CHAPTER 8

FRIDAY MORNING, A SLATE sky drizzled down on Seattle and obscured the Olympic Mountains.  Even though Jan was a child of the desert, he enjoyed the Seattle rain.  From the hotel window he watched the traffic in the streets below where almost all the cars were burning headlights.

He turned Monster’s slip of paper over in his fingers, feeling vaguely stupid preparing to speak the word “maidenform.”  He practiced it a couple of times.  “Oh, brother,” he said and dialed.

“Yeah?” A Marlboro voice.

Jan hesitated and said the code word. 

“Go downstairs and call me from one of the pay phones near the men’s room.”

“You know where I’m calling from.”

But the phone was dead.  Jan frowned at it.  What kind of melodramatic nonsense was this?  But Monster doubtless knew what he was doing.

In the lobby he redialed.

“Listen closely,” the raspy voice said.  “At exactly 10:00 a.m. tomorrow I’ll call you on this phone and tell you where to meet me.”

“Yes, but…”

Again the line was dead.

“Brother!”

***

Deck Edwards walked out his front door grinning.  Jan’s mood immediately lifted.  The twenty-mile trip east on I-90 to Issaquah had been a wet drive—Jan decided he was no longer comfortable in big city traffic.  Deck Edwards lived about five miles south of town in a rambling two-story home set on five acres.  As Deck approached the car he stopped to tussle the head of Bandit, his one-eyed sheep dog.  Bandit was so old, blind, and miserable that Deck had once tried to put him out of his misery by giving him twenty sleeping pills.  “I’m against euthanasia in humans,” he had said.  But when he had come home from the office that day, Bandit met him in the driveway looking healthy.  Three years later Bandit had begun to thrive.

As Deck opened the car door it was apparent he was in his normal state—somewhere between exuberance and bliss.  His favorite saying was “I’m too blessed to be stressed.”  He was a habitual bundle of nervous energy.  “Baby steps, Deck! Baby steps!” his wife would remind him as he brisked his way through airline terminals.  He’d had a couple of heart attacks and a stroke.  He was short, balding, paunchy, and talked nonstop.  His conversation was always interesting, challenging, and laced with humor.  He also was the world’s leading authority on Mormonism.  Deck’s name came up early in Jan’s investigation of Mormonism.  Eventually he had attended a conference in Billings where Deck had been a featured speaker.  They had dinner and became quick friends.  Monster met Deck when he came to Basin to testify in a trial that required an outside expert on Mormonism.

“Hey, buddy!” Deck said opening the passenger door.  “Can we stop by the post office and get my mail on the way?”

“No, but we can get it on the way back.  I don’t want you reading mail while I’m trying to pick your brain.”

“That’ll work.  How you doing, Jan?”

“I’m OK.”

“Well, I worry about you.”

“Join the club.”

Deck laughed.

“Martha’s, for lattes and potato pancakes?”

“Martha’s is perfect,” Deck said.  “What, no bacon?”

“Of course, bacon.  I won’t tell Sally. Your secrets are safe with me.”

“Well, that’s about as mysterious as I get, so you won’t have to worry about betraying me to the enemy.”

“You mean if Ronnie-the-Third hangs me by my toes I can give you up?”

“Anything I know about Ronnie I have already published.”

“That’s too bad; I was hoping to get something good from you.”

“I don’t know what you’re after, Jan, but I’ll help you any way I can.”

They pulled into Martha’s and entered to the smell of hotcakes, bacon, and Seattle’s too-strong coffee.  Jan wondered why coffee in the Northwest United States was so much stronger than anywhere else west of the Mississippi.  He had first noticed the phenomenon on an AP assignment in Portland years earlier.  It had taken him a long time to get used to the bitter brew, and he still didn’t really like it.  For whatever reason, however, Seattle was King Coffee, exporting fancy coffee drinks to the rest of the nation.  Jan thought he drank way too many of them, but he couldn’t help himself.  He once contemplated writing an article about the tide of lattes spreading from Seattle south and east.  He planned to track the number of latte shops opening in major metropolitan areas.  He guessed he would see a pattern radiating from Seattle until it faded nearly to nothing in the Southeast.  He came up with the idea while he was in Savannah where he had searched for two hours before he found anyone who could build him a drink.

