Astride a Pink Horse Read Free Page B

antenna. The Colorado tags. Pretty much says it all. We’ve got us an outta-state newshound lookin’ for a story.”
    By the time Cozy Coseia worked his way from the highway shoulder, through sagebrush and timothy hay up to his knees, and to the open north gate of Tango-11, Wally Sykes was waiting for him.
    “Afraid this area is off-limits to visitors today,” Sykes said authoritatively.
    Slightly winded and limping, Cozy reached into the right-hand pocket of his jeans for his press credential. As he did, Sykes’s left hand moved casually to the butt of his .44.
    Quickly closing the gap between Cozy and Sykes and thinking that his new deputy was going to need a little schooling on when it was appropriate to reach for one’s service weapon, Sheriff Bosack, who with Major Cameron had been examining the charred “A-Plug” hatch cover, called out to Cozy, “What can I help you with, bud?”
    Surveying the Tango-11 compound slowly and holding up his press credential for the sheriff to see, Cozy said, “Heard you’ve had some trouble out here today.”
    Without answering, the sheriff examined the press credential, then looked Cozy up and down. He had no doubt that the gangly visitor in aviator sunglasses had been watching their every move throughbinoculars for a good ten minutes before coming to join them, and Bosack didn’t particularly like being scrutinized from a distance.
    Ignoring the sheriff’s silence and still taking in every inch of the compound, Cozy nodded toward where the coroner and Bernadette Cameron were kneeling. “Looks like you’ve got yourself a dead man on your hands,” he said, taking special note of the air force officer’s presence.
    Realizing that from where he stood, Cozy couldn’t tell whether the body was that of a man or a woman and thinking,
Good ploy
, the sheriff said, “We’re attendin’ to official police business here, Mr. Coseia. The press will get a briefing later.” He glanced toward Cozy’s truck. “See you’re outta Colorado.”
    “Denver. But like they say, bad news travels fast,” Cozy said, thinking that Freddy Dames’s southern Wyoming “information scouts,” a trio of nosy, aging Vietnam vets whom Cozy had always considered no more than overpaid police scanner eavesdroppers, had finally earned their keep.
    Still staring at the press credential, the sheriff said, “Digital Registry News. Hmm. Web-based outfit, I take it.”
    “Yep. Regional news for the Rockies.”
    “Great slogan,” the sheriff said sarcastically. “But I think you’d better move on. I’ll have Deputy Sykes here walk you back to your vehicle.”
    Cozy removed his sunglasses and tried to stare the deputy down.
    When the sheriff said with authority, “Please show Mr. Coseia back to his truck, Wally,” Sykes broke into a broad, eager-to-please grin. Waving Cozy ahead of him, he said, “Think you better move it, Coseia.”
    Watching the two men turn and head for the truck, the sheriff found himself wondering whether the curly-headed, hazel-eyed reporter with nut-brown skin was American Indian, Cuban, or perhaps maybe even Colombian. Whatever his heritage, he seemed to the sheriff to have the instincts of not simply a reporter but a lawman, and that bothered him. In the time they’d talked, he’d watched Coseia size up the compound, the dead man, the coroner, and Major Cameron. There was something else about Coseia that bothered the sheriff. Something small but troubling. He’d never liked sparring with a man with whiskey-colored eyes.
    There was one thing Coseia hadn’t been able to hide, however: his very noticeable limp. As he made his way back to his truck, the limp became even more pronounced.
    As the sheriff watched Cozy slip into his dually, he had the sense that Elgin Coseia was a man for whom hiding things was important—his eyes, that limp, and other things, more than likely. With his attention still focused on Coseia, the sheriff hardly heard Major Cameron walk up beside