The Temptation of Demetrio Vigil

by Alisa Valdes

  I sat in the car for a couple of minutes, letting it warm up a little before I began driving. To pass the time, I took out the paper Yazzie had given me, and began to read it. I got no further than the first lines before my entire skin had risen up in goose bumps, and a sick sort of thrill pierced my gut.

  In Cochiti, the cacique had an only boy ("grandson probably"). He never went out. He didn't know the country, nor how to hunt. He only knew how to sing.

  I stopped reading because it was only a coincidence, that’s all. Nothing more than that. I stuffed the story back into my pack, cranked up the stereo, and put it all out of my mind. I drove along the dirt roads, toward Highway 14, and tried to forget about Demetrio Vigil, and the crash, and Saint Anthony, and the Cochiti boy - all of it. I was making mountains out of proverbial molehills. It was ridiculous to let my imagination run wild like this! I had to get hold of myself.

  I was doomed, however, to failure because as soon as I got to the hill with the small adobe church on it on Highway 14, I saw the younger Demetrio Vigil after all. He was walking casually through the snow on the shoulder of the roadway, as though impervious to the biting cold. My heart raced at the sight of him, and my cheeks blazed because, quite simply, he looked great. Very handsome, in that dangerous, forbidden way of his. Carefree, peaceful, serene, boyish and almost innocent, because he didn’t realize he was being watched. He had a black bandana tied beneath his baseball cap. His neck tattoos exposed to the elements. His toolbox swung from one hand, and with the other he pressed some sort of animal - a cat, maybe? - to his body, carrying it like a baby. He appeared to be...singing.

  At least he was singing, until he spotted me behind the wheel of the slowing Land Rover, pulling over next to him on the shoulder of the road. At that point he stopped singing, and smiled in an amused sort of way. He strolled toward the car with great confidence, and waved - as though seeing me here were the most natural thing in the world.

  As though he expected me.

  I got out of the car to walk toward him. He stood grinning and waiting for me.

  “Hey!” I said, stupidly, waving like a moron.

  “Hey, mamita,” he said, cocking his head a little to one side and checking me out. “What a coincidence.”

  I gasped a little. Mentioning coincidences counted as a coincidence, didn’t it?

  “Do you believe in coincidences?” I asked him, blurting the words before I even realized they’d tumbled from my mouth.

  “You ever heard this one quote, that coincidences are God’s way of staying anonymous?” he asked casually.

  “No. Who said that.”

  He shrugged. “Anonymous, of course.”

  I cracked a smile, loving the way he put me instantly at ease. “You know, we really have to stop meeting like this,” I joked, mostly because I didn’t know what else to say.

  “I’d say this is a lot better than the first time,” he countered. “We made big improvements. Nice ride, by the way.” His eyes flickered over the Land Rover.

  “It’s huge.”

  “That it is.”

  By then, Demetrio and I stood about two feet apart, he grinning at me and checking out my new car in an impressed and incredulous sort of way, me smiling at him and looking at the floppy, sleeping beast in his arms with growing trepidation. It was bigger than I’d at first assumed, and it wasn’t a regular cat. It looked like a small lion, with long hairs sticking out of its ears.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “Baby bobcat. Poachers got the mom. I’m taking her home, gonna fix her right up.”

  He set the toolbox down, and turned away from me a little so that the bobcat was on the opposite side of him.

  “C’mere,” he told me. Then he reached out to give me a half-hug with his free arm. As before, I felt a jolt of excitement under his touch. “It’s good to see you. You doing okay? You look good, mami. You healing?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine actually.” I awkwardly returned the half-embrace, shivering a little under his touch, in a good way. It felt like his hand left a faint electrical charge wherever it landed, just as it had a week ago. Something in my chest unfurled its wings when he touched me. It was the strangest thing, the charged, vibrating sensation. I felt instantly calmer, and happier, less anxious around him, and this scared me. A lot.

  He let go of me and backed off, watched at me for a long moment, sizing me up somehow, and asked, “So what you doing out here, exactly?”