After breakfast, while the second lattes were being served, Deck asked, “OK, friend, how can I help you?”

“First, tell me what you know about me and Ronnie and Monster.”

Deck’s eyes sparkled at the mention of Monster.  “How is Monster, anyway?”

“You know Monster.  If nothing else, he’s consistent.”

“I do, indeed.  You know he once rescued me when I did a seminar on Mormonism in Lovell?”

“No, I didn’t.”

Deck wrapped his hands around the latte mug.  “Well, it was during the ‘Doc’ trial.  An Evangelical Christian medical doctor was convicted of abusing a dozen Mormon women during pelvic examinations over a ten-year period.”

“I’m familiar with that.  In fact, I have known Judge Hartman, who tried the case, since we were boys.”

“I didn’t know that!”

“Yeah,” Jan said, “he and I were acolytes in the Episcopal Church together as kids.  During the trial Hartman packed a .38 Special under his robes.  Security was heavy.”

“Jan, you surprise me, I didn’t know you had a Christian upbringing.”

“Not much of one.  And it is well in my past.”

“I’m not going to try to evangelize you, Jan.”

“I appreciate that, especially knowing your religious zeal.”

“I take exception to the word ‘religious,’ but I know what you are saying.  I suppose I do come on kind of strong sometimes.”

“You don’t offend me, Deck.  I appreciate—even envy—your faith.  I have read your books.  I know how important your—I think you call it relationship—with God is.”

“Yeah, Jan, that’s the term I use.  And, of course, I use it specifically when I talk about Mormonism.”

“Why is that?”

“I won’t bore you with that right now, but I may return to it if it will help with your current problems.  I need to know what you are really after.”

“I want to get Hansen.”

Deck stared out the window for several moments.  The sparkle left his eyes.  Then he looked hard at Jan.

“Your wife was murdered.  I realize that.  But are you sure it was Hansen?”

“If not before, I am now.”  He told him about Monday night’s attack.

“Jan, you know, I’m a lot more concerned for your safety than I am in bringing Hansen to justice.”

“If you’re concerned about my safety you will help me get Hansen.”

 “Jan,” Deck said softly, “you are not the arbiter of justice.  If you are—if you take it upon yourself to exercise vengeance and to decide upon matters of life and death—how are you different from Hansen?”

“That’s easy.  I’m defending myself.”

“Yes, of course you are.  If Hansen or his people assault you, you have every right to defend yourself.  But confronting him in order to murder him is not self-defense.”

Jan sighed.  Deck, as usual, was thinking things through and doing it thoroughly.

“So, Deck, you’re telling me that I should sit around in the dark, armed, and wait for a truckload of Hansen’s disciples to come for me.  Or maybe, if I’m lucky, they’ll take me out on the post office steps.  And, by the way, if Hansen treats my life as nothing, isn’t there a good possibility that others are in danger as well?”

“The question is, Jan, who makes the decision about who lives and dies?  You?  Come on, you’re a child of the system.  You covered organized crime.  Every offender in the system has some reason why it’s legitimate for him to take the law into his own hands.”

“Hansen is different.”

“Aren’t they all?  Aren’t all these kinds of circumstances special?”

Jan looked out the window.  Of course Deck was right.  What gave him, or Monster, or George Olson the right to circumvent the legal system?  Finally he spoke.

“How many lives did Hitler take?”

“Oh, Jan, for God’s sake…”

“I know, I know.  But think about it.  Think about Jim Jones, think about Koresh and Applewhite.  The Hansen compound is a ticking bomb, and the government is not going to take action.”

“Do you have any reason to believe there is eminent danger to anyone?”

“You mean besides me?”

Deck was silent.

Jan said, “You know what ammonium nitrate is, of course.”

Deck remained silent and grim.

“With or without your help,” Jan said.

Deck sighed.

“To understand Hansen at all, you have to understand him thoroughly.”

“That’s why I’m here.”

“Let’s go back to my office; we’ll forget my mail for now.”

