Perdido

by Rick Collignon

  Snow was snaking across the road, and everything was white. Will, who had no idea what this girl was talking about, asked again if she wanted a ride home. She stopped walking and faced him. Her arms were wrapped around her body, and beneath the large wool hat she was wearing, her face was burnt a dark red from the wind. “Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked him.

  “Do what?”

  She climbed into the truck, and just a little way down the road she took his hand and brought it to her face. He could feel how cold her skin was. “Take me somewhere,” she said to him.

  Now, she reached forward and put her cup back on the table. “Mundo gets mad when people mess with the family.”

  “Lisa,” Will said, “you’d shoot me yourself before you’d ask your brother.”

  She laughed and then rose from her chair, leaned across the table, and placed her mouth against his. Will could taste chile and syrup on her breath. “That’s right, Will,” she said. “I would. So don’t do this again.” She pulled away and sat back down.

  “All right. I’ll be careful.”

  “Good,” she said and looked out the window, a half smile on her face. The sun was pushing over the mountains and sunlight was beginning to crowd into the café, snaking its way between the tables and chairs.

  “I’ve got to get going,” Will said, sliding his chair back. “I’ll see you tonight.”

  “Maybe,” Lisa said, without looking at him. “I’ll have to think.” She took in a breath of air and let it out slowly. “Okay, I’ll see you tonight.”

  “Good.”

  “You don’t want to eat?”

  Will stood up slowly. “I already ate,” he said. “Besides, Felipe’s waiting for me.”

  “So go, then. Felipe will complain all day if you’re late. If you see Elena, tell her I got the stuff she wanted.”

  “What stuff?”

  “Stuff,” she said. “Drugstore stuff. You need to know everything?” She raised her eyebrows. “Where are you working today?”

  “We’re not. I’m going to pick Felipe up, and then we’re going to see a friend of his father’s.”

  Lisa raised her hand, shielding her face from the sun. “You might get a job in town?”

  “No,” he said. Felipe and Will hadn’t done any work in Guadalupe for three years. Everyone in town did things for themselves. When someone did ask for an estimate to fix an old roof or shore up a portal that was leaning too far, Will figured it must be out of curiosity because they never got the job. They’d talk to somebody on Monday about work, and the next weekend Will would drive through town and see the guy with his family and neighbors having what looked like a party with hammers and saws.

  “No,” he said again. “It’s not about a job. Felipe told me about a girl his father’s neighbor found dead out at Las Manos Bridge a long time ago. We thought since we weren’t doing anything, we’d go talk to him.”

  “We?” Lisa said. “Felipe likes to work. He likes to drink beer. He likes to mess around with Elena and fish with his kids. You don’t mean ‘we.’ You mean ‘you.’”

  Will suddenly felt uncomfortable. The sun coming in the window seemed too warm. He sat back down. “You know this bridge?” he asked. “It’s in nowhere. There’s nothing out there, and one morning there’s a girl hanging from it like she fell from the sky.” Lisa stared at him for a few seconds. “So what?” she said.

  “What do you mean, so what? I heard the first part of the story and now I want to hear the end. That’s all.”

  “Let me guess,” Lisa said. “She was a white girl, wasn’t she?”

  Will didn’t say anything. He looked at her and thought, Yes, she was white. So where’s this going? He leaned back in his chair.

  “Felipe said she was white,” he said. “Why?”

  Lisa stood up. She grabbed the cups and the pot. “Why don’t you figure that out?” she said.

  Three

  WILL TOOK THE TURN off the highway and drove slowly up Felipe’s drive. He kept an eye out for Felipe’s kids, who always seemed to dart out of nowhere with alarming quickness. Felipe and Elena had three children, all boys from four to eight years old. They carried the names of each one of Felipe’s grandfathers: Isidro, Octaviano, and Refugio. Names that, to Will, seemed too large for the boys, who were all small and looked much like their father, a little thick on top with legs that could pump like hell.

