My last hopes are God and Joshua Barrett’s mountain. The oncologists give me three, maybe four months to live. It wouldn’t matter if it were three months or three years, because I’ve had all the treatment I plan on ever having. The cancer’s spread from the lungs and worked its way through my body; metastasized, if you want to be technical. I’ve had every earthly treatment a man could have for the lung cancer: radiation, chemotherapy, bone marrow transplant, everything. Now it’s time to let God work on me for a while and see if he can do what none of the specialists at Shands seem to be able to do - save my life. 1
I somehow managed to drive the 2300 miles from Gainesville to Provo, Utah without dying or hospitalization along the way. Not bad for spending every waking hour with what feels like an elephant tap dancing on my chest. I wouldn’t be in Provo if God hadn’t told me to come. He knew my only chance to serve him, my only chance of survival, was to leave the hospital, leave my deathbed, and go to Provo where the power to heal me waits. With God and the Lord Jesus guiding me I can rid my body of the disease that’s shadowed me for two years.2
The face of the mountain was visible from twenty miles away. At first it was just a gray fuzzy mirage jutting out of the ground, but with each mile, the lettering on the side of the mountain became clearer. JESUS SAVES. The 100-foot letters carved out of the mountain face broadcast their message across the Utah landscape. Beautiful hand sculpted letters lovingly crafted by Joshua Barrett over a lifetime, spreading the word of the Lord Jesus Christ to anyone and everyone within sight of the mountain.3
JESUS SAVES. I cried when I first saw the sharp edges of each letter Barrett chiselled with the skill of the ancient Greek sculptors.4
It was obvious to me; Barrett didn’t take the easy route of carving the letters into the granite hillside. He used the more difficult process of removing the rock from around each letter causing them to stand out in relief from the hill.5
As I drove closer to the park, several billboards popped up along the side of the road advertising one of the great ‘religious wonders of the world, Barrett’s Mountain.’ One said, ‘See the world famous sculpture that was 60 years in the making.’ Another said, ‘Tour an authentic Ute Indian village.’6
I felt like a child again, finally arriving at the promised theme park after months and months of anticipation. The difference being that when I was a child, I knew I’d be alive the next day.7
Traffic stopped to a standstill as cars queued up behind six manned parking booths. The large sign over the booths hailed, ‘Welcome to Barrett’s Mountain.’ The sign was constructed out of some type of brown and gray stucco that looked like the real rock of the mountain. ‘Barrett’s Mountain’ was spelled out with large letters made of logs, or maybe they were fake logs, who knows.8
I had at least a hundred yards to go before I reached a booth, so I grabbed a few Percodin and chewed them with the few teeth I had left. I lit a Marlboro light, my twentieth of the day and probably not the healthiest thing for my wracked body, but it was too late to worry about that now. Maybe I should have worried about it when I was 14, when I first started smoking. If I had done that I might still have a strong body, and maybe Carol and I would still be married. I don’t know, maybe not. She doesn’t feel the way I do about God. I think that would have been the wedge that separated us instead of the cancer. 9
The cigarette was already a stub, and I was still 20 cars back. I lit another.10
Carol was unreasonable. If your husband comes home from a doctor’s appointment and tells you that he has lung cancer, you’re supposed to cry, and tell him how sorry you are, not grab the cigarette from his mouth, throw it down and scream at him for smoking right after being diagnosed with cancer. Well God could care less if I smoke. 11
This is my last chance. Maybe the stories are true and the healing waters of the mountain sculpture will cure me like it’s done for thousands of other pilgrims. This is our Mecca, the hope for the hopeless. God will save me. Jesus will save me.12
I finally arrived at the parking booth. An acne-faced teenager in a brown uniform eyed me. ‘Jeff,’ his nametag read.13
“Five dollars please?”14
I struggled to pull my wallet out. 15
“Do I pay here for entrance to the park?” I said, the ashes on the tip of the cigarette dangling precariously over the steering wheel.16
