CHAPTER 10

SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE compound was temple night.  Now, early in the afternoon, Prophet Hansen sat outside the door of his office on the deck surrounding the second story of the Lion House.  To his left a door opened into the master bedroom.  His viewpoint presented him with an unobstructed dazzling view of the west face of the Big Horn Mountains.  The Prophet believed no one—anywhere—viewed such panoramic majesty from his doorway.  He knew the Grand Tetons and their startling awe, but he guessed this view was even grander.  The master bedroom had an angled glass roof.  From his bed on a moonless night, he and his wife du jour, as he playfully called her, would watch the starry dome of the universe move silently overhead.

The June afternoon heat invigorated the Prophet.  The Big Horns, five miles to the east, rose more than a mile straight up from the valley floor to an elevation of 10,000 feet.  From this distance they were lush green and granite; from five miles further away they appeared blue.

On Saturday afternoons an uncharacteristic quiet fell over the compound.  Some of the leaders took their families to Billings or Sheridan or Worland for shopping, dinner, and sometimes a movie.  Hansen fasted Saturdays, and in the afternoon he read the Scriptures and prayed, preparing for his Sunday church meeting.  This afternoon he sipped an herb tea and studied, once more, Section 85, verse 7, of the Doctrine and Covenants:

And it shall come to pass that I, the Lord God, will send one mighty and strong, holding the scepter of power in his hand, clothed with light for a covering, whose mouth shall utter words, eternal words; while his bowels shall be a fountain of truth, to set in order the house of God…

There was no doubt in the Prophet’s mind that he was The One Mighty and Strong predicted in Section 85.  Others before him had thought they were that prophesied leader God would raise up to restore order in the House of Mormonism.  Noble but mistaken men were among them.  Men like Joel LeBaron, who had made a reasonable case for his claim to be The One.  On the other hand, there were usurpers, like Joel’s brother Ervil LeBaron.  Dozens of others had arisen to claim the title since 1890. 

Hansen remembered the pitiful spectacle Ervil LeBaron made of himself when he came to the Hansen clan and demanded they tithe to him.  Hansen’s father had stared the imposing Ervil down and sent him packing.  Before Ervil died in prison he wrote his own book of scripture.  It contained a hit list which initiated a blood bath that captured national headlines for several years. Hansen had been on the list and had taken special security precautions until Ervil’s vengeful sons were behind bars.

Hansen considered the challenge before him.  The One Mighty and Strong was God’s chosen vessel to restore the Kingdom of God on the earth.  Utah Mormonism, to Hansen’s mind, was as corrupt as hell itself.  Brigham Young had been a true Prophet.  So was Young’s successor, President John Taylor. The United States government hated both Young and Taylor and pressured them to give up polygamy.  Neither of them did.  When Young finally died, the United States government redoubled its efforts against Taylor. He steadfastly refused to sign an anti-polygamy manifesto saying, “I would suffer my right hand to be severed from my body first!”

Then Taylor, knowing it was only a matter of time before the United States had its way in Utah, secretly commissioned a select society of trusted followers to continue polygamy clandestinely while the church outwardly succumbed.  In Centerville, Utah, in 1886, Taylor received a revelation from God, ordering him to designate men who would carry on polygamy at all costs.

But Wilford Woodruff, who followed Taylor, didn’t have that kind of backbone.  Woodruff sold out the church to the godless gentiles.  He capitulated in the face of anti-polygamy sentiment.  He didn’t have the courage to stand up for his beliefs.  When he sold out, he dishonored the Priesthood.  His cowardice, of course, permitted him to keep his wives secretly and to sanction more clandestine plural marriages.  Such marriages were conducted underground for twenty more years.  Nevertheless, eventually the mainstream Utah Church stopped solemnizing plural marriages.  Polygamy was driven fully underground to be continued only by the bravest men and women—the truest of the true.

It was a mystery to Hansen that Utah Mormonism could go so wrong—could abandon the Practice.  Joseph Smith had been chosen by God and given the Holy Melchizedek Priesthood.  Three of Christ’s original Apostles—Peter, James, and John—had appeared to Joseph Smith on the banks of the Susquehanna River and laid their hands on his head, conferring upon him the Priesthood and the keys to the Latter-day Dispensation—the Dispensation of the Fullness of Times.  The Priesthood flowed from Joseph to Brigham and from Brigham to John Taylor.  But then men who should have known better betrayed the trust God had placed in them.