  When Will asked Felipe how it was he had come to have three grandfathers, Felipe told him that the one who had once been named Refugio was not really his grandfather but had only thought he was. Long before Felipe was born, there was some confusion in his family as to who was who, and according to Felipe’s mother, Refugio remained confused throughout his life. Felipe’s mother went on to say that it was no harm if her children wished to call Refugio their grandfather but that it was not wise to do so in front of their grandfather Isidro, since even the mention of Refugio’s name brought a blackness into his mind that was not pleasant to be near.

  Will pulled up to the house and parked. He could see Felipe standing in the middle of his garden, his boots stained wet with mud, a shovel propped against his arm. Will got out of his truck and walked over to the edge of the garden. “It’s quiet,” he said.

  “The kids are down the hill with their cousins. The garden looks good, doesn’t it?” Felipe worked all spring and most of the summer in his garden. He would plant early and then replant when the frost killed everything. He weeded and irrigated diligently, and Elena had once told Will that she had caught her husband talking quietly to these plants as if they had ears. Will thought the garden looked green and sturdy, even if it was too small for July. “Those tomatoes don’t look so good,” he said.

  “Nobody can grow tomatoes in this country,” Felipe said, and he used the shovel to move some dirt so the water flowed down a different path. “I’m supposed to get the water Saturday morning,” he went on, bent over, working the shovel with the flat side. “I don’t know what it’s doing here today.”

  “Maybe a ditch broke up above,” Will said.

  “Sure. Or maybe Martin just messed up again and thinks today is Saturday.”

  Martin Gonzáles was the mayordomo who regulated the flow of water from the head ditch to the homes and fields in Felipe’s area of the village. Felipe had spent the last two summers complaining bitterly about him. Martin hadn’t let enough water out of the ditch, so it never reached Felipe’s house. Martin drove his sister to El Paso, telling no one, and didn’t come back for three weeks. Martin got drunk on Friday night and slept late into Saturday and Felipe’s water showed up at midnight. The worst was when Martin completely forgot to shut off the water and Felipe’s infant plants not only drowned but washed down the hill. Whenever Will asked why he and the others on the ditch didn’t just get rid of Martin and make someone else mayordomo, Felipe would say, “Who needs the headaches?”

  The ditch system had been in Guadalupe for over two hundred years. Ditches crisscrossed the village as if dug by madmen who thought they could defy gravity, which Will often thought they had. Water ran uphill and around corners and through the roots of cottonwoods and across hollowed logs that spanned arroyos. Not much had changed in the last two centuries. In the deep grass outside each house, even on the hottest day, was the sound of running water. No water rights had come with the land Will owned; they’d been sold off years before. Often, he’d walk to the creek and sit and watch the flow of water, feeling an envy that he’d never felt for money.

  Felipe made his way out of the garden carefully, mud clinging to his boots. “I’ll let the water run a couple more hours,” he said and stuck the shovel in the ground. “Let me guess. You still want to go see that guy, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” Will said. “If you’re not doing anything.”

  “You mean if I don’t want to do anything.” Felipe looked up at the sky and squinted. “No clouds anywhere,” he said. “It’s going to get hot. Let me tell Elena. I’ll be right out.”


  Delfino Vigil lived in an old adobe, not much bigger than Will’s, set back off the highway a hundred feet or so. The yard was thick with tall grass and weeds and shadowed by sagging cottonwoods and twisted, half-dead apple trees. The house had sunk in on itself with time, the gable ends leaning in tiredly, the center swaybacked. The metal roof was badly rusted, and tar was packed thick on the seams and around the stovepipe.

  Will parked behind an old green pickup and shut off the engine.

  “Wait here a second,” Felipe said. “Let me see if he’s home.” He went to the door and knocked. When there was no answer, he opened the door a crack and called Delfino’s name. After a few seconds, he looked back at Will and shrugged. Then he walked over to the side of the house and around it, out of sight.

