WALKABOUT - Taking a Mulligan (Part 26)

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164

Archer was badly injured, and a referee would have stopped the fight by now. But this was the real world. I had to finish him and I had to do it quick.

I released his foot and scrambled to get on top of him from behind, to administer a rear naked choke, the so-called “sleeper hold,” with one arm draped around his neck, its hand resting inside the elbow of the other arm, which wrapped around the back of his head with its hand cupped over the back of his head.

I executed the move with proficiency, if not perfection, and as I rested my head over the hand covering his head, I knew I had him. Again, in a tournament, this is a submission hold. If your opponent does not tap out, a referee will stop the match once he blacks out. And then, shortly thereafter, your opponent wakes up and you shake hands.

Not an option here. No, I was going to have to not only put him to sleep, I had to maintain the hold, shutting off the flow of blood to his brain long enough to ensure he never woke up.

Archer was no rank amateur. With one eye gouged out—I could only assume my sword had something to do with that—a broken leg, and me executing a rear naked choke, he still had plenty of fight in him. He reached up with his left hand, grabbed my bicep, right where the buckshot had entered my arm, and dug in. I screamed like a little girl and released my grip.

Archer immediately delivered an elbow strike to the side of my face, narrowly missing the temple. He and I both scrambled to a standing position. Him with one hand against the balcony partition for balance. Me with the backs of my legs against the balcony table and nowhere to go as the sprinkles became light to moderate rain.

Archer lunged toward me, and I instinctively reverted to one of those techniques that I always liked to do in demos, but thought I would never use in the real world. Too Ki 13.

165

Archer lunged wildly, throwing a haymaker with his right hand. I covered the punch with, again with a cross block, and circled my hands around clockwise to bring his arm out to the side. I held the arm with my left hand and grabbed the lapel of his shirt with my right. I simultaneously placed my right foot on his chest and pulled him toward me as I rolled back onto the table. Using his momentum and all the remaining strength I had to toss him over the railing.

166

Peter and Daniel Seton had been standing at the railing perhaps a minute, looking down. “There’s nothing on the deck below. Nothing on the lifeboats. I know I saw something,” the photographer said. “Not once, but twice.”

“I didn’t see a thing, mate,” Peter said. “Sure you haven’t been partakin’ a bit too much this evenin’?”

Seton shook his head ‘no’. “Not a drop.”

“Guess we chalk it up to just one of those things,” Peter said.

Seton shrugged. “I suppose so. I can’t very well call a Man Overboard without being sure. Captain was pissed about that false alarm we had. Besides, I don’t think it was a person. It didn’t look like a person.”

The words were no sooner spoken than Archer landed squarely on Daniel Seton, driving the photographer’s throat into the railing. Seton collapsed onto the deck, both hands clutching his throat, twitching uncontrollably.

Peter jumped back. “Oh my God! Archer?”

Archer, blood streaming down his face, moaned and rolled off Seton, who lay on the deck, twitching uncontrollably.

167

Jared Mulligan

I lay there on my balcony, hurting like a son of a bitch, wondering how I had survived. Knowing that had it not been for the sword tip gouging Archer’s eye, he would have defeated me with no trouble. But hey, I was alive, and that’s all that mattered to me. “Better lucky than good” has been my motto for years. I said it more than once after passing a flight simulator checkride with a check airman who was feeling frisky. 

It was raining harder now, and I was glad to see Archer’s blood being washed away. It occurred to me that I’d found the intruder on the Lanter Construction property just as a thunderstorm was rolling through. Fought with Jared Mulligan # 1 in a thunderstorm. And now, Archer. I need to stay indoors when it looks like it might rain.

168

“Archer!” Peter fought to keep his voice down. “What have you done?”

“God, that hurt,” Archer groaned as he slowly rose to his feet. Standing with a hand covering one eye, blood streaming down his face. The other hand held the railing for support as he put weight on only his left foot. He looked down, at the man who had broken his fall.  “That’s Seton!” His good eye widened with the realization. “Oh, God! Flynn’s gonna kill us!”

Archer bent down, grabbed the still-living-but-not-for-long Daniel Seton by the shirt collar and heaved him up with one powerful arm, then unceremoniously tossed him over the railing, into the dark waters below.

Peter was just recovering from the initial shock of witnessing his bloodied and battered mate falling out of the sky onto the man that they had been sent to protect. He was about to check Seton for a pulse when Archer picked the man up and threw him overboard.  “We were sent here to protect him!” Peter said. “What the bloody hell were you thinking?”

“He jumped,” Archer said. “We tell Flynn he jumped. He can’t expect us to keep the bloke from doing himself in, can he?”

“After what you just did?”

“I did nothing, Peter,” Archer snarled. “The lad jumped. You’ll do well to remember that. I always liked you, Peter. I’d hate to see anything bad happen to you. You bein’ the brains of this operation. The one in charge.” Archer turned and hobbled away.

“What about Mulligan?” Peter asked.

“He’s all yours, mate.”

169

Jared Mulligan

I hauled myself up. Leaned over the railing to see if Archer had gone into the water or if he was splattered on the deck. To my surprise—and I might add, disappointment—he was standing, hopping around on one leg. Talking with his friend, Peter. Daniel Seton lay at his feet, holding both hands to his throat and flopping around like a fish on dry ground. And then, Archer reached down, grabbed Seton, and heaved him overboard. I felt my jaw drop as I tried to process it.

I couldn’t make out what was being said, but apparently Peter was none too pleased with Archer. They argued briefly, and then Archer hobbled away, holding a hand over his eye.