Prophet's Pass

by Chapman Brown

  “Isn’t that hypocritical, given Utah’s history of polygamy?”

  “That is part of our past. It is not part of our present. Plural marriage is illegal in Utah, as it has been for over one hundred twenty years. In fact, part of us becoming a state was affirming in our constitution that marriage was between one man and one woman. Now, the Supreme Court has ruled otherwise, and I respect that.”

  “But you oppose the court’s ruling?”

  “I believe we live in a republic of laws, and the Supreme Court has decided what the law is. It’s not the choice I would have made, and we’ll see if there are consequences to that. But we respect the law, and when I was governor I made clear that we would execute it.”

  “But the LDS Church tells you that homosexuality is a sin.”

  “My beliefs aren’t relevant.”

  “But if you’re making policy, how can you separate the two?”

  “Very easily,” he insisted. “Our Constitution mandates the separation of church and state. Mormon people know how important that is because we’ve been on the other side of it many times in our history. I’m not a representative of my Church.”

  The governor was getting annoyed now. Aiden could see the muscles moving under his jaw. He thought he’d neutered him with his buddy-buddy backslapping, but Aiden wasn’t easily distracted. He’d seen the way power and deference flowed in this house. This was a man who wanted power over Aiden and everyone like him. A man who made his own gay son afraid. If he was so righteous, let him sit in the light.

  “What would you say to a voter who looks at your history—who sees you being an official of the Church, a priest of the Church, a practitioner in the Church—and worries whether you can separate the two? What would you say to an African-American voter, who knows that the LDS Church only opened itself to black people in 1978? For thirty years of your life, you were part of what some people would call a racist group.”

  Orson crossed his hands across his desk. “Look. I love my Church. I love my faith. It’s faith of my forbearers, and God willing, my descendants. I’m not going to get into the rights and wrongs of what the Church did nor did not do. I was anxious for a change, and when the change came, I thanked God for it. You can ask anyone that. I believe that all people are the children of God: white, black, homosexual, heterosexual, everybody. That’s the root of my politics and my beliefs.”

  He was frowning at Aiden, not in anger so much as realization. Whatever affinity they’d been building seemed to melt away. Suddenly Aiden was the enemy again. The infiltrator. He stood up and went to the door.

  “I need some water. When I come back, let’s change track. I don’t think this is getting us anywhere.”

  “Sure,” Aiden said, as he was left alone in the office. He looked at the knickknacks, the smug political trophies. He didn’t need Orson Jensen to be his friend. He didn’t need anyone in this crazy family, with their brittle self-satisfaction and cloying deceptions.

  Suddenly he heard Sariah shouting Orson’s name. There was more shouting. “Hunter! Tim!”

  Aiden heard raised voices, Orson and his wife. Someone ran past in the corridor. He put down his notepad and went uncertainly to the door. Following the commotion through to the den, he found Sariah crouched by Stephanie on the couch, a low, keening sound emanating from her daughter. Kayleigh was on her knees, holding Stephanie’s clenched hand.

  “Mom?”

  The governor was on the phone. “I need an ambulance. Yes, I’ll hold.”

  Hunter pushed into the room a moment after. “What’s happening?”

  Aiden saw there was dark wetness under Stephanie’s lap, staining the couch. Her water had broken.

  “It wasn’t her back,” Sariah said. “She’s in labor. Orson, what are they saying?”

  “The snow’s already covered up everything they plowed this morning. They can’t get anything up here now.”

  “We’ll have to go down,” Sariah said. Tim was pacing, muttering appeals to the Heavenly Father.

  Stephanie’s breath was ragged, her face flashed crimson. “He’s coming too early, Mom! He’s coming too soon.”

  Sariah stroked her forehead. “No, he’s not. We’ll get him down to the hospital. Come on, let’s pray. Kayleigh, give me your hand. Our father, who art in heaven….”

  Orson abandoned the phone. He took Hunter by the shoulder. “Get your truck. We’ll drive her down to the clinic in Springdale. They can chopper her to Kanab if they need to.”

  “It’s around the side.”

  “What?”

  “My truck’s around the side, Mom’s too. It’s snowed in.”