“No sir, you pay inside. It’s 36 dollars at the entrance booth for the park admission and a $100 donation if you want to use the ‘Holy Mountain Stream’.”17
“Thank you,” I said and followed the line of cars towards the parking lots. The lot held thousands of cars. I initially worried about later finding my car, when I noticed that all 12 of the lots were marked with the name of an apostle. I was in Matthew section 3, row 24.18
A 12-car tram pulled up ahead at the front of the lot. The elephant on my chest worked hard to prevent me from reaching it in time to load. Once embarked, we sped off for the park in a snakelike motion, the driver carefully negotiating other pilgrims and empty trams along the route. Two small children sitting in front of me stretched their arms out trying to pull flowers from the bushes as we drove by. The sudden stop of the tram nearly knocked them out of their seats.19
“Welcome to Barrett’s Mountain,” the pleasant voice over the speaker blared. “The park entrance is straight ahead. Please write down the apostle section you parked in and have a pleasant stay at the park. God bless you.”20
Well that’s a line you don’t hear at other theme parks. “God bless you too sweetheart,” I mumbled under my breath.21
I stood for a moment and looked up at the mountain face looming before me. From this distance I could comprehend the actual enormity of each letter etched in the face of the mountain. I used a large pine tree at the top of the mountain to scale the size of the letters. The J of JESUS was the crudest carved of all the ten letters. Barrett would have been only a teenager when he started carving that letter. Each letter following was smoother and more detailed, until the final ‘S,’ when old age and senility probably took its toll on Barrett. I know how he felt. I couldn’t carve jell-o in my condition.22
After paying, I grabbed a brochure and stood in the line for the ‘Holy Mountain Stream’. There were hundreds of pilgrims in line ahead of me, each with their own affliction. Some were lame; some, like me, looked like they were in their last stages of cancer. There were hundreds of wheelchairs and walkers aiding older men and women. The sign next to me read ‘Three hours from this point. $100 dollar donation appreciated. God bless you. ‘God bless you again. I love this park.23
The ‘Holy Mountain Stream’, according to geologists, was actually a small cascade of water that squirted out of a fracture in the rock, ten feet above the bottom of the letter ‘U’ of the word ‘JESUS.’ They explained that a pool of ice-cold spring water on the top of the mountain weaved its way through the interior and leaked out of the crack due to gravity and head pressure. But to us pilgrims, they were the tears of Jesus himself, cleansing us of our sins and healing our wounds. Barrett’s Mountain was the ‘American Lourdes’ as the ‘Sixty Minutes’ piece proclaimed a year earlier. To me it was my last hope. 24
“You don’t look so good, son,” the old black man behind me said. He was tall, thin, nearly bald, and had a sincere, weathered face. “You got the cancer bad, I reckon.”25
“Yes sir, I reckon I do. You look fit though, sir. What’s wrong with you?”26
“Nothing,” he said. “I’m here cause I’m a curious sort, that’s all. I thought maybe I oughta take the Lord’s shower just in case the heaven and hell talk’s real, you know. I’m getting near time to go. Sorry about you though, son. Looks like your times come early, seems like. God bless you boy.”27
“I know,” I said. “I’m not the only one though, am I?” I stared at the endless line of people stretching towards the wall face.28
“No sir,” he said. “You aint the only hurt one here, that’s for sure. Lots of folks here are mighty sick and need the Lord to help them. That’s sure enough. You think Jesus gonna heal you boy, when you look like that?”29
“I don’t know,” I said, and I didn’t. “Maybe if you pray with me uh …”30
“George,” he said. “George Jackson. What yours?”31
“Mark Henson.” I took his big lanky hand in mine and we prayed.32
My time finally came to enter the pool at the base of the carved face. I stood in a three-inch depression of rock that had been eroded from fifty years of stream water falling 200 feet from the bottom of the giant U. I looked up at the giant letters and realized they were easily two hundred feet above my head. Joshua Barrett must have taken that into consideration when he started carving. He must have realized that the higher up on the side of the mountain that he carved the letters, the farther away people could see them.33
