Judas Horse

I follow the sound, going out the kitchen door, past the rank old goats, the rabbits and ducks, into the barn to retrieve the Oreo phone, then out the back, running through high grass bordered by rampant blackberries. There is a vineyard of dead vines with unkempt half-assed spurs, and stakes in the ground that mark an abandoned garden. Watch out for the hose and rusty wires. Dick Stone keeps his orchard groomed; but behind the house, where nobody can see, everything runs wild.

Breaking into open field, I sprint past a marsh with a silver oval of groundwater in which you can just make out the vertical stance of a great white heron. Megan says that in her grandfather’s day the acreage was used for wheat. She has given it back to migrating birds. I’ve found a trail through the cottonwoods and speed-dial Donnato in Los Angeles, wanting him to know I am heading into an uncertain situation. The sky is clear and the clouds are white and racing — there should be good reception, but the screen says, No Service. Even Rooney Berwick isn’t perfect.

There’s a streambed and I stumble through it, thrashing up the other side. I cannot say I am a woods person; always seem to pick the route with the most thorns. But now I’ve hit a maze of dirt roads and the going is easier and the shots are nearer. Tall cottonwoods have given way to a wasteland of scrub manzanita, crossed by an overhead grid of high electric wires. I’m in some kind of power station. The air changes. Fetid. Septic. Flies are buzzing an overflowing garbage can of trash — beer bottles and a recently disposed-of diaper.

Coming around a curve, I see a new half-ton Silverado, obsidian black, parked at the edge of the clearing. Beside it are a beach chair and a picnic cooler, and an old-fashioned portable radio playing country music, which you can’t really hear over the exploding rounds. Straight ahead, his back to me, a white man of medium build is firing at silhouette targets on wire pulleys a hundred yards away.

The sleeves of his T-shirt are rolled up, James Dean — style, exposing gleaming muscles, and damn if he doesn’t have a pack of cigarettes tucked in the fold. Out near the tree line, below the targets, are some sorry shot- up benches and piles of broken glass and rusted debris accumulated over the years, where the locals have been having a grand time blasting the hell out of innocent objects, like a refrigerator. Amazingly, a posted sign declares we’re in a bird sanctuary.

I’m starting to get mad. Maybe it’s the diaper.

“Hold your fire, please. Would you mind holding fire? Do you know this is a wildlife sanctuary?” The man lowers the weapon and turns, squinting into the blinding sun.

“I ain’t botherin’ the birds.”

“You could, though,” I shout. “You could shoot one by accident. I just saw a bald eagle.” Okay, a heron. “You realize you can go to jail for killing an American bald eagle?” The rifleman says, “I think I know a target from a bird.” One hand shading his eyes, the man is peering at me with slow astonishment, as if I’d landed on his picnic table and swooped the hot dog off his plate.

“This land is protected! There are all kinds of life-forms here that shouldn’t be destroyed. That’s why we have laws, and why the signs are posted!” I am delivering the rap with a passion that does not come from playing the undercover role, but from a deeper shift in my awareness. Remembering how it feels to run my fingers over the sore spots on Sirocco’s back, I think maybe caring for another species is the most important thing that we can do. This is a new idea. Is it dangerous? Enlightened? Does it mean I am slipping over to the other side?

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, be smart, have sniper-level skills with a rifle, and endure an eighteen- day selection course of physical deprivation and mental hardship that makes undercover school look like a sunny day in Tahiti.

“Is being in Delta Force like the movies? Secret missions, all that jive?” “I don’t know about that. Delta Force was good to me, but right now, I’m going back to the only thing that makes sense, which is horses.” I watch him clean the weapon. He is meticulous, patiently running a bore brush and guide rod from the back of the barrel toward the front. That’s how the pros do it.

“You ask about cowboyin’?” he says, concentrating on the gun. “I’ll tell you what it is. It’s livin’ in some itty- bitty trailer on the back of someone’s property out near the dump, being treated like dirt, getting into a fight with