  “Dangit, Hunter! What’s wrong with you?”

  Aiden saw Hunter flinch. “I didn’t know she was gonna—”

  Orson held up his hand. “Just… don’t. I can’t drive her down in my truck. I don’t have chains on it yet.”

  “It was fine earlier.”

  “She’s having a baby!”

  Chains. Aiden remembered the rental car lady and the airport and her peach manicure.

  “Take mine,” he said. “It’s under the carport, and there are chains in the trunk.”

  Orson looked at Aiden with blank surprise.

  “Orson!” Sariah exclaimed, snapping him out of it.

  “Thank you, son,” Orson said, clapping him on the shoulder. Their tense exchange in the office seemed forgotten.

  “I’ll get the keys.”

  Aiden ran quickly back to his room, digging through his bag until he found them. By the time he made it back up to the front, they’d managed to get Stephanie upright and to the door. Sariah was pulling a winter coat around her.

  “Mom, my pants….”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Sariah said. “They’re gonna take them off you anyway.”

  Aiden gave Orson the keys.

  “In the trunk?”

  “Yeah,” he said, following them out as they put Stephanie in the back seat. He realized he didn’t know anything about putting on snow chains, and he hadn’t listened much when the guy at the airport had told him how, but the Jensen men knew what they were doing.

  Sariah was clasping Aiden’s arms. “Thank you so much.” Stephanie was panting through her mouth, gripping her mother’s arm. “Just take whatever you need, we’ll be back as soon as we can, I—”

  “Mrs. Jensen,” Aiden insisted, “it’s fine.”

  It didn’t take long before the men got the cables and links around the front wheels. Stephanie got in the back with her mother and sister, Tim relegated to the front where he wouldn’t get in the way.

  Orson backed up and lowered the driver’s window. “We’ll call you from the hospital,” he told Hunter. “Pray for your sister.”

  “Drive careful, sir.”

  Orson nodded curtly. Aiden watched as his car crunched out of the yard until the taillights disappeared into the trees and falling snow. He hoped they didn’t drive into a crevasse, both for Stephanie’s sake and because the rental was on the paper’s insurance. Only when they’d been standing there for a few seconds did it occur to him he’d been left alone with Hunter. Hunter stared into the frozen forest, as if expecting something to emerge from it. Snowflakes caught on his fair eyelashes.

  His dad had really bit into him. “I think he was just anxious,” Aiden said.

  Hunter seemed to remember Aiden was still there. “Yeah,” he muttered and turned back to the house. His back retreated and disappeared into the house.

  Aiden didn’t know what to do with this new and unexpected dynamic. There was no sign of Hunter when he came back in. The house had the shocked air of a recent crisis, things scattered and the silence backfilling slowly. Aiden closed the door, feeling adrift. It was an opportunity to get started on his write-up at least, and he certainly had plenty of background color. He went down to his room to get his laptop, all the time wondering where Hunter had taken himself. A stranger’s house was a mystery of closed doors and unknown rooms. He didn’t even kn
ow where anyone else slept. He had the uncomfortable feeling Hunter was hiding from him. Maybe he was behind one of these doors listening to his footsteps, cursing his luck at getting stuck alone together. Maybe he wasn’t here at all. Perhaps he’d gone inside and out through some other exit, or he was praying for Stephanie or digging out the truck. Aiden told himself he shouldn’t care and endeavored to ignore the prickly, tense feeling in his stomach.

  He set himself in the living room in front of that great delta of a window. The snow was still falling outside, white flurries against the red peaks. Aiden typed up his notes from the morning, surprising himself as he read back his own questions. You got ahead of yourself, he thought. Advocating, not interviewing. He’d let his feelings about Hunter cloud his judgment. There he went again. Whatever he’d begun to think and feel about Hunter Jensen, he shouldn’t. There was no way that ended well for anyone.

  Aiden opened a new document and started trying to type up his story. Atop a historic, scenic canyon in southern Utah…. He stopped. The little cursor blinked on the white void of his page. He deleted every word and started again. In a dramatic home dug onto red sandstone cliffs, former Utah…. It’s snowing in Utah as former governor…. Snow comes early in Zion National Park, where former Utah governor….