Not that factionalizing was new to the history of the church.  Hansen thought of how the young Prophet, Joseph Smith, had lost most of his trusted leaders.  He eventually excommunicated more than half of all the Apostles he ordained.

The church, he realized, was never at peace with the gentile world.  Joseph Smith had run for President of the United States in 1844.  Not a truly serious candidacy, Hansen thought, but perhaps a statement—a foreshadowing—of Hansen’s own time. The Saints had been driven from Missouri to Illinois, their leaders tarred and feathered, and dozens of the Saints murdered. Joseph Smith himself had been murdered in the summer of 1844, in the Carthage, Illinois, jail where he was being held on a trumped-up charge of treason.  Illinois Governor Thomas Ford had come to Carthage to accept Smith’s surrender.  Ford had guaranteed him protection.  But he withdrew and left the Prophet in the hands of a crowd of gentiles.

When Smith died, a dozen church leaders clamored to succeed the fallen prophet.  The church splintered into factions and fled Illinois in a dozen directions—to the East Coast, to Michigan, to Texas.  Others within the church believed that Joseph Smith had prophesied that his own son, Joseph Smith III, would succeed him.  That faction became The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, headquartered in Independence, Missouri.  It was second in size only to the main Utah Mormon Church.

Hansen shook his head and exhaled deeply at the painful memory of the bitter divisions that marked his beloved church.  After Joseph’s martyrdom, Brigham Young led his flock to Utah.  Young established a new nation in the Utah Territory.  After the church capitulated to the United States government on polygamy under Wilford Woodruff, scores of further factions were birthed.

As Hansen continued in his reverie, Bill Campbell walked up to him and waited silently.  A full five minutes passed before the Prophet stirred.

The Prophet looked at Campbell and said, “Bill?”

“Yes, President.”

“Can I help you?”

Campbell cleared his throat.

“Well, President, you asked me to meet you here this afternoon.”

Hansen stared blankly at him.  Eventually, he spoke.  “Of course I did, didn’t I?”

“Yes, sir.”

More staring.

“You said you wanted to discuss some ‘broad plans.’”

Hansen closed his eyes.  He slowly nodded his head.  “Bill,” he said, “I have been thinking about our destiny here.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sit down, please.”

“Thank you, President.”

“Bill, things are beginning to move fast.”

“Uh huh.”

“I mean.  Well, there is the Jan Kucera thing.  The stuff will hit the fan after we deal with him tonight.”

“I’m afraid so, President.”

“Also, we are attracting a lot of attention among the scattered brethren.”

“It would appear so, President.  There seems to be a stream of leadership coming to see you.”

“Well, all the Fundamentalists cling to the hope of the rise of The One Mighty and Strong.  Thank God that Joseph has given us the 85^th Section.  You know, Bill, there is one thing I’ll never understand.”

“What’s that, President?”

“Why in God’s name, when Wilford Woodruff sold out, did not all the members of the church recognize his sin and stand up for the truth?”

“I don’t know.  I don’t think too theoretically, as you know.”

Hansen laughed at the joke.

“And, thank God you don’t, Bill.  Thank God you know how to obey and leave the philosophizing to me.  But seriously, the reason the church as a whole never understood the obvious disobedience of Woodruff and others is that ‘many are called, but few are chosen.’  Few have the ability to think critically and fewer still have the courage to defend their convictions.  But, Bill, a faithful remnant—like the faithful remnant of Israel in the Old Testament—always remains.  The mindless sheep scatter.  Only the truest of the true can maintain the faith.”

Campbell said nothing.  Then, he glanced up at the Prophet and said quickly, “Well, I thank God he gave you the light of revelation, President.”

Hansen looked closely at him.  “Do you, Bill?  Do you really?”  He paused.  “Anyway, Bill.  I’m grateful that the Fundamentalists await the coming of The One Mighty and Strong, and are beginning to recognize him.  So many have pinned their hopes on false prophets. The claims of the pretenders are, of course, meaningless drivel.  Unfortunately, the largest groups, it seems, have given up the hope, wearied of waiting for The One.  They seem content to practice celestial marriage in the canyons and deserts, like bats and moles.