***

Deck’s office occupied 1,000 square feet of his house’s lower level, which was sunk about four feet in the ground so that he had nice window views of the backyard and the forest of Douglas Firs on the hill behind his acreage.  The walls were lined with bookcases.  A U-shaped computer station sat diagonally across one corner.  Behind the desk, Deck faced the middle of the room.  Along the two walls behind him were eight file cabinets within easy reach of the rolling desk chair.  The right-hand extension of the computer station abutted a large walnut desk.  Jan sat across the desk from Deck who leaned his left arm on the workstation in front of the keyboard.

Three shelves of a bookcase were devoted to plaques awarded to Deck from various civic and church groups.  A picture frame held his ordination papers.  Jan thought of him as a “Pentecostal with a brain.”  To which Deck had responded, “You mean I’m an oxymoron?”  They had both laughed.  

Deck wore his religion on his sleeve, but he was warm and good-natured about it.  Something about his mix of Evangelical fire tempered by earthiness attracted Jan. Jan understood that Deck had no feeling of superiority over his fellow human travelers.  “Paul called himself the chief of sinners,” Deck had once said to Jan, “but he never met me!”  Another time Jan had asked Deck why he was always so open and self-deprecating—seeming to be so genuinely humble.  Deck had simply said, “I know who I’m not.”

Now Deck was holding what seemed to be a very thick Bible in his hands.

“This is a Triple Combination,” Deck said.  “It holds three books considered to be scripture by the Mormon Church: The Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price.  If you want to know Ronald Hansen, you are going to have to start here.”

Jan held up a hand.

“You aren’t going to tell me that all Mormons are as crazy as Hansen?  Most of the Mormons I know are very nice people and model citizens.”

“Of course they are good citizens.  And of course Hansen is an anomaly.  However, you have to understand that Hansen is—in large part—a product of Mormonism.”

“I guess I don’t understand.”

“Let me introduce one other concept and then I’ll try to make some sense of this for you.”

“OK.”

“The other concept that goes to the heart of what Mormons consider to be truth is the idea of the Living Prophet.  Mormonism teaches that the head of the church is the ‘Prophet, Seer, and Revelator.’  He is the President of the Mormon Church, but he also is, very literally, the mouthpiece of God on earth.  When he says, ‘Thus sayeth the Lord,’ his words have the force of Scripture.”

“You mean like when the Pope speaks ex cathedra?”

“Exactly so.  Therefore, when the prophet speaks it is as if God were speaking.  No one argues that.  In the minds of the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, God ordered Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, to engage in and promote the practice of polygamy.  Not only was it a practice, it was a commandment that specifically stated, within the text of the revelation that produced it, that anyone who rejected it would be damned.”

“I have come across references to polygamy as ‘The Practice.’ With a capital ‘P,’” Jan said.

“Right, ‘The Practice.’  That word is used mostly among the Mormon polygamous sects, but some Mormons openly rebelled against the Practice—what Joseph Smith also called ‘The New and Everlasting Covenant’ or ‘Celestial Marriage.’  In fact a lot of Mormons, in the first days of polygamy, left Mormonism rather than get involved in it.  Joseph Smith’s legal wife, who had watched the ‘revelation’ evolve from her husband’s dalliances with young virgin admirers, was so incensed with polygamy that she threatened to leave him.  However, Smith said God told him that those who would not receive the revelation of plural marriage would be damned.  He even got a special revelation from God for his wife that said she, specifically, would be destroyed if she didn’t allow her husband to go forward with polygamy.  This is all recorded in the 132nd Section of The Doctrine and Covenants.”  Jan paged through the book of Mormon Scripture to display the title page of The Doctrine and Covenants.

“Then, in 1852 after Smith’s death, his successor, Brigham Young, publicly unveiled polygamy in Utah.  Of course, in so doing he outraged the citizenry of the United States.  In fact, in 1856, Lincoln’s Republican Party built into its platform steadfast opposition to ‘the twin relics of barbarism: slavery and polygamy.’  By 1857, United States President Buchanan, convinced that Utah was in rebellion, garrisoned troops in Salt Lake City under the command of Albert Sidney Johnston, who later died facing Grant at Shiloh.  But prior to the Civil War, Johnston’s command in Utah was the largest military deployment in American history.  For a time it looked like war—in fact history refers to it as “The Utah War.”  The Mormons were convinced Judgment Day was at hand.  At the last minute Brigham Young capitulated and his bargained surrender included resigning his position as governor of Utah territory.

