Esperanza

by Trish J. MacGregor

  Which was why he now was en route to town in the cabin’s rusted old Renault. He intended to buy his ticket to California, via Duluth. Luke was due back to the cabin this evening and could drive him to the airport.

  Ian turned onto yet another bumpy dirt road. The afternoon light feathered through the pines, creating strange, erratic shadow patterns in front of him. He felt a sudden urgency to get into town and back to the cabin before dark. It would be too easy to lose his way in these woods once the sun went down.

  He emerged from the final stretch of pines, onto pavement and the main road through Hibbing. Named after its founder, a German iron ore prospector, the town was built on the rich iron ore of the Mesabi Iron Range. At its height in the early 1900s, it had a population of more than twenty thousand. Today, it hardly qualified as a bustling metropolis, but had a comfortable, friendly feel to it. Maybe a bit too friendly and comfortable, he thought, and was glad he looked like no one his ex-wife or anyone else would recognize. He had lost fifteen pounds in the last few months, was bearded, and wore a baseball cap, jeans, and a denim jacket and boots, not the kind of clothing that Louise associated with him. If anything, he looked like some backwoods Paul Bunyan.

  He drove slowly up the main street, scanning the buildings for the travel agency he remembered. The glorious weather had lured people outside. They strolled the wide sidewalks, shopped, enjoyed late lunches beneath the trees. Ordinary life, he thought, and wasn’t surprised that it no longer appealed to him. All he wanted to do was get the hell out of here to the next leg of his journey.

  He nosed the Renault into a small parking lot and joined the flow of pedestrians. He felt uneasy among people, though, and was grateful to step inside the travel agency. Colorful posters of far-flung locales covered the walls. Rio, London, Istanbul. Only one woman was inside, a redhead in her early forties, he guessed, with a sprinkling of freckles across her pale cheeks. She reminded him of Casey.

  She sat behind a desk strewn with travel brochures and booklets of flight schedules. “Afternoon,” she said cheerfully. “What can I help you with, sir?”

  He claimed a chair in front of her desk. “I’d like to book a flight for tomorrow from Duluth to San Francisco.”

  “We can certainly do that.” She picked up one of the booklets, paged through it. “Ah, let’s see here.” She ran her fingernail up and down pages.

  Ian remembered Tess telling him that in 2008, you could book your own flights through the Internet. Had that made travel agents and their agencies obsolete?

  “There’s a flight at eleven tomorrow morning from Duluth to San Francisco by way of Chicago.”

  “Perfect.”

  “How will you be paying for this, sir?”

  “Cash.”

  “And your name?”

  He used his mother’s maiden name. “Ian Hawk.”

  According to Tess, air travel in 2008 was a bureaucratic nightmare. To even board a flight, the name on your ticket had to match the name on your I.D., you could be pulled out of line at random and body-searched, you couldn’t have more than three ounces of certain kinds of liquids in your carry-on luggage. You also had to take off your shoes for some reason, but maybe she was kidding about that. He hoped so. From the little she had told him about air travel—and life—in her time, it sounded like the Bill of Rights had been shredded. He knew there were other rules and regulations, all of which had come about as a result of something that occurred in September 2001, but those rules were the only ones he remembered. So even though his time lacked the Internet, cell phones, laptops, Wi-Fi, and all the other technological wonders of the world forty years from now, some aspects about 1968 were vastly preferable.

  As the travel agent booked his flight, a feeling burned across the pit of his stomach like a tongue of fire. He stood suddenly and strode over to the picture window. Outside, shadows lengthened against the road, there seemed to be more pedestrian and vehicular traffic. Commuters headed home, couples on their way to movies.

  On the other side of the road, a large group gathered outside a television repair shop. Even as he stood there, the group swelled until it spilled off the curb and spread to the store windows on either side. People began to break off from the group, some of them shouting and waving others over.

  “What’s going on out there?” the travel agent asked.

  “I don’t know. They seem to be watching something on television. Do you have a TV?”

  “Not in here. But I’ve got your ticket ready, Mr. Hawk.”

