A Simple Life: Chapter 224

Launched off of his feet from Winona’s vicious punch Jack goes rolling ass over head across the table to tumble to the floor on the other side with a loud WHUMP! The strike sends a stir through the onlookers. We couldn’t see Jack but we could hear him swearing and scrabbling around on the other side of the pool table. Beside me Amos jams the pistol into his pocket then makes a show of his hands being empty as he looks to the barkeep. The bartender gives him a scowl but receives the message and puts the shotgun back behind the bar, though he hovers close to it.

“W-Winona…!”

The next thing I knew I had arms around me from behind. Giving me a tight hug Kayla whispers into my ear. “You gotta let Winnie do this, Avery.”

Just then my brother rises from behind the table with fury burning in his eyes and blood streaming from his nose. The sight of his ire scares me. It scares me like few other things could as it was focused squarely on the last person on Earth I would have wished it on. Despite my fear the presence of my friends brought some comfort and sanity back into this crazy little femboy. Though I would have moved heaven and earth to stop Jack from laying a hand on Winona I understood now that there was nothing I could do to stop this. I’d been a fool to even try. If Jack hurt Winona all I could do now was to be there for her to pick up the pieces and nurture her back to health. I saw now that from the moment he raised his hand to me and blackened my eye this confrontation had been inevitable.

Leaning back into my best friend I whisper. “I know.”

“So you’re the big, bad Jack, huh?” Winona begins to circle the table toward him. “I’m not impressed.”

With no backward step Jack wipes his nose as he turns to square up against my fiance. “And you’re that dog-faced squaw from off the boat. Why don’t you run along back to your reservation Pocahontas.”

At my side Amos tenses but he is a mountain, still and quiet.

“A racist too. Aren’t you just the total package.” Winona sneers. “Come on then!”

“Hey! HEY!” The doorman TJ shouts. “No fightin inside.”

Amos, trying to be the peacemaker, gives the bartender a nod and says in his deep, powerful voice. “Let’s not bother these good people anymore and take this outside, Win.”

With a wave of her hand toward the exit she says to Jack. “After you.”

Jack’s eyes flits across the group of us. “Bray? What the fuck are you doin here?”

“I just came to say, fuck you asshole!” Brayden flips him the middle finger. “You and all y’all.” He then waves the bird at a few of the onlookers. “Avery’s a better man than you EVER were!”

“Pff!” Jack scoffs. “Fuckin pothead loser. And Cain!? Shiiit. You want your ass kicked a second time, boy?”

“That was a long time ago, Jack.” Cain says in a tone that sends a chill down my spine. Stepping forward he rises to his full height and flexes his muscular pecs and shoulders with a look on his face that would have made a rhinoceros think twice. Damn! Cain was always so cool and laid back, I’d never seen this side of him before. Nobody had. It was as terrifying as it was hot. His character in FoF might be a bad-ass hunter but Raevis had nothing on the dude playing him. Flanked by the titan Amos and the Herculean Cain I was suddenly feeling a lot less scared. “And I am no boy!”

“And Cunty Kayla, biggest slut on the island. What do ya think you’re gonna do here?” Grabbing his crotch he says. “Sorry, brown sugar, I’m a married man.”

“The only thing I’d touch that little pinky dick with is a cattle prod.” Kayla hisses. “And you won’t be married much longer you piece of shit!”

“Hrf! So what?” Jack says. “The lot of ya are gonna kick my ass? Revenge of the nerds or something? Is that the idea?”

“They’re not here to fight you.” Winona states, then points to TJ and the others. “They’re to keep those sons to bitches offa me.”

“Tough talk for a chick.” He retorts.

“Well I ain’t here to talk.” Winona raises her fists. “If you ain’t comin we’re doin it here.”

“Jack!” Barks the bartender. “Take it outside!”

“Yeah, Jack.” Calls a voice from the crowd. “Kick her ass!”

“You heard’em, Jacko.” Winona waves him on. “Kick my ass.”

“I’m not fightin a chick.”

“What’s the matter, bitch?” Winona prods. “Won’t hit a girl that’ll hit back? Fuckin coward.”

With his blood up and flowing Jack was already itching for a scrap. Being called out like this so publicly and so embarrassingly sealed the deal.

Through gritted teeth he growls. “Ladies first.”

Without a hint of fear Winona spins to show him her back then walks boldly back to us. Taking my hand she leads us out into the parking lot. Not far behind comes my brother with nine or ten lookie-loos plus TJ in his wake. Just like back at school a fight never failed to draw a crowd. The air is taut with savage energy as a circle begins to form.

With little time to spare I turn to Winona and step in close, my hands on her shoulders. Looking up into her eyes I speak quick and quiet as I share my years of experience in just a few seconds. “He’s r-right-handed. He’ll mostly f-feint or hold with his left. He c-c-can choke really good. P-Put you out fast. And h-h-he’ll t-try to get your g-guard down at first then hit when you l-least expect it.”

Behind me Cain chimes in. “Jack’s a brawler but he’s got a wicked counter punch.”

“Use your head, Winnie-bear.” Her father says in a low tone. “Remember last time.”

Winona is surprised by the outpouring of tactics but she takes it all in. “Okay, baby.” She kisses me. “Thanks, Cain. Thanks, Pops.”