I shivered when the ice cold water hit my face, but then, after a few seconds, the water seemed to warm until it was really quite pleasant. It felt no different than a shower at home. I took my shirt off and rubbed the water on my chest and around my ribs. I could feel the presence of God. I lost track of the time as I opened my mouth and swallowed the ‘Tears of Jesus’ that would rid me of the cancer. I felt it inside me, healing me. I could.34
I turned and saw George and the line of people behind him waiting impatiently for their turn. I reluctantly exited the shower and felt the water on my back go cold again. An attendant handed me a small linen towel and said “God bless you.”35
God bless you. I wondered if he had.36
The path from the ‘Holy Mountain Stream’ led directly to Joshua Barrett’s homestead. A tour of the 130-year-old cabin was just starting. I stood in line for a few moments drying myself, had a cigarette, and then followed a group into the cabin. The wooden cabin was bare, save for a cot, a fireplace, and about fifty folding chairs for the pilgrims. A handsome, black haired man in a dark suit, white shirt, and black tie welcomed us. A Mormon, I presumed. He began his presentation as the group settled. I chewed another Percodin, and ached for another cigarette.37
“Good afternoon fellow pilgrims,” he started. “Welcome to Joshua Barrett’s home for 66 years of his life. Joshua was ten-years-old when he moved here, just outside of Provo, with his parents and his younger sister May. He was born in Albany, New York in 1865 to Mary and Isaac Barrett.38
“Joshua’s father, Isaac, was a Presbyterian preacher in Albany, who grew disenchanted with the church, and decided to take a chance at a new life as a farmer in Utah. They moved here in 1875 and built a prosperous business farming the land. In 1878, Chief Ouray of the White River Ute nation was forced to relocate his tribe by Indian agents and the federal government. In retaliation for the forced move, Chief Ouray had the Indian agent, Nathan Meeker, and several white settlers, killed. Among those killed in the rampage were Joshua’s parents and his younger sister May.39
“That summer day in 1878 changed the life of Joshua Barrett. There were some who said he witnessed the slaughter of his parents while returning from a hunting trip. We’ll never know, because he never spoke of the deaths in his entire life. The townspeople in Provo attempted to help the young man by trying to convince him to move to town, but he refused and remained here on this homestead until 1935, when he died at age 70.40
“For sixty years he ate at that fireplace and slept on that cot. He was a virtual hermit.”41
I stared at the cot and wondered what the holy man thoughts were each night as he neared sleep. I wondered what it would feel like to sleep there, alone, with only God for company. The tour guide continued.42
“Then one year after his family’s death, Joshua purchased some chisels and hammers from town and began his quest. First, he cleared the mountaintop and its steep face of timber and stones. Then he built a makeshift scaffold that hung down from the top of the cliff, and began chiseling the two famous words that have become an international shrine over the years for all Christians. The town’s people didn’t know what to make of the strange boy, chiseling everyday, and stopping only to eat and hunt. He never revealed to anyone what words would be etched in the mountain, the townspeople could only guess.43
“He completed only the one letter J in the first 10 years of his labor. The last nine letters took fifty years. Joshua died in 1930 with only one half of the last letter ‘S’ finished. By that time, the mountain was already a popular attraction in the state. Thousands came by to see the odd old man chipping away at the mountain face with his hammer and chisel.44
“The state of Utah, in cooperation with the federal government’s WPA program, finished the last ‘S’ in 1936. Along with the construction of the last letter, a parking lot, and a replica of a Ute village were also built. In 1939 the state of Utah opened the park to the public. In 1967 the ACLU sued the state for running a religious park with government funds, so the state turned the park over to the Church of the Latter Day Saints, and the Mormon church has run the park ever since.45