  “Great.” He returned to the desk, she handed him the ticket and his change. “Thanks so much.”

  “You bet. Happy flying.”

  The burning sensation in his stomach abruptly worsened, he gasped, his vision blurred, and he nearly doubled over in pain. It didn’t last long, twenty seconds at the most. But when his vision cleared, he saw Charlie Livingston in the back hallway, where the restrooms were. He gestured urgently toward the rear exit. “Get out of here now, Ian. King is dead.”

  King. What king? What the hell was Charlie talking about?

  He hurried over to the picture window, where a black BMW pulled up to the curb across the street, slightly behind the gathering crowd on the other side of the road. Louise and her attorney, Ray Garthe, got out.

  Except it wasn’t Louise. Ian sensed the bruja inside of her, and if he could sense her, then she might be able to sense him, too. A state police car drew up behind them, a cop got out and joined them.

  Louise gestured toward the crowd now gathered around the window, Garthe threw his arms out at his sides, as if in exasperation, and Ian turned to ask the travel agent if he could use the restroom. Just then, a teenage girl hurried in.

  “Hey, you know what happened, Mom?” The girl rubbed her hands together to warm them. “Martin Luther King was assassinated.”

  It’s true, it’s all true. King, dead.

  There was no hysteria in the girl’s voice, no sadness, no regret, zero grasp of the implications. But, then, why should there be? Hibbing was predominately white, blue-collar. To them, King was just one of those rabble-rousing black dudes. He figured the reaction of his ex-wife would be pretty much the same—if she was cognizant of anything.

  When mother and daughter went over to the window, Ian hastened away from them, to the back of the store where he’d seen Charlie, and out a rear door into an alley. He broke into a run, shoes slapping the cobblestones, and at the end of the alley turned right toward the main street, head down, mind racing, seizing and discarding options.

  He paused at the end of the block, noting that the number of the curious and the puzzled had swelled. No blacks in the crowd, no one sobbing or protesting, but no one cheering, either. Just curiosity. Ian turned away from them and headed quickly toward the parking lot where he’d left the Renault.

  Fortunately, the crowd was concentrated much farther down the main street, so he was able to drive out of the lot without running into an obstacle of cars or people. He took the first side street he reached and wended his way through several blue-collar neighborhoods, struggling to maintain the speed limit. His fear ratcheted upward another notch. Since a brujo had gotten to Louise, had one taken Luke, too? He had to be sure. But how?

  The same way you were sure about Louise.

  He made it back to the cabin by dusk, ran inside and gathered up his belongings—clothes, toiletries, Polaroid camera, extra film, the pages he’d written. He had made a carbon copy of his recollections and left that on the kitchen table. He put the typewriter into its carrying case, but the damn thing was so heavy he decided to leave it here, in the cabin. He wouldn’t need it in Esperanza.

  Ian left the lights on, so the spill of illumination through the windows would enable him to see the driveway and porch. He grabbed his pack and the shotgun, and raced back outside to the Renault. He tossed everything into the passenger seat and drove the Renault as deeply into the trees as he could take it. Headlights off. The engine ticked like an alien heart straining aga
inst the heavy tug of gravity.

  Have to be sure. He got out and moved swiftly to the edge of the thicket, where he had an unobstructed view of the cabin.

  Darkness settled in, the night came alive with the hum of animal life. Something large thrashed through the underbrush nearby, an alarming sound. Black bear? He stretched out on his stomach, shotgun tight in his hand, and seriously considered retreating to the Renault and fleeing. But the thrashing noises moved away from him. Pretty soon, he heard a car, moving toward him. Luke? Or someone else? Until he knew the truth about Luke, neither choice was good.

  His son’s Chevy roared into view, kicking up clouds of dust that drifted in the wash of the headlights, and behind it came Casey’s VW Bug. Both cars screeched to a stop in front of the cabin. Luke leaped out of his car, shouting, “Dad, Dad, turn on the news! You were right, they offed King. But he was at the Artisan Hotel, not the Lorraine!”

  Luke burst into the cabin, still shouting, and Casey scrambled out of her VW, racing after Luke.

