19

When Bernie returned from her morning run, she found a message from Chee: “Wonderful hearing your voice, even on the answering system. I’ll call back and you call me, too.”

She called, and he answered on the second ring.

“Hi. Everything OK out there?” she asked.

She could hear the smile in his voice. “As good as can be expected without you here. At least I didn’t have to give a presentation to the Rotary. How did it go?”

“It’s later today. Don’t remind me.”

“Which Rotary group are you talking to?”

“There’s more than one?” Obviously, she thought—otherwise he wouldn’t have asked the question. “It’s the San Juan County chapter.”

“Are you nervous?”

“Who, me?” She told Chee what she planned to talk about. “After that, I’m going to the Farmington sheriff’s department and see what they know about Miller’s car being stolen.”

“If you can swing it, go there before lunch. They’ve got good coffee there, and usually cookies, too.” Chee gave her the name of an officer who specialized in car thefts.

“What’s happening with you?” she asked.

He told her about the Germans and the necklace and Delahart’s arrest by the FBI.

“I knew there was something off about that guy,” he said. “I couldn’t figure it out. It all came down to money laundering in Las Vegas, using the movie as a cover. Above my pay grade.”

“I feel the same about Miller. When will you be able to come home?”

“Not soon enough.”

They hung up, and she showered, put on her uniform, looked at herself in the mirror, and had an idea. She ran her be ezo, a traditional brush made with dried muhly grass, through her hair until it shone and gently gathered it into a thick ponytail. She took some yarn and tied it up, folding the ponytail over three times until it reached the back of her head, forming a loop. She wrapped the yarn tightly around the center and then fanned out the ends, creating the traditional tsiiyeel, the Navajo bun. She decided the hairstyle made her look more businesslike and perhaps a touch more mature. The elders said that pulling the hair in close to the scalp kept the thoughts contained—just what she needed for her venture into public speaking.

She checked in at the station before heading to Farmington. Captain Largo motioned her into his office.

“I haven’t had a chance to read your report, so give me the short version. Anything new on the burned car?”

“I told Cordova the hitchhiker story, and he was unimpressed, to say the least. I haven’t spoken to the grandson again yet. Aaron thinks his grandfather has some dementia, but he seemed sharp to me.” She told Largo Mr. Tso’s skinwalker theory.

He shook his head. “I could tell you some scary stories. Anything else?”

“Remember those plants Miller had in his car?”

“No.”

“The cacti?”

“I don’t think of those as plants. They’re a nuisance.”

“Well, turns out the ones in the box were an endangered species. Miller is a plant poacher.”

“Whoa. A dirt thief and a plant poacher?” Largo’s phone rang. He looked at it. “Any other big news? That’s hard to match.”

“I’ll let you know if I think of something.”

She turned to leave, and he called to her. “Your hair looks great today. Good luck with your talk.”

At the Farmington sheriff’s office, she met the deputy Chee recommended. He found Miller’s stolen car report.

“I took the information over the phone. He said he’d left the Malibu parked outside a bar, and when he came out, no car. He had the license number and all the make and model info, but he also knew the VIN. Besides his being so organized, two things struck me as off about it. First, if it was gone when he left the bar, why didn’t he report the car stolen until the morning?”

The waiting-until-morning thing would be explained if Miller were drunk, Bernie thought. But the deputy wasn’t done.

“Second, the bar was closed that evening because some gal drove into the back wall the previous night and did a bunch of damage. I wouldn’t have realized it, except we always get at least one call for fighting or rowdy drunks or something from there. That place is notorious. Since they’d had to close, it was peaceful. So I wondered why Miller would have parked there.”

“Did you ask him?”

“I didn’t realize it was closed until I double-checked when the FBI guy asked about it.”

“When was that?”

“After you found Miller’s car torched. I wonder why the feds have his number?”

“Me too.”

He asked about Chee, and then whether Darleen Manuelito was related to Bernie. “You know,” he said, “she might be eligible to get into that new diversion program. It works pretty well. Of course, she’d have to stay with it.”

“What program?”

“You must have heard about it. The one for first-time offenders that the county got that grant for. Alcohol and drug rehab, counseling, that sort of thing. It’s a trial, designed to keep down DWIs and reduce repeat offenders.”

“I have to talk to her about it. Thanks for the Miller stuff.”

“Here, take this with you.” He opened a desk drawer and pulled out a full-color brochure: San Juan County Fights DWI.

She put the brochure on the passenger seat of her unit. Someday, she’d like to feel proud of her sibling, happy for her accomplishments instead of ashamed. Would that day ever come?

