Perdido

by Rick Collignon

  Will looked at her so long the truck drifted into the other lane. “Cuidado,” Lisa said.

  He swung the truck back gently. The highway was empty. “I’ve never heard anything quite like that,” Will said.

  “I know. It’s a sad story.”

  Will turned east just past a small sign that read “Canto Rodado” and onto a wide, well-kept gravel road. He had emptied his beer out the window and was working on a second one that was as flat as the first and not much colder. Lisa was slumped back down in her seat, smoking a cigarette and working on her third beer. Will had never seen her drink more than two and had never seen her drink this fast.

  He could see the roofs of houses buried in the woods, steep-pitched with shingles, and, occasionally, the bright glare of the sun off metal. Narrow dirt roads branched off the main one that he knew meandered through the area, with driveways branching off them.

  “We used to come up here and pick piñon when I was little,” Lisa said. “Whole families all through these woods.” She pointed out the windshield. “Gooseberries and rosehips up there where the creek runs.”

  “When were you up here last?”

  She let out a long, tired breath. “Oh,” she said, “not since then. There was nothing here. Just this one road and some old trails higher up.”

  The road swung hard right. Will downshifted to second and took the turn. The road became narrower, lined with tall, thick cottonwoods on the west side that shut out the sun. Higher up, the hillside was dotted with houses.

  “You know all these people, Will?”

  “No,” he said. “Just this guy where we’re going. I worked on some of these houses, before me and Felipe got together, but they’ve probably all changed hands since then.”

  He turned off the road and headed west up the hill. The road grew rockier, one side arroyoed out where rainwater channeled down the hill. Lisa sat up a little straighter.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “It’s just a little further.”

  Lisa grunted and then said, “Does this have anything to do with Ray Pacheco?”

  The truck lurched over a rock. Will threw the truck into first gear. “How did you hear about Ray Pacheco?”

  “I heard you went to his house and gave him a bad time.”

  Will shook his head. “Who told you that?”

  “Lloyd came in and told Pepe, and Pepe told me. Besides, who cares how I found out? It’s true, isn’t it?”

  Will didn’t say anything. He kept driving slowly up the hill, the truck creeping through the ruts. Lisa looked out her side window. Finally, she made a ticking noise with her tongue and turned back to him.

  “Why are you so stupid all of a sudden?” she said, her voice tight. “What did you think would happen? If you pee behind a bush in Guadalupe, half the town will see you, and they’ll go tell the rest. And here you are running around asking questions about some white girl like there’s a big secret. What makes me mad is you only care because she’s white. If it had been a local girl, you would have listened to Felipe’s story and then asked him where the fish were biting.”

  Will kept quiet, listening to her as she went on. “It’s true, Will. And now you got me with you to bother these people who don’t want to hear about it either.”

  He drove a little farther and then stopped the truck in the middle of the road. He could hear some jays clacking away in the woods. A mouse skittered across the road in front of the truck. Hurry, he thought. He looked at Lisa. Her face was flushed. She took a sip of beer, her eyes dark and staring.

  “Lisa,” he said, “I don’t know if it would have made a difference if she wasn’t white. If it had been a girl from here, her family would have claimed her and it would have been something everyone knew. But this is different. This girl was by herself in a place where she didn’t belong.”

  “Like you?”

  Will didn’t even know what she meant by that. He leaned back against the truck door, wondering how something that had seemed so simple had gotten out of hand. “There’s no mystery here, Lisa,” he said. “It’s just a story I wanted to hear. That’s all.”

  “A story?” she said and leaned toward him. “You think this is just a story? Do you know where you live? How do you think it makes people feel to have you come around asking questions about some white girl?”

  Will shut his eyes for a second. When he opened them, he said, “I don’t know how it makes people feel.” He thought that whatever they were talking about had gone somewhere else.

  “Are you that bored you have to put your nose in this?” Lisa stared at him, her head cocked a little to one side. “I don’t like this, Will. It seems nasty to me. You just better be careful.” She looked away, out the windshield. “Let’s go,” she said, “if we’re going to go.”

  The road dead-ended at Henry Pearson’s house another half mile up. The last stretch of road had been so bad that the frame of the truck groaned and the temperature gauge on the panel read hotter than it should. Henry’s old flatbed was parked in the shadows under an enormous pine, the back of the truck loaded with fifty-gallon drums spilling over with garbage. Beyond the flatbed was Henry’s house. He’d started building the place more than two decades ago, and it looked as if he hadn’t learned much as he went along. It was a series of low, one-room add-ons built out of scavenged materials. Not one of the rooms fit square to the others or even appeared to have been constructed by the same person. It was as if someone had given a hammer and a saw and a bunch of lumber to a gang of kids.

  Lisa took a long look at the house. “This is one of those hippie houses, isn’t it?” she said.

  Will shut off the truck. The engine made a soft clicking noise. “I think we’re way beyond hippie here,” he told her. He swung open the truck door. “Let’s see if he’s around.”