  He sighed. His mind was elsewhere. Claws clicked on the floorboards. He looked up as the Jensen’s dog wandered around the corner, doubtless wondering where everyone had gone.

  Aiden beckoned her over. “Hey, girl. Hey, Lucy.” The Labrador seemed to decide he’d be an acceptable substitute and bounded up onto the couch, settling her head in his lap. He stroked the soft felt of her ears as he looked through his email. The name Kayleigh Jensen caught his eye. Subject: Med School Statements. Aiden opened the file and started reading. This he could do without thinking. It reminded him of being back in college. He used to sit on a coffee shop’s Wi-Fi all day, charging thirty bucks apiece for cover letters and application statements. It took him years to earn even half as much doing actual journalism.

  As I complete my undergraduate education, I strongly desire to enter a field which will provide me with a sense of achievement, as well as making a positive impact on mankind. It is clear to me that the practice of medicine… yada-yada-yada.

  He turned on Track Changes, cutting and chopping as necessary to give Kayleigh a bit of personality. He pitied the poor admissions officer who had to read these things. Suddenly Lucy perked up in his lap, turning her head and ears toward the door. Aiden heard the crunching of snow a few seconds after she did, and the dog was already off his lap and bounding up the stairs as Hunter came in.

  “Hey,” he said, shaking himself free of snow.

  Aiden felt that strange, tight feeling in his stomach again. “Hey. Didn’t realize you were out there.”

  “Just needed some air.”

  Aiden glanced at the clock. He’d been gone more than an hour. “Any news?”

  “Not yet.”

  “It’ll be fine,” Aiden said. “Waiting’s the hard part. Were you there when your brothers’ kids were born?”

  “Deployed,” Hunter said. He played with the dog bouncing around his legs, infinitely more comfortable talking to her than he seemed to be talking to Aiden. “Hey, Luce! You hungry? Wanna eat?”

  Aiden watched as he took the dog into the kitchen, heard kibble rattling into a bowl. He could hear him still talking to the dog, his tones playful, sounding younger. This isn’t anything. You’re not playing house. He doesn’t want you here. Nothing’s going to happen. He forced his attention back to Kayleigh’s essay. I have always been fascinated by the science of living systems. This interest started at a young age, when I took AP Biology and Chemistry at my—

  “Hey.”

  Hunter was in the kitchen doorway. He’d taken off his coat, and Aiden tried again not to stare at the strong lines of his body or the way his thermal was unbuttoned to reveal the golden hair dusting the top of his chest. It was a losing battle.

  “I was gonna make some food…. Do you want some?”

  After their encounter on the mountain, this felt like a diplomatic breakthrough worthy of a Nobel prize. Aiden quickly closed his laptop. “Sure,” he said, maybe a little too eagerly. It’s not a date. It’s not even dinner. It’s just food.

  Hunter nodded. “Cool. I don’t know what Mom’s got.”

  Aiden offered to help look. Sariah Jensen was the kind of mother who kept a well-stocked refrigerator. Between them, they managed to find some chicken breasts, rice, and other things fit for a makeshift stir-fry. Aiden sat at the table with Lucy, watching as Hunter stirred the ingredients into a hot pan.

  “You cook?” he asked.

  “Air Force. Kinda have to.”

  “They don’t cater out there?”

  “The mess food’s alright. But if you want something different, something special, you have to be able to put it together yourself. You can trade for anything at Bagram. Not drinking or smoking leaves me plenty to trade.”

  Aiden supposed it had to have its advantages somehow.

  “Plus, we go out and kill a few rabbits. Mountain goats. That kind of thing. You can make Afghan barbeque.”

  “Really?”

  He smiled at him sideways. “I’m shitting you.”

  Aiden was surprised to find him capable. With his parents out of the house, it was like he’d come alive in his own skin. “How many times have you been out there?”

  “Three. Ninety days at a time.”

  “What’s it like?”

  Hunter shrugged. “We have two F-16s up in the air, couple more sitting on the runway in case they call them in. Most of the time you’re just sitting up there numbing your ass.” He made flying a twenty-million-dollar supersonic death machine sound like a suburban desk job.

