Judas Horse_ An FBI Special Agent Ana Grey Mystery - April Smith [64]
The Oreo phone is vibrating—Donnato returning the call. I guess there is intermittent service here, but suddenly I don’t need it.
The man cradles the rifle so the barrel points up. It is a .308, common to every weekend shooter. He comes closer, until I notice the pointy toes of the worn cowboy boots in a peculiar shade of red, crunching over a carpet of spent casings, and the bandy legs in jeans.
His sunburned face has broken into a wide, sassy grin. “I sure hope you’re not gonna call the police.”
“I’m thinking about it.”
“Truly. I would never shoot a protected animal.”
“I already know how you feel about wild horses.”
It is the wrangler from the BLM corrals.
He digs into his ears and removes two soft plugs. “What is that you’re saying, ma’am?”
I am staring at him sternly, one hand on a hip. “Why are you following me?”
“No problem, ma’am. I’ll go.”
He may be using an ordinary hunting rifle, but nobody except an FBI agent calls anyone “ma’am.” The bastards have put a tail on me.
“We’ve met, remember? My name is Darcy.”
He wears a Nomex flight glove on his left hand and extends the right, the rest of his lean body shyly arching backward in an irritatingly boyish way.
“Sterling McCord, ma’am. Pleased to meet you again.”
“What are you doing out here?”
“Just gave a shooting lesson. Ever fire a gun?” He smiles wickedly. There’s a gap on the side of his mouth where a tooth is missing. “I bet you’d like it.”
“Come on, Sterling, if that’s really your name. I saw you at the BLM corrals, and now you’re here, a mile from where I happen to be living on a hazelnut farm, which is not my usual territory, but you know all that, don’t you?”
Sterling shakes his head.
“Sorry to bust your bubble, Darcy, but I had no idea I would have the pleasure of meeting you again. I’m just following the work, that’s all. Doing some cowboyin’.”
“For who?”
“Oh, a fella named Dave Owens, owns a little ranch just up the road.”
“Uh-huh. What kind of work are you doing for Dave?”
“All kinds. Just drove a trailer full of cattle down from Idaho. Dave has cutting horses; I work them with the cows. You know cutting horses? Well, they’re big money these days. Big show prizes. Dave’s a good boss, but he’s never there. He’s in the insurance business, down in San Francisco.”
“And this is your idea of ‘cowboyin’?”
McCord cocks his head away. “Truthfully, I don’t want to be a hand anymore. I want to be a horse trainer.”
“Sounds like a cover to me.”
“Cover for what?” Puzzled, he opens the lid of the cooler, offers a Corona. “Refreshment?”
“Guns and alcohol don’t mix.”
“I’m done. Sun’s hot.”
“All right.”
“Thank you,” he says mockingly. “Score one for my side.”
I accept a cold beer and reject a packet of fried pork rinds. My eye, drawn to the red boots (Are they ostentatious or not?) falls to the gleaming litter of spent casings on the ground. Lying in the carpet of brass, two or three of an unusual caliber stand out. Most commonplace rifles, like McCord’s, use .30-caliber bullets, but the shell I’m looking at is .50-caliber—harder to find because they are mostly used by Army snipers to knock out tanks.
And to kill cops.
Somebody out here has been taking shooting practice with the same unusual-size bullet that killed Sergeant Mackee.
While Sterling McCord pulls in the targets, I scoop two .50-caliber casings into the pocket of my shorts.
Silhouette targets are unusual, too, as most marksmen use bull’s-eyes. And this guy is consistently scoring body shots, which shows a fair level of skill.
“Where’d you learn to shoot like that?”
“U.S. Army, Delta Force.”
The openness of the answer is not what I expected.
“Delta Force? Isn’t that an elite”—I want to say unit—“thing? How do you get to do something like that?”
“You have to be invited” is all McCord says.
You have to have ten years’ service,