valley floor.
Nels does not catch the sparkle of light reflected by the piece of metal
and assumes his friend is mistaken. They
return and tell Deborah that the passageway was blocked and that Samuel would
have had to take a much longer way up and over some mountains in order to bring
his wagon home. This explanation
satisfies Deborah and she accepts a new date of about the middle of January as
the expected return of her husband. In
the meantime Nels meets with the traveler and seeks to lead him to Floral ranch
about ten miles away. However, it is
snowing and Nels bids the stranger to stay in a cave while they await better
weather. The snow is thigh deep and
insurmountable. At this time of year few
lawmen venture out preferring to seek polygamists in the spring summer or
fall. Searches in the dead of winter are
rare.
The following night
another stranger appears at Deborah’s door.
This time it is a middle aged Federal Marshall seeking a polygamist. She
realizes he is chasing the man she had offered shelter to the night before. He questions her at length and she denies
seeing any other solo male traveler or any strange male at all. Deborah who is
again uncomfortable providing shelter for a man alone is fearful that if she
turns him away he will suspect she provided comfort to the Mormon man on his
way to Floral Ranch. He too stays in her
barn. Deborah learns that the Mormon who
already had two wives had absconded with a non-Mormon girl of 15 or 16 years
against her parents’ wishes. He married
her and consummated the marriage. The
parents wanted the girl returned.
The next day she points him in the direction of Nel’s cabin
indicating that Nels might know the way to Floral Ranch which she learned was
the marshal’s destination. Nel’s and the
marshal have a confrontation and the marshal suffers a serious head
injury. Nels seeks Deborah’s help
assuming that if the community appears to tend the injured lawmen his friends
to follow will believe Nel’s story that the man fell off his horse when the
horse stumbled on an icy bridge at the confluence of Sulphur creek and the
Freemont river on his way to Nel’s cabin. They claim to have found him injured
at the bridge with his horse standing nearby.
Deborah bids Nels and his friend to carry the man to Nel’s cabin where
they put him in bed. Deborah notices
that the man is bleeding from his head.
She dresses the wound and cares for him as best she can. The man continues to deteriorate. Deborah partially undresses him in order to
treat him. She finds his pocket
watch. Inside his watch is a photo of
the marshal, his wife, daughter and son.
She realizes that the girl that was taken from her home was the
marshal’s daughter. She now understands
why he is searching for a polygamist in the dead of winter.
Nels leaves Deborah alone with the marshal and leads the
fleeing Mormon the 10 miles to Floral Ranch. The marshal moans and bleeds from
his ear. This Deborah recognizes is a
fatal head injury. The marshal
dies. When Nels returns, they carry the
marshal to Deborah’s barn where they make a coffin and place him in it. The rest of the town including Deborah’s
brother-in-law Michael who is now the school teacher are concerned that they
will all come under suspicion over the marshal’s death. Subsequently, the marshal’s now grown son and
his friend find the marshal dead in Deborah’s barn. They do not believe that
the marshal who was an expert horseman would have fallen off his horse and
suffered such a blow. Still they realize
that he was well cared for once he was injured and are impressed with the care
Deborah has given to the injured man. The visitors have brought with them
correspondence from Samuel to Deborah which were left in mail drops along the
way. Deborah devours Samuel’s loving
letters but is saddened by the prospect that she may never see him again. During all the upheavals it becomes apparent
to the reader that Nels has romantic feelings for Deborah which she tries to
discourage. Still they cannot be denied.
It is now February and Nels must admit to himself that
Samuel probably was killed by the rock slide he and his fellow searcher found
in December. They tell Deborah that they
will return to the spot and find out for sure.
The snow has stopped now, and it is not as deep. Deborah insists on
accompanying them. When they come upon
the rock slide Deborah can see a part of Samuel’s wagon on the canyon floor
covered by rocks. She decides to leave
his body there in the beauty of the nature they have come to love. Grace and
her family have decided to move back to Parowan once her baby is born. Junction
is just too far from civilization and their fellow Mormons than they would
like. Nels clearly has feelings for
Deborah. While he does not yet act upon
them it is apparent to the reader that in the near future he will and that they
may find a life together.
