“You say except such as are too young to tell tales, Brother Higbee; what does that mean?”
“Why, all but the very smallest children, of course.”
“Are there children here?”
Lee answered:
“Oh, a fair sprinkling—about what you’d look for in a train of a hundred and thirty people. The boys got two of the kids yesterday; the fools had dressed them up in white dresses and sent them out with a bucket for water. You can see their bodies lying over there this side of the spring.”
“And there are women?” he asked, feeling a great sickness come upon him.
“Plenty of them,” answered Klingensmith, “some mighty fine women, too; I could see one yesterday, a monstrous fine figure and hair shiny like a crow’s wing, and a little one, powerful pretty, and one kind of between the two—it’s a shame we can’t keep some of them, but orders is orders!”
“These women must be killed, too?”
“That’s the orders from headquarters, Brother Rae.”
“From the military headquarters at Parowan, or from the spiritual headquarters at Salt Lake?”