  “I thought it was all ‘Great Balls of Fire’ and shirtless volleyball.”

  Hunter grinned. “That’s the Navy.”

  “Big Top Gun fan for a straight guy,” Aiden said. Immediately, he knew it was too much. Too close to the bone. Hunter went quiet, pushing chicken around with the edge of a spatula. The silence was broken only by the hiss of frying meat. Aiden found himself searching the lines of his back for meaning again, that solid, expressive body, with all its tightly held secrets.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean—”

  Hunter looked at him, his expression unreadable. “Guess I’m not that convincing.”

  “I was just joking.”

  He turned off the gas. The contents of the pan went onto two plates. “I was an asshole yesterday. When I recognized you and they said you were a journalist, I just assumed… I thought you were here about me. I’m sorry.”

  “I get it,” Aiden said.

  Hunter put the plate down in front of him. His smile was sad. “No, you don’t.” Aiden didn’t say anything. It wasn’t a correction.

  “Smells good,” he said instead.

  “Thanks.”

  Hunter sat at the corner of the table beside him and closed his eyes. He held out his hand, and Aiden realized he was supposed to take it. He slid his fingers in his, feeling the warm strength of his grip, the calluses left by training and the pilot’s stick. Aiden felt his pulse quicken. You’re going to hell, a small voice said. He stared at Hunter’s lips as he prayed, perfect as a statue’s, framed in blond stubble. He could kiss him. He could reach across the table with his eyes closed, and kiss him before he even knew what he was doing. Just for a second, he almost thought he might do it, but the tentative truce between them might shatter, the little shoot of understanding crushed underfoot by his own stupid impulse.

  “Heavenly Father, bless and keep Stephanie. Bless her baby and keep them both safe and well. Thank you, Lord. Amen.”

  Aiden was surprised. Hunter opened his eyes and looked at him.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know… your mom and dad usually go on longer.”

  “I figure He knows what’s up.”

  Aiden guessed that had
a logic to it.

  “You think I’m stupid.”

  “No,” Aiden said quickly. “I don’t. I just… I’m just not used to it. The God stuff.”

  Hunter chewed his chicken, watching him with those careful blue eyes. He was like one of the hunting birds Aiden saw wheeling over the canyon, always taking in more of the world than he gave out. For once in his life, Aiden was content to let himself be studied in silence. No quips or boasts or words. Hunter looked right at him, and it was easy between them.

  Eventually he pointed at Aiden’s untouched plate with his fork.

  “It’ll get cold,” he said.

  Chapter Ten

  AFTER THEY finished, Aiden offered to load the dishwasher.

  “Thanks,” Hunter said, pushing out from the table and leaving the kitchen without a backward glance. Aiden sat nonplussed for a second. Well, what did you expect? he asked himself.

  He stood with a sigh and started clearing the table. Night had closed in, but there’d been no letup in the snow. In the light of the kitchen window, Aiden watched it tumbling through the dark. Beyond the railing of the deck, the canyon was black and fathomless as an ocean trench. Aiden saw his own reflection in the dark window and shivered. It was cold in here.

  Lucy padded in and fussed around his ankles. “Hey, girl,” he said, plucking a scrap of chicken off one of the dirty plates and dropping it for her. The Labrador scarfed it down and looked up at him with friendly brown eyes, wagging her tail. At least one of the Jensens liked him. He loaded the last plate and hit the button. The dishwasher churned to life.

  Something thumped in the living room. Aiden wandered out, and a blast of freezing air hit his face as Hunter came through the front door carrying an armful of pine logs. He left footprints of wet slush.

  He saw Aiden and tossed his head toward the door. “Get that?”

  Aiden hurried over to shut off the flurry of snow. The ozone smell of cold persisted as Hunter tramped across the room and dropped the logs with a clatter by the fireplace. Cautiously, Aiden sat on the arm of the nearest couch and watched as Hunter shrugged out of his jacket. Next, he pulled aside the fire screen and started work on clearing the grate. Aiden supposed he could take himself off to his room—Hunter’s room—and do some more writing. Was he wanted? Hard to tell. Every time he thought there was some warmth between them, the barriers went up again, cold as the wind outside.