“When the Civil War broke out, the nation had bigger fish to fry, taking the focus off polygamy, which continued pretty much unchallenged.  Except for the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act, Congress did little.  After the war it passed the Edmunds Act and the Edmunds-Tucker Act which prohibited polygamists from voting, sent many Mormons to prison, and began the confiscation of church property.”

“And,” Jan interrupted, “at that point the Mormon Church capitulated and received a revelation reversing the church’s position on polygamy?”

“Close, but no cigar.  In 1890, church President Wilford Woodruff issued an official statement reversing polygamy, but never reversed the church’s belief in polygamy.  Although he publicly ordered the practice to stop, it is what he did not say—and what the church has never said—that is the key to understanding Hansen.  It is the key to understanding polygamy in the western United States, and it is the key to understanding a strange Mormon doctrine—the doctrine of blood atonement.  And the doctrine of blood atonement is the key to understanding Ronald Hansen.”

“Blood atonement?”

Deck waved his hand.  “One subject at a time, Jan.  Right now we are midstream in discussing polygamy.  Bear with me.”

Deck drew a breath.

“See, most people think the Mormon Church outlawed polygamy…”

“That’s what I thought.”

“As I say, most people think that—they think the church renounced polygamy.  Not so.  If you look at the official declaration itself—the Woodruff Manifesto—that becomes clear.”

Deck turned the Mormon Scripture around on the desk so Jan could see it.  He flipped through the pages.  “This is the ‘Official Declaration—1.’  It is the statement President Wilford Woodruff put into the official Mormon record at a General Conference of the church in 1890.  But you have to read it closely; it’s carefully constructed to satisfy the federal government in order to prevent them from seizing the property of the Mormon Church.  But it does not abandon the theology or philosophy of polygamy.  It simply denies that they were at that moment “sealing” polygamous marriages.”

Deck leaned forward, holding the book in one hand and tracing lines in it with his right index finger.  He continued.  “Woodruff told the gathered Saints that he must submit to the pressure of the United States government or three things would happen: one, he—Woodruff—would go to jail; two, the temples would be closed; and three, Mormon property would fall into the hands of the federal government.  Woodruff went before the people and asked them, in effect, ‘which is wiser: to continue to practice polygamy and have those things happen, or to cease its practice and remain out of jail, with the temples open, and the property intact?’”

“So,” Jan said, “Everybody understood that they were playing a word game with the government.  Polygamy was still God’s plan for mankind, but the United States government forced it underground?”

“Absolutely.  The Manifesto is—in a very real sense— a form of thumbing the nose at authority.  And so, what do you suppose really happened?”

Jan furrowed his brows.  “It went underground?”

“Of course,” Deck said.  “Do you think that those men suddenly sent all their wives out into the streets?  Of course not!  High profile Mormons took action designed to give that appearance, but what happened was that it all became clandestine.  Mormon patriarchs split their families up and housed them in several different locations, then moved among the families freely. Mormonism continued to sanction plural marriage long after 1890.  President Joseph F. Smith, testifying in Washington, DC in 1903 in the Reed Smoot case, admitted that his five wives had presented him with eleven children since the 1890 Manifesto and that four of the Apostles had entered into polygamous marriages since then.  Many members of the church fled to Mexico—where, by the way, polygamy was not officially illegal and certainly not prosecuted. The Mexican government has never taken an interest in making monogamists of the many Mormon sects there.  Others went to the deserts of southern and western Utah and into neighboring states.”

“So in effect,” Jan mused, “the truest Mormons continued the practice?”

“Bingo!”

“And in some way,” Jan continued, “even the ‘regular Mormons,’ for lack of a better word, still believe in polygamy.”

