The Lincoln Myth (Cotton Malone 9)

“Your employer has men?” Malone asked.

“Danites.”

That was a word he hadn’t expected, but one he knew.

He stepped over to the aisle marked RELIGION and searched for the book he hoped was still there. He’d bought it a few weeks ago from an odd lady who’d dragged in several cartons.

And yes—it remained on the top shelf.

Kingdom of the Saints.

Published in the mid-20th century.

The term Danites had triggered something in his eidetic memory. It didn’t take much. Photographic was too simplistic a description for the genetic trait, and not altogether right. More a knack for details. A pain in the ass that could, sometimes, be helpful.

He checked the index and found the reference to a sermon delivered June 17, 1838, by Sidney Rigdon, one of Joseph Smith’s early converts.

“Ye are the salt of the earth but if the salt hath lost its savor, wherewith shall the earth be salted? It is henceforth good for nothing but to be cast out and trodden underfoot of man. We have provided the world with kindness, we have suffered their abuse without cause, with patience, and have endured without resentment, until this day, and still their persecution and violence does not cease. But from this day and this hour we will suffer it no more.”

Rigdon directed his comments to other apostates who he believed had betrayed the rest, but he also was referring to gentiles who’d repeatedly meted out death and violence toward Latter-day Saints. One new convert, Sampson Avard, a man described as “cunning, resourceful, and extremely ambitious” played upon the feeling aroused by what came to be called the Salt Sermon. He formed a secret military organization within the ranks known as the Sons of Dan, taken from a passage in Genesis, Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse’s heels so that his rider shall fall backward. The Danites were to enlist the youngest, the rashest, and the most vigorous as an elite corps, which served secretly. They acted not as a group, but as individuals who could be called upon to effect swift and immediate revenge for any acts of violence practiced against the Saints.

He glanced up from the book. “Danites were fanatics. Radicals within the early Mormon church. But they disappeared long ago.”

Kirk shook his head. “Senor Salazar fancies himself living in another time. He is an obsessive believer in Joseph Smith. He follows the old ways.”

Malone knew about Smith and his visions of the angel Moroni, who supposedly led him to golden plates, which Smith translated and used to form a new religion—first called the Church of Christ, now known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

“Senor Salazar is intelligent,” Kirk said. “Possessed of an advanced degree from the Universidad de Barcelona.”

“Yet he follows a man who claims he found golden plates upon which was engraved a foreign language. Nobody, save for Smith and a few witnesses, ever saw those plates. If I recall, some of those witnesses even later repudiated their testimony. But Smith was still able to translate the plates by reading the words on a seer stone dropped in the bottom of a hat.”

“Is that similar to the belief that a man was crucified, died, and rose from the dead three days later? Both are matters of faith.”

Malone wanted to know, “Are you Mormon?”

“Third generation.”

“It means something to you?”

“Since I was a boy.”

“And to Salazar?”

“It’s his life.”

“You took a chance running.”

“I prayed upon it, and was told it was the right thing to do.”

Personally, he’d never been a fan of blindly placing his life in the hands of faith. But this was not the time to debate religion. “Where is our man?”

“Your agent is being held outside Kalundborg,” Kirk said. “On a property owned by Senor Salazar. Not his main estate, but an adjacent tract, directly east. There is a holding cell located in the basement.”

“And in the main house,” Luke said, “does he keep information there?”

Kirk nodded. “His study is his sanctuary. No one is allowed in there without permission.”

Malone stood near the counter, gazing out the front window to the darkened square. Twelve years he’d worked as a field agent for the Justice Department, honing skills that would never leave him. One was to always be aware of what was around him. To this day he never ate in a restaurant with his back to the door. Through the plate glass, a hundred feet beyond his shop, he spotted two men. Both young, dressed in dark jackets and black trousers. They’d been standing in the same spot for the past few minutes, unlike nearly everyone else around them. He’d tried not to stare, but had kept watch.

Luke walked toward the counter, his back to the window. “You see them, too?”

His gaze met the younger man’s. “Hard not to notice.”

Luke raised his arms and feigned being upset, but his words did not match his actions. “Tell me, Pappy, do you have a rear door into this place?”

