A bit of a “first contact” part of the story. I can just imagine what Salvy thought of an alien lizard next to him. Aleja is a clever girl and gets her visitor back to the shed where she was told to live. We do get a little foreshadowing when she sees an Anglo woman in this tiny, out of the way village.

Her uncle and aunt sound like real winners.

It chittered something at her before copying her motion with its right claw.  Briefly looking back at its ship, it hung its head and made a whistling noise.  Salvador did not like that at all and brayed at it.

There was a sound in the sky.  Prop plane.  She would occasionally see one now and again.  They used to fly tourists out of the town, proper, to the southeast.  This one banked and circled, obviously as attracted to the smoke as she was.  All those movies about dissected creatures came back to her mind at once.

“I think you had better come with me,” she announced, taking a few steps forward.  She lowered her hand and held it out, palm up.  Please don’t bite me!

Head back up, it moved closer on its four legs and placed its claw in her hand.

“Let’s go, new friend.”

Putting it next to her llama was a trial.  I bet poor Salvy is spooked by whatever it smells like.  Aleja made a motion for it to hold onto the sides of the four-wheeler’s bed.  Once its claws were in place, she climbed into the driver’s seat and, with a glance back, started them east, then north.  Once back to the dirt road, another glance.  It seems okay.  The bad road followed the northern ridgeline for over six kilometers before descending into the stream valley of their poorly named Rio Grande.

“The few houses of Casa la Pascana are just ahead,” she muttered.  “Not quite siesta time, so there will be too many eyes and too many questions.”  She stopped.

Its head came up, but at least Salvy seemed resigned to his fate of probably sharing his stall with some freak.  Rooting around in one of the large side pouches of her vehicle, she produced a tarp.  With what she hoped was a soothing voice – and how would it know that! – and another prayer, she gently placed it over its blue-black body and clipped the leading edge down with clothespins.  With no cries or outbursts, she set off once again.

“If anyone tries to wave me down to stop to talk, I’ll point at my gut, like I’ve got to poo.”

Fortunately, besides some smiles and only one wave to their cute visitor from Lima, no one did.  Briefly north on the well-maintained two-lane highway, she turned right onto a much smaller road, but still at least paved.  Coming into the tiny village of Estudiantes, there were the usual four drunks, already getting wine at the Tienda Bodega Anayka, a nothing of a general store which made most of its money from alcohol sales.  Wait, that woman in the nice sombrero and large sunglasses…Anglo?  Sipping a Coke.  What is someone like that doing here?

With one alien under her care, she didn’t need another and turned right then left onto a dirt road.  Her uncle and aunt’s place was just on the right, their fields spread out to the southeast.  As slow and quiet as she could manage, Aleja rolled past the house to the outbuilding behind it.  Used for equipment storage and occasional maintenance, it also contained one cot, where she had been told to sleep.  “Can’t have some stuck-up kid from the capital thinking she owns the place!” She quoted her uncle as saying when she first arrived and was shown to her home for the next three months.  The small stable for the llamas was further on.  “At least the ration card from Father allows me gas for this.”

She stood and carefully looked around.  Don’t hear or see anybody; uncle and his son are likely out in the fields, and aunt puttering about the house.  A house I only see to get food and use the toilet.  Again, quietly, she removed the pins just as her llama decided a huge snort, for coming home, was in order.  Salvador!

Aleja took its claw and guided it off the back of the cart, quickly toward the front door, not the garage door, of the outbuilding.  Never locked, and often blowing open in high winds, she led it in.  Raising both hands, she tried, “Stay here!” before running out and taking Salvy to his stable, making sure there was fodder and water, before running back.  Closing the door behind her, in the dark only broken by two small, cracked windows, she finally let go a huge sigh.

“What in the world am I doing?”