Samuel smiled at my words, and that was good, because I wanted him to think I was weakening. There was no way in God’s creation that I’d allow any of the punks to walk away from this, but while he saw a chance, and was mulling over his options, then there was still a way to save Jay. I caught her terrified gaze and offered a wink, which I followed with a dip of my chin. Comprehension registered in her features, and I only hoped she’d wait for the exact moment to act.
Samuel shook his head, the grin never leaving his face. ‘Like I said, I’m not afraid of going to jail. I’m not afraid of dying either, so there’s no deal you can strike that’s gonna make me let her go, other than what I already said.’
‘I’m not getting down on my knees for no one,’ I said. The gun I placed on the ground between my feet. ‘Now let her go.’
Samuel took another step back, hauling Jay along with him. He glanced through a gap between the boulders, no doubt seeking Carson. Jay was still watching me, and as Samuel’s gaze flicked away, I nodded. There was still the problem of Carson hearing the gunfire, so I left the gun exactly where it was, lunging towards Samuel even as Jay brought up the container of water and rammed the thick plastic base into her captor’s chin. There was little more than a litre of water in the bottle now, but whipped round at speed it was enough to add extra weight behind the smack of the bottle against his jaw. He let out a shout of surprise, his natural reaction to pull back, eyes screwed tight. At the same time, Jay twisted out of his grip and threw herself to the ground. Twenty feet had separated us, but I covered that in less than two seconds, launching myself through the air at Samuel before he’d recovered. As his eyes came open my fist was only inches from his nose, and no way could he avoid the blow. The impact rocketed up my arm all the way to my shoulder, but it had to have hurt him more. Not that it showed.
My lunge took me against him, and we both continued among the boulders. Samuel was off balance, and by virtue of the fact that I’d grabbed hold of his shirt with my free hand, so was I. He went down on his back, his head caroming off a rock, and I landed on top of him. He uttered a wordless grunt, but that was the only sign of discomfort. I hit him again, pulping his nose and mashing his lips against his teeth. Luckily I had landed with both my feet flat on the ground either side of his body, so I didn’t continue to tumble over him. I drew back my fist to strike him again.
Most others would have been stunned, maybe out of the fight altogether, but Samuel Logan was made of sterner stuff, or maybe his brutal mind refused to feel pain the way gentler souls did. He spat a mouthful of blood-laced saliva in my face, even as he reached for my throat with one hand and my cocked elbow with the other. His action forced me to draw my throat out of his clutch, but it also served to make me miss my next punch. Samuel came up, trying to get his hips beneath him. His arms swiped at mine, and this time he did get a grip on my elbow. His fingers dug for the ulnar nerve and a tingling pain shot the length of my forearm into my ring and pinky fingers. He also nipped at the radial nerve, intending to immobilise my arm, but we were beyond pain compliance techniques. Caught cold, or already beaten down, I’d have groaned in agony at the assault on my nervous system, but I was too fired up to be slowed by it now. I wrenched my arm free, then aimed an elbow into his face that knocked him sprawling under me.
He was a child of this desert. His heart was as barren of pity as the wasteland, and his flesh was forged of the same rock as its landscape. Or that was how it felt fighting him. Counting being whacked with the water container, he’d now taken four heavy shots directly to his face, but it wasn’t slowing him down. I contemplated going for the knife in my back pocket, but the thought was too fleeting to act upon, because he was already coming back at me, more furious now than before. He bellowed like a wild thing, bucked beneath me and I was sent flying off him. My left shoulder slammed the rocks, and I rebounded on to the trail. Smaller stones dug painfully into my knees as I scrambled up and turned to meet him.
‘Gonna make you sorry for that!’ he snapped as he came to his feet. I was only sorry I didn’t kill him when I first had the opportunity. ‘Go for it!’ I launched myself at him, throwing a knee into his chest. He rocked on his heels, but then came back swinging.
His punches were well aimed, and flashes of black edged my vision.
Samuel kicked at my gut, and I folded round his foot. The blow hadn’t landed cleanly, and I used the ruse to get in close. My headbutt cracked directly into his already smashed nose. Samuel grunted, but only at being caught out. I rammed my forehead into his face again, until he snapped out of it and almost took my throat out with a knife-hand slash. I danced back, then immediately launched in at him with a kick to his balls.
Shockingly, Samuel took the blow and wrapped me in his arms. A taller man’s ears would have been an open target for both my palms, but he was shorter than I and his head was jammed against my chest. I punched him in the skull, but couldn’t get the leverage for a full-on knockout blow. Samuel hauled me off my feet, spun me like a pro-wrestler and slammed me down on a boulder and almost separated my spine for me. He knew how to fight.
Once I had fought a giant of a man, and he’d manhandled me in a similar fashion, but on that occasion his sheer size had also been his weakness and I’d been able to kill the fucker using speed and mobility. But Samuel wasn’t hindered by size, and he was canny enough to keep his vulnerable targets well hidden while he pounded me with one hand. With my back bent tortuously over the boulder I wasn’t in the best position to fight back. His right hand drummed my ribs in a staccato beat, each exhalation of pain I emitted giving him encouragement to hit me again. At the edges of my vision danced blackness that had nothing at all to do with dehydration, and in reaction I struck back.
When caught in a life or death struggle it isn’t easy to control your bodily reactions: instinct takes over and both physical and psychological switches are thrown in order to help you survive. When your vision tunnels to a pinpoint, your hearing becomes a dulled hush, and your scrotum shrivels tight, you can forget about applying intricate combat manoeuvres. The only thing you’re capable of is the most gross of motor functions, those that include holding on and clubbing arm movements. It’s why so many fights that start on the feet end on the floor with both combatants doing little more than grip each other. So, Samuel wasn’t aiming to dig into nerve clusters now, he was only intent on smashing me to a pulp. I admit it: I was in the same place, and it was now a matter of who was going to land the most telling blow. For a second or two, my money was on Samuel Logan.
I was enshrouded in the red haze of battle, where only my enemy existed. I’d forgotten about saving the women, I’d forgotten about Jay and Carson or whoever might be bearing witness to our fight, I’d forgotten about the knife in my pocket, I’d forgotten about the heat and the rocks, and the entire world. Now all that mattered was someone was trying to kill me, and all I wanted to do was kill him first.
Even the crack of a revolver wasn’t enough to sway my mind; it was one more bang that rattled inside my ear canals along with all the others. Only when the gun barked a second time and Jay screamed real close in our ears did we struggle apart. I grabbed at Samuel, but he slipped beyond my fingers, and I ended up colliding with yet another boulder and almost finishing what Samuel had started. I didn’t exactly see stars, because the void I looked on for the briefest of moments was pitch-black. I yanked back from the brink of unconsciousness, blinking rapidly to clear my vision and gulping in air to my straining body. By the time my head was clear enough to make sense of what was going on, Jay was already past me and pursuing Samuel through the maze of boulders.