Mighty and Strong (The Righteous)

by Michael Wallace

  “Harmony, Alberta, is a polygamist colony. I did not know that. You are an American citizen, but you moved to Alberta when you were a child.”

  He shrugged. He'd been born in Utah, but if birth places were required resume material, Blister Creek would raise more red flags than Harmony would. Few people who weren't living plural marriage would have heard of Harmony, but everyone in Utah knew about Blister Creek. Which was precisely the reason why his church had kept communities in different states and countries. Sometimes you needed to pick up and move when some government official decided to do something about the local polygs.

  “The Christianson name brings up a million hits on Google,” Dr. Hess said, “until you include the word Harmony. Are you related to Abraham Christianson?”

  “He's my father.”

  “As of May, he is the so-called prophet of a polygamist cult called the Church of the Anointing.”

  “Is this guilt by association?” Jacob asked. “Because, unless you're just satisfying your curiosity, it has nothing to do with me or my performance at this hospital.”

  “And when I googled Abraham Christianson, it turns out he was at the heart of that big investigation at Blister Creek a couple years back.”

  He was not at the heart of the investigation, Jacob thought. He was the one left to pick up the pieces after the Feds arrested the conspirators. It had nearly destroyed the church, scattered dozens of its members, but at least they'd rid themselves of the fraud and other corrupt practices that had eaten the church from within.

  “Guilt by association,” Jacob repeated.

  “Is it? Is that all it is? What is your position within the church?”

  “I won't answer that question.”

  “Fine, let's back up. Tell me about the girl.”

  “The one who came into the ER? I already told you everything. She thought she was pregnant. She wasn't. I'd never met her before and don't expect to see her again.”

  “Why are you lying about this incident?”

  Jacob blinked. “I'm not lying. Talk to Crystal Kinkade. The nurse was there the whole time. Whatever her opinions about polygamists, she saw and heard everything. She knows what happened and can easily—”

  “She was in the hall. You were alone with the girl.”

  “I wasn't alone with her at any time. There was a curtain drawn, but we were talking loud enough for anyone to hear. Emma said—”

  “She asked you about terminating the pregnancy.”

  “There was no pregnancy to terminate!”

  Dr. Hess gave him a sharp look, perhaps searching to see if he could detect a lie. Jacob met his eyes, forced himself to remain calm. “Whatever this girl was thinking, it will blow over now she knows she's not pregnant,” Jacob said. “And yes, I come from a polygamist family, but so do a lot of people. Even one of our senators is first cousins with a bunch of polygamists.”

  “I wish I could be sure, Dr. Christianson. But I've got budget pressures you can't imagine, and we're dealing with a couple of lawsuits, and the last thing I need right now is negative media attention.”

  He sounded reasonable again and Jacob relaxed. “Give it a week or two. Nothing will come of this, you'll see.”

  “Very well, we'll set that aside for the moment.” Dr. Hess returned Jacob's resume to the file, then closed it and twisted his pen closed before replacing it in the breast pocket of his suit jacket. Then he tented his hands in front of his face. “Now I want to discuss the more serious matter.”

  “What serious matter?” Jacob asked. A cold knot returned to his stomach.

  “An FBI agent stopped by my office this morning, asking about you.”

  Chapter Four:

  The drive from Manti to Salt Lake took two hours, but Jacob still hadn't digested the news that the FBI was asking about his work at the hospital. He'd fully cooperated with their investigation four years earlier, had testified in court against leaders of his own church.

  Jacob wasn't ready to talk to Fernie. He needed to clarify his own thoughts. And so he stopped at Temple Square to look for his sister, Eliza. He parked across the street, made a quick trip into the French patisserie at the mall.

  Temple Square was a single square block that encompassed the Salt Lake Temple itself, plus the dome-shaped historic tabernacle, the gothic Assembly Hall, and a pair of visitor's centers. A massive wall surrounded the block, with visitors funneled through a handful of entrances. The entrances served double duty as a security checkpoint and a place for missionaries to approach visitors.

