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car.”
The line went silent.
    Within a minute, the dispatcher
was back. “Officer Maxwell is en route. What’s your name, ma’am?”
    “Sasha McCandless. I’m . . .
not local.”
    She’d been about to identify
herself as an officer of the court but thought the better of it. She never knew
how someone would react to a lawyer. A person who’d had a nasty divorce or been
ordered to pay damages after a car crash could carry a grudge against the whole
profession. After hearing her primary care doctor’s rant against medical
malpractice lawyers during her annual exam one year, Sasha had made a point of
always mentioning to Dr. Alexander that she didn’t do any med mal work.
    “Okay, now, Sasha, you hold
tight until the officer gets there. Do not exit your vehicle.”
    “Don’t worry,” Sasha said. She
had no plans to get out of the car.
    As the call ended, the tree
branch smashed into her windshield.
    Sasha flinched and braced
herself, but the glass held.
    The tall guy pulled back to
take another swing. His friend caught his arm mid-swing.
    “Jay, c’mon, let’s get out of
here. This is not peaceful.” He was still hopping from one foot to the other,
but he hung on to the tall guy’s arm. His voice was strained and loud enough to
hear from inside the car.
    Jay tried to shake him off.
    “Dude,” Jay shouted at the
smaller guy, “we need to stand up for Mother Earth.”
    His friend shook his head. “No,
man, I’m out.” He dropped Jay’s arm and took off toward the park, kicking up
gravel in his wake.
    Jay watched him go and then
turned back to Sasha.
    He hefted the tree branch and
crashed it into the windshield again. His lips were pulled back, like a wolf’s,
and his eyes never left Sasha’s.
    The stick bounced off the glass,
and a web of cracks spread out in front of Sasha. The next hit would finish the
job.
    Sasha checked the rearview
mirror. No one else in sight.
    She stared at Jay through the
pattern of cracks and calculated her options, ignoring the ache in the back of
her head. She could turn on the ignition, gun the engine, and see how far she
got on two—probably four—flat tires. But he might get the last swing in first.
    Sasha sighed.
    She placed her phone in the
center console, unlocked the door, and stepped out.
    Maintaining eye contact, she
stepped around in front of the car and stood right in front of Jay, planting
her feet wide and bending her knees slightly. Looked up at him and hoped his
fleeing friend had the only knife.
    “You want to mix it up?”  He
laughed. But she could hear the uncertainty behind it. This wasn’t part of his
plan.
    She waited a beat while he
tried to decide: attack a five-foot-tall, one hundred-pound woman or walk away.
    “Here’s what you’re going to
do,” she told the wild-eyed man in front of her. “You’re going to toss the
stick at my feet and then back away slowly.”
    “Or what?”
    She kept her voice soft and
even. “Or, Jay, I am going to beat you to a bloody pulp. Then, after you’ve
crawled away to lick your wounds, I’m going to track you down and press
criminal charges against you and your friend. And, then, I’m going to file a
civil lawsuit against you and beat you to a bloody pulp again in the
courtroom.”
    He smirked at her, then feinted
like he was going to drop the stick. Instead, he lunged at her, swinging it
fast and wild over his head toward her.
    Instinct told her to lurch
back, but training told her lean forward fast. Training won out.
    Block. She burst toward him, moving in
close and hit his upper arm with both hands while driving a knee into his
groin. A hard block. Sometimes that was all it took to disarm a person; the
force from the block would drive the stick from his hands.
    Not Jay. He hung on tight to
the stick.
    Lock. Sasha slid her left arm over
his bare, hairy arm and right under his elbow, rotating his elbow up. With her
left hand, she clasped her right forearm and squeezed his shoulder with her
right hand. He