Free The Temptation of Demetrio Vigil by Alisa Valdes Page B

exactly where he is. She’d know. But me? I don’t know
nothing. I don’t tell you nothing, I don’t tell the police nothing,
I don’t tell no one nothing, that’s how I am, I don’t tell nothing
because I don’t know nothing. You understand?”
    I nodded, realizing now that he
probably did know
where Demetrio was, but thought he was protecting him from
something by refraining from sharing the information with me. I
thought of mafia movies, for some reason, and the idea of loyalty
to the family. I wondered if this old man were also a gang
member.
    “Okay,” I said, realizing this was going nowhere. I
took the iTunes card out of my pocket, and ripped a little piece
off the edge of the photocopy of the folk tale Yazzie gave me
earlier. “You wouldn’t happen to have a pen, would you?”
    “What for?” He eyed me mistrustfully again.
    “I just want to give you my phone number, in case
your grandson shows up after I leave.”
    “He ain’t showing up no more,” he said wistfully,
blowing smoke at me. “But I take your number for me, if I ever get
lonely, you come see me.”
    I heard him laughing uncleanly as he disappeared
back into the house and shut the door. I stood stupidly for a
moment, wondering if he were coming back. Just as I was about to
leave, however, he returned, with a dull, thick pencil, the kind a
child might use in the early years of school. I could hear canned
laughter coming from a television inside the house. My mom had told
me about how huge numbers of people in New Mexico were illiterate,
and I wondered if this was one of them. I’d never known any
illiterate adults.
    I scribbled my cell number on the scrap of paper,
along with a note thanking Demetrio for all his help, wrapped it
around the gift card, and handed them to the old man.
    “Please give this to him, if you see him,” I
said.
    “I won’t see him,” he said. “But I think taking this
is the only way I’m going to get you to go away so I can get back
to watching my stories.”
    I stood in shock at his rudeness, and watched his
smile spread slowly across his face.
    “Ay, hita , that’s the problem with you fancy people, you don’t got no
humor.” He reached out and squeezed my arm before examining the sky
with his milky eyes. “The weather lady, she said more snow coming.
Be careful. They’re no good, these roads up here.”
    “I realize that,” I said with a shudder, but decided
against going into details about my crash with a crazy, drunk old
man who clearly enjoyed playing mind games with me. I turned to
walk back to the Land Rover.
    “Thank you, sir,” I said over my shoulder. “Take
care.”
    The old man did not return my goodbye before
slamming his door shut.

♦
    I hurried back to the Land Rover,
disappointed and trembling with cold. The sun was low behind the
mountains now, and darkness would set in soon. I realized then that
I’d allowed myself to become a little hopeful about seeing Demetrio
again, and it disturbed me because the hope felt the way it does
when you like a guy. Like like him, like
that. After talking to Kelsey the attraction I’d felt for Demetrio
had surfaced. I was generally pretty good at controlling my
emotions, but not now. Now I felt a bubbling in my gut,
butterflies, at the thought of seeing him again. It was subtle, of
course. This desire hadn’t been conscious, and I’d never betray Logan in any way. Not consciously. Not in
real life.
    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