Everglades Read Online Free PDF Page B

his footprints advertised. Bigger. Not tall, but one of the citified, double-wide models. Three or four inches under six feet, but he had to weigh close to two-fifty, two-seventy-five, with freakishly large feet and hands, and a head that could not have been supported by a normal human neck.
    Men who are big and quick and hard exude a kind of physical assurance. He had it.
    Something else: The guy had been a competitive wrestler—and a good one.
    I knew the instant he put his hands on me. It was unmistakable. I knew because, in high school, I’d spent each and every post-football season enduring the brutal practices which that great, great sport demands. Hand control, the variations of classic takedowns and reversals, had all been pounded into my skull by a brilliant wrestling coach named Gary Freis. The moment you hook up with another man in any kind of physical conflict, a wrestler instantly recognizes another wrestler.
    This guy had had a pretty good coach himself—unsettling news.
    As he pushed me into the water, I used his own momentum to duck under his right armpit, and come up behind him. When I grabbed his throat to take control, he slapped his huge hand on mine. Then, instead of trying to pull away as expected, he pushed his body back into mine, prying my hand loose as he moved.
    Suddenly, he was behind me, his left arm levered under mine, using the back of my head as a fulcrum, his right leg trying to grapevine between my legs.
    As I grunted in pain, he said into my ear, breathing heavily, “You want to get nasty, asshole? I’ll show you nasty.”
    What I’d learned in those few first seconds was disturbing.
    The guy was stronger than I—no question—plus he had to be thirty, maybe forty, pounds heavier. He had those raccoon kind of fingers, steel within hard rubber, that move like tiny, independent little animals, and are nearly impossible to escape.
    Something deep inside was telling me to stop, give it up, surrender—but not just because he was capable of beating me; even killing me.
    No.
    My inner voice and its reasoning were all too familiar: I no longer trust myself in a fight. Simple as that. I can no longer rely on the control I once pretended to have over my own cold temper.
    Yet I couldn’t quit. Old habit.
    Instead, I tried to relax my body, hoping to give him the impression I was quitting. When I felt his grip ease ever so slightly, I swung my hips to the right, then somersaulted forward into the knee-deep water as hard as I could throw my body.
    It was enough to break me free. But not for long. He was instantly on me as I tried to get to my feet, pulling me, then turning me with a very effective arm drag.
    Then he was behind me again, his left arm wrapped around my throat, the hard edge of his forearm digging into my Adam’s apple, severing the flow of oxygen between mouth and lungs.
    It is the most basic—and the most effective—of submission holds, and if I didn’t find a way to break it, he could hold me there until I was unconscious. Or brain-damaged. Or dead.
    “You want to keep dancing, asshole? Or you ready to quit?”
    I hammered my head backward. Felt it glance off his nose; heard a woof of pain. It loosened his grip enough for me to drive my elbow into his stomach, but he managed to keep his forearm locked on my throat.
    That was the end. All I could do. All I could stand without replenishing the oxygen supply, and I knew it. The world was getting fuzzy, and not just because my glasses were now hanging uselessly, tied around my neck with fishing line.
    My head was tilted skyward and I watched the April sunset clouds turn gray, then rainbow-streaked as I began to slip into unconsciousness. . . .
    Then I heard: “Oh . . . shit. Oh-h-h-h-h shit-t-t-t! ”
    Was I imagining the distress in his voice?
    No . . . because suddenly, I was free. For no reason whatsoever, he released his grip, allowing me to collapse into the shallow water.
    I got shakily to my feet, touching fingers to my