Bernie noticed a thrift store as she headed toward the restaurant for the meeting. An empty parking slot beckoned, so she stopped. Sometimes she could find zip-up sweaters or ones with big buttons that were easy for Mama to handle. She didn’t see a sweater she liked, but when she passed a rack of belts, she thought of Mr. Tso holding up his pants with a rope. She invested a dollar in a canvas belt with a D-ring for a buckle so he could adjust it to fit.

She drove toward the restaurant, thinking about the fake stolen car report instead of her talk. It was inconvenient to set your own car on fire in the middle of nowhere and then have to hitchhike. She remembered the ridge, the places where the earth had been disturbed, and the yellow pieces of wood. Miller must have used the stakes to mark the cacti when they bloomed, the easiest time to spot them. She smiled. The pieces were coming together, but many were missing, including Miller himself.

As for Mr. Tso’s apparitions, perhaps he couldn’t see very well. Maybe, as Aaron suspected, his grandfather’s brain had slipped into decline, wobbling between reality and imagination.

She parked in the restaurant lot, noticing that it was nearly full, and picked up her backpack, double-checking to make sure her notes were there. She put on a bit of lipstick, squared her shoulders, and walked into the room where the meeting would be. She felt almost as unsettled as when she’d met Chee’s relatives for the first time.

The sixty-something woman at the door in the gray business suit introduced herself as the program director and the person Bernie had talked to on the phone. “We’re so glad you could join us. You’re younger than I expected. Have you met our president?”

“No, ma’am.” Younger than expected? That didn’t sound like a good thing.

The woman ushered Bernie to a round table, where a man in a business suit and well-polished cowboy boots was talking to a small group of people. The man in the boots extended his hand. “Clayton Sanchez, president of this bunch of rowdies, at least for a few more months. We’re pleased you could come today.” He introduced the other men at the table: a Farmington banker, a gentleman who owned a drilling company, and an insurance broker. Only the banker wore a suit, and he had a bolo with a piece of coral in place of a necktie.

Bernie nodded, wishing she had Chee’s gift for remembering names. Clayton reminded her of clay, and she pictured his boots encased in claylike mud. Maybe she could use sandy clay, whatever that might be, for the Sanchez part. She felt the men watching her while Sanchez spoke.

“Captain Largo and I got to know each other pretty well when I was with the Farmington Police Department. He’s a good cop.” Sanchez talked about a meth case he and Largo had worked together. The man knew his way around a story.

The room had nearly filled. A flock of waiters and waitresses in black pants and white shirts began delivering plates of salad to the tables.

Sanchez interrupted himself. “We better sit so the young lady can eat before she has to talk.”

The salad looked good. So far, being in this room with the Rotary group wasn’t the heart-stopping experience Bernie’d imagined, but the hard job was still to come.

A tall man wearing a white shirt open at the neck and a sport coat approached. Bernie thought he looked familiar, and struggled to place him. He introduced himself to the group just as Bernie’s brain had churned up his name: David Oster.

“I’m the guy working on that big solar project. You all may have heard our radio ads: ‘Harnessing the power of the sun to provide electricity to our families and the rest of America.’”

“The rest of America? That sounds great. Ambitious.” Sanchez winked at him. “Join us here? We’ve got an empty seat.” Sanchez turned toward Bernie. “This is Officer Bernadette Manuelito. She’s our guest speaker today.”

Oster smiled. “We’ve met. Officer Manuelito was the one who had to give me the sad news that the town of Shiprock didn’t have a Starbucks.”

Sanchez chuckled. “We’ve got three here in Farmington. Did she tell you that?”

“No, she didn’t. Your secret is safe with Officer Manuelito.” He sat across the table from her. “It’s nice to see you here.”

“So you’re a Rotary member?”

“I’m with Rotary in San Francisco, and as part of our membership, we have a standing invitation to visit other clubs when we’re in the area.”

“How’s your project coming?”

“Fine. Except for the wind, the weather has cooperated. Once we smooth out a few bumps in the road, we’ll have the perfect site for a large installation.”

“We’ve got plenty of sun out here, that’s for sure. What kind of bumps?”

“Oh, nothing too serious. There seem to be some people who still don’t understand the value of solar power. My contractor and I are working to change some minds, open the naysayers to the possibilities of nonpolluting, renewable energy. Where would we be without the sun?”

“Good question. And good luck with your project.”

“I don’t need luck. It’s a natural, you know—the wave of the future, the way the world is moving.”

