Her Eyes drew me in ...

Those eyes!

I stepped through the door.
The first thing I noticed was her eyes.

My heart told me that this was no chance encounter.

Those vivid blue eyes! 

I walked up to the counter and ask for directions, she politely told me how to get to my destination, I turned and walked out. 

A few miles down the road I determined to return and look deeper into those eyes.

Driving down the road my mind wandered back to an incident that happened nearly 20 years ago.

...The little Manti house held many wonderful memories. It was built about a hundred years ago. It was small and the ceilings were low, I loved that old house. It was such a peaceful feeling to be in that home.

It was not always that way. An old couple lived there. 

He was a gardener and brought home all the spoiled produce from the grocery store to put in his garden soil. The neighbors complained about the smell.  His wife cooked the meals and took care of them. As they grew older, they grew apart. When she died, no one noticed, not even her husband. He thought she had fallen asleep in the chair. When they took her out of the home, they said she had been dead for a while. 

A friend bought the house, cleaned it, painted it, and put it up for rent. 

When the new renters moved in they felt an angry Presence. 

After days of unrest they called the owner and told her what they felt. 

She called a physic. 

The physic came to the house to talk to the spirit. It was the spirit of the old woman and she was angry. 
She was mad at her husband for not noticing that she had died. 
The physic talk to her and explained that she needed to move on, forgive her husband and move into the light. 

She must have listened, because all we ever felt in that house was a peaceful feeling.

... Another memory began to fill my mind. 

A couple of years after the Manti house, we moved to a rural farm in near Wathena Kansas. We had use of 350 acres of rolling hills, ponds, deer, fireflies, and prairie grass. It was a little bit of heaven. The house was built before the civil war, around 1850. It had been updated several times but still had the feeling of an old home.

One night, I was laying in bed sleeping soundly when I heard a strange noise in the attic. It woke me from a sound sleep. It took me a minute to place the sound. 

“Did you hear that?” 

My wife was wide awake too. 

“Yes, I did.” 

“What do you think it was?” 

“It sounded like a button rolling across the floor.”

As I strained to listen in the silence, there was nothing more. Just that single button rolling on an old wooden floor. 

The next day, the sun was shining and the birds were making their usual morning fuss out on the bush. They seemed to love that one bush and darted in and out by the dozens. 

The old cat watched that bush very closely. I don’t think she ever caught anything, but she loved to watch anyway. 

In the boldness of the sunlight I announced that I was going to go up into the attic and see if I could see anything. 

I walked up the tiny stairs and stood in our little guest room. If you stood in the center of the room, you could stand upright. If you walked to the side you had to bend because the ceiling was shorter there. 

I walked into the next little room and stood there for a minute. It was like walking back in time. This room had only been updated a little bit. This is where we stored our extra items and boxes. I stood there looking and didn’t see anything out of order so I walked into the last little room. 

That room is directly over our bedroom. 

This room had never been remodeled and it was empty now. 

I could only imagine what memories were lingering here.

There it was. That single button. The one that we had heard the night before. It was just laying there on the wooden floor. 

We discussed that button and wondered why we had heard it. 
My wife decided that she was going to listen closely during the day to see if any more strange things happened. 
Nothing that day or the next. 

But over the next months we began to notice other noises. 

My wife had a dream one night that upset her and as we talked about the dream, we decided that we would approach that ghost and talk to it. 

She went up into that last little room in the attic. 
She sat on a chair and began to talk. 
At first it was like talking to an empty room, then she felt a presence enter. 

It was just a feeling, but she said she felt the presence of a little girl. 

She talked to that little girl. 

The girl never spoke, and never showed her self. My wife explained that it was OK for her to stay in the house if she wanted, but there was a beautiful place waiting for her, filled with love and family members. 

We never heard any more noises like the button in that old house. When the wind blew, the house still creaked and groaned but it was always peaceful in that old country house after that.

As I neared my destination, my memory banks registered an earlier trip to this place with my wife.

... It was 2008, I was on a road trip with my wife. 

We decided to visit the Mountain Meadows massacre site near Cedar City, Utah. 

The location of a terrible and still troubling event in the early history of the Mormon settlement. 

It happened on September 11, 1857. 

120 men women and children were murdered by members of the Mormon community. 

It was thought that these settlers had been the murderers of some Mormons in Missouri. 

Leaders of the church had stirred up local citizens in recent visits by replaying the Haun’s mill massacre of 1838. 

The Mormons tried to pay the Indians to do the deed, promising them the spoils, but the Baker-Fancher party were too strong and fought them back. 

Mormons leaders went door to door and raised up a band of men to finish the job. 
It was a terrible tragedy.
The settlers were innocent. 

There is still an unsettled feeling on that lonely hill between Cedar City and St George Utah. 

I could feel it and my wife could feel it. 

We tried talking to those angry men, women, and children. 

They were not willing to move into the light. We attempted to talk to them as we had the little girl in our old Kansas house. We told them about a better place where they would see family and friends. 

They didn’t want to hear it. 

Their spirits will not rest until the ones responsible are held accountable. 

... Again, the reason for this latest visit came back to my mind.

It came powerfully.

“I was one of the shooters!”

I was driving back from one of my monthly shopping trips to the city when that  piece of the puzzle came to me.

My memories from former life times often come in bits and pieces. 
It has taken me years to put them together.

This one made me aware that I was part of that terrible tragedy.

I lived here in 1857. I don’t know my name, or the part I played, but I was here.

This is why this story has haunted me over the years and I have been compelled to understand the events that took place.

“I was one of the shooters!”

As I drove down the road and approached the turn off, I reviewed the items I brought with me.

Sage to cleanse myself and the area.

Beans.

Sugar.

