he'd rolled right into the big man's path. He reached for his bow but he appeared to have lost it in the fall.
The behemoth leant down and hoisted Robert above his head.
Knife. Go for your knife, he thought to himself, but as he reached for his belt he was thrown through the air.
Robert landed awkwardly this time, the air driven from his body by the impact. He shook his head, dazed, but he was given no chance to recover. Something was falling on him. At first his confused mind thought it was one of the trees toppling over; then he realised his attacker was dropping with all his weight behind him. Robert twisted out of the way at the last moment, as the big man flopped heavily onto the ground.
Robert staggered to his feet and adopted a defensive stance. The man suddenly reached out and grabbed his arm, swinging him around. He crashed up against the nearest tree. The edges of his vision began to blur but he managed to shake away the haze in time to see the big man charging with his shoulder raised. He was going to ram Robert. If he wasn't careful he'd end up being the filling in a very painful sandwich.
Robert twisted away just as the man rammed the trunk. The goliath cried out in agony and Robert could have sworn he heard the wood creaking as though the tree might collapse.
All I've done is make him angry, Robert thought as he again went for his knife. But even as he was sliding it out, his opponent was slapping it from his hand, leaving Robert with no way to defend himself… unless…
As the man came at him again, Robert ducked sideways and picked up a fallen branch. It was almost as tall as he was, and strong with it. He hefted it like a staff, jabbing at the bigger man who kept trying to wave it away.
Robert slammed the staff forward with both hands, but the man grabbed it and pulled. Bringing a knee up, he shoved it into Robert's stomach and flipped him over, losing his cap but gaining the staff. The man grinned.
It was his turn to jab at Robert, who snaked left and right to avoid the blows. Robert dropped and scrabbled around in the foliage. His fingers brushed another branch, not quite as big as the first, but beggars definitely couldn't be choosers. Robert snatched it up and met the man's blows, the stick almost splintering with the force. Wood smacked against wood and, suddenly, Robert spotted his chance. He lowered his weapon and struck the man's knee, causing it to buckle. Then he hooked the bigger staff with his own, flipping it out of his enemy's hands and catching it. Robert dropped the smaller branch and raised the huge staff. He was about to bring it crashing down on the man's head when 'Wait! Hold on, I know him.'
Mark came rushing out of the undergrowth towards them, hands flailing to stop Robert delivering the final blow.
'I told you to stay hidden back there,' Robert said.
'But now I can see his face,' Mark continued. 'I'd know him anywhere. And those moves.'
Robert cocked his head, looking from the boy to the giant. 'You know him?'
Mark nodded enthusiastically. The man on the ground, nursing his sore knee, looked just as mystified as Robert.
'Of course. Don't you?'
Robert studied the man's features – the curly hair, the goatee beard – but couldn't recall having ever seen them before.
'That's Jack 'The Hammer' Finlayson,' said Mark. 'You're Jack 'The Hammer' Finlayson!'
The man looked up at Mark, his eyes warming. 'Been a while since anyone called me by that name, kiddo.' There was a US accent, but it was blended with English, as if the man had lived on these shores for some time.
'Who?' asked Robert, genuinely confused. In the space of a few moments they'd gone from trying to kill each other to discussing the man's identity.
'What do you mean who? The Jack-Hammer – as in 'he'll hammer all comers into the floor'. Only one of the best wrestlers on the circuit!'
'Wrestler…?' But the more Robert thought about it, the more it made sense. The fighting techniques this Finlayson character had been using were very much in keeping with that particular sport.
'I saw tons of your matches, some on the sports channels, but my Dad used to take me to…' Mark let the sentence fall away, his brow furrowing. It was the first time Robert had heard him mention his parents, let alone his father. For some reason it hurt him just as much as it must have done Mark. The boy caught Robert looking at him and carried on, as if nothing had fazed him. 'You should have seen him against Bulldog Bramley at the Sheffield Arena, he tore that guy apart!'
'I always thought that stuff was faked,' Robert countered.
The wrestler sneered. 'Maybe in some places, but not when I was in the ring. Back then it was about as fake as the little tussle we've just had, fella.'
'So you can vouch for him?' Robert asked Mark.
'He signed me an autograph once, on the way back to the dressing rooms. They didn't all do that.'
'That doesn't mean a thing these days. Everything's changed.' But Robert could see now there was a kindness to Finlayson's face as he smiled at Mark – even though the guy probably didn't remember giving him that signature. Plus which, Robert was starting to get a feeling about him. It was the sort of judgement call he made all the time back when he was a policeman. The kind of instinct that had told him Granger was okay. Realising this, it made him even angrier to think he'd fought Finlayson. 'I could have really hurt you – that was a stupid thing to be doing, walking around in here.'
'Hey, you started it,' Finlayson pointed out. 'You were about to ventilate me, pal. Never heard of asking 'who goes there, friend or foe?''
Robert had to concede, he'd been ready to shoot the man just because he figured it was De Falaise who'd sent him.
'I'm sorry,' said Robert quietly. He stuck out his hand and the big man took it. Robert almost went down again when Finlayson used it to pull himself up.
'Thanks,' the large man said, brushing himself down and picking up his baseball cap. 'Hey, you know, you would've made a pretty decent go of it on the circuit yourself. I'm a bit out of shape, granted, but no one's given me a run for my money like that in quite a while.'
Robert was more than flattered by the comment. 'If Mark here says you're all right, that's good enough for me.' He caught Mark's chest swelling when he said this. 'Let's hear your story, Finlayson.'
Finlayson had grown up on the rural outskirts of upstate New York. 'It was too quiet there for me, man. And the winters were harsh.' He explained that his father would make him chop wood for the fire during those snowbound months, something that gave him a taste for exercise and honing his body. 'I began weight training before I hit eleven. Not with real weights, you understand – with anything I could get my hands on: engine parts, rocks, the wood I was choppin'. 'Course, I was also growin' some by then. My old Mom, God rest her soul, used to joke that I'd fallen from a beanstalk when I was a baby and her and Pop had adopted me.' It had been his father who'd taught him the basics of wrestling, one of the few pastimes they had out in the sticks. 'I remember the first time I beat him as well. The look on his face!' Finlayson laughed.
He'd begun to find rural life too stifling and, when he was old enough, Finlayson went in search of the great American dream. He wanted a taste of the bright city lights, so he got a job in a gym, mopping up at first in exchange for the use of their equipment. 'All kinds of people would train in there, footballers, boxers, wrestlers. It was those who interested me. I got talkin' to some of them and they suggested I should try out for some of the local matches, maybe even get a manager. I did all right over there, but I was a small fish in a very big pond.'
It was on a visit to the UK one summer as part of a tour that he fell in love with the country. 'Must have seen most of what there is to see of Britain, but I always loved this part especially. So, I decided to stay. Oh, they tried to get me to go back to the States, but over here I could actually be someone – perhaps not on the scale of those WWE big shots, but in my own way I'd be recognised.' Finlayson smiled again at Mark, who grinned back. 'I carried on doing the circuits for several years, places like Lincoln, York, Leeds, Doncaster, Manchester, and closer to home in Nottingham and Sheffield, which is I guess where you caught up with me, huh kiddo?'
Mark nodded.
'Quite a few of those matches were televised, as well. I used to send tapes to my Pop. I think he was proud of what I was doing. Towards the end though I began to think: what am I getting in there, getting myself all banged up for? Counting the bruises at weekends, having to visit the doc more and more often. That's when I began to pull back from it all a bit.'
