Prophet's Pass

by Chapman Brown

  “McCabe… Irish?”

  “Irish and Italian.” Catholics came at it from a different angle than Mormons, but they tended to be just as fruitful.

  Orson chuckled. “And are you married?”

  “No,” Aiden said succinctly. Ten minutes after arriving probably wasn’t the sensible time to start tossing gay grenades into the Jensens’ hetero idyll. “But I’ve got a lot of cousins, and a thousand nieces and nephews.”

  “Native New Yorker?”

  “Queens born and raised.”

  “That’s a fun scene,” the governor said, like he was talking about a happening soda fountain in 1956. Aiden wondered if the man had ever set foot in Queens. There was something wholesomely square about him, he decided, something not quite of this era. Mormons didn’t smoke, they didn’t curse, and they didn’t drink or fuck. Well, they didn’t fuck outside of marriage at least. Aiden glanced at the rafts of family photos covering the walls, taking in the multitudinous Jensen clan. In marriage they seemed to fuck a lot.

  “And is this your first time in Utah?” Orson asked, as he showed Aiden down some stairs. Aiden wondered if he’d be able to find his way back to the kitchen.

  “It is. It’s a beautiful place,” Aiden said.

  “I’ve always thought so,” Orson replied. “And not just because they elected me.”

  Aiden found his polite smile again. “Mrs. Jensen said your family’s been here a long time?”

  “About one hundred fifty years.”

  “Quite the connection.” He’d read somewhere that Mormons were very interested in genealogy and family lines; in fact the LDS Church owned some of those family tree websites. There was something appealing about a sense of lineage. Aiden’s family might as well have risen from the clay for all he knew about them beyond the immediate history of his parents and grandparents.

  “It’s a rare thing, knowing you’re walking the same steps as your fathers. It’s a special place for us. And now my children and my grandchildren. We’re very lucky.” They reached a door, and he opened it. “Here’s Hunter’s room. I’m sorry we haven’t redecorated since he went to the Air Force Academy.” They stepped into a teenage boy’s boudoir. There was a twin bed in the corner, and pictures of planes competed with Denver Broncos posters for space on the walls. The shelves heaved under trophies and knickknacks, but the bed was freshly made and folded, and the intervening years had long since banished the musk of adolescence.

  Aiden took in the sea of blue and orange.

  “Denver fan?” he deadpanned.

  “All my boys are.”

  “Not you?”

  Orson smiled conspiratorially. “I’m not much of a sportsman. We do a family competition every year, and I come in dead last. The bathroom’s down the hall on the left. There’s fresh towels and more sheets in the closet there, if you need them.”

  “Thank you. I hope I’m not making Hunter homeless.”

  Jensen waved it off. “Don’t worry about Hunter. He’s a military man. He fits in wherever he’s told to go.” Sounds useful, Aiden thought. Orson put down his bag on the bed and opened the shade, revealing a view of the forest and canyon beyond.

  “We’re just fixing dinner,” Orson said, turning to leave. “Come up to the kitchen whenever you’re ready.”

  “Thanks,” Aiden said. Jensen left and closed the door. His footfalls gently receded, and then Aiden was alone, the silence of a strange room surging back around him. He kicked off his sneakers and lay on the bed, glad to be horizontal after his long drive. The sheets smelled of unfamiliar detergent and unfamiliar people. When had he last been in a bed so small? Not since college. He held his phone up to the ceiling. No service. Figured. For better or worse, he was stuck with the Jensens for the next few days. They seemed nice enough, but Aiden struggled to reconcile the congenial man he’d just met with the one who’d persecuted Rachel Cassidy for her temerity in falling in love with another woman, who’d written portentously about judgment, morals, and natural law. The sun was setting outside, throwing long orange rectangles across the ceiling. Up here, the Jensens had their private Zion, their own Masada, pinioned to the mountain. Aiden wasn’t sure whether he fit in or not.

