The next morning dawned cool and overcast, a light rain drizzling over the San Francisco mountains and the towns and mining camps that had sprung up around them like weeds.
In Redemption, a group of men dressed entirely in black stood in a large barn. They stood staring down at the bodies laid over an expanse of hay bales. They were the bodies of men, women, and children killed by the vigilantes. They numbered nearly two dozen.
Though the men followed the teachings of Brigham Young and the path of righteousness set forth by the prophet Joseph Smith, they were not like other Mormons. These men carried Colt pistols and Greener shotguns, repeating rifles and army carbines. In a religion that espoused the gentle way of the lamb, these men were wolves, hunters and predators.
They were called Danites, though gentiles knew them as the “Destroying Angels”.
They were the ultra-secret, ultra-clannish enforcement wing of the Church of the Latter-Day Saints. Since before the days of the Mountain Meadows Massacre when as many as a 150 California-bound gentiles were slaughtered by Mormon militias and Indians under the direction of the Danites, they had been actively righting wrongs and settling scores for the Mormon populations of Utah Territory. And this under orders of Brigham Young, though he had denied the same again and again.
And now they were in Redemption.
A village elder was pacing before the bodies, openly weeping. “Only through the Holy Scriptures may we know of God’s plan, the beauty of God’s mind and will,” he was saying. “For we are all God’s children, are we not? Man, woman, and child? And are we not promised salvation for our toil and trouble and earthly torment?”
There was a chorus of “Amens”.
“Yes, brothers and sisters, we have been charged by the Lord Almighty to go amongst the nations and spread His word. We are empowered by Him to baptize the heathen into His Church. And this, oh yes, this is our task, nay, our divine right! Yet, there are those who would visit foul deeds upon us! Foul deeds perpetrated by foul minds and foul hearts! They spurn the word and the teachings of the Lord God of Hosts! Not only do they refuse to be saved, but they refuse the way of salvation and eternal life! They spit in the face of His Son Jesus Christ! And worse, yea, possibly worse, brothers, they would burn and murder us from the very lands promised to us by the Prophet Joseph Smith! And when they molest our children, are we not angered? When they spill the blood of our kin, are we not enraged? And when they murder our brethren, are we not moved to revenge?”
The “Amens” of those gathered in the barn were loud and resounding now. The elder was openly plagiarizing both the Book of Mormon and the works of William Shakespeare, but no one seemed to notice. The elder was known for his fiery sermons and no one was disappointed this morning as they looked upon the burned and bullet-ridden corpses before them.
“The Lord has told us to love Him, to love all His Children…but what of they who do not love us? That do not chose the way of salvation and peace? What then, you may well ask? Well, brothers, I will tell you! For as the Lord has said that vengeance is mine, so is it ours! Our blood-right to avenge the murder of our kin! And, brothers, so shall it be…”
The Danites stood there, neither smiling nor frowning, but knowing that a task had been handed them and that they would accomplish that task even at the cost of their own lives.
So it was.