He played along, pointing, showing irritation, but nodding his head.

“What’s happening?” Kirk asked.

The two men outside moved.

Toward the shop.

Then a new sound could be heard.

Sirens.

Approaching.

NINE

STEPHANIE LISTENED TO DAVIS’ EXPLANATION.

“The American Revolution was not a revolution at all. At no time was its goal the overthrow of the British government. None of its stated aims included conquering London and replacing the monarchy with a democracy. No. The American Revolution was a war of secession. The Declaration of Independence was a statement of secession. The United States of America was founded by secessionists. Their goal was to leave the British Empire and fashion a government of their own. There have been two wars of secession in American history. The first was fought in 1776, the next in 1861.”

The implications fascinated her, but she was more curious as to the information’s relevance.

“The South wanted to leave the Union because it no longer agreed with what the federal government was doing,” Davis said. “Tariffs were the big revenue raiser. The South imported far more than the North, so it paid over half the tariffs. But with more than half of the population, the North sucked up the majority of federal spending. That was a problem. Northern industrialists owed their existence to high tariffs. Eliminate them, and their businesses would fail. Tariffs had been fought over since 1824, the South resisting, the North continuing to impose them. The newly created Confederate Constitution specifically outlawed tariffs. That meant Southern ports would now have a decisive edge over their Northern counterparts.”

“Which Lincoln could not allow.”

“How could he? The federal government would have no money. Game over. In essence, the North and South fundamentally disagreed on both revenue and spending decisions. After decades of this, the South decided it just didn’t want to be a part of the United States anymore. So those states left.”

“What do Josepe Salazar and Senator Rowan have to do with any of this?”

“They’re both Mormon.”

She waited for more.

By the time the Emancipation Proclamation was issued in January 1863, Lincoln was in a panic. After winning at the Battle of Manassas in July 1861, the Union army had been handed a string of defeats. The decisive Battle of Gettysburg was still six months away, when the tide of the war would turn. So in the winter of 1863 Lincoln faced a crisis. He had to hold both the North and the Far West. Losing the Far West to the Confederacy would mean certain defeat.

To hold the Far West meant making a deal with the Mormons.

They’d occupied the Salt Lake valley since 1847. The area had been known as the Great American Desert before their arrival, and the nearby dead lake had discouraged settlement. But they’d labored sixteen years, building a city, creating the Utah Territor

y. They’d wanted statehood, but it had been denied, a reaction to their rebellious attitude and unorthodox beliefs, especially polygamy, which they refused to denounce. Their leader, Brigham Young, was both determined and capable. In 1857 he faced off against President James Buchanan when five thousand federal troops were sent west to restore order. Luckily for Young, that invading force was not led by military strategists. Instead politicians called the shots, and they ordered a march across 1,000 miles of harsh wilderness, ending short of Utah just as winter took hold, stuck in the mountains where many died. Young wisely determined it would be futile to fight such an army head-on, so he adapted guerrilla tactics–burning supply trains, stealing pack animals, scorching the earth. Buchanan was eventually backed into a corner and did what any good politician would do—he declared victory and sued for peace. Envoys came with a full pardon for Young and the Mormons. The conflict ended with not a shot fired between the opposing sides and Young once again in total control. By 1862 both the railroad and telegraph lines ran straight through the Utah Territory to the Pacific. If Lincoln did not want them severed, which would cut him off to the far west, he had to reach an accommodation with Brigham Young.

“It’s a hell of a tale,” Davis said. “Congress had passed the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act in mid-1862, which targeted polygamy. The Mormons did not like that at all. So in early 1863, Young sent an emissary to meet with Lincoln. The message was clear. Mess with us and we’re going to mess with you. That meant a break in the railroad and telegraph lines. Mormon troops might even enter the war for the South. Lincoln knew this was serious. So he had a message for Brigham Young.”

“When I was a boy on the farm in Illinois there was a great deal of timber which had to be cleared away. Occasionally, a log was found that had fallen down. It was too hard to split, too wet to burn, and too heavy to move, so we plowed around it. Tell your prophet that I will leave him alone, if he will leave me alone.”