“What d’ya want? I’m askin’ again.”
“I told you—me and my friends wanna join up for the duration,” Rourke told him.
“You’re as good as any three of us, huh?” the bigger man said, a smile crossing his lips.
Rourke smiled back, nodding, the cigar now just a stump in the left corner of his mouth. “Easy.” Rourke glanced toward the growing knot of brigands and their women collecting perhaps a yard behind the pickup’s tailgate. He could see the warning look in Natalie’s eyes, the worry written across Paul Rubenstein’s sweat-dripping face.
Then, in a loud voice, the man shouted, “This man is named Rourke—he claims he’s some kinda lousy professional—as good as any three of us. I need two men to help me show him different!” More than a dozen men, as big at least as the brigand standing inches away from Rourke, stepped out of the knot of onlookers. “You, ahh, you wanna pick ’em?” the brigand said, smiling.
“You the head honcho around here?” Rourke asked.
“Yeah—I’m the leader—you backin’ out?”
“No, no—nothin’ like that,” Rourke said softly. “I was just wonderin’ if you had your replacement picked yet.”
“Bite my—”
“Not in front of the lady,” Rourke said, gesturing with the CAR-15.
Loud again, so all the brigands could hear, apparently, the brigand leader shouted, “If Rourke wins, he and his people can join us and we let all them over there go and everythin’,” and the brigand leader pointed toward the townspeople, visibly cringing now, some of the children crying out loud. “But if he don’t,” the brigand shouted then, “we kill him and the other guy and the little piece they got with ’em—after we all have some fun with her first, huh?” There was some laughter by the men who’d stepped forward for the contest, and from the crowd behind them as well.
“You pickin’ them or me?” Rourke said.
“Hey—I’ll pick,” the brigand leader laughed, gesturing broadly with his outstretched hands.
Moisture was already falling on Rourke’s hands and face, thunder rumbling in the sky off to his left, what sunlight there had been fading and replaced by a greenish glow that seemed to be in the air, something he felt he could almost reach out and touch. “Be quick about it, huh,” Rourke said. “I don’t feel like standin’ around in the rain all day waitin’ for you—guns, knives, what?”
The brigand leader looked at Rourke, his eyes traveling up and down, then said, “We fight barehanded—Taco, Kleiger—up here—everybody back off and give us some room!”
“What’s your name—don’t like fightin’ somebody if I don’t know his name.”
“Mike.”
“I’ve got a son named Michael—he’s tougher than you, though,” Rourke smiled.
The brigand leader backed away, slipping the shoulder rig off his chest and wrapping the strap around it, then handing the holstered .45 and the riot shotgun into the crowd.
Rourke flipped the safety on the CAR-15 rasped, “Natalie!” and tossed the gun across the six feet or so separating them. The girl caught it in both hands, moving the sling onto her right shoulder and then diagonally across her body, the pistol grip settling in her comparatively tiny right fist. Rourke could hear the safety clicking off. He slipped off the shoulder rig, and both guns together, he handed it across the roof of the pickup cab to Rubenstein. “If I die, I’ll will ’em to you,” Rourke whispered to Rubenstein.
Already, the brigand leader—Mike—was stripping the denim shirt from his body, the muscles on his arms and chest and neck wet with sweat, rippling even in the greenish light that now seemed heavy on the air itself. Thunder was rumbling low, and the rain was now starting to dot the dust of the burnt-dry football field with dark spots, the smell of the air somehow fresher and cooler.
Rourke stripped off his own light blue shirt, palming the Sting IA and dropping it in his jeans pocket. The girl reached out her left hand and took the shirt.
Rourke walked forward, away from the truck, joining the three brigands already waiting for him, his moving close to them completing a ragged circle.
The brigand leader, his eyes bright and laughing, shouted, “Kleiger here, he used to be an instructor in unarmed combat in the Marine Corps a few years back. Now Taco is kind of special—made his living ever since he was a kid as a bar fighter down in Mexico. See all them scars? Me, I did time once for killing a man once with my hands—I just crushed his skull with ’em.”
“Well,” Rourke said softly, “then I’ll try and make you fellas look good so you don’t get too embarrassed by all of this.”
