Carthage, Hancock County, Illinois.

June 27, 1844.

The summer heat had settled over Carthage like a wet wool blanket,

and William Daniels was trying to make himself small.

He'd come with the Warsaw militia that morning, caught up in the excitement, the whiskey, the talk of what needed doing.

Now he stood at the edge of the crowd outside the jail, watching something he'd remember for the rest of his life, whether he wanted to or not.

The prophet had come out the second-story window, shot, falling, tumbling. Daniels had seen men fall

from horses, fall from haywagons, fall drunk out of tavern doors. He'd never seen a man fall like

that. Joseph Smith hit the ground hard, crumpled against the stone well curb, and for a moment, everything went quiet.

Then the four men with the blackened faces moved in.

They'd smeared their skin with wet gunpowder and mud.

Some said to hide their identities.

Others said to look like demons from a Methodist sermon. They grabbed

the prophet under his arms and dragged him upright, propping him against the well curb like a drunk

they meant to photograph. Smith's white shirt was blooming red in two, three places. His eyes were

open. He was breathing. One of the black-faced men stepped back and raised his rifle.

Daniels noticed the gun. You couldn't help but notice it. The bore was enormous, bigger than any

militia musket, bigger than anything a man needed for deer or turkey. This was a weapon

designed for one purpose and it wasn't hunting game. A voice cut through the humid air.

Colonel Levi Williams somewhere behind the crowd, shoot him! The man with the big rifle didn't hesitate.

The shot echoed off the jail stone walls and rolled out across the prairie. Joseph Smith jerked once

and slumped sideways. Whatever light had been in his eyes went out.

...