  Mormonism, as a movement, had grown from a few hundred members in 1830 to millions today. Some of the growth came from a high birth rate, the rest from baptizing waves of converts. Two young women spotted him and gave him an encouraging smile. His sister was not one of them, so he gave a polite nod and continued on his way. No need to get sucked into a discussion about Joseph Smith.

  The first thing he did upon running the first missionary gauntlet was glance at the temple on the east side. Only card-carrying members of the mainstream church could enter the temple itself, so Jacob had never been inside. He'd had ancestors who'd helped build it, however, and couldn't drive past or walk through Temple Square without feeling a stirring of pride.

  The temple was granite, with six spires, almost like a European cathedral in appearance, except for the gold-leafed statue of the Angel Moroni blowing a trumpet atop one of the spires.

  In Blister Creek, the headquarters of his family's church, they had built a smaller-scale temple, with an interior layout that was midway between that of the Salt Lake and Manti Temples. It also had a Holy of Holies, where the Lord himself might appear to speak with his prophet. So far as Jacob knew, Salt Lake was the only mainstream temple to share this feature.

  Jacob doubted the LDS prophet spent much time in the Holy of Holies chatting it up with either Heavenly Father or Jesus. He seemed a nice old man, but just a bureaucrat.

  But when has Father ever talked to the Lord, either?

  He found Eliza with her companion in the North visitor's center, chatting in Spanish with a pair of tourists. They stood next to the Christus, a white marble statue, eleven, maybe twelve feet high with outstretched hands to show where he'd been nailed to the cross. Jacob thought Jesus looked a little too Nordic, but the statue attracted attention.

  He watched his sister, not the statue. Eliza wore a dress, a touch of makeup, and her hair was cut shoulder-length, not the waist-length braids she used to wear. She wore a name tag that read 'Sister Christianson, Cardston, Alberta.” She'd blossomed since leaving the church for the mainstream Mormons. If she'd followed Father's command, she'd be some guy's nth wife, probably nursing one child and pregnant with another.

  When the couple left, Eliza turned, spotted him, and came to give him a hug.

  “Wow, your Spanish was great,” he said. “I'm impressed.”

  “You should hear my French.” She rattled something in French that he couldn't follow.

  “Show off.”

  She laughed. “I get it from my big brother.”

  Eliza's companion watched with a sour expression. “It's just my brother, don't worry.” She turned to Jacob and shrugged. They walked across the open room, beyond the other girl's range of hearing.

  “Your companion looks like she's been sucking on lemons.”

  “Temple Square is too close to home for some of the sister missionaries,” Eliza explained. “Their boyfriends stop by to chat or whatever. Probably what she was thinking. Thanks so much for the money. You don't have to, you know, but it came in handy. What's in the paper bag?”

  He handed over the bag from the patisserie. “A little something.”

  She glanced inside. “Raspberry tart? Yum.”

  “And one for your companion, too. She could use something to sweeten her up.”

  “Sister Sanchez is okay. She just takes this all too seriously.”

  “How about you, are you taking it seriously?”

  “I don't know,
Jacob, sometimes. Other times, not so much.”

  “I don't want to see you escape from the church, only to find yourself sucked into another flavor of Mormonism.”

  “It might be a stage, I don't know. Maybe I'll end up believing none of it, but there's no rush to get there. For now, I'm okay with not knowing.”

  “Doesn't your day consist of telling tourists what they should believe about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon? How do you do that, if you don't know yourself?”

  “I'm not thinking about it that hard,” Eliza said. “Maybe later, but for now a little mystery is okay. Thing is, I'm not usually pressed about my beliefs, but if I am, I admit it. I don't know. But look at you, you're one to talk.”

  Jacob shrugged. “The church is a mess. Half the members left, the others struggling. Some stopped paying their tithing. Then the prophet died, and Father is trying to pick up the pieces. He's only one man.”

  “Shouldn't you be there, then? You're a member of the Quorum of the Twelve.”

  “Shh,” he said with a glance at Sister Sanchez, still watching with her brow furrowed. “The Quorum of the Twelve doesn't mean the same thing here as back home.”

