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 shirts
leeve.
“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.”
20
Bernie went inside and turned off the fire under the coffeepot. Like all good desert dwellers, Mr. Tso kept his windows tightly closed until the day cooled, then opened them to welcome the evening breeze. The heat from the stove had added to the accumulated warmth. “I can open the windows for you. Shall I light the lamp, too?”
“I know the dark as well as a mole. Just open the window in the back by my bed. I’ll do the rest when it gets cooler. Go see your mother.”
She made her way around the piles of yellowed copies of the Navajo Times, neatly bound with twine, and what looked like junk mail in paper bags on the floor and pushed the window up to let in the evening air. She gathered her backpack from the porch and waved goodbye, walking to her car past the warm glow of the solar lights Mr. Tso objected to.
Miller had left Buddy’s water bowl on the porch. Above Mr. Tso’s dark little house, the stars shone clear and beautiful, keeping company with a moon that looked as though someone had shaved a sliver from its right side. She thought about Miller as she started the Toyota. If he was on the feds’ radar for credit card fraud, that would explain the pressure on Largo to drop her bribery complaint.
She decided to drive up the road a bit, then park to make sure the visitor was a friend. Maybe, as Darleen complained, she didn’t have to act like a cop all the time. But Miller’s story was believable enough that she’d invest a few more minutes here before she headed to Mama’s house. And she wasn’t eager to confront her sister; better to sit and gather her thoughts.
The breeze through the car’s open windows felt good on her skin. Her bun kept her hair from blowing in her face. She’d have to wear this hairstyle more often, she thought. Next time she’d get Mama to help her with it.
Rock with Wings Page 26