“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.