“You got this, Win.” Cain says.

Amos says something in Sioux. I’m not sure if it was prayer or a message of encouragement but the words gives a steely edge to his daughter’s eyes.

All I could add was. “I l-love you!”

She smiles, kisses me then says. “Nobody touches you, baby. Never again.” With that she slips from my arms. I didn’t want to let her go, but I had to.

From the center of the ring Jack sneers at me. “You’re really gonna let your woman fight for you, little bro?”

He spits my way in contempt then turns his whole focus onto her. His eyes dart up and down as she sizes her up. She was nearly as tall as him and might even have a reach advantage but she was a lot leaner. He believed he had strength on his side, and maybe he did, but he hadn’t watched my baby deadlift my motorbike and hoist it over the side and into her truck bed. Seeing the blood on his face and the premature confidence growing in his eyes it hit me…Jack was a monster but he was no giant. He was just a man. A very flawed man. And he had never seen anything like MY woman before!

“Um. Y-Yeah.” I nod. “And sh-she’s g-gonna kick your butt!” There’s a smattering of laughter from the other side but my words cause my lover to grow an inch or more.

As the pair raise hands and close in Jack opens the melee with his big, fat mouth. “You know he’s cheating on you.”

BAP!

Jack’s flapping gums are silenced by a lightning quick jab to the mouth! Forewarned as she was Winona wasn’t going to give Jack the opportunity to distract her for a sucker punch.

“YEAH!” Kayla pumps her fist in the air.

The fight was on!

Jack quickly shakes off the jab and ducks the follow up. Just as Cain warned Jack counters right back with a short hook into Winona’s exposed ribs.

“Mm!” I flinch as the heavy blow lands.

That same punch had folded me in half that night Jack hit me but Winona soaks it with a grunt and returns an elbow that cracks him across the cheekbone. His head snaps then suddenly thrusts forward. The headbutt glances off her cheek then drives down into her chest, staggering her a moment. As he comes up again an uppercut follows which Winona avoids by the breadth of a blade of grass. I let out a puff of relief. That brutal punch had ‘game over’ written all over it! My worries were returning quick until…

BAP! BAP!

The crowd gasps as Winona catches him clean with a left and then a right. Staggered Jack grabs wildly and finds the front of her coveralls. Yanking her in toward him he leans into a whistling right hand aimed square for her face. My heart is in my throat as I watch his big balled fist, as if I slow motion, hurtle toward her perfect, beautiful face. At the last possible instant Winona leans just enough for it to whistle by her head hitting nothing but air. Using the extra momentum that his pulling arm gave her she drives her shoulder into his chest. The pair of them crash to the ground with her on top. Dust flies up into a cloud as they wrestle and roll around in the gravel. In the fracas punches are thrown and a few land though darned if I could tell who was hitting who. As they part and roll to their feet again Jack’s bleeding lips tells the tale of who took the worst of it.

Jack wipes the crimson from his mouth, looks at it as if in disbelief, then lets out a great bellow as he charges his foe.

BAM!

My half-brother’s bull rush runs square into a punch that rocks his world. Dazed and wobbly Jack staggers back again as he desperately tries to regain his senses. He was losing! She was winning! She wasn’t just winning, big bad Jack was getting his ass handed to him! The fight was a mismatch! And not the way I thought it was going to be. I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.

Bap! Bap! Bap! Bap!

Weaving around Jack’s desperate swings Winona punches him again and again and again. Face, gut, ribs, and face again Winona was picking him apart. Before long he is at her mercy. As he continued swinging at ghosts she continues slipping in damaging punch after punch. He was a tough son of a bitch, I had to give him that, but mano a mano he had met his match. Drunken brawls and one-sided beat downs had not honed and hardened him like Winona’s tough upbringing on the Rez. While Jack was being exposed as the over-inflated bully that he was Winona was showing herself as a true warrior. Bruised and swollen, his puffy face dripping with blood, Jack was wobbling on his last leg.

“Pfffcukin…bitch!” Jack sputters as he tries one final lunge.

WHUMP!

With a sickening thud Winona, with all of her great strength, drives the toe of her right steel-toed boot directly into Jack’s nuts!

“OOOOO!” The entire crowd doubles over as one.

A look of nauseated shock washes over my brother as hunches forward covering his junk. He tries to fall but Winona grabs a shoulder to hold him upright for a few more seconds. Winona’s eyes narrow, deep hatred boiling with them, as she leans in and whispers something into his ear then lines up on his left eye, the same one he’d bruised on me, and…

CRACK!

Throwing all she had into one final punch she sparks him out and ends the fight. She tosses him aside like the human trash that he was. He crumples to the ground, a motionless lump. As a stunned silence falls over us all Winona gives a hard look around to the others as if daring them to avenge their fallen friend. Not one of them steps up. They couldn’t even meet her gaze. Satisfied they were appropriately cowed my warrior goddess then turns to find my face in the group. With a raise of a brow and a cock of her head she gives me a look as if to say, ‘told ya’.

“YEAHHHH!!!” Brayden, Kayla and Cain shatter the silence with a roar of victory.

Breaking from our cheering friends I rush forward and into the arms of my hero!

Chapter 225