“Though Joshua Barrett rarely spoke, there was no doubt he was a highly religious man. He spread the word of Jesus Christ the only way he knew how. There’s widespread belief that the ‘Holy Mountain Stream,’ that pours down the mountainside, has the power to heal. So far, since 1938 there have been 1347 documented cases of people cured of their afflictions after showering in the stream. Let me ask you, how many here today have been to the stream and washed in the water?”46
All but one child raised their hand.47
“Well,” the guide said. “With God’s hand having touched you I hope we can add to that statistic. You’re welcome to stay at the park for two more hours till it closes. I recommend you next take a tour of the White River Ute village. Thank you for coming to Barrett’s Mountain and God bless you.”48
I applauded with the group and rushed out to light a cigarette. When I had finished the smoke, I went to the bathroom and stared at the stranger in the mirror. I hardly recognized the man with the bald head, oddly decorated with just a small patch of hair hanging over one ear. His sunken eyes were full of impending death, and an almost yellow complexion exaggerated the gauntness of his 89-pound frame.49
“God bless you”, I said, repeating the phrase of the young, healthy, Mormon. God certainly had an unusual way of blessing me. I stubbed the cigarette out in the sink and walked out to see dusk forming over Barrett’s Mountain.50
I needed to know how he felt. I needed to lie where Joshua lay. I wanted to talk to God in the silence of the cabin at night just as Joshua did. 51
I hid behind the Ute village until three hours after closing. Except for a few security guards, everyone else had left. I worked my way to the cabin, and surprisingly the door had no lock. I walked over and removed the red velvet rope that surrounded Joshua Barrett’s cot and lay down on the century old hammock.52
I lit one of the last three cigarettes I had left in the pack, sucked the sweet smoke into my diseased lungs, and dreamed of God and Jesus and Carol. I woke when the ashes fell on my neck. I stretched my arms out and felt the stone fireplace where Joshua cooked his meals. I rested my hand on a large stone inside the fireplace and felt the stone move slightly. My curiosity got the better of me and for the next hour I continued to rock the stone back and forth until it fell out of its home in the fireplace. I let the stone fall and placed my hand in the hole. Inside it was a small wooden box that I removed and placed next to me on the cot. Was this Joshua’s? It had to be. I may have been the only person other than Joshua Barrett to ever hold this box. I removed the top cover of it and lit my lighter to look at the contents, if there were any. Inside I found a parchment, obviously made of some kind of animal hide. I held the lighter in my right hand and opened one flap of the parchment. On the top part of the skin was a drawing of the mountain and the large letters chiselled on its face. This must have been Barrett’s original plan for his tribute to God. The words ‘JESUS SAVES’ were lovingly drawn on the parchment in the exact style and scale of the real thing. ‘JESUS’ was on the very top of the face of the mountain, and ‘SAVES’ was directly below it. This was Barrett’s template, his guide that he used to carve the mountain.53
I was so excited that I failed at first to notice another flap of the parchment folded over the bottom of the drawing. I folded it back.54
There were two more words drawn on the parchment below the word “SAVES” on the face of the mountain. I looked closely at the words, trying to focus my tired eyes in the dim light. The words were ‘NO ONE.’55
I realized Barrett’s intention the whole time was to etch the blasphemous words. 56
‘JESUS57
SAVES58
NO ONE’59
Barrett wasn’t honoring Jesus, he was chastising him.60
Damn him! Damn his filthy Judas soul! So this was his revenge to God for taking his family. That’s what he intended all along with his devil’s work. God damn Joshua Barrett! God damn his soul!61
I extinguished the lighter and cried in the darkness for a long time; I’m not sure how long. In a few days, maybe, I would find out what Barrett’s true intentions were. Maybe I’ll find proof of what I already know. That Joshua Barrett died before he could finish the work of the devil.62
I picked the parchment off the floor and lit the edges of it with my lighter. I watched it burn in the stone fireplace. I watched it burn the way Joshua Barrett’s soul will, for an eternity in hell.63
I lay back on the cot and smoked my last cigarette in the darkness of the cabin and thought about Carol.