  Will could hear the soft sound of water running through Delfino’s yard, but the weeds were too high for him to see the ditch. He put his head back on the seat and looked at the house. The plaster was cracked badly on the walls, and Will could see dark stains of dirt where rain had run into the cracks and bled the adobe out. There was one small window on the wall facing him. The paint on the frame was long gone and the wood leaned with the rest of the structure. Will closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, he saw Felipe waving him over.

  The rear of the house looked like the front except that the land was more open. The grass was still high, but the only trees were small apricots along the ditch. There were a couple of outbuildings that had seen better days, better years, and an outhouse that looked like it was still being used. Against one of the sheds was a small, fenced-in area that held six young pigs, all of them grunting, rooting, and shoving at each other with their bodies. Felipe and Delfino were sitting on wooden chairs up against the house, talking in Spanish.

  Felipe introduced Will to Delfino, and the two shook hands lightly. He was a small man, far into his seventies. His face was clean shaven, the skin smooth but tight, pressed in on the bones. He wore a baseball cap, and the hair at his temples was white and sparse. Delfino sat forward on his chair, his elbows on his knees. He and Felipe went on talking, Delfino saying “no” loudly every once in a while and jerking his body back in his chair as though Felipe had brought news he hadn’t heard before. Will smiled when they did, as if he knew what was going on, but Delfino’s Spanish was too guttural for him to understand and Felipe was rushing on so quickly that his words became blurred. Will took his eyes off them and looked out over the fields of alfalfa spreading away from the house. Two horses, dust colored and stone still, stared back at him from farther down the hill.

  Finally, Felipe said, “Delfino wants to know why you are interested in this girl.”

  Delfino’s hat was shading his face, and Will could see fine lines running away from his eyes and down his cheeks. His lips didn’t quite cover his teeth, which were too large for his mouth and too white to be his own.

  “I’m just interested in the story,” Will said.

  “It was a long time ago,” Delfino said to him in English.

  “How long?”

  Delfino took off his cap and ran his fingers over his scalp. Will could see a few gray bristles, some liver spots, and not much else. “It was in 1968,” Delfino said. “In September, before the first frost.” He looked at Felipe. “How long is that?”

  “A long time,” Felipe said. “I was twelve or thirteen. Almost twenty-five years ago.”

  Delfino shoved his hat back on his head and looked up at Will. “When did you come here?” he asked. “I never seen you before.”

  “Years ago,” Will said. “I live on Marcello Rael’s land. Near the baseball field.”

  Delfino swiveled on the chair and turned toward Felipe. “Es verdad?”

  “Oh, sí,” Felipe said. “But sometimes Will gets carried away with what he says. He likes to think he was born in Guadalupe.”

  Delfino snorted and shook his head. “At one time,” he said, “my uncle, Tío Mario, owned all that land where that little house is. He was my mother’s brother, and he and his neighbor, Telesfor Ruiz, kept cows from the creek all the way to the foothills. Eighty head, maybe more. When my tio died, his son, who was never good for nothing, sold the house and a few acres to Marcello Rael. The rest of the land and all the water he sold to the mine. He sold it all for pennies. For pocket change.” Delfino switched to Spanish, speaking rapidly to Felipe. “Cosas cambién, no?” he said.

  Felipe laughed softly. “Nothing changes, I don’t think. Maybe one of your family will buy it all back from Will.”

  “Maybe,” Will said and smiled. Delfino turned his head and looked at Will as if he were from another planet.

  “Where are you from?” he asked.

  “Aquí,” Will said, and Delfino snorted again.

  “So, what do you care about this girl?”

  “Porque no?” Will said. “Maybe she was a relative of mine.”

  “Pues,” Delfino said, “she sure wasn’t related to me.”

  “She was a güera,” Delfino said to Will, who was squatted down a few yards from where Delfino and Felipe sat. Will could feel the sun through his shirt and against the back of his neck. Delfino squinted beneath the brim of his cap. “She was an Anglo girl. Pale skin, more pale than yours, and her hair was…” He looked at Felipe.

  “Blond?” Felipe said.