  The clock ticked quietly on the wall, the bucking Denver Bronco rearing up beneath its hands. Aiden sat up, John Elway and the 1995 Broncos starting lineup watching him, the F-16 Fighting Falcon, and the Rowland Hall school track and field medallion. Certificates and faded flyers for events two decades gone crowded the bulletin board above the tidy desk. A picture of the sun rising over the ocean, overlaid with white cursive: The earth is the LORD’s, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell within it. For he hath founded it upon the seas and established it upon the floods. A picture of young Hunter Jensen, standing proudly in front of a plane at some museum, gap-toothed and blond haired. Aiden went over to the desk and hooked open a faded tenth birthday card. “Love from Grandma and Grandpa, 20th June 1994.” For a man approaching his midthirties, the room felt strangely frozen in childhood.

  Aiden changed his shirt and made his way hesitantly back to the kitchen. Walking through the house a third time, the layout started to make more sense: three long, rectangular stories, layered on top of one another down the slope of the mountain. The sound of people ahead led him on like a trail of breadcrumbs. The kitchen was busy with cooking activity and a whole new host of people. Men clustered around the doors to the deck where grilling was happening, and women fashioned salads and dips at the counters, while blonde Jensen grandchildren buzzed noisily around everyone’s feet. Aiden was hailed like a conquering hero.

  “You made it back.” Sariah smiled, thrusting a bowl of salad into his hands. “I have to conscript you. Can you take this through to the dining room? Kayleigh will show you where.”

  The youngest Jensen daughter wore her fair hair in a ponytail and beckoned him to follow.

  “This way,” she promised.

  Aiden followed, avoiding one of the barreling children in whatever rampage game they were playing. Kayleigh caught her nephew deftly by the shoulder, still balancing her plate of dip.

  “Jared, sweetie, don’t do that. Go play in the den.” She glanced back at Aiden and rolled her eyes. “Welcome to the madhouse.”

  “There are a lot of you.”

  Kayleigh laughed. “You’re not from Utah. Believe it or not, we’re quite a small family.”

  The dining room adjoined the kitchen, a long, elegant table in the center, laid out with silverware and antique candlesticks. Aiden put down his dish where Kayleigh showed him.

  “You’re at BYU?” he asked.

  “Junior,” she said.

  “What do you study?”

  “Biology,” Kayleigh said.

  Sariah entered with another woman carrying the rest of the side dishes. “Kayleigh’s going to be our very own Dr. Quinn, medicine woman.”

  Kayleigh rolled her eyes. “Premed?” Aiden asked.

  “I want to go to Johns Hopkins,” Kayleigh replied, and then, quieter, “Mom wants U of U.”

  “She’s always been good at math, science… I never had the head for that,” Sariah said, surveying her completed table. “You know, I think we’re ready for the boys. Oh. Aiden, this is Orson’s sister, Lynn.”

  Aiden shook hands with Aunt Lynn. She was a robust-looking woman, Orson Jensen’s rugged features on a female frame. She gave him the same sort of skeptical look Dallin Jensen had earlier, which Aiden had started to think of as the interloper’s glare. “Sariah says you’re from The Times?” Lynn asked, barely a question.

  Aiden found his polite smile again. “That’s right. I’m here writing a profile on the governor.”

  “Our father always said The Wall Street Journal was the only paper worth reading.”

  Aiden frowned. He kept thinking this was the moment someone might finally hand him a glass of wine; his fingers practically twitched around the ghostly container, like a phantom limb, but of course none was coming. “Was
he a journalist?” he attempted.

  “Dad?” Lynn asked incredulously. “No. U.S. Steel. Thirty-five years,” she said, as if Aiden had rudely forgotten something important and intimate.

  Aiden looked in vain for someone to rescue him from this woman, but everyone else was focused on the procession of the meat to the table, clearing room for the dishes of chops and steaks.

  “He built this house. It’s all steel. The first one burned down.”

  “That must have been a loss.”

  “Oh, yes,” she exclaimed. This, at last, seemed like a topic Aunt Lynn could warm to. Literally.

  “This was the late ’50s, so I was five or six. You’d have to ask my brother. He remembers it better than I do. It happened one weekend. Our father used to drive us down to Lake Mead for the weekends to go boating. We’re down there this time, and Father gets a call from Bill Holden, who had the property across the canyon at the time, and he says, ‘George, I hate to tell you this, but I’m out on the rise and your house is on fire.’” She paused for comment.