“But now as things are coming together, we are arriving at a critical mass.  I can’t believe the federal government will wait much longer before trying to shut us down.  So, that means several things.”

The Prophet rose to his feet and began to pace.  Campbell stared at the ground.

“Obviously, Bill, we can’t go to war with the United States.  Not at this time.  Not at this moment.  Bottom line?  We are going to have to leave.”

Campbell looked up.  “South America?”

The Prophet nodded.  “And soon.  But we have a lot of loose ends to tie up first.”

“Like Kucera.”

“Exactly.”

Hansen took his eyes off Campbell and examined the Big Horns.  The sun had moved far enough to reveal the letters J-I-R-P formed by the light and shadows of the forest growth, letters that gave the name to the JIRP Ranch at the foot of the mountains.  God, he would miss this place.  Joseph Smith had named Nauvoo, Illinois, Nauvoo, because he said it meant “beautiful place.”  But brother Joseph had never sunned himself on the west side of the Big Horns.  He had never fished the willow banks of Shell Creek nor ridden through the red desert hills and along the foot of the Five Sisters rock fortress.  Hansen had hoped he and his people would be safe in Wyoming forever.  Nothing angered him more than having to trade this compound for a steamy jungle.

The Restored Gospel was the only hope for America, the only hope for the world.  But now Hansen was forced to leave America temporarily—in order to save her.  Look at how the mighty nation of liberty has fallen.  Divorce and sodomy rampant.  Filth and AIDS and drug addiction.  A recent president of the United States with his hands up the skirts of a young woman in the Oval Office.

Hansen nodded to himself.  Judgment had come upon the land.  He had traveled throughout the country, seeing with his own eyes the debauchery and godlessness turning cities into sewers.  He monitored the television drivel sucked up by the mindless citizenry who watched inane programming—complete with canned laugh tracks!

The national educational system was, of course, a joke.  High school graduates couldn’t read, and college students were fed pap—the Great Books jettisoned in favor of touchy-feely nonsense.  Professor Alan Bloom was right—the American Mind had closed.  Bloom— and he a Jew—so accurately described the sodomized state of America, the death of reason, and the rise of the modern barbarian.   Bloom had said it right, “I’m afraid the intellectual soil is now too thin to sustain the taller growths.”

“Excuse me?” Campbell said.

The Prophet colored.  “Sorry, Bill, I must have been thinking out loud.  Anyway, Bill, at least I’m thankful that a few pockets of patriots resist the barbarians at the gates.  Some of the Patriot Movement—the Bo Gritzes, the Randy Weavers, and some of the Christian Identity Movement, such asthe Gordon Kahls and men like the fallen Pastor Richard Butler—for all their shortcomings, they see what is happening.  Especially in the shadow of the 9-11 Trade Center bombing..  And without the help of men like Gerry Spence—the world’s greatest trial lawyer and a man committed to individual liberty—without help of his caliber, a secular America would have crushed the patriots long ago.  Of course the patriots are powerless to stop the destruction of America.  For all their sturm und drang, they are simply rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

“But God has foreseen the decadence which will destroy the moral fabric of the United States.  He has seen that even the restored gospel would suffer at the hands of weak leaders.  He has prophesied that the restored church will itself have to be restored by The One Mighty and Strong.”

Hansen stopped short.  He sucked in his breath.

“Bill, my grandfather was ordained and commissioned to continue the Principle.  Commissioned through the very hand of President John Taylor.  My father, Ronald Hansen, Sr., ordained me.  I am the Anointed One.”

Again Campbell hesitated then said, “Yes you are, President.”

“But, Bill?”

“Sir?”

“I have never told anyone this, but sometimes I fear that I am not up to the calling.  You have no idea how many times I have awakened in damp sheets, haunted by the thought that I am not strong enough!  I know all great men of God go through periods of self-doubt.   Many times during seasons of fasting and prayer I have cried out to Elohim, father of Jehovah, using the same words Jesus used when he was in the earth, ‘Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.’  But God will neither remove the mandate nor the mantle.  After the doubts, when I am refreshed by fasting and prayer, do you know what I say to myself?”

“No, sir.”

