Hot Iron - Part III of III

Far Rider and Sensei Robert Koga. Forty years after meeting at the Los Angeles Police Academy and thiry years after the incident relayed in this story. Robert Koga is known worldwide for his teachings and development of the Koga System of Weaponless Control, Police Defensive Tactics and the Koga Method of the Police Baton. During Far Rider's assignment as a counter-terrorist undercover operative, Sensei Koga often provided over watch and protection for his young student.

http://www.kogainst.com/

Ten years as a Green Beret and Special Operations soldier, and two years working the mean streets of Los Angeles as a police officer after returning from the bloody killing grounds of Southeast Asia had taught Far Rider much about brutality and men like Clete. He had arrested many of them. They were the kind of men that beat up women and bullied smaller and more timid souls. He had done his share of killing Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army soldiers that practiced cruelty and butchery for the sake of cruelty and butchery. For as long as he could remember, and particularly after seeing so much cruelty in the blood soaked jungles of South East Asia, he could not abide suffering. To witness the unnecessary infliction of pain on any helpless creature aroused a murderous rage in him. Trouble was coming. He could feel it as one feels and senses an impending lightning strike. The problem was that he could not initiate a deserved preemptive assault without ending up in irons himself. Clete and men like him only understood physical force as a means of restraining behavior.

Gritting his teeth, he concentrated on his breathing to slow his respiration and the wicked increase in his heart rate as anger pushed the adrenal chemical cocktail through his system. He could hear Bob Koga, his Sensei, echoing in his head “You must be in control of yourself in order to control others.” Well, right now, he felt more like going into Spec Ops mode and applying sudden and terminal violence against a brute that took pleasure from inflicting needless suffering.

By nature, training and experience he was not prepared to be a street fighter. The training he had rigorously undergone and used for so many years was confined to two distinct modes. The application of lethal or crippling force against an enemy or the restrained application of control techniques designed to place a suspect in custody without injury. Being witness to countless incidents of violence and violent death, he knew that in the absence of weapons, size, speed and strength were enormous advantages. The risk of losing an eye, teeth or sustaining a crippling injury in a brawl never appealed to him. However, he also adhered to the idea that there are times when an honorable man needs to step up, regardless of the risk.

The afternoon wore on until the last calf of the day stood glaring warily from a corner of the large holding corral. He was a handsome, strapping red brangus bull yearling and easily pushing 600 pounds from the look of him. Eight inch horns topped a magnificent and belligerent face. It was obvious he was a remnant missed in the preceding fall gather. One of the ropers shook out a loop and laughingly hollered “Any of you boys have the huevos to flank this bad boy or do we need to head and heel him?”

Everybody moved back along the fence to watch the show as another rider eased up with his loop down to heel the big beast.

The accumulated affects of the afternoon’s conflict and pent up anger had Far Rider thoroughly wound up. He eyed the juvenile red bull and thought, What the hell? He was either going to set an example or make a complete fool of himself and possibly get hurt in the process.

“Un macho hombre” the header said and nodded to him as he quietly moved his horse towards the wary animal standing now with his head up looking defiantly at the approaching horse and rider. A soft whir and the loop gently settled around the animal’s horns. The rider spun his horse and dragged the bucking, bawling red bull yearling out into the middle of the corral.

Far Rider sprinted towards the 600 pounds of twisting red hide, flying snot and horns. Grabbing the lariat just above the hondo and waiting until all four of the animals feet were in the air, he grabbed the right flank of the animal with his right hand and heaved backwards with every ounce of his hundred and seventy five pounds. The red brangus crashed neatly onto his left side emitting an audible “whoosh” as the air was partially knocked out of him. Far Rider quickly trapped the right foreleg and sat on the enraged animal’s neck. Other cowboys rushed forward to help restrain the animal and the branding procedure began. A few congratulatory remarks were directed towards his accomplishment as work proceeded.

Far Rider thought they might let the big yearling keep his horns but somebody brought out a set of horn shears that looked like large bolt cutters. Better than a saw but not much. The horn crunched sickeningly and the red bull bellowed in pain and rage as the blood squirted into the air staining Far Rider’s chaps and quickly soaking his shirt front. After the second horn was cut, the castrated bull lay with the whites of its eyes showing and groaning with deep panting moans. Clete approached with the cauterizing iron glowing an ugly dull red with heat smoking in wavy lines from the tip. At the application of the searing heat, the bull jerked violently and a sound that Far Rider had heard from men having their throats slit burst forth from the animal. The red bull’s tongue hung out coated in dirt and cow shit as the hissing iron smoked and burned into the raw horn.

“Ease up. It’s done” Far Rider said and twisted the suffering animals head up so the other bloody horn was exposed. The young bull was panting quietly and long swaths of silvery snot ran down the side of his jaw and across Far Rider’s chaps.

Clete brought another iron from the fire and applied it to the animals remaining bleeding horn stub. The bull reacted only slightly as if the stress and pain had succeeded in sending him to some other place.

It’s a wonder this shit doesn’t kill him Far Rider thought as he turned his face away from the stinking sizzle of seared horn. Clete continued applying the iron for several seconds longer than was needed and Far Rider, having had enough, angrily slapped the iron away with his gloved hand. “That’s enough you sonofabitch.”

