Free Mad Cow by J.A. Sutherland

Mad Cow
    “ T his is a bad idea , dude.”
    James squirmed in the extended cab pickup truck’s front seat, tapping his foot and sliding the heavy, black duffel bag on his thighs forward and back. He swallowed hard and looked at the driver, his best friend Frank. Frank remained impassive, eyes forward to watch the dirt road which was the only entrance to the large clearing. Around the space were heavy underbrush and tall trees, dark and foreboding, even under the light of the nearly full moon.
    “Relax, we’re fine.”
    “We’re not fine.” The weight of the bag on James’ lap seemed to force him into the seat. Fifty pounds. He knew exactly, because there’d been exactly ten five-pound bags of flour the pair had transferred to vacuum-sealed plastic that very afternoon. Fifty pounds, a bit over twenty-two kilograms, a quarter of a million dollars … if, that was, the bag had been full of something other than flour.
    Which the men behind the headlights he saw coming up the dirt road toward the clearing now expected.
    “We’ve done this before,” Frank said, straightening in his seat.
    “Not this much and not with them,” James answered quickly.
    Before it had always been much lower-level guys, guys James wasn’t entirely sure he and Frank couldn’t take on even if Frank’s hocus-pocus failed and the mark realized he’d been duped.
    James frowned. There were three individual headlights coming, not two — they were expecting two guys on bikes, no more.
    “It’s already going wrong,” he said, “there’s three of them.”
    Frank shrugged. “It’ll still be fine — the spell’s strong enough for three.”
    “Dude, you’ve read those books your grandfather left you, like, four times, and now you’re an expert?”
    “I read them enough — I know what I’m doing.”
    James wasn’t so sure, but the time to argue was now past, as the three men on motorcycles entered the clearing.
    Two of them circled the edges of the clearing, peering off into the woods while the third circled the truck, finally parking in front of it about thirty feet away. He got off his bike and removed his helmet as the other two bikers joined him.
    “Let’s go. Remember — stop a ways from them and toss the bag in the middle between us. We want them to open it.”
    “I know.” James opened his door as Frank did, wishing he’d stayed home tonight.
    The air outside was cool, but humid, the usual combination for a Washington State evening. Frogs and insects were already starting back with their conversations, assuming the rumble of the three bikes was what had stopped them to begin with. For all James knew, the three bikers used this clearing so often that the wildlife was used to them.
    He stopped when Frank did and immediately slung the duffel underhand into the space between him and the bikers. It hit the ground with a heavy thud .
    “We said two guys,” Frank called loudly.
    The biker who’d circled the truck looked at his buddies and then at Frank. He spread his hands.
    “Was that it?” He shook his head. “Man, I’m sorry. I thought you meant, like, I should bring two guys, not, like, there should only be two guys.”
    He smiled and James repressed the sudden urge to shudder. Actually, he repressed the sudden urge to turn and bolt, possibly giving Frank a little shove so he’d be between James and the biker, and thus the easier target. There was something about the biker’s smile — it wasn’t friendly, it was predatory. As though he was showing you the teeth you’d soon be feeling.
    “Well, okay, then, I guess,” Frank said. He sounded so calm that James wanted to grab him and shake him, screaming why couldn’t he see there was a problem here. Frank pointed at the duffel midway between the two groups. “Twenty-two kilos. You got the money?”
    The biker’s smile disappeared, replaced by a smirk that was no more comforting to James. He jerked his head and the biker on his left pulled a bag from the back of