Monday, August 8, 2011, 9:00 a.m., Los Angeles
My head's pounding with anger over last night's debacle. Amber and her friends have no clue about the danger. They're playing with fire.
Taking a deep breath, I force myself to focus on the present. Robert is dressed and sitting on the edge of the hospital bed as we wait for the wheelchair to take him downstairs. I remove his cloak and hat from the closet and brush off the dirt. The smell of decay wafts from a shower of dusty debris.
A Filipino nurse enters the room pushing a wheelchair. She engages the lock and motions me to Rob's right. I follow her lead and hook my elbow under his armpit. My heart hurts to find his once-muscular arms thin and spongy. He groans as we help him into the chair.
Memories intrude as I place his cloak and black hat in his lap. Rob as a young man, ruggedly handsome, with fluffy blond hair. My vision blurs with tears as I touch the parchment skin of his hands. "Let's get you home."
I leave him with the nurse so I can bring my car around to the hospital entrance. Exiting the antiseptic, air-conditioned building for the parking lot is like entering a forge. The heat settles in a heavy blanket during my walk across the asphalt. Retrieving my key, I press the remote to start the Mercedes's AC. I'm hit with steamy air as I slide into the driver's seat. Sweat drips down my arms.
Grabbing a tissue, I wipe the sweat and sigh. The skin on my arms is as crepe papery as Rob's. Had Lucy Carpenter aged, would she be a wrinkly old woman? Lucy was the quintessential California blonde, toned and tan. For Robert, she's ageless, forever frozen at age 18.
My gut tightens. In our older years my beloved and I settled into a lovely partnership. Lucy's reappearance is a bomb dropping on our relationship.
Guruji would tell me to stop clinging, to release my attachments. Change is inevitable. She's right, but despair sucks me into an emotional soup. I should help Lucy move on, but I'd like to spellbind her to an oak and be done with her.
Shit on a shingle! I didn't finish the ritual last night. I should have trapped Susan Atkins inside the oak. By the Goddess, I need to get back to the grotto before some unsuspecting hiker happens upon that nasty old ghost.
Abandoning my peace brings twitchy discomfort. With a scream, I pound my fists on the dashboard.
By the time I reach the hospital entrance, a steady stream of cool air flows through the car. My fingers tap the steering wheel as I drive. The double glass doors open and the nurse emerges, pushing Rob in the wheelchair. She rolls him to my car and opens the front passenger door. With effort, he scoots from the wheelchair and into the front seat.
As he pulls the door closed, I unload in a stream of consciousness. Rob listens silently as I recount the events of last night. He shows no emotion over Susan Atkin's return or Manson's minions threatening the youths. One eyebrow lifts when I tell him about Marisol Garcia's transformation into her grandmother, Graciela Hernandez. I end the tale with, "She wants to speak with you."
Rob's left hand shoots out and he grabs my right arm. With a jerk, we're forced to the side of the road.
I park the car and shift in the seat to face my beloved. "Those kids are so sure they're right, yet they don't know anything about demonic possession!"
Robert takes my hands and pulls them to his lips for a gentle kiss. "Betty, think. Does Graciela meet any of the demonic criteria?"
Heat rushes to my face with the realization he's right. Demons are forged over hundreds of years. They're ghosts who cling to their earthly form out of anger and spite. With every passing year, the memories of who they were, what they cared about, and who they loved disappears. After a few hundred years all that's left is despair and rage.
My fingers twist in his cold palms. "So she's not a demon. But that doesn't make it right to possess her granddaughter."
A sharp laugh escapes his throat. "Take off your 'Dr. Morton' hat. Marisol consented." He squeezes my hands. "Of course, neither of us would ever allow possession, but who are we to say what's right for others?"
I yank my hands from his grasp and turn toward the steering wheel. "Possession is wrong. Period."
With a grin, he pats my shoulder as I ease the car back onto the road. "Whatever you say, Dr. Morton."
We drive in silence for ten minutes as we leave the suburban sprawl for the hills and the open space of the Chatsworth Reservoir. Through my peripheral vision, I notice he's looking out the window at a misshapen hill in the center. The sky is cloudless, yet the treeless hill is cast in shadows.
As we round a curve and the hill disappears from view, Rob turns to me. "The black lab. You say Graciela called him 'Julano?'"
I nod. "What about it?"
"I don't recall her ever having a Labrador Retriever. She made clear her preference for Jack Russell Terriers."
The sting of last night's vision returns. Heat rushes to my face, as a sinking sense of shame spreads. After Rob and I left the Manson Family, Graciela Hernandez took us into her home. Where most people would've sent us to juvenile hall, she showed kindness.