Clete gaped momentarily at Far Rider as if he could not believe what had just happened. As his thought processes sorted out the event, his face took on a look of rage and he squared up in pre-attack posture. Far Rider released the bull’s head and stood up backing away out of range of the iron in Clete’s right hand. The other hands working on the animal also stood and stepped back watching the two men. Soon the entire crew, including the boss, was forming a rough circle around them.

Far Rider found himself facing a bigger, stronger opponent with a three foot piece of red hot iron in his hand. He looked towards his gun belt hanging on his saddle horn, judged the distance and realized there was no chance of getting to it. Quickly glancing around for another iron or something he could use as a baton or staff proved fruitless. He considered the ball point pen in his shirt pocket as he watched the center of Clete’s chest but decided to keep both of his hands clear. A stab to the eye or throat of his adversary would be the end of the fight for sure, but would see him arrested. Glad that he had removed his spurs, he thought, I’ll be lucky if I get out of this without a broken arm or burns. He checked the ground out of the corner of his eye for obstacles that could cause him to trip. He surely did not want to be on the ground with Clete coming at him with the iron.

Clete had obviously been in his share of barroom brawls but did not appear to be a trained fighter. Not that that meant much as Far Rider had seen street fighters that could whip most of the dojo black belts he had worked out with. There were a few martial practitioners like Ed Parker, Joe Lewis, Bob Koga, Bobby Haynes, Brad Steiner, Richard Ryan, Troy Coe, Dennis Laycock and several other world class fighters he had known and trained with that could take this guy down without any problem, but he did not possess their level of skill for this sort of brawl. Everything he knew would be lethal or result in serious physical injury if he was able to apply it and that could mean jail time or worse.

“Nobody slaps my iron away.” Clete spat.

Far Rider remained silent and hoped none of the rest of the crew would get involved. Clete dropped the iron and moved forward raising large knuckled, scarred fists. Clete stepped in and threw a couple of feints with his left and Far Rider circled counter clockwise to stay away from Clete’s right hand. He had no doubt that one solid blow from Clete’s huge fists and it would be over.

Clete suddenly lunged forward with a straight right. Far Rider leaned back and stepped to the outside as he had practiced for so many hours in the dojo. He deflected the right slightly downward with his left hand and, launching himself over the top of Clete’s arm, struck him in the trachea with the inside of his right wrist and applied a bar arm choke. The blow staggered the bigger man and Far Rider folded at the knees taking them both to the ground with his knees on either side of Clete’s hips. Violently slamming his right bicep into the side of the cowboy’s neck and the point of his shoulder into the back of his head further stunned the man and Far Rider transitioned to a carotid compression hold locking down with a classic chancery. He applied pressure to both sides of Clete’s neck restricting the flow of blood to his brain.

Clete clawed frantically at the arm locked like a steel vice around his neck but weakened quickly as he began to lose consciousness. Easing the pressure slightly to allow blood back into his brain Far Rider said “Put your hands behind your back or I’ll put you out.”

Through the fog of partial hypoxia, pride prompted Clete to hesitate. Far Rider reapplied the pressure on his neck and the big man immediately placed his hands behind his neck with a gagging noise as he attempted to get more oxygen into his lungs. Far Rider rolled him none too gently onto his face and applied a twist lock to his right arm behind his back. As oxygen filled blood rejuvenated his brain Clete made a reflexive effort to get up but a quick twist and upward pull on the arm trapped behind his back brought a groan of pain and a cessation of struggle.

Far Rider wasn’t quite sure what to do next. He did not have handcuffs to finish the job of controlling Clete as he had so many times on the streets and in the alleys of Los Angeles and even if he did, what would he do then? He wasn’t going to arrest the man. He just wanted the fight to be over. Keeping an eye on the other cowboys standing around with looks of incredulity on their faces, he quietly said to Clete “If I release you, do I have your word that this is over?” He was putting his faith in a code of conduct that some in the American West still respected.

“OK. OK” came the muffled response as small clouds of dust puffed away from where Clete’s face was pressed into the dirt. Far Rider was struck by how similar those puffs of dust were to those made by the calves as they endured their misery.

Carefully releasing his grip on the big man’s hand Far Rider stood and backed towards where his horse was tied with his gun belt hanging from the saddle horn. Clete did not look at him as he got up and picked up his hat rubbing his shoulder. The boss inclined his head slightly in puzzlement and said “Let’s make sure these critters are separated and kick them out. Weanlings go east to the next cross fence. Just open the gate and let the mothers find their own way out.”

Work continued for the next three days but the other crew members conspicuously avoided him as much as possible. Clete and Far Rider worked together in a quiet but tense truce and nothing was ever said about the incident. Far Rider never removed his gun belt and was glad to draw his wages at the end of the gather. He did not bother to ask if there might be more work in the future.

As he headed his pickup north towards Phoenix, the desert rolled away in its timeless desolate beauty and the hot evening breeze blew in the window. He idly stroked Chance’s head resting on his thigh and thought that the whole incident was probably pointless. It was doubtful it had changed anything or reduced the suffering to any of God’s critters. But, he also knew he would do it again. Sometimes, doing the right thing is not always the safest or smartest thing. Bob Koga would shake his head disapprovingly if he was there, but he also knew that his old friend, mentor and teacher would understand.

Far Rider
See to your weapons and stand to your horses