Bernie looked at her salad, carefully pushing the strawberries to one side and the pecans to the other. She tried a bite of the lettuce and a little red tomato and found them acceptable. Chee would have appreciated this fancy dish, she thought, but give her iceberg lettuce and ranch dressing any time.

Bernie heard Sanchez pushing his chair back, and she took a breath. Show time on the horizon. She felt her chest tighten.

Sanchez went to the microphone, and everyone stood for an invocation and then faced the flag for the Pledge of Allegiance. When he invited them all to sit and began to read extensive announcements, Bernie moved her plate to the side and took out her notes. One more quick review.

He introduced her, and she walked to the podium, suddenly regretting the salad she’d eaten. She adjusted the microphone, lowering it to pick up her voice. She felt her knees wobble.

“Ladies and gentlemen, yá’át’ééh. Good afternoon. Thank you for inviting me here today. And for the free lunch.”

A few of the attendees chuckled.

“This is the first time I’ve been asked to speak on behalf of our department.” She looked up from her notes. “I thought I would start by explaining that if you want to be on patrol with the Navajo Nation police, you have to enjoy driving. Each officer who works on our force is responsible for about seventy square miles of reservation land. That’s about twice the area of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Or think of it this way: the whole country of Liechtenstein is only sixty-two square miles.”

People in the audience smiled. She relaxed a little, looked at her notes for the next point she wanted to make, and kept talking. “In the rest of rural America, there are about three officers for a thousand civilians. Out here, when our department is fully staffed, there might be two of us for that same population. But I’m not complaining. I love my job, and I like to stay busy.”

Most of her nervousness had evaporated, amazingly. She moved on to the next point and the next. It was over before she knew it.

By the time she sat down again, the rest of her table had finished eating. The waiter brought her a large white plate filled with noodles shaped like ridged tubes covered with a mysterious sauce. She recognized mushrooms, green peas, and circles of sausage. If Chee were there, he’d probably figure out how to make it and experiment on her.

She finished the salad, eating the strawberries and pecans separately, and followed it with her bread and butter. The noodles scared her.

Then the waiter brought something delightful to the table. Chocolate cake beneath white frosting dotted with pastel sugar sprinkles sitting next to a big serving of whipped cream. He came back with hot coffee, filling cups carefully, and offering decaf to those who declined. Being a speaker wasn’t as bad as she’d imagined, especially when it included cake. She’d have to thank Largo for the assignment.

At the podium, Sanchez asked for any final business, reminded the group of the speaker for the next meeting, and then, with a bang of the gavel, adjourned the meeting until next month.

Oster stood to tell her goodbye.

“I ran into Mrs. Benally at Teec Nos Pos,” Bernie said. “She told me the two of you had done some business.”

“Lovely woman,” Oster said. “I wish everyone out here were as easy to deal with.”

Bernie went back to the office to get her assignments for the rest of the day and to tell Largo about the talk. Sandra got her attention.

“Hey, your sister has been trying to reach you. She wants you to call her.”

She wondered if Darleen had an emergency, the rationale for calling her at work instead of at home or on her cell. Bernie called Mama’s phone. Busy. She called Darleen’s cell and left a message.

Then she logged into the database to do a quick search on Aaron Torino and, while she was at it, tossed in the name of the mysterious Michael Miller. The system chugged, and then her monitor locked up. She tried every trick she knew with no luck, finally finding Sandra, the closest thing they had to tech services.

She’d go outside to call Darleen again while the computers were down, she decided. She took a deep breath, looked at her phone for a moment, and then pushed in Mama’s number. Sometimes she wished she’d had a big brother instead of a little sister.

Darleen sounded happy. “I wanted to talk to you about going to Santa Fe tomorrow. Remember? Mama wanted to check out the school? I called you at work because I thought you might need to get the day off or something. Hope I didn’t freak you out.”

“I was just in Farmington, and a sheriff’s deputy told me you’re being considered for the alcohol and drug diversion program.”

“That’s cool.”

Bernie had expected Darleen to be embarrassed, or at least surprised. “Cool? So you got arrested for drunken driving? Not just drinking a beer and mouthing off, like you told Mama and me?”

“Well, not really. It’s a long—”

“You lied to us.”

“I didn’t exactly lie. I just—”

“Grow up. I can’t deal with this.”

“You don’t have to deal with anything.” Darleen sounded angry now. “You never listen. You always know what I should do. I didn’t tell you every little thing that happened because I didn’t want another lecture. I felt bad enough without you nagging on me. I made a mistake. Who hasn’t?”

