“ He hit me, just like he used to.” Now the tears were gushing. “He tore off my clothes and just forced me.”
Who he?
“ You knew what he was like,” Cimarron said, his voice devoid of emotion. “You told me yourself. Whatever possessed you to let him get close?”
It couldn’t be me they were talking about.
“ I don’t know, Simmy. I thought he’d changed. He made promises to me. Oh, I feel so stupid, so filthy…”
So ashamed. She left that one out.
“ Wait a second!” I turned to Jo Jo. “I don’t know what game you two are playing. Maybe you get your kicks this way, but I don’t. Now, tell Wyatt Earp the truth. Tell him why I came here.”
“ Jake wanted to take me back to Miami. He wanted me to leave you and go back with him, but I wouldn’t, Simmy, and he became enraged. He hit me and called me names, and then he…”
“ This is crazy!” I shouted. “You’re both crazy. Every which way I turn, I get set up. Jo Jo, what the hell are you doing?”
“ Shut up, lawyer.” Cimarron’s expression hadn’t changed, and his voice had a touch of sorrow, of sad inevitability. “My woman goes out to the barn to polish up her saddle, and she doesn’t come back. I mosey over, and I find you. First, you steal from me. Then you trespass on my land, and now you violate my woman.”
He seemed to think about it a moment, then began speaking again, even softer, as if discussing an idea with himself. “No one could blame me. No, it would be understandable. I warned you. I told you what I would do, and you flouted me. My woman on my own property. How much can a man take?” He turned to face me head-on, his eyes drilling me. “I’m going to inflict some pain on you, partner, and when I’m done with you, there won’t be enough left for a buzzard’s midnight snack.”
He moved toward me, slowly, methodically, with a sense of purpose. No excitement, no urgency, no flooding emotions to drain energy and detract from the business at hand. With his bushy mustache and bare chest and belly bulging over long pants, he reminded me of one of those bare-knuckled fighters of a century ago.
I put my arms up in a defensive mode, remembering the last time with Cimarron. At least now, I had my clothes on. “She’s making a fool out of you, Cimarron.”
“ Now why would she do that, lawyer?”
I didn’t know.
He stayed an arm’s length away and threw two quick left jabs. They bounced off my shoulder, but not without reminders they’d been there. I feinted with a left and threw a straight right hand that he blocked with his left forearm, and it hurt me more than it did him, my supposedly healed knuckles flaring with pain.
He was a bigger, stronger man with a longer reach. Usually, that was me. I would have to maintain space- the outfighting range-then come right at him with direct frontal attacks. A tall, powerful fighter concentrates on offense and doesn’t worry about defense. He uses the reach advantage to work over the opponent from a safe distance. A shorter, smaller fighter needs to in fight, defend, and counterattack by shortening the offensive space and lengthening the defensive space.
He came at me again, and I sidestepped, glancing a left off his temple as he came by me. I fought the urge to throw a combination and waited for a chance to counterattack. I didn’t have long to wait.
He turned and came back squarely. I spun around to get more room behind me and retreated in the peacock style of kung fu. Cimarron lunged at me with a looping left, the weakest punch he had thrown, and I stepped inside and peppered him above the eye with a right and then a left hook aimed at his chin that caught him on the neck.
I jumped back again and let him advance.
“ Chicken shit,” he called out. “What’s the matter, you afraid?”
“ Go fuck a sheep.” My wit knows no bounds.
This time, he stayed out of my range, feinted a left, and shot a foot at my groin. It lacked the speed of the Mae kekomi front thrust kick, and I avoided it by taking a step backward. He nearly lost his balance, and I was tempted to step forward, but I resisted, and he caught himself, cursed, and came at me again while I circled, keeping him from pinning me against a wall.
He tried another kick, this one shorter. I was in a praying mantis defense, and I hooked his heel and spun him off his feet. He landed with a thud on the wooden plank floor, and again, I fought the urge to attack. Get tangled up wrestling on the floor with him, and I wouldn’t have a chance.
He got up and approached me warily. This time I was holding my own. I had hung around enough gyms to pick up the odds and ends of the manly art of self-defense, and at the moment, I was using the womanly art of Wing Chun. It’s designed to help a woman fend off a man, and I wasn’t so full of machismo that I missed its relevance here. The object is to wear down a larger attacker by making him miss. My strategy was to infuriate him, make him lose his patience. At the same time, I was testing his endurance. With him chasing me, throwing punches would deplete him.
There’s an analogy in the animal kingdom. A stork attacks a snake with its beak, but the snake darts away, then lunges for the stork’s head. The stork deflects the counterattack with its wing, and the whole process starts again. Whoever wears out first will likely lose an eye or suffer a fatal bite. If both are exhausted, they withdraw and live to fight another day.
Right now, a draw sounded just fine. I had come here, adrenaline flowing, wanting to inflict serious damage. I had felt strong, my confidence fueled by virtuous anger. Now, I was merely defending myself, having been wrongfully accused. The power of righteousness resided in K. C. Cimarron’s meaty fists.
This time, he faked the kick, and I dropped a hand to deflect a foot that never came. He hooked me in the ribs, either with his right fist or a sledgehammer, I couldn’t tell which. I used my right hand as a claw, the kumade in karate. I went for his eyes and ended up sticking two fingers in his nose. I was too close inside, and he wrapped his left arm around my head. He cocked his right hand to smash me in the face, and I pulled back with all my strength, flexing my knees, twisting my torso, trying to break free. My movement threw him off, and his punch landed on my forehead, but he never let go.
We moved like that, back and forth across the loft, a couple of drunken sailors trying to dance. He was puffing hard now. Big, but not in shape. I caught the whiff of sour mash whiskey on his pained breaths. As we struggled in each other’s grip, feet scuffling along the wooden floor, I found a point of leverage, planted my feet, pivoted a hip and swung him backward into the wall. His head thunked off a wooden plank, causing more damage to the wood than his skull. When he came off the wall, his knees seemed to buckle, and I went at him.
Mistake.
He was playing possum. I threw a left, which he ducked, and then he came inside and doubled me over with a short right to the gut. I gasped and he moved behind me, slipping an arm under my chin and across my neck. I flailed away at him, but caught only air, and his grip tightened, squeezing off my air.
Still choking me, he slammed me headfirst into the wall. This time, the plank cracked, or maybe it was my skull. I heard Jo Jo screaming. “No, Simmy! You’ll kill him! Don’t!”
How thoughtful.
How considerate.
How late.
I was about to black out, but just then the pressure eased around my neck. I opened my eyes, but I was dizzy, and Kit Carson Cimarron seemed to be spinning around me. I lifted an arm to fend him off, and he grabbed me by the wrist, twisted it behind my back and spun me into the wall again. This time, I hit it with my full weight, and the plank tore loose and fell to the ground outside. I am wider than the plank, or I would have gone with it, which would have been fine with me.
I bounced off the wall, and he grabbed me by the same wrist, twisted it behind my back again, and whipped me the other wav where I smacked into a wooden railing that looked over the stalls. Maybe the railing had termites, or maybe the equation of my mass times my velocity was too much energy for the old wood. Whatever the reason, the railing split and I fell through open space.
I landed with a thud on a thousand pounds of Appaloosa. It was moving, and making noise, and I slid to the floor, where it stepped on me and kicked me. I covered my head with my arms, and rolled over, spitting out blood and dirt and straw, trying to focus my eyes. Above me, half a ton of horseflesh was baring its teeth, stomping its
