Sheikh's Honor

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He clumped deliberately down the broad steps from the porch and strode down to the dock with a threatening swagger. Jalal’s posture, negligently leaning on the paddle, did not change. The thug stopped a few feet away from him and spat deliberately on the ground.

“Hey, a Ay-rab!” His eyes swept past Jalal and over Clio with a look that turned her stomach. “And a skirt!” But he did not say skirt. She shuddered with revulsion. He turned to Jalal again. “Thanks for bringing my dessert, Saddam! You can go now, less you wanna be the main course.

“Oooffff!” The breath seemed to explode out of his body as, almost faster than she could see, Jalal drove the paddle into his solar plexus. The thug seemed to leap into the air and fold in the middle simultaneously.

“Behind you!” Clio screamed, as the smaller man leapt for him, and somehow, instead of connecting, the thin man seemed to sail over Jalal’s shoulder as Jalal dropped the paddle, grabbed his arm and assisted his forward motion.

He landed sprawling on the big man, and screamed like an animal, a sound that sent a rush of horror over her skin. His partner threw him impatiently aside, and the reason for the scream was suddenly evident as blood spattered the thug’s hands. The thin man had landed skidding on the knife that the thug had pulled from somewhere, and his chest was sliced from shoulder to waist. His T-shirt gaped. Blood poured from the wound.

The wounded man cursed violently. “I’m hurt, man, I’m hurt!”

The thug ignored him and got to his feet. He was sweating. “Okay, Saddam, you shouldna done that. You shouldna made me mad.”

Jalal stood with his arms loose at his sides. “Your friend needs a doctor,” he said. “Get in your boat and go.”

“Jeez, man, I’m hurt bad! Let’s do what he says!”

“Drop the boat keys on the dock, Saddam, leave the skirt, get in my boat and take off, and nobody’ll get hurt,” said the thug to Jalal, as if he hadn’t heard his friend’s cry.

Jalal said nothing. She could not see his face, but from the back he looked so lightly poised he almost seemed to move with the breeze.

“You hear me, Ay-rab?” The thug began to toss the bloody knife between his two hands, bouncing his weight from foot to foot. He was inches taller than Jalal, and thirty pounds heavier. And clearly he made it his business to be menacing.

Still Jalal made no reply.

“I’m not gonna hurt her, don’t you worry none about that. I’m gonna treat her real nice. Whereas you, I’m gonna hurt you bad, if you don’t—”

As if he were dancing, Jalal stepped to the side, and his foot arced up, connecting with the thug’s right hand as it was in the act of catching the knife. The man cried out with a shriek of pain, and Clio saw with ugly shock that his forearm now bent where it should not. Stumbling forward off balance as he clutched at it with his other hand, he suddenly felt Jalal’s hand close on his wrist and his scream changed note. Jalal’s other hand fell ruthlessly on his shoulder, and, tripping over the television set, the thug was propelled forward off the dock and down into his boat with a crash.

He screamed in wild, almost demented agony, clutching his shoulder, his arm, his shoulder again, as a stream of curses spewed out of his mouth. His face was cut, his eye already swelling.

“My shoulder!” he screamed, with such a terrible cry that Clio’s stomach started to heave again. “My arm!”

Jalal turned back to the other man, who was with difficulty scrambling to his feet, trying to stop the bleeding from his chest with his hands. His eyes widened at whatever he saw in Jalal’s face.

“I’m wounded, man! Don’t hit me!”

“Get in the boat and take your friend out of here.”

Clio gasped at the deadly menace in his voice.

“I can’t, man! I can’t drive a boat! Man, I’m all cut! You gotta get me to a doctor.”

“Get out,” Jalal said softly.

The man choked off his protest and stumbled to the edge of the dock, then let go of his bleeding chest to clamber into the boat. His friend was still screaming in agony. Somehow, the thin man got the motor started on the second try.

“Jeez, the rope! Untie the rope, will ya?” he cried.

Jalal bent to pick up the bloody knife, and with one powerful stroke he chopped down against the wooden dock, severing the rope that tied the boat, as if only now he let his anger escape.

The thin man swore in fear, dragging in the remnant of the rope, and clumsily steered around the powerboat and back down the river. Clio cut her own motor, and they stood listening to the sound retreating in the distance.