She stopped talking, and Bernie let the silence sit.

When Darleen spoke again, she’d stopped shouting. “Come over to Mama’s tonight so we can talk. It’s not as bad as you think. Seriously.”

Bigman appeared at the station door, waving to Bernie to come in.

“I’ve got to go.”

“When do you think you’ll be here?”

“I don’t know. Before dark. I have to take something to the old man who lives near that burned car.”

“This isn’t as bad as you think,” Darleen said again.

“Yeah, right.” Bernie hung up, furious. She walked inside the building to find Largo looking for her.

“Manuelito, what have you done to the computers?” He sounded more annoyed than usual.

“I was doing a search, seeing what I could find out about Tso’s grandson.”

“Sandra’s having trouble getting things back to working again. We may have to talk to Window Rock.”

Largo seemed to be waiting for her to say something.

“Sir, lunch went well. People seemed to like the talk.”

“Good. I owe you for that.”

It seemed like a good time to ask for the next day off, explaining that she had an unexpected situation to deal with concerning her mother. Largo gave it to her without asking questions, and she spent an uneventful afternoon placing unreturned calls to Aaron and catching up on paperwork. The highlight was a residential burglary report. The thieves had absconded with the victim’s jewelry, cash, and meat from the freezer. The woman held her brother’s drinking buddies responsible.

After work, Bernie went home to change clothes, then stopped at City Market to buy Mr. Tso a can of coffee and some plums, which she rinsed at the store. When someone hauled water, every drop was precious. She put everything in her backpack, then added Mr. Tso’s thrift-store belt. His house wasn’t that out of the way to the turnoff for Mama’s place. Maybe his view of Ship Rock would offer some inspiration.

She stopped on the way and parked her well-used Toyota close to the burned shell of the Malibu. She wanted another look at the ridge to see if there were any more of those little cacti or any strange tracks she’d missed. She remembered the animal she’d seen in the road the evening she got lost. The thought made her uneasy, but she convinced herself it was a dog, or maybe one of those big wolf hybrids.

An assembly of clouds hung in the late afternoon’s huge, brilliant sky, a hint at the undelivered promise of rain. She stood on the sandy earth and took in the sight of Ship Rock, more rugged than it looked from the angle at which she saw it most often. She had met people who found this landscape unsettling, people from elsewhere who felt uncomfortable without a green canopy of trees overhead. She liked trees well enough, as long as she could still look out and see the sky. She considered the piñons and junipers that lived in coexistence on much of the Navajo Nation’s land to be nature’s best tree creations. It took the piñons a hundred years to grow twelve feet, and they provided tasty nuts. Juniper was used in ceremonies and as medicine. She’d grown up drinking juniper tea when her stomach felt uneasy, and as a girl she had used the little brown seeds inside its blue berries to make bracelets and necklaces. Good trees, and they didn’t usually block the view.

Her eye caught a flash of motion near the ridgetop. She focused. Saw it a second time. In addition to coyotes and dogs, there were horses out here, although an animal that large seemed unlikely on the rocky slope. She kept her gaze on the ridge, but she didn’t see it again.

The vibration of her phone in the backpack surprised her. She fished it out of the front pocket. Chee!

“Hey, there.” His voice sounded as strong as if he’d been standing beside her. “I talked to Bahe, and I can head back to Shiprock.”

“It seems like you’ve been gone forever.”

“Sounds like you’re standing in a tunnel, sweetheart. Where are you?”

“I’m getting ready to visit Hosteen Tso. You know, the man who lives near Ship Rock. When I leave, I’m spending the night at Mama’s. Darleen and Mama and I have a lot to talk about.” She’d save the bad news for when she saw him, after she’d interrogated Darleen. “I can’t wait to see you.”

“I can barely hear you, honey. Call me when you get to Mama’s, OK?”

“Sure thing.”

She ended the call, wondering not for the first time if the aggravation caused by all the times cell phones didn’t work was offset by their convenience when they did. She still voted in favor, but the margin was slim.

She climbed the ridge, wishing the day were cooler and that she’d worn her hiking boots. She saw a lizard nicely camouflaged against the gray rocks, but no cactus plants, or yellow markers for them. No more tracks, either.

The old man was sitting on the same wooden bench where she’d seen him last. He stood when she stopped her car and hobbled out to her, greeting her in Navajo and adding the word for “friend.” He motioned her to the side of the house. “Put your car there, where you saw my grandson’s truck. Get some shade from that tree by the corral.” She parked, grabbed her backpack, and walked to the porch.