“Certainly, when they think of it at all.  Polygamy, as a command from God, is under temporary suspension—in practice.  But it will certainly be resumed in heaven.  It has to be.  A recent billboard in Salt Lake City promoted a book about polygamy calling it ‘our sacred pioneer heritage.’  Polygamy is still sacred to regular Mormons who believe it will one day be reinstated—either here on earth or in heaven.  Tens of thousands practice polygamy in Utah and the state has no idea how to stop it.  As a matter of fact, the ACLU and certain Mormon groups are attempting to get the courts to protect polygamy under the First Amendment.”

Jan looked quickly at Deck who seemed to be waiting for him to ask a question.

“OK,” Jan said slowly, “why do you say it has to be practiced in heaven?”

“Because the most central and distinguishing doctrine of Mormonism is the Mormon teaching of Eternal Progression.”

“That’s the idea that Mormon men who attain godhood will create and populate their own planets?  Or something like that?” Jan asked.

“That’s right.  See, the central teaching of Mormonism is that men and angels and God are all the same kind of beings.  Mormonism’s ’Heavenly Father’ is a god among other gods and, in essence, no different than you and I.  He is not the unique, totally ‘other’ being that Christians, Jews, and Muslims envision.  The most famous couplet in Mormonism, upon which all Mormon theology turns, was coined by the Prophet Lorenzo Snow, who said, ‘As man now is, God once was; as God now is, man may become.’”

“Well, even I can recognize that is pure nonsense,” Jan said.

“Yes, of course it is, but it is a central theme of Mormonism—the Law of Eternal Progression.  According to that theology people just keep getting better and better until they become gods.”

“Well, OK.”  Jan was puzzled.  “But what has that to do with polygamy?”

“Well, Eternal Progression could also be called Eternal Procreation.”

“Say that again?”

“Well,” Deck continued, “Mormonism’s God procreates spirit children in heaven.  Elohim and one of his plural wives procreated you, and me, and even Jesus Christ.  Not to mention Lucifer, and Hitler, and Bill Clinton...”

“OK, I get it,” Jan said through a sickly smile.

“OK, so then our spirits, procreated by a polygamous God in heaven, are sent to earth and implanted into a human embryo created by human sexual intercourse.”

“Wait a minute.  Wait a minute!  So we do not begin our existence at conception—I mean human conception?”

“Nope.  We are simply transferred.  Our spirits, which were previously created, have been waiting for the right couple to create a human body for them on earth.  They are then transported to earth in order to, as Mormonism teaches, ‘get a body.’”

Jan scowled.  “Back up, Deck.  You said everyone on earth was created spiritually by the god Elohim and one of his polygamous wives?”

“Yep.”

“But there are six billion people on the earth.  Somebody has said that maybe as many as fifteen times that many more have lived and are now dead.  You’re talking about a hundred billion people!”

“Don’t you think I look at the World Population Clock on the Internet?” Deck joked.

“When you say spiritual offspring, what do you mean?  You don’t mean that this god…”

“A god by the name of Elohim, actually,” Deck said.

“Yeah, but you are saying that this Elohim was individually involved in some kind of…of…”

“Some kind of sexual act with his polygamous wives?  I’m afraid so.”

“Oh, come on!”

“I wrote a monograph called ‘Was the Virgin Mary Really a Virgin?’  You want a copy?”

“Holy Toledo!”

“Precisely.”

Deck sat quietly.

“Help me out here,” Jan said.

“Just keep processing.”

After a couple minutes Jan said, “You gotta be kidding!”

“Do I see the light of revelation in your eyes?”

“Polygamy!”

“Bingo!  How else will a man destined for godhood create a world and, as Joseph Smith said, ‘people it,’ without polygamy?”

“This sounds like one of those impossible math problems.  A hundred billion procreations at the rate of x per day, equal y number of years of celestial sex.”

“Quite a picture isn’t it, Jan?  One of my zealous acquaintances told me Elohim would have to have procreated 50,000 times a day for six thousand years.”

Jan was slumped down in the big chair across the desk from Deck.  He steepled his hands in front of his face and squeezed his eyes tightly shut.  He thought his brain might explode.  He sighed deeply.  Finally, he spoke.  “So Hansen is not a rebel—an outsider.” He paused, chewing his lip. “He’s the True Mormon.”

Deck nodded his head slowly.  “From his perspective? Absolutely!”