  A large wooden deck covered the ground in front of the house. By the feel of the planks, Will knew they were rotting from beneath. An old power spool lay in the center of the deck, five blocks of cottonwood around it for chairs. Will knocked on the door while Lisa looked about her as if she’d just gotten off the bus from civilization.

  Will could hear some muffled movements from inside. A few moments later, the door opened. Henry Pearson was a tall, thin man who looked like he hadn’t eaten well, ever. His eyes were deep set and black with deep lines branching out and down from the corners. His hair was thinning and grayer than Will remembered. A full beard covered most of his face, black streaked with white, most of it twisted and knotted up. He was wearing new blue jeans and a white T-shirt that was too small.

  “Will,” he said, but his eyes weren’t on Will. They were on Lisa, who was standing at the far edge of the deck, her back to them. She was looking out at the valley, her hands on her hips.

  “Hello, Henry,” Will said. “How’s it going?”

  Pearson shrugged slightly. “The same,” he said.

  Lisa let out a long breath of air. “It’s beautiful here,” she said and walked over to them. She swung her arm through Will’s. “I’m Lisa Segura,” she said and smiled. “So, how do you get out of here in the winter? And why is that road so rotten?”

  Pearson’s mouth opened and then closed as if the questions were too much for him. “The road keeps people out,” he said finally. “And I got a truck that can handle the snow. It never gets as bad as you’d think, anyway.”

  Lisa made a soft humming sound and said, “It must be nice. No one to bother you. My whole family lives almost next to me. Their noses are always in my business.”

  Pearson looked down at her for what seemed a long time. He moved his eyes to Will and seemed surprised to realize Will was still around.

  “You guys want a beer?” he asked.

  Lisa said no, she better not. Will nodded his head yes. When Pearson went into the house, Lisa said, “Does that man look crazy to you?” She looked back out at the valley. “I wouldn’t live here if I was dead.”

  They sat at the spool drinking be
er. Pearson’s long frame was hunched over, his butt on the edge of the log end, his elbows on the top of the table. Will didn’t really know Henry well. They had worked together on job sites years ago, but even then, Henry had never been around very long. He had a tendency to burn out quickly, and after a month or so he’d take his last paycheck, stock up on groceries, and disappear back up into the mountains. Will had been to his house once before, but for the life of him, he couldn’t recall why. If Henry got by on the money he earned working, it was a pretty thin existence.

  The sun rested at the tip of the San Juan Mountains, casting a dark red glaze that spread across the sky and onto the slopes of the mountains to the east. Lisa sat close to Will, and whenever he put down his beer, she’d slide it to her and take a small sip.

  “So,” Henry said, “what do you want, Will?”

  Will could feel Lisa’s eyes on the side of his face. He suddenly wondered why he had brought her up to this place. He was beginning to feel foolish and wished she had stayed in the truck. “I heard a story the other day,” he said, “about a girl found dead out at Las Manos Bridge twenty-five years ago. I asked around Guadalupe and somebody told me that maybe she came from up here.”

  “You drove up here to ask me?”

  “Yes.”

  Henry’s hand went to his face, and he began absently stroking the knots out of his beard. “Jesus, Will,” he said. “That was a long time ago. You know what it was like here then?” His eyes strayed over to Lisa. “There were a couple hundred people hanging out here, coming and going, and every last one of them was on their drug of choice. It was like three years of being on another planet. Hell, I hardly remember yesterday.” Henry dropped his hand from his face and looked at Will. “You missed it, didn’t you? The hills were full of us. It was like an invasion, and here wasn’t one single rule. We got our water from the creek, sent someone into Las Sombras every so often for food and more drugs. There were bonfires every night, and nobody could keep their clothes on, you know what I mean?” Henry nodded his head slowly. After a few seconds, he said, “What did you ask me?”

  Will wondered again what he was doing here. “The girl on the bridge,” he said.

  “Oh yeah. It’s funny someone from Guadalupe would send you here. They were up here too, you know. They might like to think they were better than us, that they didn’t have any use for a bunch of long-haired hippies, but just wave a set of bare breasts in front of them and watch.” He looked at Lisa. “It was the best of times,” he said. “It was the worst of times.”

  Lisa smiled. “Sounds wild,” she said.

  “It was something,” he said and turned to Will. “But I can’t help you. It would be like trying to remember someone you met in a bar twenty-five years ago. You could ask around, though. There are still some people down below who were here back then. They’ve cleaned themselves up. Probably taking their kids to Little League.” Henry took in a long breath of air and let it out slowly. “I never learned much history of this place, but I’ll tell you, we left some of our own.”

  “I guess it was a foolish question,” Will said.

  “Yeah,” Henry said. “It was a dumb thing to ask.”

  Lisa turned and looked at Will. “Did you hear what your friend said? Even he thinks this is stupid. And you agree with him. When I tell you that, you don’t even listen.”

  “I’d listen to you,” Henry said.