  “Well, you know, it’s Friday. I’m on my way to my dad’s, like always.”

  “Is that all?” His confident, nearly triumphant grin made me want to punch him playfully in the arm.

  “Okay, fine. Maybe I was sort of looking for you, too.” Might as well face it head-on, I thought.

  His brows popped up, revealing the good-natured, compassionate intelligence in his eyes -so utterly out of character with his manner of dressing that I was completely confused by it.

  “I guess I just didn’t feel like I properly thanked you for all you’ve done for me,” I blathered, only to find a flirtatious and suggestive look on his face that I didn’t expect or want. Mercifully, he didn’t say anything, though. I probably would have passed out if he did, from nerves. “I just wanted to say thanks, and give you a present.”

  He licked his lips indecently and my heart leapt nervously. “A present, huh? That could be interesting.”

  “I actually just came from your grandpa’s house. I think it was your grandpa. Some old guy who said he had a grandson with your name. It’s a small town, so I just figured...”

  At this news, Demetrio’s cocky grin fell, and was replaced by a tight-mouthed look of intense distress. “You what? You were where?” He did not look happy with me. At all.

  I repeated myself about his grandfather.

  “Oh, mamita. Please tell me you didn’t do that.” He dropped his head in a sort of defeat and looked at the ground, disappointment in his eyes.

  “Did I do something bad?” I asked.

  “Depends. What did you tell him, exactly?” His anger gave way to an expression that mostly closely resembled fear now. His eyes darted around, as though we might be watched.

  “Just that I was your friend and I had something for you.”

  He gulped, and sighed heavily, wearily, closing his eyes slowly, and opening them again to look plaintively at the sky. “And what did he tell you?”

  “Nothing. Just that you didn’t live there anymore.”

  “That’s it?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. Should he have told me something else?”

  “Man, Diego’s right. I’m stupid sometimes.” He seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.

  “Who’s Diego?”

  “Huh?” He looked surprised, as though he hadn’t meant to say that last part out loud. “Uhm, nothing. No one. A friend.”

  “I’m sorry to upset you. I was trying to be nice.”

  He looked at me again, softening around the eyes a little. “I know, mamita. You didn’t do nothing wrong, not consciously.”

  Again, I felt the goose bumps as his words mimicked thoughts I’d had only moments before about finding him attractive.

  “Don’t be doing that again. Ever. Promise me.”

  “Why are you mad at me? You seemed happy to see me a minute ago.”

  “I’m not mad. I’m more worried. Listen to me. That old man? You can’t go see him no more. Me and him, we don’t talk no more. Don’t go around here asking about me. Please? You gotta promise me. This is a small town, mamita.”

  “Fine. I left some things with him for you.”

  He seemed to calm down a little, and smiled a bit. “Oh yeah? What kind of things?”

  “My phone number,” I said, my cheeks flaming with the inappropriateness of it, “and a gift card for iTunes.”

  He laughed softly. “A gift card for iTunes. Nice, mami. That’s real nice. Thank you.”

  “Well, you know, I felt like after how everyone acted toward you today, it was th
e least I could do. You’ve been very kind to me.”

  “A gift card for iTunes and your phone number,” he mused, looking me over in a hungry, cocksure way that made me very uncomfortable. “Your man know you gave me your number, mami?”

  “His name’s Logan, but it’s not like that,” I insisted. “He doesn’t care.”

  As I said the words, I knew I was lying. Logan would not like this at all. In the 11 months we’d been dating, Logan had shown himself to be very jealous of every guy who came near me, even Victoria’s boyfriend Thomas.

  “Logan,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “I don’t think I like that dude very much.”

  “I’m sorry for how he acted. I know Logan tried to make you feel small, with the money and everything. He shouldn’t have done that. He’s actually a nice guy. I think he was just, I don’t know. I’m sorry, though.”

  Demetrio laughed out loud again. “Listen to me, mami. Ain’t a man on earth can make me feel small. Right? Not even mister hotshot Logan. Money don’t mean nothin’ to me now.”

