CHAPTER 10- THE FIGHT

"Throw it to me!"

The angry voice was directed at Jack, who kept his weapon pointed at the man who was holding Thatch. The man had stepped away slowly until his back was up against a table and he was ten feet from Jack.

"I told you. I am not going to give you my weapon," Jack said firmly. "You need to put down my son."

"I'll cut him!" the man threatened.

"Don't be stupid. If you hurt him, I shoot you dead. No doubt about it. No hesitation."

Jack made it perfectly clear that his role as a father surpassed any role as a law enforcement officer. "Now, let's handle this reasonably. Give me my boy."

"For the gun."

"I'll empty the chamber but I am not going to give it to you."

Bert scowled at Jack's statement. The two men stared at each other. Neither one willing to concede.

"Da Da", Thatch cried out as he looked towards his father to come get him.

"He's just a little boy. You have no fight with him. Let him go", Jack tried to reason.

The killer seemed to think about it for a moment. Trying to figure out his best chance of getting out of this situation as Thatch began fussing in his arms.

The small boy wriggled to get away from the killer. He stretched his little limbs towards Elizabeth and called in vain for her to come get him. "Mama." But it did him no good.

Elizabeth, her heart plummeting, remained motionless as she watched the horrible scene unfold.

"Empty it!" Bert demanded with a nod toward Jack's gun.

"My son", Jack countered.

"First, the gun gets emptied", the man ordered.

"Carefully", he added as Jack slowly opened up the chamber to his weapon. He tilted the gun and allowed the bullets to drop to the floor. One after another they made a clinking sound as they landed.

Thatch watched the bullets fall. Listening to the sound as they hit the floorboards. He was never allowed to go near the object in his father's hands. Much like the bee and the snake, the metal object with the small pieces was one of the few things he had been firmly told never to go near.

"Kick it away from you."

Jack obeyed the command. Slowly bending down and setting his service revolver on the ground before giving it a good kick. The weapon went skidding across the floor until it came to stop when it hit a table leg far away from both men.

Thatch, who had momentarily stopped fretting as he had watched the metal object skid across the floor, now became anxious again as his father- who must have clearly noticed that his son's arms were outstretched towards him– was not taking him from this other man's tight grasp.

"Now let my son go," Jack instructed. "I don't have a weapon. You can walk out of here. Just let him go."

"Da Da", Thatch whimpered but his father didn't make a move towards him.

"He's coming with me," the killer announced. "I'm going to take him for awhile. Just until I'm safe. I'll leave him somewhere for you." He gave a wry laugh. "You said that you're a Mountie. You'll be able to find him."

"I'm not going to let you do that," Jack said calmly. "Set him down and move away from him now and you won't be hurt. Make a move to take him with you, and you'll regret it."

The broad-shouldered man scoffed. At six-foot three inches and two hundred and forty pounds, he was used to getting his way. He had left his weapon in his hotel room to avoid calling unwanted attention to himself and because he didn't think that he needed it. Few people were willing to mess with a man of his size. Those that did usually regretted it. Or were dead and, therefore, unable to regret it.

Thatch didn't like anything about this situation. He strained to get out of the unwanted arm but the man held him even tighter. Squishing his little body into the man's thick torso.

"Da Da", the boy called out again in a pitifully sad voice but his father didn't look at him.

The killer, who continued to hold the broken glass dangerously close to Thatch's neck, sneered at Jack and then pressed the jagged shard against the toddler's skin. "Get out of my way."

"No. We had a deal."

The killer laughed. "Make a deal with the devil, and you'll always lose."

Elizabeth had no idea how Jack was able to remain calm when she wanted to scream, to throw things, to attack the man. To go back in time and never come to this town. Never enter this restaurant.

"Mama", Thatch desperately appealed to her. Thinking at least one of his parents still wanted him.

"Thatch, I need you to be still. Mommy needs you not to move. Don't move, baby", Elizabeth directed her son. She clenched her fists in an attempt to try to calm herself. She knew Jack was right. They needed to remain calm.

The small boy tried to obey his mother but it was too much. He had handled his encounter with a snake, living for days in an abandoned shack, and riding a horse for hours, but this was too much.

Neither one of his parents was coming to hold him.

His lips quivered, and quiet tears began to roll down his cheeks.