I somehow managed to drive the 2300 miles from Gainesville to Provo, Utah without dying or hospitalization along the way. Not bad for spending every waking hour with what feels like an elephant tap dancing on my chest. I wouldn’t be in Provo if God hadn’t told me to come. He knew my only chance to serve him, my only chance of survival, was to leave the hospital, leave my deathbed, and go to Provo where the power to heal me waits. With God and the Lord Jesus guiding me I can rid my body of the disease that’s shadowed me for two years.2
The face of the mountain was visible from twenty miles away. At first it was just a gray fuzzy mirage jutting out of the ground, but with each mile, the lettering on the side of the mountain became clearer. JESUS SAVES. The 100-foot letters carved out of the mountain face broadcast their message across the Utah landscape. Beautiful hand sculpted letters lovingly crafted by Joshua Barrett over a lifetime, spreading the word of the Lord Jesus Christ to anyone and everyone within sight of the mountain.3
JESUS SAVES. I cried when I first saw the sharp edges of each letter Barrett chiselled with the skill of the ancient Greek sculptors.4
It was obvious to me; Barrett didn’t take the easy route of carving the letters into the granite hillside. He used the more difficult process of removing the rock from around each letter causing them to stand out in relief from the hill.5
As I drove closer to the park, several billboards popped up along the side of the road advertising one of the great ‘religious wonders of the world, Barrett’s Mountain.’ One said, ‘See the world famous sculpture that was 60 years in the making.’ Another said, ‘Tour an authentic Ute Indian village.’6
I felt like a child again, finally arriving at the promised theme park after months and months of anticipation. The difference being that when I was a child, I knew I’d be alive the next day.7
Traffic stopped to a standstill as cars queued up behind six manned parking booths. The large sign over the booths hailed, ‘Welcome to Barrett’s Mountain.’ The sign was constructed out of some type of brown and gray stucco that looked like the real rock of the mountain. ‘Barrett’s Mountain’ was spelled out with large letters made of logs, or maybe they were fake logs, who knows.8
I had at least a hundred yards to go before I reached a booth, so I grabbed a few Percodin and chewed them with the few teeth I had left. I lit a Marlboro light, my twentieth of the day and probably not the healthiest thing for my wracked body, but it was too late to worry about that now. Maybe I should have worried about it when I was 14, when I first started smoking. If I had done that I might still have a strong body, and maybe Carol and I would still be married. I don’t know, maybe not. She doesn’t feel the way I do about God. I think that would have been the wedge that separated us instead of the cancer. 9
The cigarette was already a stub, and I was still 20 cars back. I lit another.10
Carol was unreasonable. If your husband comes home from a doctor’s appointment and tells you that he has lung cancer, you’re supposed to cry, and tell him how sorry you are, not grab the cigarette from his mouth, throw it down and scream at him for smoking right after being diagnosed with cancer. Well God could care less if I smoke. 11
This is my last chance. Maybe the stories are true and the healing waters of the mountain sculpture will cure me like it’s done for thousands of other pilgrims. This is our Mecca, the hope for the hopeless. God will save me. Jesus will save me.12
I finally arrived at the parking booth. An acne-faced teenager in a brown uniform eyed me. ‘Jeff,’ his nametag read.13
“Five dollars please?”14
I struggled to pull my wallet out. 15
“Do I pay here for entrance to the park?” I said, the ashes on the tip of the cigarette dangling precariously over the steering wheel.16
“No sir, you pay inside. It’s 36 dollars at the entrance booth for the park admission and a $100 donation if you want to use the ‘Holy Mountain Stream’.”17
“Thank you,” I said and followed the line of cars towards the parking lots. The lot held thousands of cars. I initially worried about later finding my car, when I noticed that all 12 of the lots were marked with the name of an apostle. I was in Matthew section 3, row 24.18