“I say—again with Jesus—‘If this cup may not pass away from me, except I will drink it, thy will be done.’”

Campbell remained still.

“I also realize that—again like Jesus—I have enemies on every side.  Federal agents crawling like worms through the Big Horn Mountains, sneaking and peeping and reporting to fat bureaucrats in Washington.  Probably even now arming themselves to enter the compound.  Let them come!  I don’t want a fight, but with the help of God I am ready if it comes.”

Hansen shook his head, his long blonde hair a mane adorning an indignant beast.  “But, do you know what troubles me most, Bill?”

“No, sir.”

“What troubles me most is that sometimes I am misunderstood even among my own people.  There are double-dealing sycophants who would sell their own Prophet for thirty pieces of silver.  They are worse than gentile meddlers like Jan Kucera.  Kucera, a professional snoop who cares nothing for the things of God, but only for writing titillating stories for the yellow press.

“Bill, I tried to contain my rage when Kucera published pictures of my wives in the New York Times.  My wives!  I tried but failed.  The unmitigated humiliation!  Who is Kucera but a godless wretch of questionable pedigree?

“As you know, Bill, I do not accept the most radical Aryan theology.  Nevertheless, I can’t shake the feeling that some of the Southern European nations should really be considered of less than pure Adamic descent.  While they don’t display the black skin of Cain, they obviously are mongrelized.  Do you know I heard that Kucera’s father had immigrated to the United States from Bohemia before the First World War?  In the 1920s, the word ‘bohemian’ came to designate the unorthodox, anti-God crowd.  Wasn’t Bohemian Czechoslovakia populated by gypsies and other mixed-blood peasants?”

Hansen paused, then laughed, “Kucera, the bad Czech.”

Campbell looked up at him and smiled.

“Men like Kucera can’t be allowed to interfere with the unfolding of holy history.  I knew from the time I saw the first filthy newspaper story Kucera penned that I would have to cancel that Czech.”

Hansen stopped.  He was smiling broadly.  Campbell looked up.  He returned the smile.

“Cancel that Czech,” Campbell said.

Hansen took his eyes off Campbell and studied the intricate face of Shell Canyon’s walls in the distance.  He thought of the other Fundamentalist leaders who had recently trudged through the compound to acknowledge him.  Many, he knew, were petrified of him.  They knew the Prophet did not shrink from his calling.  He did not even shrink from the practice of blood atonement, the holiest of all sacraments.  The secondary polygamous leaders knew of men who had resisted him.  Men who were now missing.

In the last twenty-four months, a dozen such groups had accepted Hansen’s claim of Doctrine and Covenants 85.  During that same time Hansen had also met with another very interesting Fundamentalist.  Not a Mormon Fundamentalist to be sure.  Not even a Christian Fundamentalist—but a Muslim Fundamentalist.  Even thinking about it now, the Prophet felt a sense of awe.  He had traveled to Libya to consult with the polygamist Muslim, Col. Muammar Kadafi.  That was before Kadafi lost courage and capitulated to President Bush after the conquest of Iraq, long before Libyans took up arms to overthrow Kadafi.  But when Muammar still had his loincloth cinched, Hansen had discussed Islamic polygamy with the Arab, exploring the necessary qualities of strength of character in a ruling prince.  They had also discussed money and chemical and nuclear weapons.  One of the colonel’s aides gave Hansen a crash course in terrorism.  The Prophet had been particularly moved by the discussion of torture: “First, you must make them beg you to kill them.  Then they will tell you whatever you want to know.”

Suddenly, Hansen addressed Bill once more.

“Bill, there is one more matter of utmost delicacy.”

“Sir?”

“It’s Melissa.”

***

After a supper of tea and unleavened bread, which he allowed himself during the twenty-four hours that he fasted before Sunday service, Hansen went to the temple.  It was a plain frame building inside of which a room measuring eighty-eight-feet-two-inches long and twenty-eight-feet-nine-inches wide was constructed.  These were the exact dimensions of the upper floor of the Nauvoo, Illinois, temple where Brigham Young conducted ceremonies after the martyrdom of the Prophet Joseph Smith.  Nauvoo was the first real temple where the ceremony was conducted.  To the best of his knowledge, Hansen’s own version of it was identical to the one performed in Nauvoo in 1845.