“I like your hair fixed like that, the old way. It keeps the wind from stealing your thoughts. I used to wear my hair like that, too, back when I was young.” She wasn’t surprised; the hairstyle was part of the Navajo tradition.

She showed him the bag with the plums and the coffee. “These are for you, Mr. Tso. I thought you might enjoy them.”

“Ahéhee. Thank you.”

Then Bernie gave him the belt. He ran his hands over the fabric. “A nice one. Soft.” He started to hand it back to her, but she shook her head.

“It’s for you. You can wear this when your daughter takes you to that big food corral.”

He looked puzzled. “I don’t know about a place like that.”

“It’s in Gallup. You mentioned that you liked the Jell-O there.”

Mr. Tso shook his head. “Maybe the heat is bothering you. Come and sit with me.”

Bernie didn’t press the point. She took her place in the chair next to Mr. Tso’s bench and shared the view. They watched a pair of ravens soar against the deep blue sky.

“My grandson came earlier today to tell me he has a new job. The people who want to put up those mirrors hired him.” She sensed a grandfather’s pride, but something else in his voice as well. Concern?

“The solar company? That’s wonderful for him. Maybe you will see more of him now.”

But Mr. Tso shook his head. “They are the ones who gave me those lights down there.” He moved his head toward the side of the house where she had parked. “Go take a look. Then I will tell you more.”

She stepped off the porch and next to a chain saw and the red plastic gas can, she found a row of little lanterns mounted on long metal stakes with pointed ends. Each of the six had a flat dark rectangle on the top of a little box that was glass on all sides. They looked new.

She returned to Mr. Tso. “Those are interesting. Do they work?”

The old man frowned. “The one who wants to put those mirrors out there, he gave them to me. He and my grandson pushed them into the ground. When the sun went down, when the first stars could be seen, they turned themselves on.” He shifted on the bench. “No good. They make light when it should be dark.”

Bernie pictured the scene. She thought solar lights were an excellent idea, especially for a house without electricity.

“When I was a boy, we respected the darkness. We went to sleep when it got dark, got up when the sun rose. In the winter, the long nights gave us stories.”

A coyote yipped in the distance, joined by another. Then came barking dogs. Mr. Tso began talking about a pack of dogs that had killed his goat when he was a boy, a story he had told her the first time she visited. An old shotgun was propped by the bend on the porch. It reminded her of the gun her uncle had kept for creatures who threatened the sheep.

It was not uncommon on the Navajo reservation for feral dogs, perhaps interbred with coyotes, to attack livestock and even children. Perhaps, Bernie thought, even an old man. She understood why Mr. Tso’s daughter and grandson worried about him. “Those lights might help you see if a coyote or a dog pack is bothering your sheep. Maybe you should ask Aaron to put them by the corral.”

“Those are my daughter’s sheep. With the lights, the sheep couldn’t sleep.” Mr. Tso chuckled. “They would have to start counting people. Not enough people out here to make them sleepy.”

Bernie said, “Your daughter worries about you because of that burned car. I think that you know more about the burned car than you have told me. If you helped, maybe the police could find the one who burned the car, and your daughter wouldn’t worry so much.”

Mr. Tso stared out at Ship Rock. Finally he said, “Some evil things the police cannot help us with.”

They sat watching the shadows grow deeper on Ship Rock, and then Mr. Tso spoke. “A man came in that car that burned. I saw him out there on the ridge when I was checking on the fences. It was in T’ąąchił, so the snakes were waking up. It was near dusk.” T’ąąchił was the Navajo calendar’s equivalent of late March and early April, Bernie knew. The sun set early.

“I saw him walking on the ridge. I wondered what he was doing up there, and I thought that I should tell him to beware of the snakes. But when I looked again, the man was gone. An animal, dark and bigger than a dog, was on the ridge in his place. I remembered it for many months. Then when the weather grew warmer, I saw the car again, parked over that way again.”

He stopped talking for so long she thought he might be finished. When he resumed, she heard the fear in his voice.

“I looked toward the ridge. I saw something up there, something alive, big and black. Not a man. Its eyes glowed like fire. Then, the day the car burned, it happened again.”

Mr. Tso turned his face toward the sky. The last of the sun’s rays gave his skin a pinkish glow. He closed his eyes, and then opened them again.

“It came to me that the creature who rode in that car was not afraid of the snakes because they could not hurt him.”

Bernie heard the muffled sound of a distant vehicle. “Is Aaron coming to see you tonight?”