A 12-car tram pulled up ahead at the front of the lot. The elephant on my chest worked hard to prevent me from reaching it in time to load. Once embarked, we sped off for the park in a snakelike motion, the driver carefully negotiating other pilgrims and empty trams along the route. Two small children sitting in front of me stretched their arms out trying to pull flowers from the bushes as we drove by. The sudden stop of the tram nearly knocked them out of their seats.19
“Welcome to Barrett’s Mountain,” the pleasant voice over the speaker blared. “The park entrance is straight ahead. Please write down the apostle section you parked in and have a pleasant stay at the park. God bless you.”20
Well that’s a line you don’t hear at other theme parks. “God bless you too sweetheart,” I mumbled under my breath.21
I stood for a moment and looked up at the mountain face looming before me. From this distance I could comprehend the actual enormity of each letter etched in the face of the mountain. I used a large pine tree at the top of the mountain to scale the size of the letters. The J of JESUS was the crudest carved of all the ten letters. Barrett would have been only a teenager when he started carving that letter. Each letter following was smoother and more detailed, until the final ‘S,’ when old age and senility probably took its toll on Barrett. I know how he felt. I couldn’t carve jell-o in my condition.22
After paying, I grabbed a brochure and stood in the line for the ‘Holy Mountain Stream’. There were hundreds of pilgrims in line ahead of me, each with their own affliction. Some were lame; some, like me, looked like they were in their last stages of cancer. There were hundreds of wheelchairs and walkers aiding older men and women. The sign next to me read ‘Three hours from this point. $100 dollar donation appreciated. God bless you. ‘God bless you again. I love this park.23
The ‘Holy Mountain Stream’, according to geologists, was actually a small cascade of water that squirted out of a fracture in the rock, ten feet above the bottom of the letter ‘U’ of the word ‘JESUS.’ They explained that a pool of ice-cold spring water on the top of the mountain weaved its way through the interior and leaked out of the crack due to gravity and head pressure. But to us pilgrims, they were the tears of Jesus himself, cleansing us of our sins and healing our wounds. Barrett’s Mountain was the ‘American Lourdes’ as the ‘Sixty Minutes’ piece proclaimed a year earlier. To me it was my last hope. 24
“You don’t look so good, son,” the old black man behind me said. He was tall, thin, nearly bald, and had a sincere, weathered face. “You got the cancer bad, I reckon.”25
“Yes sir, I reckon I do. You look fit though, sir. What’s wrong with you?”26
“Nothing,” he said. “I’m here cause I’m a curious sort, that’s all. I thought maybe I oughta take the Lord’s shower just in case the heaven and hell talk’s real, you know. I’m getting near time to go. Sorry about you though, son. Looks like your times come early, seems like. God bless you boy.”27
“I know,” I said. “I’m not the only one though, am I?” I stared at the endless line of people stretching towards the wall face.28
“No sir,” he said. “You aint the only hurt one here, that’s for sure. Lots of folks here are mighty sick and need the Lord to help them. That’s sure enough. You think Jesus gonna heal you boy, when you look like that?”29
“I don’t know,” I said, and I didn’t. “Maybe if you pray with me uh …”30
“George,” he said. “George Jackson. What yours?”31
“Mark Henson.” I took his big lanky hand in mine and we prayed.32
My time finally came to enter the pool at the base of the carved face. I stood in a three-inch depression of rock that had been eroded from fifty years of stream water falling 200 feet from the bottom of the giant U. I looked up at the giant letters and realized they were easily two hundred feet above my head. Joshua Barrett must have taken that into consideration when he started carving. He must have realized that the higher up on the side of the mountain that he carved the letters, the farther away people could see them.33
I shivered when the ice cold water hit my face, but then, after a few seconds, the water seemed to warm until it was really quite pleasant. It felt no different than a shower at home. I took my shirt off and rubbed the water on my chest and around my ribs. I could feel the presence of God. I lost track of the time as I opened my mouth and swallowed the ‘Tears of Jesus’ that would rid me of the cancer. I felt it inside me, healing me. I could.34
