“Then why go to such extremes?”
“Don’t you understand the importance of returning to the sun for our energy, to save the planet? I told Miller that if the old man didn’t cooperate, he should arrange a simple accident. It would have been a necessary evil for the greater good. A fall resulting in a blow to the head that would have spared Mr. Tso the further debilitations of old age, saved his daughter from additional concern about him, and helped our Mother Earth. Everyone wins. But Miller failed me and disappeared like a coward.”
Bernie felt the floor shift as he moved closer to Mr. Tso.
“Inspired by your interference, I suppose, I’ve come up with a better plan. It will leave a bit of a mystery—the sad and untimely death of a rising star in the Navajo police force, who came to visit an arson suspect and died with him in a fire. Was it an accident, or did the deranged elderly gentleman start another blaze on purpose?”
“Mr. Tso is an arson suspect?”
“Who else would have burned that car?”
Mr. Tso coughed again and groaned. The broken rib from Oster’s kick and the fall on the porch must have punctured a lung.
“Maybe Miller did it himself,” Bernie said. “He denied it, but he’s a proven liar.”
The darkness was almost total now, except for the amber light of the kerosene lantern.
Oster walked to Mr. Tso with the contract. “Last chance?”
Mr. Tso said nothing.
Bernie’s struggle against the twine had relaxed it a bit, but not enough. The subtle movements of her feet had done a better job. She had loosened the rope around her legs almost enough to pull free. She knew she had to keep him talking.
“What are you going to do with us?”
“So you want the details? Here are the bullet points. Fire, one of humanity’s oldest discoveries in technology. Kerosene, propane, a closed house far away from any source of water. And I can put this unsigned contract to its next best use.”
She heard him tearing the paper into pieces. “Old people get confused all the time and leave the stove on. What a tragic accident.”
“You’re risking a lot to make money.”
“Money? It’s not just about money. The survival of humanity has always depended on the sun. Everything, from those little cacti to giant redwoods, from the whales that eat the plankton that live on sun-fed algae to those of us at the top of the pyramid.”
Oster’s shoes made the wooden floor squeak as he strode toward the kitchen, and then there was a hiss as the propane rushed into the small room. She heard another sound from the back of the house, a loud, shrill rusty creak, like a sudden weight against old bedsprings. She felt the thud of something heavy landing somewhere behind her.
Oster yelled out. “What the—”
Bernie could see the black shape running toward him. She scooted to a seated position, squirming to free her legs while straining against the twine that bound her wrists.
Oster stayed upright when they collided, but she heard the sound of the impact. He kicked at the creature and dashed toward the front of the house. The creature followed, bumping against the table. She heard the glass of the lantern’s chimney break as it crashed to the floor, along with the flurry of shredded paper. The flicker of the flame grew across the puddle of kerosene. She could not yet detect the odor of propane, but she knew it was inevitable.
The dark shape snarled and leaped at Oster again, and she heard his body ram against the wall. Oster grunted, struggled, and pushed the animal away. He managed to shove the door open, and Bernie heard it click closed behind him. She listened to his frantic footsteps, fleeing across the porch.
Then she noticed the whine, the panting, and her own body’s rush of adrenaline. She forced herself to sit as still as death, hoping Mr. Tso would do the same, listening to the quick rhythm of claws on the floor as the creature ran to the bedroom, the groan of compressed springs as it leaped onto the bed, and the moan of release as it jumped through the open window.
The torn bits of the contract burned brightly now.
She called to Mr. Tso. “Can you stand up? We have to get out of here.”
In the light of the fire, she watched him attempt to push himself off of the sofa, then sink down. And then try again.
She heard the roar of the Porsche’s engine.
Bernie put energy into her hands, finally wiggling them free. She used numb fingers and muscle power to release her legs.
The flames had consumed the kerosene-soaked contract paper and searched for more fuel, lapping toward the larger pool of kerosene and the flammable clutter of ancient newspapers.
She pushed herself to standing, waited until she was steady, and helped Mr. Tso. “I’ll try not to hurt you.” She put her arms around his torso. Half carrying him, she reached the front door, pulled it open, and dragged him onto the porch, smelling the rotten-egg stench of the escaping propane. He moaned as she shifted to support his lean frame with her back, his feet banging against her legs as she negotiated the steps. She ran from the house, carrying Mr. Tso, as far and as fast as she could, until her lungs burned and her muscles refused to respond. She tripped on a rock and collapsed, his body falling on top of hers.
She felt her heart pounding as she wrapped her arms around her head. She closed her eyes, and said a prayer of gratitude for her life, for her husband, for her mother and sister, for Mr. Tso. For the privilege of living in such a beautiful world.
21
The explosion shook Bernie’s body as fire lit up the dark sky.
She stayed where she lay even after her breathing had slowed to something like normal. She felt the shallow movement of Mr. Tso’s chest on top of her and gently pushed herself along the ground, out from beneath him. She couldn’t hear the roar of the flames through the ringing in her ears.
She carefully rolled onto her back and glanced at Mr. Tso. From what she could see, he wasn’t bleeding anywhere obvious. He looked frightened and tired, but he was alive.
She assessed her own physical damage, aware mostly of the pain from her injured shoulder. She sat up, watching for the creature that had attacked Oster. She thought about her backpack—with her gun as well as her car keys and phone—incinerated on what had been the porch of the house.