“No. My daughter said they both will come again on Saturday. Tell me about your mother. Is she still weaving?”

“No. My mother’s hands don’t work very well anymore.”

“She misses it, then. My wife would make rugs until she couldn’t see so well. She sold them to those traders in Fruitland, the Hatch Brothers. She would sit where you are now, and we would talk. She had some sadness that we never had more children, but her sister’s children were ours, too.”

As Mr. Tso talked on about the extended family he and his wife raised and other adventures that happened before Bernie was born, she watched the vehicle make the turn from the highway onto Mr. Tso’s dirt road, a rooster tail of dust rising behind it to hang over the route. At that distance, she couldn’t tell if it was a car or a truck.

The monologue over, Bernie rose. “I enjoy your company, but I need to get going now.”

Mr. Tso stood too, and made his way to the side of the porch. “Look down there. You take those things. Give them to your mother. She’s getting old now. She could use them.”

When Bernie stood next to him, she could see that the little glass boxes on the posts had started to glow. Pretty. They reminded her of light in a jar.

“Maybe your daughter would like them,” she said. “They’re new and useful.”

“You take them. See if they can fit in your car.”

“I can’t take them now because I really need to get to Mama’s house. I’ll get them later.”

“That makes me happy. I have another visit with you to look forward to.”

Mr. Tso sat on the bench again. “That one coming might be a friend of my daughter or my grandson. Sometimes those young men come here looking for him. Sometimes my daughter asks her people to check on me. They want to make sure that I’m still keeping an eye on Tsé Bit’a’í.”

Bernie could see now that the vehicle was a white minivan, exactly the kind of vehicle she’d expect one of Roberta Tso’s middle-aged lady friends to own. If she had left a few minutes sooner, she could have driven off with a wave to whoever was in the car. Now, though, it would be rude not to stay to greet Mr. Tso’s visitor before heading out. A few minutes wouldn’t matter that much. She dreaded the conversation that awaited her with Darleen.

The road stopped at Mr. Tso’s house, except for the rutted track where she’d gotten lost and that Aaron said ultimately led to the highway. There were no occupied homes on the way here. Mr. Tso’s place was not a spot a person came to by accident.

“Could you bring me some water?” Mr. Tso asked.

“Of course.”

“Maybe, if you aren’t tired, you could make us some coffee.”

“I will. Would you like one of those plums, too?”

He smiled. “A soft one. Maybe our visitor will have one also.”

She went into the house, happy that she still had enough daylight to work with without the bother of using his kerosene lamp. Mr. Tso lived in one room, and he was a good housekeeper. His bed was made, the couch clear, and the kitchen area free from clutter. The only thing that seemed out of place was a pile of white papers on the table, a manila envelope next to it.

Bernie added water and some of the coffee she’d brought to the old coffeepot and found a match to light the propane to fire up the burner. She noticed Mr. Tso’s can opener, the old-fashioned kind that involved stabbing into the can with a sharp point and then peeling up the metal along the edge of the circle. The pungent fragrance tempted her to change her mind and make a cup for herself. But no, she wanted to talk to Mama and Darleen before it got too late. She’d say hello to the visitor, let the guest serve the coffee, and be on her way.

She heard the car door open and then a man’s voice speaking English. “Hello, sir.”

She thought the voice sounded vaguely familiar. As she searched for a spoon to measure the coffee, she worked to remember who it was, wondering whom she and Mr. Tso would know in common. Mr. Tso’s bench creaked, and she assumed he was rising to meet the visitor.

“I would have called, but you don’t have a phone. I have to talk to you about something very important, and we don’t have much time. That’s why—”

“Doo yá’ásh da!” Mr. Tso spit out the words.

Why, she wondered, did he think this man was evil, intending to harm him? Was it his dementia?

“I don’t know any Indian.” The stranger’s voice sounded tenser now. “But I’ll take that as welcome. That’s my buddy, Buddy, sniffing around. Hey, hold on there.”

She heard the crack of the shotgun, a high-pitched animal cry, and then, “What the heck? You crazy old coot. Wait a minute now, don’t shoot me.”

Bernie rushed to the porch and pulled the weapon away from Mr. Tso. The elderly man was shaking. “Stop. No more shooting.”

“Yeenaaldlooshii.”

Bernie spoke in Navajo. “No. He’s not a skinwalker.” She looked at the visitor, recognized him. “See, he’s not even Diné.” There might be non-Navajo skinwalkers, but she had never heard of one on the reservation.

Bernie leaned the shotgun against the wall and helped Mr. Tso sit down.