I turned and saw George and the line of people behind him waiting impatiently for their turn. I reluctantly exited the shower and felt the water on my back go cold again. An attendant handed me a small linen towel and said “God bless you.”35
God bless you. I wondered if he had.36
The path from the ‘Holy Mountain Stream’ led directly to Joshua Barrett’s homestead. A tour of the 130-year-old cabin was just starting. I stood in line for a few moments drying myself, had a cigarette, and then followed a group into the cabin. The wooden cabin was bare, save for a cot, a fireplace, and about fifty folding chairs for the pilgrims. A handsome, black haired man in a dark suit, white shirt, and black tie welcomed us. A Mormon, I presumed. He began his presentation as the group settled. I chewed another Percodin, and ached for another cigarette.37
“Good afternoon fellow pilgrims,” he started. “Welcome to Joshua Barrett’s home for 66 years of his life. Joshua was ten-years-old when he moved here, just outside of Provo, with his parents and his younger sister May. He was born in Albany, New York in 1865 to Mary and Isaac Barrett.38
“Joshua’s father, Isaac, was a Presbyterian preacher in Albany, who grew disenchanted with the church, and decided to take a chance at a new life as a farmer in Utah. They moved here in 1875 and built a prosperous business farming the land. In 1878, Chief Ouray of the White River Ute nation was forced to relocate his tribe by Indian agents and the federal government. In retaliation for the forced move, Chief Ouray had the Indian agent, Nathan Meeker, and several white settlers, killed. Among those killed in the rampage were Joshua’s parents and his younger sister May.39
“That summer day in 1878 changed the life of Joshua Barrett. There were some who said he witnessed the slaughter of his parents while returning from a hunting trip. We’ll never know, because he never spoke of the deaths in his entire life. The townspeople in Provo attempted to help the young man by trying to convince him to move to town, but he refused and remained here on this homestead until 1935, when he died at age 70.40
“For sixty years he ate at that fireplace and slept on that cot. He was a virtual hermit.”41
I stared at the cot and wondered what the holy man thoughts were each night as he neared sleep. I wondered what it would feel like to sleep there, alone, with only God for company. The tour guide continued.42
“Then one year after his family’s death, Joshua purchased some chisels and hammers from town and began his quest. First, he cleared the mountaintop and its steep face of timber and stones. Then he built a makeshift scaffold that hung down from the top of the cliff, and began chiseling the two famous words that have become an international shrine over the years for all Christians. The town’s people didn’t know what to make of the strange boy, chiseling everyday, and stopping only to eat and hunt. He never revealed to anyone what words would be etched in the mountain, the townspeople could only guess.43
“He completed only the one letter J in the first 10 years of his labor. The last nine letters took fifty years. Joshua died in 1930 with only one half of the last letter ‘S’ finished. By that time, the mountain was already a popular attraction in the state. Thousands came by to see the odd old man chipping away at the mountain face with his hammer and chisel.44
“The state of Utah, in cooperation with the federal government’s WPA program, finished the last ‘S’ in 1936. Along with the construction of the last letter, a parking lot, and a replica of a Ute village were also built. In 1939 the state of Utah opened the park to the public. In 1967 the ACLU sued the state for running a religious park with government funds, so the state turned the park over to the Church of the Latter Day Saints, and the Mormon church has run the park ever since.45
“Though Joshua Barrett rarely spoke, there was no doubt he was a highly religious man. He spread the word of Jesus Christ the only way he knew how. There’s widespread belief that the ‘Holy Mountain Stream,’ that pours down the mountainside, has the power to heal. So far, since 1938 there have been 1347 documented cases of people cured of their afflictions after showering in the stream. Let me ask you, how many here today have been to the stream and washed in the water?”46