  “Yes, blond, and short like she thought she was a boy. If I want to, I can remember this morning very well. None of it has left me, even after so many years. I was a younger man then. In my fifties.” Will picked up a small stone and flicked it in the direction of the hog pen. Delfino pointed his chin at him. “How old are you?” he asked.

  “Not fifty,” Will said.

  “You think fifty’s old? Wait until you’re in your seventies. Fifty is like childhood.” He put his hands on his knees and pushed himself out of the chair. “Maybe someday I’ll say that about seventy,” he said and walked off, stiff legged, around the house. A few seconds later, Will heard the front door of the house slam.

  “Why do you insult the man?” Felipe said.

  “All I said was that I wasn’t fifty.”

  “You make me bring you here and you call him an old man. Worse, you say he was an old man twenty-five years ago.” Felipe closed his eyes and shook his head. “You cabrón, Will.”

  Will picked up another stone and tossed it gently at him. It bounced off the side of the house, a few inches from Felipe’s ear. “I didn’t call Delfino an old man,” he said. “Sometimes I get tired of all this. Where am I from? How long have I been here? How old am I? You don’t have to listen to any of that.”

  “He knows where I’m from,” Felipe said. “And quit with the rocks.”

  Will stood up and stretched his legs as Delfino came tottering his way around the house. He was carrying three cans of pop still looped together in plastic. He held them out to Will.

  “Take one,” he said. “They’re cold.”

  Will thanked him and jerked one loose. Delfino pulled a second can free and handed it to Felipe. Then he sat down in his chair and leaned back, resting his head against the adobe wall. He popped open the can, took a long drink, and belched deeply.

  “I was on my way to La Prada,” Delfino said. “To get potatoes. Back then, the fastest way was north and then west to the river. You crossed that bridge and in one or two hours you were in La Prada.” He drank from the can again and turned to look at Felipe. “You know that road, no?”

  “We were there yesterday,” Felipe said. “Nothing much has changed since I was small, and it’s still the fastest way to La Prada.”

  Delfino shook his head. “Eee, those roads were bad. The holes would get so big we would drive around them until we made a new road.” He looked at Will, who sipped at his pop. It was a little colder than warm, but not much. “There was no county to fix them,” Delfino went on. “You drove with a shovel always and hoped the rain wouldn’t get you. You had to watch out for cows, también. You drove that road slow. It took you a
long time to cross that valley if you didn’t want to hurt your truck.” Delfino raised his pop can to his mouth and finished it off. He belched again and dropped the can to the ground.

  “You want another one?” he asked Will.

  “No, gracias,” Will said. Delfino looked at Felipe, who shook his head.

  “I left early that morning,” Delfino said. “Before light. You know that road? How it rises before it comes to the river and then dips down to meet it? You don’t see the river until you get to it. I was in that old Chevy pickup I used to have. The blue one. You remember? I sold it to Melvin Ortega when his boy finished high school. Maybe seven years ago.”

  Felipe bent forward and dragged his fingers across the dirt. He picked up something and tossed it aside aimlessly. “Oh, sí,” he said. “The one with no bumpers.”

  “It had bumpers,” Delfino said. “It had bumpers when I sold it.” He reached up and rubbed the side of his face. “Maybe it didn’t,” he said.

  Will glanced over his shoulder. The pigs lay stretched out on their sides against the cedar posts where there was still some shade. Their hides were dusty and splotched black in places with dirt. They grunted softly, whistling out air. Even from where Will crouched, he could see the flies working the air above the pen. He looked back at Delfino, who was staring straight ahead at the mountains.

  “I got to the top of the ridge,” he said, “thinking I would stop and take a piss. And I saw her.” He looked over at Felipe. “I never seen such a thing. I thought my eyes were playing tricks. I remember wiping my hand on the windshield, like that would make her go away. She looked like a little boy’s toy that flew away and got stuck. She looked like she didn’t belong there so much that at first I couldn’t tell what I was seeing.” Delfino turned to Will. “I can still see her very well,” he said. “And I’ll tell you this, that was the last time I drove that damn road.