She switched to English. “Mr. Miller, are you OK?”

Miller looked confused and shaken. “He shot at my dog.”

Mr. Tso stared at the porch floor, clearly avoiding the possibility that Miller might look him in the eye. “I saw the yeenaaldlooshii. I shot it.”

Miller stayed where he was. “What’s he talking about?”

“He thinks you and your dog are cursed.”

“Cursed? I guess he’s not far from right. I found Buddy at the shelter. He’s like me, you know? Lived a hard life.” Miller had a bottle and something that looked like a Frisbee in his hand. He pushed the pseudo Frisbee open into a bowl and poured in some water. “This is for Buddy when he comes back. When he gets over being scared. I hope he’s not hurt.” He put the bowl on the ground next to the porch.

Miller turned to Bernie. “You’re the cop who stopped me, right?”

She stood next to Mr. Tso, relieved that he had stopped trembling. “And you’re the one who offered me five hundred dollars and a rifle. And lied about it. Why are you here?”

Miller glanced at his watch. “Long, sad story. Basically, to apologize for scaring Mr. Tso the other night and to discuss the forms I left.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Mirrors that make energy.” Mr. Tso’s voice was weak. “This one brought the lights. He wants me to sign to put the mirrors here so I won’t see the view so good. I told him no. He doesn’t listen.”

Miller turned to Bernie. “I offered him every deal I could think of for the lease. He says the panels will spoil his vista of rocks and dirt. The man I work for told me to be more persuasive.”

Mr. Tso leaned away from Miller. “Go away now.”

Bernie said, “You said you wanted to apologize?”

“Well, yeah. That’s right.”

“What did you do?”

Miller pursed his lips and released them. “I thought if I couldn’t encourage Mr. Tso to sign the papers, I could scare him into leaving, or get his family to think he was crazy. I got the idea when I came in April. That’s when a kind of little cactus blooms. The yellow flowers make them stand out; otherwise, they blend into the gravel real well.”

“We’ll come back to that, but tell me about frightening this man.”

“OK. With my binoculars, I could see Mr. Tso on his porch, and I knew he was the main obstacle to getting the lease done. I’d learned some things about Navajo skinwalkers from a program at NAU, you know, that college in Flagstaff? I got Buddy to give a good howl so the old gentleman would look up here. It was cold, so I had packed the poncho with me. I took it out of my backpack when I got out the string to mark the plants so I could come back for them later. I put it on over the pack and moved up and down among the rocks, like those skinwalkers are supposed to do. I knew his daughter was worried about him being a little off, so I figured even if it didn’t scare him into moving away, if he told her the story, she might think he’d flipped. She and the grandson would move him out of here, sign the papers, and we’d be in business.”

Miller stopped talking and looked out toward Ship Rock. “Buddy. Buddy. Here, boy.”

Binoculars, Bernie thought, catching the sun. That explained the glowing eyes Mr. Tso had mentioned.

“Was that it?”

“Well, no. I did the same thing, walking on the ridge like that, when I came back to dig up the plants. That time, we snuck up to his house, too. I had Buddy scratch at the door and jump up and paw at the window in his bedroom. I read that skinwalkers act like that.”

Mr. Tso was staring at the deck, ignoring Miller as though he wasn’t there. Bernie felt her anger rising. “You should be ashamed. Is that why you set your car on fire—one last effort to terrify Mr. Tso? Or was it for the insurance money?”

Miller’s eyes widened. “Me? Not me. I needed that car. I don’t know what happened, and that’s the honest truth. I went up there the third time to see if there were any cacti I’d missed and to give Mr. Tso another jolt, get him to think moving was a good idea. I heard something strange, so I looked down and saw the flames. No other cars out there; no people around. It scared the you-know-what outta me. Buddy and me scrammed as quick as we could.”

Bernie watched Miller wipe the sweat off his forehead. He was nervous, just like he’d been the night she first encountered him. She looked over at Mr. Tso. Hard to know what he thought.

“But now you’re back, and you’re nervous,” Bernie said. “Tell me how that makes sense?”

Miller hesitated. “When the car burned, I had to hitch a ride out of here. It took a long time before someone stopped, and as I was waiting for a ride for me and Buddy, I decided I’d had enough of this whole thing. I figured I’d try a new plan, telling the truth. So, besides saying sorry for what happened on the ridge, I came to warn the old gent that he really should sign those papers before something happens.”

“Go away now.” Mr. Tso moved toward the shotgun, but Bernie put a hand on his arm.