Robert's voice yanks me out of the past and back into the present. "That name, Julano. I think he's mentioned in Harrington's field notes."
I shake my head. "The lab who attacked the Manson groupies last night is no ghost dog. If Harrington wrote about that dog, he'd have to be at least 100 years old."
It's been years since I read John Peabody Harrington's 1916-1917 interviews with local Native Americans. Tackling his field notes is no easy feat. An obsessive-compulsive linguist and ethnographer, his writings are an amalgamate of indigenous languages, Latin, Spanish, and English.
We're passing the double iron gates of Amber McBride's driveway when I recall something about a clandestine meeting of dogs out in the Chatsworth Reservoir.
I step on the gas and speed east past Peppergate Ranch's oak-covered hill and the sign marking our tiny community's entrance. Welcome to Lake Manor.
The little cabins dotting the foothills to the north are a blur as we sail through the lone stop light. Within a quarter mile, I make a right onto a one-lane road wending south toward the reservoir. It ends at Robert's property.
He reaches into a pocket and presses the remote to open the heavy wooden gate. As I ease the Mercedes onto his driveway, Rob closes the gate. I leap from the driver's side and race around to the passenger side, but Robert's already out of the car and waving me off. "It's not like I had open-heart surgery. A stent doesn't slow me down."
My heart's pounding as we pass outbuildings to make our way to his cabin. Rob turns to me as he unlocks the front door. "How about making us some iced tea while I turn on the swamp cooler and look for Harrington's field notes?"
We enter his home and find it cool despite the searing outdoor heat. I walk into the tiny kitchen as he disappears down a darkened hallway. By the time I've prepared a pitcher of iced tea, Rob enters the kitchen with a binder in hand, its pages tagged with colorful post-it notes. Robert sets the binder on the table and thumbs to a paper-clipped section marked by a neon yellow post-it. With a nod, he removes the paper clip and points a bony index finger in the middle of page 66. "Go ahead, you read it."
I hand him a glass of iced tea and we take our seats. My hands shake as I read aloud from Harrington's interview notes with Juana Melendez, descendant of the last indigenous leader of the Simi Hills.
At midnight, an old Indian man walked home across a vast meadow, accompanied by his little white dog. They'd visited his relatives in San Fernando.
Under the full moon's light, he noticed all the dogs in his community sitting atop a hill. His perito sniffed the air and ran off to join the other dogs.
Curious, the old man followed and hid in some bushes to watch.
The dogs looked at the full moon and howled in unison. One of the many stars twinkled, then slowly descended. The dogs fell silent as the star took the shape of a man - San Lázaro.
A deep shudder runs the length of my body. Saint Lazarus is the man Jesus raised from the dead.
San Lazaro asked after each dog's well being. When he reached the old man's dog, the perito reported, "I am well loved. He shares his bed and food with me."
The saint nodded. "Está bueno."
When San Lázaro had spoken with the last dog in the circle, he asked, "Donde está Julano?"
The dogs replied, "We don't know where he is."
San Lázaro turned to the perito. "Bring Julano to me."
The old Indian continued to spy from the brush as his little dog ran off into the darkness.
After some time the little dog returned. Julano, a large black dog, limped beside the perito.
The saint addressed Julano, "You are very late this evening."
Julano hung his head. "Si, Señor. I came as quickly as I could."
"What report do you have to make about your treatment in the Colonel's household?"
"Muy malo. I have no food and have to steal to eat. The Colonel kicks and beats me.
San Lázaro reached to touch Julano's head. "What would you ask of me?"
"Only this. The Colonel should die."
The Saint nodded. "It shall be done. But you must give something in return."
Julano raised his head. "I will do anything you ask."
"You will become a guardian of this region."
As Julano nodded his consent, the perito stepped into the circle. "Julano shall not walk alone. I will stand by his side."
San Lázaro raised his hand in blessing over the dogs. He wished them all well and ascended to the sky.
In the early morning hours a terrible fire swept through the hills, burning the colonel alive.
Julano disappeared, never to be seen again.
AUTHOR NOTES:
The story of Julano is paraphrased from J.P. Harrington's Field Notes: Fernadeño Reel #106. Harrington produced more than 1 million pages of field notes about 100 Native American tribes. His work is the Smithsonian's largest anthropologic collection. For more information about John Peabody Harrington's field notes, visit: https://sova.si.edu/record/NAA.1976-95 and https://www.archives.gov/nhprc/projects/catalog/john-peabody-harrington
Banner photo of Julano at the Grotto in the Santa Susana Pass State Historic Park taken by the Author
Illustration of the Celtic moon by Cameo Lawrence, American Bruja symbol illustrator
Play list Midnight Tides by Blue Stone