  “What I mean is that you're one of the church leaders, so shouldn't you be helping Father?”

  “I will, once I figure some things out.”

  Eliza took a step back and studied him. “There's something wrong, isn't there? You didn't come here to give me raspberry tarts.”

  “No, I didn't.”

  “Then what is it? Everything okay with Fernie?”

  “She's wonderful. I'm happier than I could've imagined. Not perfect, nothing ever is. We've got plural marriage hanging over our heads, you know, normal stuff.”

  “Fernie wants you to take a second wife?”

  “Not explicitly, but it's understood. I told her I'm not ready. She said—well, never mind. We can talk about that later. Your missionary companion is getting antsy.” He hesitated. “Has anyone come looking for you?”

  “From Blister Creek?”

  “No, Eliza. From the FBI.”

  Her eyes widened. “What? I thought we were done with them.”

  “Yeah, so did I. Does this mean no, they haven't?”

  “No,” she said. “No FBI. At least not that I know.”

  “Good. I don't know what this is about, but they asked about me at the hospital. I've got to renew my residency and it doesn't help to have the FBI sniffing around. The hospital administrator found out where I came from, and that didn't help either.” He thought about telling her about Emma, but a young girl about to be forced into marriage would hit Eliza too close to home. “I don't want you to worry, but I thought I'd give you a heads up, see if you had any ideas.”

  “No, I wish I did, but I can't think of anything. Is Father flying straight?”

  “So far as I know.”

  Abraham Christianson had never believed in 'bleeding the beast', that practice of welfare fraud so tempting for polygamists. Since polygamy was illegal, all but the first wife were legally single mothers on welfare, no matter how much money their husbands made. And given the closed nature of the communities, it was easy to do business under the table, cheat on taxes. Easy, that is, until the IRS or the FBI investigated. And then it wasn't.

  If Father was tempted to go that route, all he had to do was visit his former friends and relatives in prison, ask their opinion.

  “Keep your eyes open,” Jacob said. “You see anyone suspicious or talk to anyone, give me a call.”

  “I would have done that anyway. There's no one else I trust. You're the reason I'm here.”

  “I'm the reason you're a missionary?” he said with a half-smile. “Glad to hear it.”

  “The reason I'm a woman with a chance to figure out who she is,” Eliza said firmly. “And not just another wife with her whole life mapped out. I love you, I'd do anything for you.”

  “With any luck, you won't have to.”

  #

  Jacob called his wife as soon as he left Temple Square, to let her know he'd be home in a few minutes.

  “Oh, good,” she said. “Daniel has been asking about you every ten minutes.”

  He could hear the boy clamoring in the background, asking when Daddy was coming home. “Five minutes, honey,” Fernie said to the side. “Go wait at the window, you can watch for him. Leah, Daddy's coming.”

  Jacob was thinking his advice to Eliza to keep her eyes open was good, and not just for his sister. A black SUV swung in behind him as he pulled out of his parking space. He took South Temple toward home. The SUV seemed to be following, so he made a loop around the University of Utah area and then through the Harvard Yale neighborhood to the south. The SUV didn't follow.

  Jacob and Fernie rented a small house in the Avenues, a cozy urban neighborhood of gridded streets that stretched up the hill from the capitol building toward the Salt Lake City Cemetery, north of the University. The Avenues were a walkable oasis in the wasteland of strip malls and subdivisions that sprawled along the Wasatch Front. You could walk downtown or to the U, or even to a corner bakery.

  But the best thing was the neighborhood's diversity. The east side of Salt Lake was the least Mormon part of the state. There were a few chapels, but also non-Mormon churches, and his neighbors included university students, ex-Mormons, minorities, gay couples, and visiting professors. A good place to blend in.

  He pulled into the driveway and then spotted the SUV parked in front of his house. It hadn't followed because the driver had already known where he lived. Jacob stopped the car and waited behind the wheel. His engine ticked as it cooled.