“Hold on, sir. I need to find out something before he goes.” She focused on Miller. “Since you’re now into honesty, tell me more about the cacti. How do you sell them?”

“Through the Internet. Phoenix, Tucson, Palm Desert. I ship them out as quick as I can.”

“Is that why the feds are interested in you?”

“The feds? You think I’m, like, the orchid thief of the desert?” Miller chuckled. “The cacti are just a few hundred bucks a pop. But why not sell them? I have to dig them up anyway, so they won’t cause trouble with the greenies and slow down construction where the road for the panels would go.” Miller looked at his watch. He called, “Buddy. Here, boy. Buddyyyy.”

“You didn’t answer the question. Why do the feds have you on their radar? That’s the reason you got away with trying to bribe me.”

Miller walked to the edge of the porch, studied Bernie’s backpack perched on the step, walked back. Probably creating a lie to satisfy her, she thought.

“The feds want to know about some of my old Las Vegas contacts. I got tired of their questions, came out here, got a job. When you stopped me, I was on a con with some guys in Albuquerque who know how to use credit card numbers creatively. I figured somebody ratted me out. Sure enough, the feds are on my tail again.” She could see the moisture glistening on his forehead as he turned to her.

“I wasn’t supposed to have that rifle. I wasn’t supposed to be driving out here. The cacti? I figured I could make a few bucks on the side, after the boss told me to get them.”

Miller called for his dog again and stared into the distance. Then he turned back to Mr. Tso. “I’m sorry about all this. I told the boss I would deliver the papers, or report back that you’d had a fatal accident, but Buddy and I are headed to Phoenix.”

Bernie said, “Who is your boss?”

“A West Coast guy. He’s got me by the short hairs. I’m telling you, Manuelito, because I’m done with lies, with cons, with the low life. I’m not the straightest guy around, but no way could I kill this old man.”

“Oster?”

“I just call him boss.”

If she hadn’t heard so many creative fabrications and cons, she would have bought Miller’s entire story. A credit card scam would have caught the feds’ attention. Scaring Mr. Tso to get him to sign the lease sounded plausible, but she couldn’t imagine a businessman like Oster would condone it.

Miller turned toward the road and whistled energetically. Mr. Tso frowned. Even though it wasn’t quite dusk, loud whistling such as Miller’s attracted the attention of evil spirits. And whistling after dark violated a traditional taboo; the sound summoned up chindis.

Bernie saw the old man cringe as Miller whistled again. “Stop that noise,” Mr. Tso yelled at Miller. “Go away now.”

A set of headlights had left the highway and turned onto the entrance road that led to Mr. Tso’s house. Bernie saw Mr. Tso watching them, too. His voice had steel in it.

“If that is your boss man, I will talk to him about you. I think there is no boss man. Who would kill an old man over a machine with mirrors?” Then he said something in Navajo, an insult. Bernie didn’t translate.

Miller looked at Bernie. “Is there another way out of here?”

“Sort of.” She told him about the back way. “What about your dog?”

“The dog ran off the same way that road goes,” Mr. Tso said. “Maybe it will hear you calling for it way out there if it’s not dead. I shot it good.”

Miller rushed to the van and started it. They watched his vehicle disappear in the dusk, bouncing down the rutted road in the shadow of Ship Rock. His shrill whistle was enough to summon a corpse.

It was, Bernie realized, one of the most beautiful times of day, dark enough now for headlights with automatic sensors to turn on, dark enough that Ship Rock seemed to glow and the air had begun to cool. Dusk but not totally black. Time to get to Mama’s house, but first a moment to savor the evening and the silence after all that talking. But even though Miller’s story might have no substance, she hesitated to leave Mr. Tso alone.

Mr. Tso seemed to read her thoughts. “Your mother will be waiting for you. But we forgot to have a plum.”

She went inside and took Mr. Tso a plum and found one for herself. Soft and sweet, it reminded her that it had been a long time since lunch, and that cake and salad didn’t make a stick-to-the-ribs meal. When Mr. Tso took a bite, she saw that most of his teeth were gone. He wiped the juice from his mouth with his shirtsleeve.

“In this car coming, it must be a friend of my daughter. You go now. I will explain if anyone asks why you drove away. She can bring the coffee.”

Bernie thought Mr. Tso looked tired. “Whoever this is, please tell her you need to go to bed soon. And now, you can sleep well. You don’t have to worry about the evil ones. It was only that lying man, Miller, and his dog trying to scare you.”

Mr. Tso said, “You need to leave. If the man comes back, or his dog comes, I have the gun. I can take care of myself.”