Coffee.

Wheat.

Salt.

Tobacco.

A copy of my story.

A DVD movie of September Dawn.

My conscious memory of this event is blocked, but I know it is recorded in my DNA. 

This is the reason that I have been compelled to learn more. 

I have included these words from John D Lee's personal account, the only man ever held accountable and executed for the deed ...

“I know all were acting under the orders and by the command of their church leaders; and I firmly believe that the most of those who took part in the proceedings, considered it a religious duty to unquestioningly obey the order which they had received. That they acted from a sense of duty to the Mormon Church, I never doubted. Believing that those with me acted from a sense of religious duty on that occasion, I have faithfully kept the secret of their guilt, and remained silent and true to the oath of secrecy which we took on the bloody field.” 

“I am now cut off from the Church for obeying the order of my superiors, and doing so without asking questions - for doing as my religion and my religious teachers had taught me to do. I am now used by the Mormon Church as a scapegoat to carry the sins of that people.”

“ I then believed that Brigham Young spoke by direction of the God of Heaven. I would have suffered death rather than have disobeyed any command of his. I had this feeling until he betrayed and deserted me.” 

“I have always believed, since that day, that General George A Smith was then visiting Southern Utah to prepare the people for the work of exterminating Captain Fancher’s train of emigrants, and I now believe that he was sent for that purpose by the direct command of Brigham Young.”

In an act of cowardliness, “It was decided by the authorities to arm the Indians, give them provisions and ammunition and send them after the emigrants, and have the Indians give them a brush, and if they killed part or all of them so much the better.”

“They met, several hundred strong, (The Indian’s) at the Meadows and attacked the emigrants Tuesday morning ... They killed seven and wounded sixteen of the emigrants.”

“On thursday, Major John M Higbee, mayor and commander of the Iron Militia, and also first councilor to Isaac C. Haight, met with fifty four whites and over three hundred indians. “It is the orders of the President that all the emigrants must be put out of the way.”

“The men then in council, I must here state, now knelt down in a prayer circle and prayed invoking the Spirit of God to direct them how to act in the matter.”

“After the prayer, Major Higbee said, “I have the evidence of God’s approval of our mission. It is God’s will that we carry out our instructions to the letter.”

“Higbee then said to me, “Brother Lee, I am ordered by President Haight to inform you that you shall receive a crown of Celestial glory for your faithfulness and your eternal joy shall be complete.” I was much shaken by this offer.”

On Friday, September 11, 1857, “I laid aside my weakness and my humanity, and became an instrument in the hand of my superiors and my leaders.”

With the words, “Do your Duty.” 120 innocent men, women, and children were slaughtered on that fateful day.

“We must now examine the bodies for valuables.”

“After the dead were covered up or buried ( but it was not much of a burial ) a council was held at the emigrant camp. All the leading men gave speeches.” 

“The speeches were first ... Thanks to God for delivering our enemies into our hands, next, thanking the brethren for their zeal in God’s cause and then the necessity of alway saying the Indians did it alone, and that the Mormons had nothing to do with it. Most of the exhortations and commands were to keep the whole matter secret from everyone but Brigham Young. It was voted unanimously that any man who should divulge the secret, or tell who was present, or do anything that would lead to a discovery of the truth should suffer death.”

“The brethren then all took a most solemn oath, binding themselves under the most dreadful and awful penalties, to keep the whole matter secret from every human being, as long as they should live. No man was to know the facts. The brethren were sworn not to talk of it among themselves, and each one swore to help kill all who proved to be traitors to the Church or people in this matter”

The following Sunday, dresses taken from the dead bodies of those killed, were worn by women who attended church. Some if the valuables were placed in the Bishops storehouse. Horses and cattle were auctioned. A few children under the age of eight were spared and put with Mormon families to be raised as their own, until authorities from the government returned them to their families in Arkansas."

The above quotes were taken from the book dictated from memory by John D. Lee, while waiting execution. “Mormonism Unveiled or Life and Confession of John D. Lee and Brigham Young.” Fierra Blanca publications, Albuquerque, NM 2001

I carried my offering and slowly walked up to the site. 
I had a very different perspective this time and knew I would be standing before
my accusers.

“I was one of the shooters!”

It's no wonder these spirits are angry. They recognized me.

I lit the sage and walked around the perimeter of the enclosure.

I took each item and presented it to those who were there.

With tears streaming down my face, I humbly asked for their forgiveness. 
I acknowledged my part in the massacre. 
I promised that I would do my part to let others know of this event.
I again told them of the light and the love that was there waiting for them. 
I encouraged them to move into the light. 

This time I felt different.

I felt lighter.

Several hours passed, other visitors came and I talked to them about the events that had taken place.
I felt as though a weight had been removed from my shoulders as I drove back to the rock shop.

When I walked in, I felt my heart skip a beat as our eyes met again. 

“Why are you really out here in the middle of this rural area?” I asked.

She said, “It must be to give directions.”

I asked again, more insistent. 

This time she said, “I am connected to this land.”

“I thought so,” I said.

I watched as the tears welled up in her eyes, I felt my own emotional body respond.

Then I felt that spiritual feeling ...

“I too, am connected to this land, to this place.”  I said.

In those brief minutes together, we spoke the same language, felt the same spirit and shared memories from a past life where we once stood on opposite sides.

She said she had long ago forgiven those who had treated her so harshly. 

“Life is too precious to waste, carrying resentment and anger.” 

I looked into her eyes as she spoke and felt the sincerity of her words.

In those brief few minutes we connected as new friends from an old and ugly past.

We both walk a spiritual path now.

Her path for now, is to give directions to those who are lost and need help.

Mine is to bring clarity and closure, first to myself, then to others.