by Blake Crouch
He punched the gas.
The eddies of dust kicking up behind his rear tires looked like afterburners in the rays of fading sunlight. Ten more miles, and if he wasn’t there by then, he’d turn the hell around, and tell his boss the client was a no-show. Or maybe arrange for a pick-up in the nearest town. Might cut into some of the profit, but there was a little shit-kicker bar in Pinedale that Donaldson had passed through a few years ago, and he was certain he could pick up some little honey who wouldn’t be missed.
It had been three weeks since his last murder, and Donaldson was feeling the itch.
The sun was blinding in the rearview mirror.
Another scalding day in hell.
But he loved hell.
Through the windshield, he watched the Wind River range growing impossibly larger as he approached at forty-five miles per hour.
God, he couldn’t wait.
Three months ago, he’d placed the order.
Three. Long. Months.
He almost hadn’t sprung for it. $600 was half a month’s salary at Woodside College. Almost half of that was the delivery fee, due to the illegality of the contents. But this was worth it.
In the distance, he saw a cloud of dust.
That had to be his package.
Right on time, too.
He wondered how closely the delivery drivers of Failsafe Transportation were tracked.
It’d be so much fun to use what was coming on the driver. Bring him (or her) back to the shed. Getting rid of the car would be easy enough, though if the driver never showed back up for work, they’d probably trace them back to this western Wyoming desert. To his or her last delivery. But he’d paid with an anonymous money order and had used a false name. If a cop came to question him, he could simply play dumb. Say the driver never showed. But was it worth the risk? On the other hand, how often had someone actually driven themselves to him? Placed their life at his feet?
Never.
Definitely worth consideration.
Funny thing about the urge. Unlike a big meal, or even sex, where it would sustain you for a while, a good long murder session was more akin to a drug. Even though you’d just had some, you still wanted more. A better buzz. A longer high. For the party to go on and on and on.
The sun glinted off the chrome and glass of the approaching car, which was still a half mile out.
He checked his face in the mirror—still a few scratches from the previous night’s guest, but nothing too—
Shit.
He glanced down.
He’d forgotten to change, and the front of his tee-shirt was caked with day-old blood. It reeked, too, and not body odor reek.
Dead guy reek.
The sweet, rotting aroma of blood exposed to a hundred five degree heat.
He’d already driven three miles out from the cabin, but he wondered if he should go back, change into fresh clothes. Last thing he needed was to throw a red flag by smelling like decomp.
But chances were, the delivery driver had already seen him, or at least his dust trail.
Might follow him back to the cabin, and that would be a true disaster.
Fuck it.
He pulled his tee-shirt over his head and tossed it in the backseat.
He still stunk, but now it was just good old fashioned BO.
No crime in that.
When Donaldson saw the car approaching, he let his foot slide off the gas and brought his sedan to a stop. He sat for a moment, thinking.
If it’s a woman, maybe I’ll take her.
But the truth was, he wouldn’t really even have to take her anywhere. Could do her right here, out in the great wide open, under them skies of blue, just like the new Tom Petty song said. No one would hear her screams except him and the cacti.
Donaldson thought about the toolbox he had in the trunk. And the Polaroid. Supposedly the final rays of sunshine were considered the magic hour for photographers.
Donaldson had never seen how blood photographed in the twilight.
Okay, a woman, and she’s mine.
Or a man. If he’s okay-looking.
Donaldson fidgeted in his seat, watching the car approach.
Fuck it. As long as it’s human and has a pulse, I’ll take my shot.
He turned off the engine and climbed out into the blistering desert heat, patting the folding knife in his back pants pocket.
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.
&nb
sp; 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.
They’d been nine.
Sweet Andy. I still miss you, brother.
“Killing my own kind,” Orson finally said, “that’s what feels wrong.” But still he pushed the blade a few microns deeper into the flesh of Donaldson’s throat, imagined that last layer of skin beginning to split under the pressure of the blade. “How many like us do you think are wandering around out there?”
“More than you’d think.”
There was a snicking sound, metallic and unmistakable.
Orson felt something spear into his bare ribs.
He grinned.
“You had a second blade. Ankle holster?”
“Smaller than the one you have right now, but enough to puncture a lung. Ever seen a lung punctured?”
“Of course.”
Donaldson’s face softened. “I love that half-gasp, half-flapping sound.”
“I love the wet, gurgling noise of someone taking a deep breath while their lungs are filling up with blood.”
“I have an idea,” Donaldson said.
“Hit me.”
“We’re never gonna trust each other.”
“True.”
“And even if we become the best friends in the world, we’d probably always want to kill each other.”
“True.”
“Maybe it’s best we go our separate ways.”
Orson considered this. “Two lions passing each other in the dark?”
“Exactly. And we both live on to kill another day.”
“Or we could cut each other to shreds. Blaze of glory and all that.” Orson winced, feeling Donaldson’s blade nick his rib cage. “But separate ways sounds cool, too. I want to still be doing this when I’m seventy.”
A line of blood had begun to bead out across Donaldson’s throat, Orson wondering how much of the fat man’s head he’d be able to cut off before his lung collapsed, and if he could then make it into town to the hospital before he bled to death.
“Count of three,” Orson said. “And we disarm.”
“That didn’t work out so well the last time.”
“Second time’s a charm. One…two…three.”
Neither man so much as flinched.
“Why don’t you be the bigger man, Donaldson, and throw your knife away first? I am the customer, after all.”
“I’m not feeling that so much. How about you go first? As a gratuity for the one who carried your new toy so many miles to its new home.”
Dust swirled around them.
Out of the corner of his eye, Orson noticed a jackrabbit racing through the sagebrush.
“It gets awful cold out here when the sun drops,” Orson said. “Coyotes come out. Can I trust you?”
“Probably not. Be a helluva way to die, getting eaten by coyotes.”
