He took a step back as his opponent swung like a rope, bringing the blade across Richard’s right upper thigh, cutting through his jeans and deep into the flesh. Richard gasped, having never felt that much pain.
“Big trees fall hard,” was the first thing his opponent said, catching him on the same side calf with another slice.
Richard screamed out in pain and stumbled back, with his head spinning and feeling faint. The crowd on both sides was yelling so loudly that neither opponent could make out what was being chanted. He fell back hard onto the dusty arena floor. Both men looked at each other, crippled and broken.
Richard’s man, not wanting to get into a grappling war with his opponent, threw the knife in a last-ditch effort, spinning over and over and careening handle-side off of Richard’s head with a thud, opening a large gash and landing another ten feet behind him. “No more swords,” said Richard, smiling as best he could through the pain. “Just me and you on the ground. You’re in my house now.”
Richard began to crawl on his hands as his opponent shimmied away, dragging both legs.
“Run him down! Run him down!” called out the crowd. “Run him down!” they cried, stomping their feet and raising fists into the air. The twenty-year-old bleachers creaked and moaned under the weight of the crowd. Most didn’t seem to notice or care.
“Look at that!” said James to Jason. “Their energy, fear and rage are making a mob mentality out of the lot of them… Wait a minute!” he said, as he fixed his sight on a woman bursting down the bleachers’ side stairs with her three children, followed by more people on all sides. “What’s going on?”
Snap! Screams came from the far-left bleachers. James and Sheriff Johnson looked up to see the crowd falling into the middle of the bleachers from both sides, dropping like a high-rise building detonated precisely so as not to cause any damage to other structures around it.
“Oh, no!” shouted James, getting caught up in the sea of spectators around him headed towards the sounds.
Richard’s attention was diverted, and he wondered if the fight was over, as his opponent dragged himself lightning fast around and behind him.
“Got you now, big guy,” he called out, wrapping his right arm around Richard’s throat. He let out a war cry, drowned out by the large crowd running to help their fellow townspeople.
Richard buckled and gurgled as his rival laid him on his back. It took longer than the last time he had done this, since he had no use of his legs to secure the bear of a man. But after three minutes it was done.
“So, what do I get?” he asked the deputy, still laying in the dirt. “Some kind of reward? Maybe a medal or…I know! How about a Key to the City, presented by the Mayor himself?”
“I’ll send the Sheriff over. Don’t go anywhere.”
The deputy headed over to Sheriff Johnson, amidst the chaos.
“Get Doc Walters and any other medical people here now!” said the Sheriff, out of breath. “Are they done?” he asked the deputy.
“Yeah, the big guy went down hard. The other is asking about some prizes, like a Key to the City.”
“Figures,” replied Sheriff Johnson. “I’ll take it from here. Be right back. You get the medics.”
“Sheriff,” said the last man standing, or lying. “I’m going to need some help over...”
Sheriff Johnson pulled his pistol without a word and shot him in the forehead. “And one for you, big guy,” he added, as he pulled the trigger.
No one seemed to notice, with the chaos going on—no one but James.
* * * *
“All hands on deck!” called out the Sheriff to his deputies, medical personnel, and citizens he directed to check on the injured.
The following weeks would be filled with quiet conversations, both indoors and out, about what really happened that night.
James sent word with Jason that they wouldn’t be joining the family for dinner. The restaurant owner carefully packed a prepaid dinner for eight into travel containers with a sincere “I’m-so-sorry-you-couldn’t-stay” speech.
“Me, too,” replied Janice. “It’s just so sad about those people,” she added, as they walked outside and headed home.
* * * *
Jason returned to join James. “I need you both here,” said the Sheriff to James and Jason. “I’ll drop you guys off at your ranch when we’re done for the night.”
“What do we know, Doc?” asked the Sheriff two hours later.
Doctor Walters sighed.
“Your motorcycle man is awake and talking some. He re-broke two ribs, along with his right scapula—the shoulder blade,” he replied, sensing the Sheriff’s confusion. “Anyway, he should recover fully, but we will know more in the coming days. He got a boxer’s lump on his forehead somehow,” he added, being careful to use common language with the Sheriff, “but it’s improving.”
“Yeah, I saw one of those on George Foreman, the boxer and grill guy. Can’t remember the fight, but the lump over his eye was baseball-sized and he recovered okay,” replied the Sheriff.
“We have 52 citizens from the bleacher incident that have passed through here or are waiting to be seen,” Doc Walters continued.
“How many dead?” asked James, standing next to them both.
“Fourteen—six of them under age ten, and seven or eight more that could go either way in the next day or two.”
“Oh, my god!” said Jason, gasping at the news.
“The others are not so bad. A few broken bones, cuts and bruises,” added the doctor. “Except for the other two.”
“What other two?” asked Sheriff Johnson, having a good idea of the answer.
“Your fighters, the gladiators, one with a bullet to the head.”
“Well, there’s that. Let’s keep that between us. Understood?” said the Sheriff.
“Yes, of course, sir. My job isn’t to question how they died, just to save them if I can, and those two are beyond that… Well, I had better be getting back to my patients,” he replied as he turned to leave.
“Doc Walters!” the Sheriff called