Elizabeth naively wondered if a mother's plea might convince the man not to hurt the precious boy. That maybe if she just begged him to let her son go, he would. He must have a mother of his own and understand the pain he was causing.

For a split second, the plea was on her tongue but before it reached her lips, she remembered that this was the killer who had shot one man face-to-face, and the other in the back as he ran. Both men had probably begged for their lives.

The man was barking orders at him, but Jack barely paid attention to the words. He had no intention of complying. Instead, he was judging.

Judging his distance to the man. The height of the man. The size of his neck. The area of his shoulder. The distance from his son to the man's neck.

Jack's hand went slowly to the table behind him. He kept his eyes on the man. Never breaking the gaze as his fingers blindly found what he was looking for.

Elizabeth noticed the slight movement of Jack's hand. Her heart seemed to catch in her throat because in that moment she realized what he was going to do.

"Da Da", Thatch cried out one more time, but Jack ignored his son's sorrowful plea.

An agitated Bert carelessly lowered the large fragment of glass from the boy's neck so he could shift the crying child in his arms.

Jack saw his opportunity and moved his arm.

Whoosh

It happened so quickly that the other man didn't know what actually had happened.

He felt it but still didn't comprehend what had just occurred. Looking downwards, he saw the handle of the steak knife embedded in his neck. Blood was already seeping from the wound. Landing in drops and staining his shirt.

Before Bert could react, Jack rushed him and wrenched Thatch out from under the man's arm. Knocking the killer to the ground.

Jack practically threw Thatch into the arms of Elizabeth, who had sprinted forward. He wanted his son away from the killer as fast as possible and couldn't be concerned with being overly gentle. She caught the boy and clutched him to her chest. One hand behind his head as she protectively pressed him to her body.

The killer refused to give up without a fight even with a knife in his neck. Ignoring the pain, he yanked it out of his flesh and gratefully realized that it must have missed a major vein.

Unfortunately for Jack, the man was right; the steak knife which Jack had thrown with the precision honed from hunting squirrel, had missed the jugular. While it had caused injury, it wasn't incapacitating. At least not yet. The murderer grabbed Jack by the leg, pulling him down.

As Jack's shoulder hit the ground, the killer raised the blade, intending to thrust into the chest of the irritating Mountie.

A slice opened up in Jack's forearm as he blocked the attack to his torso and sent the knife flying from the man's grasp and disappearing from their view.

Bert, with blood dripping from his wounded neck, scrambled to his feet. His large-sized boots slipped on the mixture of alcohol, blood, and sweat which now glossed the floor beneath him. Before he could get to the doorway, Jack was on him.

Jack had years of living on a ranch and spending time in the outdoors, his Mountie training, and the primitive instinct to protect his family. But he was facing a killer who had four inches more in height, at least sixty pounds more in weight, and a strong desire to avoid the hangman's noose of Canada's judicial system.

The men traded blows while the patrons either sprinted from the room or remained hidden. When the man landed a punch in Jack's side, he was pretty sure that a rib was damaged. Another punch caught Jack off guard and he barely managed to grab the back of a chair to keep from falling.

He pounded his fist into the killer's torso. Hoping to cause some damage to the organs or bones beneath all the thickness.

As the man tried to pull away, he powerfully brought his knee against Jack's chin, sending his head jerking backwards.

Jack stumbled. He would have liked to have had more time to catch his breath, but he was standing between Bert and the door. The man charged at Jack, sending both men flying into a nearby table. Glasses and dishes crashed to the floor with the men.

"Help him! Somebody help him!" Elizabeth yelled.

But the patrons had no idea who Jack was. For all they knew, he could have been involved with the moonshine business, a dishonest banker, a criminal, or perhaps even an unscrupulous attorney. They had no desire to mix themselves into Bert's business.

Elizabeth watched as her husband, his back against the floor, had his face get punched again by the killer who now straddled the undersized Mountie. The killer's blood fell onto Jack, mixing with Jack's own blood which was seeping from his nose.

Elizabeth had no choice but to give Thatch away and help Jack.

She frantically looked around for something she could lift but which still had weight to it. Her eyes stopped on the large emerald-green colored Seltzer bottle with a metal top which was sitting on the bar.

I always did like emeralds, she thought as she hoisted the heavy bottle into her arms.