Saturday nights the temple was reserved for Prophet Hansen and special guests.  Tonight he would be taking a new wife, Maggie Balsom.  She would be going through the temple ceremony for the first time to receive her own Endowments.  Then she would be sealed to him for “time and eternity.”  Bill Campbell had told Hoyt Akers about the marriage and stood before Akers until the pilot told him he was OK with it.  Campbell told the Prophet he thought Akers wanted to say something negative, but finally had just nodded slowly and walked away.  Campbell said he was less than happy with Akers’ reaction.

The Prophet would really have preferred not to marry Maggie right now, but after Akers had approached him with the idea of marrying Maggie himself, Hansen realized he had better to seal her to himself right away.  Akers was out of the question for her.  Maggie was a fine, strongly spiritual young woman.  She would produce choice babies to be inhabited by the most noble of Elohim’s spirits—spirits held back for the very last of the latter days.  And, as a plural wife, she would produce spiritual offspring for Hansen’s kingdom.

Bill Campbell was waiting for the Prophet in the reception area, along with Maggie, her parents and other adult members of her extended family.  Hansen embraced Maggie’s mother and shook her father’s hand.  The Balsoms were obviously thrilled that their daughter had been chosen as the wife of the Prophet.

“Will you folks excuse me for just a moment, please?” Hansen said.  “I need to see Apostle Campbell on a matter of some urgency.  Bill?”

Campbell followed the Prophet into the men’s dressing room.  The Prophet closed the door and motioned him back into the washing and anointing room and closed that door as well.

“Couple of matters, Bill.  One, I understand our friend is arriving in Billings tonight.  I assume you have that covered?  The second thing is the Casper connection.”

“Yeah, I’m headed toward Billings as soon as you release me here.  I’m in contact with people on the scene there.  The two in the Casper jail will be a little more difficult.”

Hansen cocked his head and raised an eyebrow.  Campbell continued.  “A little more difficult is not the same as impossible, President.”

Hansen smiled.  “You do good work brother Campbell.  I have no one like you.”

“Thank you, President.  I know that is true.”

They both laughed and headed back out to the wedding party.  Campbell nodded at the guests and left the building.

***

The temple ceremony, as always, rejuvenated the Prophet.  Tonight, however, he couldn’t help watching Maggie, who was going through the ceremony for the first time.  Dressed in white and seated between her mother and an older sister, Maggie looked radiant.  She was wide-eyed as the endowment ceremony unfolded.  Hansen drank in her youth with his eyes.  Her auburn hair, her smooth dark complexion.  He remembered dandling her on his knees in her parents’ living room when she was only four or five years old.  Then watching her grow through the awkward years.  Only a very few years ago had the Prophet begun to see her as a young woman.  That was when she was working out in the gymnasium on the compound.  He had gone in to work out on the speed bag when he watched her in leotards stretching.

As the temple ceremony began, Hansen wondered what Maggie would think of the endowment ceremony.  Certainly it would all be new to her.  By the time the ceremony began, she had, of course, been washed and anointed by the sisters after taking off her clothes and donning the temple garment.  He knew the language of the temple might surprise or even shock her.  

Two hours later, in the Celestial Room, Hansen approached Maggie.  She had tears in her eyes.  He wasn’t sure if they were tears of joy, but he didn’t ask.  He put his arm around her shoulder and drew her close.  “Maggie,” he said, “sometimes it takes a while to get used to the temple ceremony.  I know it is very different from anything you expected.  But I testify to you that one day you will come to view it as one of the most spiritual experiences of your life.  I encourage you to come here to the temple regularly until you get the spirit of it.”

Maggie only nodded her head and pressed a handkerchief to her eyes.

Hansen and the Balsom family entered a small sealing room.  In the center of the room was a white altar.  The walls of the room were mirrors.  The prophet knelt on one side of the altar and Maggie knelt on the other.  The President of the Temple approached, joined their hands together across the altar and sealed them for time and eternity.  It took less than a minute.

Hansen noted that tonight was the last quarter of the moon and that it wouldn’t rise before midnight.  He would open the curtains of the master bedroom and show Maggie the glorious celestial display over the Big Horns.  Of course Maggie would show him a heavenly display as well.  He chuckled, surprised at his own earthiness.