  “Well, good,” I said, awkwardly. “I’m glad. You deserve to feel big.”

  He laughed at me again. “Yeah, okay. Cool. It’s all good. Listen, mamita, it’s getting late. I gotta jet.”

  “Oh, right. The can’t-be-out-after-dark thing.”

  He pointed at me to confirm I was right, somewhat ironically. “Good memory.”

  “Can I give you a ride somewhere?”

  “Nah. I live nearby. Right up the hill here.”

  “I don’t mind taking you to your house,” I said.

  “I know, mamita, but my folks.” He got a worried look again. He looked ashamed. “They’re kind of weird.”

  “Weirder than your grandpa?” I joked.

  He chuffed a small scrap of laugh. “The old man is a little loco, huh? God love him.”

  We looked at each other in silence. The world instantly grew very, very quiet. The sky had mottled over into a dark gray, the setting sun lost behind the mountains. I wanted him to touch me again, and hated myself for it. Good girls didn’t cheat on their boyfriends. Especially not their perfect, impressive, outstanding boyfriends, academic and athletic stars at Coronado Prep and beloved by their parents. What was wrong with me?

  “You’re a beautiful girl,” he told me. “I knew you’d clean up good.”

  I felt myself blush, even as his poor grammar rankled me. “Thank you.”

  “Inside and out. You’re a very good person, Maria.”

  “You don’t know me.”

  “I know more than you think. I know things.” He almost sounded boastful.

  “No you don’t,” I insisted, even though I believed that he did know things. I could tell by the unnerving, magnetic look in his eyes. He didn’t say a word. Rather, he watched me, his eyes moving slowly across every inch of my face, and resting for a moment on my lips, and seemingly quite happy there. He took his free hand and used the finger to touch the side of my face lightly.

  “Pretty as a painting,” he said, softly, taking his hand away. I was covered with goose bumps from just that one, light touch. I’d never felt this way with Logan, or any other boy.

  The space around us grew silent once more. I entertained all manner of unsavory thought about him, and hoped he couldn’t read my mind. I knew it was wrong, so very wrong, to want this guy so badly. I held my breath, and didn’t know what to do.

  “This is awkward,” I said, finally, looking at his mouth and - to my great surprise - moving closer to him almost as though I couldn’t stop myself. He responded, to my great surprise, by backing away.

  “No, mamita,” he said, crushing my spirit. “Let’s not do anything we’ll regret, huh?” He glanced around in that paranoid way he got sometimes, at the darkening sky.

  “But I thought you liked me,” I whined.

  “C’mon. Stop looking at me like that, mamita. It ain’t you. I’d love to kiss you. I would. But I can’t, Maria. I just can’t. It ain’t you, okay? Listen to me. I - I gotta go. The dark.”

  “What are you, a werewolf?” I joked, stupidly.

  His nostrils flared with frustration, as he tried to calm himself down. “Nah, man. I ain’t a pinche werewolf. It’s bad enough shaving a face every day, but can you imagine shaving everything? Dang.”

  In spite of my sense of rejection, I cracked a grin.

  “That’s better,” he said, perking up. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”

  “When?” I asked.

  “I’ll find you. Be well.”

  With a tormented look on his face, almost as though he were fighting with himself internally, he trotted up the dirt road on the hill, without looking back. I got back in the Land Rover and felt tears flood my eyes - tears of frustration and confusion. What the heck was I doing? What was happening to me? And why did this gangster guy just reject me?

  I leaned across the passenger seat and watched him through my tears, and the growing darkness. He sprinted past the church and up a small hill to the east. One of my contact lenses popped out from the crying, and his image blurred. There was a faint electric glow of light beyond the hills, as though there were houses down in the valley beyond them. He probably lived there, I thought, in a rundown trailer of some kind. He was probably ashamed to have me see his house. How sad that was.