The killer, already weak from blood loss and exertion, fell forward onto Jack as the green glass cracked onto the back of his skull rendering him unconscious. All two hundred and forty pounds landed on Jack's smaller body crushing the air out of him.

Jack grunted under the weight and then heaved the man's limp body up enough to ease himself out from under it. His hand slipped in the killer's blood which was now pooling on the floor and joining with the bubbly seltzer water. Under other circumstances, the liquid concoction would have looked like a delightful cherry syrup drink.

Elizabeth bent down and grasped Jack on the arm, helping him up.

"Thanks", he said appreciatively as he breathed in deeply.

"Are you okay?" she asked worriedly as she looked at his clothes and face. Grabbing a cloth napkin from the nearby table, she began wiping Jack's bloodied face and shirt.

"I don't think it's mine", he replied as he looked down at his clothes.

"Yes, it is. Your nose is bleeding," she informed him as she reached for another napkin. "Pinch it. And sit down", she ordered.

"And your arm is bleeding too."

It wasn't until that moment that Jack remembered the pain he had felt when the killer had sliced his flesh. He looked down and saw the rip in his shirt.

"Is he okay?" Jack asked. He gestured towards Thatch while he obeyed Elizabeth and sat his hurt body down in a nearby chair. "Go check on him."

Elizabeth pushed her hair from her face and looked over her shoulder at the lady who was holding Thatch. The woman, herself taken surprise at the events, was unsuccessfully trying to sooth the crying boy.

"He's fine. Just a little scared", Elizabeth replied.

Elizabeth tightened the knot she quickly made in the napkin wrapped around Jack's arm. "I've stopped the bleeding for now. It shouldn't need stitches but we'll let the doctor decide", she declared before standing up and reaching for Thatch.

She quieted her son's sobs with a kiss to the head and by the simple fact that she held him securely and with confidence that everything was okay. With her hand, she wiped the wetness from his pouting face as he took deep breaths of air. His tiny shoulders moving up and down as he tried to recover from his tears.

"I'm sorry, Elizabeth. That he was at risk. That I threw the knife. But it was our best chance of getting him out of the killer's arms. And I was pretty sure my aim was good. I wouldn't have thrown the knife if I thought it would hit Thatch."

"You don't have to apologize. I trust you. And your aim was good." Elizabeth sat herself down in the chair across from Jack and looked worriedly at his left eye which was already starting to swell. "You got him."

"You got him", Jack said with admiration. "You're the one that brought him down."

"You would have beat him eventually. I just sped things along", she replied graciously with a smile. She gave him a light kiss on his lips, being careful to avoid any injured area.

"I don't like Thatch seeing me fighting." Jack looked at his son who was staring at him with wide eyes from a few inches away.

"He's going to be a Mountie anyway, he might as well get used to this stuff."

"What makes you so sure he's going to be a Mountie?"

Elizabeth scoffed. "For Pete's sakes, he just solved his first murder case and he's barely able to walk yet!"

Five minutes later when the local law enforcement arrived, the killer was still unconscious on the floor.

The three members of the Thornton family sat at a nearby table dealing with the aftermath of the fight.

Thatch sat on the lap of a female patron who had offered to hold him while Elizabeth had meticulously checked Jack for further injuries, and while Jack now gave a report to the officers.

Jack sat in the chair where he had been ordered to stay by Elizabeth despite ensuring her that he was fine. Even though his nose was no longer bleeding, she refused to let him stand up until the waitress returned with the doctor.

Elizabeth sat in another chair with her elbow on the table and her head resting in her hand. She was worn out.

She lifted her head and looked up at her husband in his torn bloodied clothes who was sitting across from her and giving a detailed statement to a young officer who was taking notes.

She looked at her son with his tear-stained face who was now happily sucking on his third sugar cube that the friendly woman holding him had popped into his mouth.

She looked at the broken table to her right; the broken chair to her left; the broken glass which littered the area; the messy floor with an upturned plate of spaghetti and spilt drinks from when the men had fallen onto a table.

She looked to the restaurant owner who was angrily demanding that someone pay for the mess.

She looked to the waitress who was loudly complaining to an officer that during the ruckus some diners had left without paying their bill.

And Elizabeth found herself wearily wondering.

Wondering why they had ever decided to go on vacation in the first place.

Up next: Chapter 10.