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Show - laiiiaj1 "When will I see you again?" Nellie asked as she dismounted beside the train depot in Price. Ben reached out and took her reins. Sam, Moroni and Abinadi were waiting in a grove of trees several miles from town. It was an hour or two before dawn. "I have your address," he whispered. "I'll come and see you in a week or two, if you promise not to have deputies waiting for me." "You know I wouldn't do that." "What are you going to say when they ask how you got away?" "That you let me go. I think that's enough. Truthful, too." "And if they ask where I am?" "I'll tell them you're on the loose, and that every deputy in the territory had better be on the lookout for you if he doesn't want his horse stolen or his foot shot." "We'll leave Abinadi with John Jex in Springville. You can see him there whenever you want. He'll have a good home." "I'll miss you," she said, moving closer to his horse. He bent over and . kissed her gently on the lips. Their hands touched for a brief moment before he spun the horse around and galloped into the night. Four nights later Ben, Sam and Moroni were camped in a protected clump of oakbrush near the top of Traverse Ridge, the hills extending westward from the Wasatch Mountains to separate Utah Valley from the Salt Lake Valley. From the hill above their camp they could look down on the entire Salt Lake Valley. After a brief stop at the Storm ranch where Kathryn was staying with Caroline and Sarah -Dan was still in Canada - they followed the old wagon road up Hog Hollow to the top of the ridge. From the hill above their camp they watched the sun go down over the Salt Lake Valley. They were trying to decide how to begin their campaign against the anti-Mormons. anti-Mormons. Moroni's first suggestion was to send out word through the underground that they were raising an army to drive every anti-Mormon anti-Mormon gentile from the territory. "The difference between you and me," Ben said, "is that you want to fight like a bull while I would rather fight like a fox. I'm afraid if we get a bunch of people in the open, guns blazing, a lot of men will die." "How do you want to begin?" Sam asked. "Since we've got all this dynamite, I thought we might blow up the prison at Sugarhouse. Lots of good Mormons in there, and a one-handed one-handed Indian. Let's get them out. Maybe that'll be the beginning of our army." "Sounds like a good plan to me," Sam said. "What do you think, Moroni?" The old man removed his hat, turned it upside down, and carefully placed his seerstone in the bottom. Bending over until his face covered the opening, Moroni concentrated on his stone for several minutes. "See anything?" Sam asked. "No," Moroni said after a while, "but I feel good about going to the prison first. The Lord delivered the deer into our hands, which got us the dynamite. Back in Detroit I wanted more than anything in the world to make the prison walls crumble. I couldn't do it by raising my arm to the square and shouting, so it looks like the Lord has given me some dynamite in place of the faith I lack. Yes, I feel good about the prison." "It's settled, then," Sam said. (To be continued) |