  “Oh….”

  “So, we all rush back from Lake Mead, but of course the house is just ashes. My great-great-grandfather built it, back in pioneer days. All wood, and there’s no fire trucks up here.”

  “That must’ve been terrible,” Aiden said. There seemed to be a critical mass of people gathering round the table, enough for him to slowly start edging toward it.

  “Our mother was beside herself, but I think Father was glad for the excuse. He was very interested in engineering. Modern design.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “This house was actually on the cover of Architectural Digest. I’m sure Orson has a copy here somewhere. It—”

  Mercifully someone touched Aiden’s arm. It was Kayleigh. “You’re here, Aiden,” she said, gesturing to the seat between her and her mother. “We put you over there, Lynn, next to Stephen.”

  “Alrighty then,” Lynn said, bustling herself away. Relief must’ve shown on Aiden’s face as he sat down.

  “Aunt Lynn is talkative,” Kayleigh said.

  “I thought she didn’t want to talk at all… and then she talked a lot.”

  Kayleigh giggled. She handed Aiden bread for his plate. “You have to get her on the right topic.”

  Aiden took in the table, where seventeen of them were now assembled, even the rambunctious kids with a little bit of prodding and cajoling from their parents. It felt like a wedding, not a weekend family meal.

  “I’m impressed you’re all here like this,” Aiden told his hostess.

  Kayleigh blushed. “My non-LDS friends think it’s weird.”

  “It’s nice,” Aiden said. “I mean, my family would kill each other before it happened, but it’s nice.”

  “It’s just home, you know?”

  At the head seat, Orson Jensen cleared his throat. “Okay, everyone, I think that’s it.” Looking down the length of the table, Aiden thought he looked like the subject of a Norman Rockwell painting come to life, the benevolent patriarch and his adoring family. “Jared, can you put the ball down for Papa?” Someone shushed Jared. Orson smiled. “Good boy.”

  He placed his elbows on the table and let his hands fall outward, eyes closed. Aiden wondered what he was doing for a second, before he realized everyone else was doing the same, and joining hands. He mirrored the gesture as best he could, Sariah on his left and Kayleigh on his right.

  “Dear Heavenly Father,” Orson started. “We thank thee for this food, and the chance to spend time together as family. Thank thee for sending us Hunter, who’s on his way to us now, and we pray he reaches home safely. Thank thee for bringing us Aiden, who joins us at our table.”

  Aiden shifted unconsciously in his chair, like God’s special attention had fallen right upon him.

  “Thank thee for the hands that made the food and bless them. Bless the food to nourish and strengthen our bodies. Thank thee for the moisture.”

  Maybe it was the unexpectedness of it, or that awful word “moisture,” but Aiden had to bite his lip at that part to stop himself laughing. Thank you for the moisture? Where were they? Tatooine?

  “Thank thee for our home and for giving us each other and this moment. Heavenly Father, everything good in our lives comes from thee. Give us grateful hearts for all thy blessings, and make us mindful of the needs of others. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.”

  “Amen,” they all said.

  Aiden opened his eyes.

  “Okay, everyone, let’s eat,” Orson said. “Sariah honey, this looks wonderful.”

  “Everyone helped!” Sariah explained, overseeing the distribution of dishes and serving spoons. “Aiden, let me get you first.” She batted down his attempt to protest. “Guests go first. What can I get you?”

  “Everything looks wonderful,” Aiden said truthfully. He didn’t know if God had blessed the food to nourish and strengthen their bodies, but it certainly looked delicious.

  “Everything it is.” Sariah smiled. Soon he had a heaving plate, and Kayleigh was passing around a bottle of orange soda. The hubbub of eating and conversation filled the room.

  “Soda?” she asked.

  “Yes, thank you,” Aiden said. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had orange soda, either. Mormons favored it because it didn’t have caffeine.

  Aiden held his glass steady as she poured. “I have to ask….”

  “Whatever you want!”

  “Thank you for the moisture?”

  Kayleigh laughed. She looked at her father. “Dad, Aiden wants to know about the moisture.”

  A few other people laughed. Aiden hoped he wasn’t being offensive, but Orson smiled good naturedly. “It’s an idiosyncratic one.”