“Get him!” Mike roared, and the wiry guy called Taco, and then Kleiger—bigger than the brigand leader—started forward, slow, unhurried, relaxed looking. Rourke waited. Kleiger started feigning a low savate kick, then wheeled, his left fist flashing outward, but already Rourke had sidestepped, wheeling, his left foot cutting in low, catching Kleiger on the right side and knocking him off balance. Rourke sidestepped again, a solid right coming at him from the one called Taco. The blow glanced off the side of Rourke’s head, stunning him, driving him back. As Taco followed with a left hook, Rourke blocked it with his right, smashing his own left in a short-arm blow to the solar plexus, then crossing his right into the left side of Taco’s nose, following with his left foot into Taco’s crotch, the foot arched and hammering in with the force of a brick through a mirror. Out of the corner of his eye, Rourke could see Kleiger, back on balance and roaring toward him. Rourke wheeled, feigning another low kick, then sidestepped fast to his left, lashing out with his right then his left hand, hammering into Kleiger’s face and neck. As Kleiger stumbled back, the brigand leader, Mike, dove toward Rourke, knocking Rourke back and of his feet, the man’s huge hands going for Rourke’s neck, his right knee smashing upward, hammering against Rourke’s right thigh, going for Rourke’s crotch. Rourke hooked his right thumb in the left corner of Mike’s mouth and ripped. As Mike’s head started pulling away, Rourke freed his left fist and crossed Mike’s jaw with a short jab, rolled away and hauled himself to his feet, punching a short knee raise upward into the doubled-over Mike’s jaw, then smashing the toe of his right combat boot forward into the brigand leader’s teeth. Rourke’s right hand held the man by the hair.
Kleiger was starting for Rourke again, and Rourk stepped back. Taco was up, his nose a mass of blood streaming down over his mouth and onto his naked sweating chest. Both men edged slowly toward Rourke, Kleiger making his move then and starting wheeling series of punches and kicks. Rourke backed off from the first series, then stepped forward blocking a side-hammer blow from Kleiger’s left then smashing his own left down into the exposed left kidney, then jamming his left foot upward into Kleiger’s crotch, his left hand in a straight-edge classic karate chop slashing across the left side of Kleiger’s neck and knocking him away, Kleige collapsing forward to the ground on his face.
But Taco was already coming at Rourke, his left fist flying outward and Rourke got a half-step back before Taco’s fist impacted against his jaw. Rourke head snapped back, Taco’s right crossing up toward his face, and Rourke dodged it, almost whispering so Taco alone could hear him, “You know how some guys—” Rourke panted, “how some guys have a glass jaw—me, I’m just the opposite.” Taco’s left flashed forward again and Rourke let it come, dodging his head right just before impact, feeling the rush of air as the bloodied knuckles passed his face, then straight-arming Taco with his own left fist, then crossing with his right, then his left, then his right, hammering the brigand back, forcing him to his knees, then feigning a low right, but instead, hammering up with his right knee, catching Taco on the tip of the chin and snapping the head and neck back with an audible crack.
Rourke stepped away as Mike climbed to his feet, his lower lip split wide, blood and teeth spitting from his mouth as he tried to stand. Rourke lashed out with his left foot, catching Mike square in the face over the nose and driving him back to the ground.
Rourke wheeled, feeling, sensing rather than seeing or hearing, Kleiger coming for him. It was too late to step away, and as Kleiger’s right foot punched toward Rourke’s crotch, Rourke blocked the blow with both hands crossed in front of him, the scissor formed by his wrists and forearms taking its force. Kleiger’s right heel of the hand was driving up for Rourke’s nose, and Rourke wheeled, his left elbow coming up and knocking the blow aside, then his left hand snapping back and downward into the side of Kleiger’s neck, Rourke’s right already drawn back and driving forward, the middle knuckles of the hand bunched together and hammering into the base of Kleiger’s nose, and rather than driving the bone upward into the brain, withdrawing, snapping back, leaving Kleiger stunned, reeling, no guard to block the series of short left jabs Rourke hammered now toward Kleiger’s jaw. As Kleiger stumbled, Rourke crossed Kleiger’s jaw with a go-for-broke right and the man fell, straight back, stiff, his head snapping hard against the dirt of the field, bouncing a little.