Sacred Places

Lee Slayer listened in growing outrage to his friend Blaine.  A local handyman was stealing stones from an abandoned church near Blaine’s property.  The thief was building fancy walls and fences throughout the county.  Business was good.  Of course it was: the materials were free! 

Slayer wasn’t surprised to hear that the police hadn’t done anything and weren’t going to do anything.

Slayer was fifty percent Native American, fifty percent Korean, and a hundred percent martial arts badass.  An ancestor fought with Crazy Horse at Little Bighorn.  When you had a problem back then, you took care of it yourself.  If someone messed with you, you messed with him right back.  That was the “Indian” way as Slayer understood it and he tried to live that way as much as the modern world allowed.

A beat down would do the thief a world of good; Slayer was sure of it.  However, Blaine didn’t want any laws or bones broken on his property. 

Slayer could see the point but it meant he would have to take an indirect approach.

During his youth in the world of competitive martial arts, a master instructor taught him that an opponent defeated mentally has lost the fight before it begins.  The key was to get the other person to attack himself because when the enemy is inside, there is no running away.  Slayer accepted the restriction against physical force as a puzzle to be solved.  Indeed, he looked forward to an “interesting” solution.  The thief and Slayer had never met, but they were about to!

Short story: about 25 pages.