  Impossible to see through the SUV's tinted windows, but Jacob imagined them watching, waiting for him to get out. Who was it, and why had they parked in plain view? To intimidate him?

  Time to deal with this now, before Fernie or the kids saw he was home. He got out of the car and approached the SUV. Jacob kept his gait smooth, confident. But he kept his right hand in his pocket, clenched his keys in his fist. With his left, he knocked on the window. No answer.

  He rapped the window again, harder, then tried the door handle. It was locked. “Open the door.”

  Jacob was so caught up imagining who might be watching from inside that it took a second before the obvious occurred to him. He leaned down to the window and cupped his hands against his face to block the glare. There was nobody inside.

  Jacob shot a glance to the house. It was quiet. No Daniel and Leah looking out the window, waving furiously. Whoever had driven the SUV was now inside his house.

  He broke into a run, his mouth dry, heart pounding.

  Chapter Five:

  There was nothing Senator Jim McKay hated more than kissing the asses of born-again Christians. Back stabbers and self-righteous pricks, the lot of them.

  He and his brother, the Attorney General of the State of Utah, Parley McKay, walked the convention center's vast open space with glued-on smiles, shaking hands as they purported to look at the Christian crap: t-shirts, religious videos, Christian action figures, and textbooks for Christian homeschoolers.

  Jim had thumbed through one of the books earlier. It showed a picture of Noah trying to coax a dinosaur onto the ark. Another page “proved” mathematically that the sun had only been burning for six thousand years, since the Creation. Hah, and they said Mormons believed crazy stuff.

  Jim was delivering the opening speech tonight to the annual convention of the Traditional Families Coalition, after which he had three days to mingle, build contacts to help him in the Iowa primaries.

  Nationally, the TFC was an awkward conglomeration of Catholics, Evangelicals, and Mormons that disagreed on almost every theological detail, but shared a common concern about stopping the gay rights agenda, and standing up to the media elites who insisted on forcing an immoral lifestyle on mainstream, family-values America.

  This particular convention left Jim feeling like the ugly cousin at the family reunion. No doubt his speech would garner
polite applause, even spur a few donations. But he knew what they said behind his back.

  Some Mormon politicians—Harry Reid and Orrin Hatch came to mind—were hurt by the evangelicals' insistence that Mormonism was a pseudo-Christian cult. Didn't LDS volunteers and money spearhead the movement to pass Proposition 8 against gay marriage in California? A great victory, until the activist courts stuck their noses in. And can't you always count on the LDS Congressional delegation to deliver a socially conservative vote?

  The TFC convention was in Denver this year, and the evangelical contingent emerged in full force. They witnessed on the local radio, in the megachurches, even passed out pamphlets on street corners with titles like, “Are you saved?” and “How to Pledge Your Life to Lord Jesus.” Oh, and Jim's favorite: “How to Recognize a Counterfeit Church.” Onward Christian soldiers, and all of that.

  He hoped the local mission president had the good sense to tell the LDS missionaries to stay off the streets for a couple of days.

  “Your smile is wilting,” his brother Parley said after he finished shaking hands with yet another televangelist huckster.

  Jim studied a knot of people about twenty yards distant, near a booth selling videos of the Left Behind series. “That's because I spotted Mitt Romney.”

  Romney emerged from the group and gave them a wave and the trademark Romney smile. His presidential hair looked perfect, as always. Jim caught himself trying to adjust his own mop.

  Jim McKay had stood by Mitt's side during the last round of presidential primaries. The same people over there now shaking Mitt's hand had happily stabbed him in the back to support Huckabee, and then stabbed John McCain in the back during the general. Or rather, sat on the sidelines, which was the same thing.

  You reap what you sow, Jim thought. Because now it was almost certain the EVs would be forced to swallow their pride if they wanted any chance of getting back in the White House. The evangelical candidates were a joke, the governor from New England was a RINO—Republican in Name Only. Not to mention too cozy with the media; when the New York Times spoke glowingly of your candidacy, you almost wondered if it was intentional sabotage. That left the conservative movement one of two choices, and both were Mormons.