  He stopped at the top of the hill and glanced back toward me. Then, silhouetted by the faint golden glow from below, he began to literally soften and fray around the edges, melting the way a spoonful of honey melts when placed into a cup of hot tea. His body, a gray shadow in newly dark evening, seemed to flow into the air around it, merge with it, and ignite. Where Demetrio had been, there appeared spots of fast-fading, twinkling light, like the tiny short-lived stars that burst off the ends of sparklers on the 4th of July, like the sun on the snow this afternoon.

  I rubbed my eyes, and blinked repeatedly, refusing to trust what I thought I’d seen. I couldn’t trust these eyes. Or my heart. Or my mind. There was no question anymore that I was losing it, that my mom might have been right about post-traumatic stress, that the accident had somehow done something to scramble my brain. I was imagining things, and I was literally blind without my contacts.

  I fished through my backpack for my spare pair of glasses, put them on my face after removing the remaining contact lens and tossing it to the floor of the car. Able to see clearly again, I looked up the hill. There was nothing. Just the church, and the small graveyard in front of it, and the hill with a few houses scattered beyond.

  “See?” I told myself as I started the car and took a few deep breaths, shivering with cold and nerves. “It’s nothing but your imagination.”

  I pulled the Land Rover off the shoulder and, through a veil of tears and confusion, began driving north, toward my dad’s.

  ♦

  As usual, I was the only one out on this road at this hour, night coming quickly over the San Pedro mountains to the East. I wished I’d heeded my mother’s advice and taken the Interstate. It was so not worth it to have spent the afternoon chasing dead ends in Golden. Now that night had fallen - at five-thirty, no less - I was creeped out and a little too shaky to manage the twisty little Highway as well as I should have. I took some deep, calming breaths, and tried to focus.

  When I got to the mile 21 marker or so - near where my crash had taken place - strange shapes started to appear in the periphery of the beams from my headlamps. I couldn’t blame them on the missing contact lens anymore, though I could blame them on my unwell mental state. They were dark, gray and shadowy, and loped along. Animal. Every time I’d think I saw one, it would disappear as soon as I focused my eyes on the spot where it had been - only to return moments later. I promised myself to tell my mom I was willing to see the therapist she’d suggested, after all. This wasn’t normal.

  I sped the Land Rover up, thinking that if it were the coyotes from my recurring dream, there’d be no way they could keep up with me at fifty or sixty miles an hour. I was mistaken. The apparit
ions continued, and in fact began to grow clearer, until, at last, they did not disappear for a split second when I looked directly at them. I could have sworn I actually saw them, that they ran alongside the car, on the shoulder of the road, a large pack of coyotes, and the largest of them all met my gaze with its own yellow laughing eyes. But as soon as the image registered in my mind’s eye, it was gone again.

  I shuddered, sick with fear. I wasn’t so much afraid of the coyotes as I was afraid for my sanity. I knew, logically, that I could not possibly be seeing a large pack of animals, however wily and cunning, cantering along at such high speed alongside a Land Rover. It was absurd. And yet, as soon as I thought I’d regained control of my mind, the specters appeared in my peripheral vision again, and remained visible for a brief moment after I turned to see them. This time, the lead coyote seemed to smirk cruelly at me before dissipating. It had tremendously strong shoulders, and a thick, broad neck. Its hackles were raised menacingly, and its fanged mouth hung open, dripping saliva down the front of itself.

  “This isn’t happening,” I mumbled.

  Trembling, I reached into my pocket and extracted the laminated prayer card Demetrio had given me. I didn’t know why, exactly, only that it felt reassuring to hold it in my hand. As long as I held it, the animals did not appear again.

  As an experiment, I set the card down on the passenger seat. Again, the coyotes loped into my peripheral vision. I tried in vain to speed past them. At 70 miles per hour, all of them dropped off expect the enormous one, the leader. It stuck with me, and seemed even to enjoy the challenge of the sprint. At eighty miles per hour, I looked at it directly. Its eyes were lit with sanguine pleasure, as though this were exactly what it wanted. Then, as before, it rippled into darkness and was gone.