Rumours spread. Irresponsible gossips alleged Josephites practised animal sacrifice, that The Sisters were held as communal property by the Brethren, that Gentile children were kidnapped into the Church. These absurdities reached the less scrupulous periodicals, who hastened them into print. Wild stories gained great currency and idlers competed to embroider the legends with grotesque frills. It was said the Christ that Joseph Shatner worshipped had goat's horns.
Gradually, public meeting places ceased to be available for Josephite gatherings. Brethren were abused in the streets, sometimes severely, and the Shatner household was daubed with paint and filth by unknown vandals. Local ordinances were passed limiting the rights of Josephites to worship, to own property, to hold public office. With each slight, Joseph became more sure of himself.
Hendrik remained on the Council of the Brethren but the true inner circle was restricted. It consisted of Joseph Shatner and the Ute. Hendrik tried to learn more of the Ute. Little that was concrete emerged, though Hendrik consulted frontiersmen who concurred with him that the man in the mirrored glasses was unlike any Indian who ever walked.
In the basement of the Shatner mansion, Joseph built a private chapel. He passed many nights there, secluded with the Ute. Peculiar smells seeped upwards and filled the house. When Hendrik asked his brother what went on in his night rituals, Joseph told him he was seeing further, piercing more mysteries, rending aside the veil…
"You wear the spectacles?"
Joseph nodded and held his brother by the shoulders. "Thou too must look through the lenses, Hendrik. The Revelation was for us three. Poor mad Poe could not understand what he saw. Only I have accepted the gift of sight. It is not too late to see the city, my brother." Hendrik shook Joseph off.
In September 1846, Hendrik returned late one night to find the house afire, an angry mob gathered around. As he made his way through the crowd, Hendrik heard stories from all sides. He could not believe a fourth of them.
Recently there had been a rash of disappearances among children of good families. Investigating the crimes, the authorities, acting upon anonymously provided information, had breached Joseph Shatner's cellars and surprised him in his chapel in the midst of some rite. Hendrik heard a dozen obscene accounts of the scene that had been disclosed. Two children, allegedly, had been recovered.
At the edge of the crowd, watching the house burn, he found the Ute. Hendrik started forwards, but the Ute gripped him by the arm and held him back. The upper windows blew out with the heat, showering glass onto the cobbles. As they fell, the shards sparkled with fire. Hendrik heard his brother calling for him. Joseph, hatless and bloody, was in the grip of stern officers.
He cried out as he was dragged away. The arrest was not easy. Among the mob, many of Joseph's followers impeded the officers. Shouts were raised. Some sang "The Path of Joseph", the Brethren's anthem. Gentiles tore up cobblestones and used them as missiles, putting officers in the uncomfortable position of shielding the man they had arrested. A sheriff discharged a pistol into the air but was not rewarded with silence.
Two empty-faced children, swaddled in blankets, stood with one of the officers, regarding the fire with no especial interest. They were Joseph's accusers.
Finally, Joseph was wrestled into a closed cart. As it trundled off, mobs pounded on the cart and Josephites pounded on the mobs. Running fist-fights spread through the streets. Hendrik heard more shots. A fire engine arrived, amid a tintinnabulation of bells, too late to save the Shatner house but in time to prevent the spread of the conflagration to the neighbouring residences. Water gushed and steam rose.
The Ute released Hendrik and gave him something. The mirror glasses. Fierce indignation burned in Hendrik's breast. The timbers of his father's house cracked and fell in upon themselves. From the heart of the dying fire came a roar as of a stricken lion.
"Yes," he said.
He put on the spectacles.
For an instant, the night sky was a blaze of white and the flames were black. The Shatner house stood not in the city of Boston but on an infinite plain of white sand, of salt baked under a pale sun. Joseph was alone.
No, not alone.
The distant echo of Eddy's "tekeli-li, tekeli-li, tekeli-li" sounded from the throats of horrid, birdlike things.
Hendrik tore the glasses from his face and gave them back to the Ute. He had almost, but not quite, accepted the gift. In that moment, he truly became a follower of Joseph.
Within days, he was calling upon his long-forgotten legal education and fighting in court. No respectable lawyer would undertake to appear in defence of Joseph Shatner, who was accused of disgusting offences. A few wretched apostates drifted away from the Church, but an overwhelming number stuck by their new faith as its founder was pilloried. Hendrik was not surprised when Sister Molly told him the flow of new converts was unabated. Martyrs attract followers.
During the nights before the trial, five Josephites were killed in the city. Only one of their murderers was apprehended; he was later acquitted, indeed commended, by a Gentile jury. Brethren were refused service in stores. Josephite homes and meeting houses were razed.
When sentence of death was passed, half the courtroom erupted in cheering. Josephites sat stunned. Hendrik had expected no less and burned with a cold fury. When the judge's hammer silenced the dancing merriment, Joseph bowed and thanked the court, claiming "I go without regret to Golgotha."
Joseph Shatner was hanged in public on 5th October, 1846. The judge ordered that no member of the Brethren of Joseph should be permitted to attend and officers rigorously enforced the ruling. Hendrik, believing he had a special dispensation, put on Gentile clothing – the buttons, so recently abjured, were already awkward to deal with – and took his place in the crowd.
Joseph died with the catcalls of a Gentile mob in his ears. And a smile on his face.
Driven out of New England, the Josephites followed the path West. The Ute was their scout and Hendrik their wagon-master. From all over, converts came. The word of Joseph spread. There were miracles a-borning in the Western wilderness.
Across desert, mountain, river, rock and plain, Josephites made their way. They faced hostile Gentiles and savage Indians. They were robbed and killed, abused and burned, whipped and battered. Treasured possessions turned to millstones and were abandoned along the trail. Still, the pilgrims endured. With each blow, the faith became stronger. Many died singing "The Path of Joseph".
As he travelled, Hendrik often dreamed of the plain he had glimpsed. It was featureless and white, extended to an unimaginable horizon in every direction. There was no cover, nothing to interrupt the monotony of the landscape. He saw no other moving, living thing; and yet he knew, with the echo of Eddy Poe's screams and of the bird-things, that he was not alone. Westward rolled the wagons, ever Westward …
VII
Hendrik spurred his horse as the party charged, whooping like wild things. Reins held fast in his left hand, he leaned over to one side, trailing his torch through the wheat, leaving a wake of fire. Crackling flames spread and thick smoke drifted from crops that had been painfully wrung from unpromising soil.
He let the torch drop and straightened, urging the horse to plough through an irrigation flue. His steed reared up, hooves kicking, and the water-bearing structure – adapted from abandoned mining apparatus – collapsed all around them.
The human din was incredible. The party screeched like creatures of Hell and rode at the houses of New Canaan like a stampeding herd.