  Luke and Casey: possessed by brujos?

  Ian remained motionless, clutching the shotgun, his mouth desert dry. And then it hit him. The Artisan Hotel, not the Lorraine. Had history been changed because Luke had warned the journalist who knew King? He might never know for sure, but it seemed to be a reasonable assumption. Did that mean Robert Kennedy’s assassination couldn’t be prevented, either?

  “Dad?” Luke and Casey ran back outside and stood in the circle of light streaming through the windows, holding hands. Ian studied them, didn’t feel anything unusual, and finally called, “Yeah, I’m here.” He emerged from the trees, the shotgun cradled in the crook of his arm.

  “Thank God,” Casey burst out, but it was Luke who rushed over. “We thought . . . we didn’t know what to think.”

  Ian held him tightly. “They got your mother, Luke. We need to leave. Immediately.”

  “They? Who?” The eerie light cast part of his face in shadow. “The brujos?”

  “One bruja. Dominica.”

  “Jesus. How do you know?”

  “I was in town. I saw Louise and sensed the thing inside of her. Louise arrived with that lawyer prick.”

  “Garthe, that makes sense. But how . . . how did she know you were near Hibbing?”

  “I think that when a brujo seizes someone, it has access to that person’s knowledge. Your mother must know you have a friend who owns a cabin near town.”

  “But—”

  “It doesn’t matter how she knows, Luke,” Casey said. “It’s enough that the bruja is six miles from here.”

  Casey got it, Ian thought. “Can you drive me to Duluth, Luke?”

  “Now? Tonight?”

  “We need to get out of here. I’m booked on a flight to San Francisco tomorrow.”

  “Okay, sure, Dad. Of course. Let me just grab my stuff.” Then he frowned and gestured toward the shotgun. “Why’re you clutching the shotgun?”

  “Because . . . I thought they may have gotten to you, too.” He looked at Casey. “And you.”

  Luke came over to them, slung one arm around Ian, the other around Casey, hugging them both fiercely, tightly. “Never,” he whispered.

  “Let’s get a move on, guys,” Casey said.

  And only then did Ian truly believe that neither of them had been taken, and he wondered just what the hell he would have done if the opposite had been true. Would he have shot them? Luke pressed the Chevy’s keys into Ian’s hand. “Five minutes, Dad. Get the car going. Casey, you can leave your wheels here.”

  “Grab the carbon of the manuscript,” Ian called after him, and tossed the shotgun into the front seat of the Chevy.

  He backed up to the side of the car, the heels of his hands pressed over his eyes.

  “Hey, Ritter.” Casey ran her hand across the back of his neck. “It’s okay. We’ll get you to where you need to be. But don’t be surprised if Luke and I follow you at some point.”

  Ian wrapped his arms around her, familiar Casey, his redemption and his salvation these last few years, both as a peer and a lover. “Casey, you and Luke, take care of each other.”

  Casey rocked back, nodding, tears glistening in her eyes. “We will.” The lights in the cabin went off one by one, then Luke ran back outside. “Let’s hit it.”

  Ian gave Casey’s hand a final squeeze.

  Dominica saw the crowd down the street, clustered outside one of the shops. She figured they were watching the coverage of King’s assassination, which she’d heard about on the radio on her way up here. That meant today was April 6, 1968. Where had King gone? He definitely wasn’t among the brujos. Anytime someone famous was headed their way, they knew about it. So where, then? The fact that she didn’t have any definitive answer to that troubled her. She’d been asking the same question for centuries.

  So where were the chasers? Why weren’t they here, screwing up her plans, pushing against her like a force of nature? Maybe some higher power had seized the chasers. Ha. Wouldn’t that be ironic? In the event she ever ran into a chaser, she had plenty of questions to ask and foremost among them was, Who’s pulling the strings? If not you guys, then who or what? And is this liberation group part of the chaser army?