  Lisa opened her mouth and then closed it. Will saw that she was smiling and biting the inside of her cheek at the same time and thought it might be time to leave before she killed the two of them.

  “We better go,” he said.

  “You want another beer?” Henry asked.

  “No thanks,” Will said and stood up. The sun was down now. The air was cool and still. “We better go. When did you move up here, anyway?”

  Henry watched Lisa rise and stand next to Will. “I don’t know,” he said. “I guess when it all turned into real estate down below. The guy who bought most of the land started selling off lots to people with money, and that kind of changed things. I managed a couple acres up here, and that was that.” Henry looked past Lisa and Will, out at the valley.

  “I saw something once,” he said. “Nobody believed me. They said it was just the drugs in my mind I was seeing, but I swear, it happened. It was down by the creek, and I was sitting up against a cottonwood. Everything was quiet, and then all of a sudden I hear this singing. Low at first and then louder. When I looked up I saw four Mexicans dressed in those clothes they wear. You know, all in white, like peons or something, and they had these big straw hats on their heads and sandals strapped high up their ankles. Their skin was so dark it was black almost.

  And they were singing and waving sticks, and all through the woods I see these pigs. Hundreds of pigs rooting around being herded by these Mexicans. I don’t know where they were going. I don’t know where they came from. Maybe they were spirits. But you know, I could never figure out what kind of vision this was. It was something, though.”

  Six

  LISA DIDN’T SPEND THE night with Will, which, as things turned out, was just as well. Her mother had to be in Las Sombras early the next morning for a doctor’s appointment. Since she refused to drive on highways and Mundo never got out of bed until midday, Lisa was stuck with chauffeuring.

  “What kind of doctor takes patients on a Saturday morning?” Will asked.

  “A bruja,” Lisa said. “Herbs and powders and things. My mother doesn’t go to doctors. They scare her.”

  They were parked off a dirt road in the woods, south of town. The light of a thin moon lay on the tops of the pinons like snow; the ground beneath was dark. A slight breeze pushed softly through the branches, moving the shadows.

  “And you gave me a hard time about Henry,” Will said.

  They were both smoking. Lisa stretched out on the seat, her head on the armrest, her legs in Will’s lap. She took a deep drag off her cigarette and exhaled slowly. Will watched the smoke drift out the window.

  “Do you know the names of stars?” she asked.

  “No,” Will said, “I don’t,” and he reached inside the cuff of her pants and felt the smooth warm touch of her leg.

  As soon as they had left Henry Pearson’s and started back down his godawful road, Lisa had seemed to shake off the effect of the three beers she’d drunk. She sat straight up in the truck seat, a grin on her face, and leaned with the truck, smoothly into the ruts. When she glanced over at Will, her grin grew wider.

  Will wasn’t feeling very well. Henry’s ramblings about his old hippie days had left him depressed, even if they seemed to amuse Lisa. He felt not only that he had glimpsed something slightly obscene but also that this was all a vast waste of time. Suddenly, this girl on the bridge faded away to nothing, and he couldn’t understand why he’d let the whole thing take over two days of his life. It was as if he’d let some vaguely remembered nightmare from childhood have importance years later. Joe Vigil had said it earlier: “This girl has already turned to dirt.”

  Lisa, still grinning, said, “This Henry person seems like a very nice man. I’m sorry if I complained earlier. It’s good to meet your friends, Will. Especially one who can see the spirits of pigs.”

  Will gave her a weak smile. “It’s not quite like he’s family,” he said. “I’m glad you had a good time, though.” The road leveled out a bit, and Will pulled the gearshift into second.

  “Are we going to visit your friends down the hill?” Lisa asked. “We could go from door to door and ask them if they remember a blond girl from the old hippie days.”

  “It’s not pronounced ‘heepie,’” Will said.

  “Well, pardon me,” she said. “I am bilingual, you know. Not like some people.”

  “That’s good,” Will said. “Bilingual around here means hacking apart two languages instead of one. Besides, I speak Spanish.”

  “So say something.”

  Will hit the end of Pearson’s road. He turned s
outh and hit the gas harder. “Let’s get out of aqui,” he said.

  Lisa laughed. “Bueno,” she said. “Vamanos.”

  Will brought Lisa home by eleven. They drove through town, which was stone dead except for the vehicles parked in front of Tito’s, the only bar in Guadalupe. There wasn’t much to the place. One large room with low, smoke-stained ceilings, a couple of pool tables, and a jukebox stacked with Mexican and old rock and roll tunes. There was a crowd of men off to the side of the building, drinking beer, sitting on car hoods.

  “That’s where my father used to live,” Lisa said. “He’d come home to sleep. Sometimes.”

  When he got home, Will drank a slow beer sitting outside the house, up against the wall. The moon lit up the meadow and the foothills beyond. He could hear the creek, slow and steady and distant. Heat lightning flashed softly to the east, way beyond the mountains, maybe from out on the plains. Will took a last long drink of beer and put the can on the ground beside him. He thought that his life couldn’t be much better than this.