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There were other sojourners with tales to tell. Earl Gillmore, sunbaked, middle-aged and wearing a guitar across his back, had been homeless and unemployed when he set out. "I didn't have the money to do this, but somehow I knew I was supposed to be here. My whole walk has been on faith." Along the way, Gillmore was hired as camp cook and promised a job in Salt Lake City. "I finally know what it means," he said, "to endure to the end." Ted Moore, a Missouri gold miner, gave a more humorous testament of faith. He dug through the pots and pans in his handcart and pulled out a dusty "Pioneer" Barbie doll. "She's going the whole way with me," Moore said. "Every step that I take, Barbie takes."
A few hours before sundown, the wagon train made camp. I had walked only a few miles that day, but I was parched and exhausted. A meal was served. I sat in the dirt and devoured a plate of meat loaf, while around me devout believers watered horses, repaired bent wagon wheels, fed bottles to crying infants. In just a few days, to quote their ancestors, they would cross the mountains and be "safe in Zion." I could not help wishing them well. In their epic trek across Smith's American Eden, they have lost more paradises than they've found.