  More to the point, though, was that she had overlooked the importance of today’s date. But living the life of Louise Ritter Bell qualified as a major distraction. The woman had more dramas than Shakespeare, her appetites required full attention. Yet, when Dominica commanded her to shut up and crawl into her cave, she did. She understood the rules. And when Dominica had narrowed her information down to three towns, Louise had recommended that she go to Hibbing first. The family of Luke’s best friend owned a cabin outside of town.

  She checked out a restaurant and a bar, asking if anyone knew where the Trebelle family cabin was located. But if anyone did, they weren’t saying. Her third stop was a travel agency where two women, mother and daughter by the looks of them, appeared to have been arguing before she came in. As soon as the mother opened her mouth, Dominica knew Ian had been here, that he’d bought a ticket to somewhere. It was as if he had left an imprint in the air, like an odor, triggered by this woman’s brief association with him.

  She moved in close to the older woman, the mom. “I’d like to know if an Ian Ritter bought a ticket from you today.”

  “What?” The woman slipped off the desk where she had been sitting.

  “Ian Ritter,” Dominica repeated.

  “I had an Ian, but not a Ritter. I think he was . . . wait a minute. Who’re you?”

  “His wife.”

  “Ian Ritter’s wife?”

  “Yes. But he may be traveling under another last name.”

  The teenage girl looked warily at Louise, perhaps sensing that she wasn’t what she appeared to be, and whispered something to her mother. The mother nodded and said, “I’m not permitted to give out that kind of information.”

  “I would rather not bring my attorney or the police in on this, ma’am. Mr. Ritter is a fugitive.” She gestured outside at the cop. “All I need is his destination.”

  “I’d like you to leave,” the woman said.

  “You give me no choice,” Dominica said, and turned to open the door and call to Ray.

  “Duluth to San Francisco,” the woman said quickly. “Now get the hell out of here.”

  Dominica leaped out of Louise, back into the grayness of her own world. Louise stumbled, her hands flew to her face, and she started clawing at her skin and screaming, “Help me, someone help me.”

  She thought that Louise should be grateful that she hadn’t been left bleeding out. But maybe gratitude was what Louise was here to figure out.

  Dominica wished she knew what she was here to figure out. She took one last glance at Louise and drifted away.

  Fourteen

  BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA

  The bus dropped Ian off at the south side of the Berkeley campus. He slung the strap of his small bag over his shoulder and stood in the bright, cool air,
orienting himself to the map Luke had given him. Then he started walking up Telegraph Avenue, headed for the administration building six blocks north. If Sara Wells existed and was teaching here this semester, then he would find her.

  After twenty-four hours of traveling, it felt wonderful to walk, to know that he was about to prove conclusively one way or another whether he was demented or sane. He needed just this final piece of evidence, to actually see someone from Esperanza. He didn’t even have to talk to her. In fact, it probably was best if he didn’t. If he meddled, if he introduced himself and tried to explain who he was, it might change something up the line. He couldn’t risk that. Look what had changed just because Luke had spoken to the journalist who knew King—the location of the assassination had been changed. There might be some events so intrinsic to the unfolding history of the world that they couldn’t be altered.

  As he worked his way deeper onto campus, he passed throngs of students—those holding vigils for King, others who were war protesters, members of SDS posting signs about demonstrations this weekend against the war, Black Panthers with raised fists, shouting, “Black power.” King’s assassination might not have made any significant impact on life in Hibbing, Minnesota, he thought, but here in Berkeley it was part of the battle cry for ending the war.

  He passed the student union building, music blasting from the open doors. The Beatles, a cut from their Sergeant Pepper album. Numerous posters were plastered to the windows, announcing events—an antiwar demonstration, a Janis Joplin concert, a poetry reading by James Dickey, an SDS rally. One poster featured Robert F. Kennedy and read: KEEP THE LEGACY ALIVE.

  Have they assassinated Bobby yet? Bobby Kennedy? He leaves the planet on June 5, 1968, the Ambassador Hotel, L.A. Tess’s words now haunted him. Since she’d been right about King, she undoubtedly was right about RFK, too.

  The lobby of the administration building was dominated by a round information booth manned by four students. No waiting lines. He went over and a pretty young woman asked what he needed.