  “When the Mormon pioneers came to Utah,” Sariah started to explain, trying to give Aiden even more salad. “It was all desert. No rivers, or lakes, except the salty water. Barely any rain. So, every morning, after the dew came, they’d collect it from the canvas of the tents, for water, to drink.”

  “Thanking the Lord for the moisture is our way of remembering how we came to be here,” Orson said. “We don’t have many set prayers in the LDS Church. Now, when I was a bishop of the ward, this young boy says to me, ‘Bishop Jensen, what are we supposed to pray for?’ And I said to him, ‘Just tell the Heavenly Father what’s in your heart, son.’ So, he starts up, and the prayer goes: ‘Heavenly Father, there’s blood in my heart!’”

  They all laughed at that. Aiden looked around the table as the others launched into their tales of awkward Mormon prayers, and wondered if he wasn’t starting to feel charmed by these people. There was an easiness to them, warm and reliable as the red Utah rock. Sure, the religion was a little overbearing. All the thee, and thou, and thank you for the moisture. But, despite himself, he was starting to like them.

  A new voice interrupted. “Heavenly Father, thank you for the interstate.”

  A man, tall and blond, stood in the doorway, a military duffel slung over his shoulder. Aiden heard an explosive noise beside him, as Kayleigh launched herself to her feet and at the newcomer.

  “Hunter!” she exclaimed, wrapping her brother in a bear hug. Aiden sat politely while they trumpeted him in with hugs, kisses, and backslapping camaraderie. Only when he was finally clear of well-wishers and explaining how he’d made record time down the I-15, did Aiden get a good look at his face.

  He froze. It was weeks ago, but he hadn’t forgotten. The sculptural lines of the jaw, the wide, handsome nose, the shy, gentle eyes in a face full of power. It was him. From the bar, the night with Javi and Patrick. The man he’d pressed up to in the crowded corridor, white shirt luminous under the dark light.

  “Hunter, this is Aiden,” someone was saying. Aiden didn’t hear the rest of their explanation, for at that moment, Hunter’s eyes met his, and, just for a second, he saw a flash of panicked recognition there too.

  Holy shit.

  Polo.

  Chapter Six

  THE REST of Jensen fa
mily night seemed to go on forever. There was dessert, games, more praying, and then the children went to bed, and the whole thing seemed to start again from the beginning. They played the cleanest game of Pictionary Aiden had ever suffered through, all the while staring at the back of Hunter Jensen’s buzzcut blond head, wondering if this could really be the same man. The coincidence seemed impossible. He glanced at him. Hunter was joshing around with his brothers, laughing, telling his sister a story. Acting like anyone did with their family. He didn’t notice Aiden, didn’t know him, wasn’t thinking about him. And yet Aiden had seen it. The look in his eyes when they’d first been introduced. That hot, panicked flash of recognition. Just for a second, but it was there. Against every reporter’s instinct telling him to be skeptical, against all logic, Aiden had that.

  Finally Orson called time on festivities. Aiden excused himself quickly, heading back to his room, his mind racing. Except it wasn’t his room. It was Hunter’s room, and every object in it seemed to have a new relevance. Aiden searched the childhood possessions for hidden meanings, but they were just the same as before. He half expected a knock at the door and Hunter to come in feigning needing something, to confront him. But no knock came. Maybe they’d told him about the sleeping arrangements beforehand. Maybe there was nothing to confront. Aiden frowned at himself as he brushed his teeth. Maybe he was making the whole thing up.

  An exterior light cut through the cracks in the drapes, making patterns on the ceiling. Aiden stared at them, watching the subtle ways they moved with the wind and the branches. It was perfectly quiet, the silence broken only by the ticking of the Broncos clock. No sirens, no shouting, no trash truck rattling by. The sleepless cacophony of New York was far away. Chris came to his mind unbidden, the old joke they used to have. They’d be lying in bed, about to go to sleep, when a fire truck broke into wailing outside or the junkies on Broadway started a screaming fight.

  “Ah,” Chris would say, grinning through the darkness. “Peaceful New York.”

  Aiden would wrap his arms around him a little tighter. “Love New York.”