All but one child raised their hand.47
“Well,” the guide said. “With God’s hand having touched you I hope we can add to that statistic. You’re welcome to stay at the park for two more hours till it closes. I recommend you next take a tour of the White River Ute village. Thank you for coming to Barrett’s Mountain and God bless you.”48
I applauded with the group and rushed out to light a cigarette. When I had finished the smoke, I went to the bathroom and stared at the stranger in the mirror. I hardly recognized the man with the bald head, oddly decorated with just a small patch of hair hanging over one ear. His sunken eyes were full of impending death, and an almost yellow complexion exaggerated the gauntness of his 89-pound frame.49
“God bless you”, I said, repeating the phrase of the young, healthy, Mormon. God certainly had an unusual way of blessing me. I stubbed the cigarette out in the sink and walked out to see dusk forming over Barrett’s Mountain.50
I needed to know how he felt. I needed to lie where Joshua lay. I wanted to talk to God in the silence of the cabin at night just as Joshua did. 51
I hid behind the Ute village until three hours after closing. Except for a few security guards, everyone else had left. I worked my way to the cabin, and surprisingly the door had no lock. I walked over and removed the red velvet rope that surrounded Joshua Barrett’s cot and lay down on the century old hammock.52
I lit one of the last three cigarettes I had left in the pack, sucked the sweet smoke into my diseased lungs, and dreamed of God and Jesus and Carol. I woke when the ashes fell on my neck. I stretched my arms out and felt the stone fireplace where Joshua cooked his meals. I rested my hand on a large stone inside the fireplace and felt the stone move slightly. My curiosity got the better of me and for the next hour I continued to rock the stone back and forth until it fell out of its home in the fireplace. I let the stone fall and placed my hand in the hole. Inside it was a small wooden box that I removed and placed next to me on the cot. Was this Joshua’s? It had to be. I may have been the only person other than Joshua Barrett to ever hold this box. I removed the top cover of it and lit my lighter to look at the contents, if there were any. Inside I found a parchment, obviously made of some kind of animal hide. I held the lighter in my right hand and opened one flap of the parchment. On the top part of the skin was a drawing of the mountain and the large letters chiselled on its face. This must have been Barrett’s original plan for his tribute to God. The words ‘JESUS SAVES’ were lovingly drawn on the parchment in the exact style and scale of the real thing. ‘JESUS’ was on the very top of the face of the mountain, and ‘SAVES’ was directly below it. This was Barrett’s template, his guide that he used to carve the mountain.53
I was so excited that I failed at first to notice another flap of the parchment folded over the bottom of the drawing. I folded it back.54
There were two more words drawn on the parchment below the word “SAVES” on the face of the mountain. I looked closely at the words, trying to focus my tired eyes in the dim light. The words were ‘NO ONE.’55
I realized Barrett’s intention the whole time was to etch the blasphemous words. 56
‘JESUS57
SAVES58
NO ONE’59
Barrett wasn’t honoring Jesus, he was chastising him.60
Damn him! Damn his filthy Judas soul! So this was his revenge to God for taking his family. That’s what he intended all along with his devil’s work. God damn Joshua Barrett! God damn his soul!61
I extinguished the lighter and cried in the darkness for a long time; I’m not sure how long. In a few days, maybe, I would find out what Barrett’s true intentions were. Maybe I’ll find proof of what I already know. That Joshua Barrett died before he could finish the work of the devil.62
I picked the parchment off the floor and lit the edges of it with my lighter. I watched it burn in the stone fireplace. I watched it burn the way Joshua Barrett’s soul will, for an eternity in hell.63
I lay back on the cot and smoked my last cigarette in the darkness of the cabin and thought about Carol.
Honorable mention
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