Blake Crouch: Birds of Prey

A crusty-brown Buick sped down the dirt road toward him, rocking along on its shocks.

The Buick drew closer and closer, and for a moment, Donaldson thought it wasn’t going to stop, but then he heard the sound of its tires locking up.

The car skidded to a halt, ten feet from the front bumper of his sedan.

Its engine died and a cloud of dust and dirt swept over him.

Donaldson coughed, his eyes burning, and for a moment, he couldn’t see a thing.

A car door squeaked open and slammed.

Footsteps crunched in the dirt.

The first thing Donaldson saw was a pair of snakeskin boots, coated in dust, and then a pair of well-worn Wrangler jeans.

The customer was a bare-chested, bronze-skinned man.

Late-twenties.

Muscular and slim.

A well-proportioned face with a mop of short brown hair and bangs that hung in his eyes.

Tasty, Donaldson thought.

But at the same time, an element of this man was off.

There was something—familiar—in those piercing blue eyes. The way they flicked this way and that, focusing on Donaldson, behind him, the car, the road, back to him, taking in his whole body, head to foot. Donaldson felt like he, and everything around him, was under intense scrutiny. He recognized this, because he was doing the same thing. No one in the man’s car, no one on the road behind him, no apparent weapon bulge in his jeans, just a thumb tucked into his belt near his rear pocket.

Which is how Donaldson had his hand, because it was near his knife.

The man smiled. “Find the place all right?”

“You Miller?” Donaldson asked.

“That’s what the bill says, right?”

Donaldson wasn’t sure how he knew it, but he’d bet anything that this man’s name wasn’t Miller.

Donaldson spread his feet slightly, letting his soles dig into the dirt. A defensive stance.

“So, I believe everything’s been paid for?” the man said.

“Ain’t too often I get a delivery out in the middle of nowhere.”

“Well, this is the middle of nowhere. Beautiful, don’t you think?”

Miller, or whatever his name was, had the setting sun behind him. Another thing that gnawed at Donaldson, because it was an old combat trick.

“Your package is in the back seat, if you’d like to come on over and grab it.”

Miller said, “You drove this package all the way down from Montana. Now I paid good money for this delivery. So why don’t you get it out of the backseat and bring it to me?”

He kicked the ground with his black snakeskin boots, sent a twirling, mini-tornado of dust Donaldson’s way.

Donaldson smiled. “Yes, sir, right away, sir.”

Keeping one eye on Miller, he opened the door to his back seat and snatched up the cardboard box.

“I gotta say, driving with this package for so long, I’ve been dying to know what’s in it.”

“Dying, huh?”

Donaldson bumped the door shut with his hip, reaching around and grasping the knife in his back pocket.

“Any chance you’ll tell me what it is?” Donaldson asked.

“Maybe I’ll show you.”

Donaldson walked sideways, out of the sun’s glare. “Yeah. Maybe you will.”

Five paces away, Donaldson stopped.

Letting the knife fall from his palm into his hand, he thumbed the blade open.

Miller began to laugh. Which wasn’t the response Donaldson had been anticipating.

Two seconds later, he caught the joke.

Miller held a knife, too. Folder, with a serrated blade.

Hell, it looked like the same damn model as Donaldson’s.

“So, what are you planning on doing with that knife, fat man?” Miller asked.

“I was going to cut off little bits of your face and feed them to you. You?”

“Slice your medial collateral ligaments….you know the ones behind your knees? Then take you back to my place. I’ve got a shed filled with all sorts of goodies.”

“Nice. Stop me from running?”

“Stop you from doing any fucking moving at all. What’s your name?”

“Donaldson. What’s your real name?”

The man hesitated, just for a beat, and then said, “Orson.”

“I see you got some splashes of blood on your jeans, Orson. You reek of it, too. Was that one of your ligament specials?”

“Oh, no. Just a special friend I met last week in Casper. Or what’s left of him. Why don’t you put your knife back in your pocket, maybe I’ll do the same.”

Donaldson licked his lips.

They were so dry it was like running his tongue over sandpaper.

“I’ll make you a deal. I count to three, and we both drop our knives. One…two…three.”

Neither man dropped his knife.

Both men smiled.

Faint shadows moved across the desert floor in their general vicinity, and Orson must have noticed the break in Donaldson’s attention, because he said, “Buzzards.”

Donaldson ventured a quick glance up into them skies of blue, saw two shadows with massive wingspans circling high above.

“You think they know something we don’t?” Orson grinned.

“I think you and I are experiencing some trust issues, Orson.”

“Okay. Truth. I’m wondering if it would be more fun to disable you and take you back to the shed, or whether it wouldn’t be more fun for you and I to take a road trip down to Rock Springs, pick up some young ranch hand drunk off his ass at one of the watering holes, and bring him back up here for a few days of fun and games. You got anyplace special to be in the next week?”

“I’m still wondering what’s in this box.”

“Why don’t you do the honors?”

Donaldson couldn’t help but smile.

He cut the yellow tape with his knife.

“Careful now,” Orson said.

Donaldson drew his blade slowly across the box like an artist painting the finest line on virgin canvas. The top opened easily, and he withdrew a box constructed of some dark wood—walnut perhaps—with a masterfully-crafted ivory inlay.

Staring down at it made Donaldson feel both excited and a touch apprehensive.

He played his fingers across the top.

“No wonder you had it specially delivered. Ivory is illegal.”

“It gets better. Go on. Open it.”

Orson watched as Donaldson flipped the brass hasps and slowly opened the box.

Only when Donaldson’s eyes lit up, did he charge.

Five steps covered in the blink of an eye.

Driving his shoulders into the man’s stomach, scooping him up under his fat thighs, and slamming him to the desert floor.

Orson felt the breath rush out of Donaldson as he crushed the man’s knife hand under his knee, pinning it to the ground.

Then he grabbed his brand new toy from the velvet-lined interior of the walnut box.

The knife felt exquisite in his hand.

The ivory hilt was cool, and it fit perfectly to his grasp.

He touched the pristine, unblemished blade to Donaldson’s throat.

“Carbon steel. Three millimeters thick. I’m more than a little tempted to try it out on you, fat man. Ever heard a scream in the desert? The echo goes on forever. Should I show you?”

Donaldson grunted, his face pinched. “Sweet talk like that turns me on. How much was the blade?”

“Three hundred seventy-five dollars. Plus a very reasonable shipping fee.”

“Promise me something. If you let me live, let me know where you got it. I want one.”

Orson gazed down into the man’s eyes. There was fear there, sure, shining up through the chubby cheeks and the doughy fat. But something else, too. Something unexpected.

Excitement.

Maybe even arousal.

Orson sighed.

“What?” Donaldson asked. “Either shit or get off the pot, brother.”

“I don’t know, but this feels…wrong.”

“Wrong?” Donaldson shifted his bulk, giving Orson a bit of a bounce, reminding him, incongruously, of the first time he and Andy had ridden horses.