Bitterroot, Idaho
Coulter Marshall figured the old saying applied to the giant in front of him. The man had fallen out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down.
Gritting his teeth, directing all his force to his right arm, Coulter pushed up as hard as he could. Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead. He was losing and the jackasses in the bar were cheering.
The hulking figure of the man across the table from him effortlessly applied more pressure and signaled the bartender for another shot with his free arm.
Cocky bastard.
Coulter was now in considerable pain. But he needed the money. He needed warm weather. He needed to get the hell out of Idaho.
His arm was almost to the table. The hulk grinned and squeezed harder than he had to. Coulter clenched his jaw. The heavily tattooed, shaved-head son of a bitch—bless his heart—was trying to break the bones in his hand and having a good time doing it. Any moment now Coulter would be handicapped for life. Worse, he’d be out two hundred bucks.
Once again, he pondered the wisdom of his chosen career. Walking into dives like this and challenging the biggest, meanest wastes of skin to a feat of strength was not a well-paying gig. But Coulter didn’t have any other talents, other than being able to move shit with his mind.
Time to use the well-worn, tried-and-true, Marshall Method.
First, he had to find an object on or near the ugly beast. The man’s boots? Nah. What would he do, pull the laces tight? The snakeskin belt? He could try to cut off his air. And then he knew.
Coulter concentrated on the table between them. It wasn’t going to be hard. He was angry. It always worked best when he was angry.
He focused and felt the familiar pull as if some invisible magnet was drawing him in. Slowly, the table began to move. The Hulk looked down in surprise. No one else noticed, and Coulter wanted to keep it that way.
It would have been a damn sight easier, Coulter often reflected, if he could actually move people with his mind, but for some reason he could only control objects and not living things.
He had ventured into the local library once and discovered his ability was known as telekinesis. He also discovered that most scientists believed telekinesis, telepathy, and other so-called powers did not exist. Why the hell then, Coulter wondered, did scientists spend all that time thinking up names like telekinesis?
Meanwhile, focusing hard while fighting to keep his arm from touching the table was not the easiest task. The table moved up slightly into the air and shifted until one of the legs settled on the Hulk’s foot. He then concentrated hard—not enough to crack bone, but the crushing pain must have been intense.
The Hulk howled and loosened his grip. Coulter seized the advantage. He slammed the man’s meaty arm to the table. There was a hushed silence and then a roar from the crowd. Coulter released the table leg, and the pull in his gut disappeared.
The Hulk opened his mouth. “No! He didn’t win! My foot was—”
“The little guy really did it,” someone said.
In his defense, Coulter thought “little” a bit extreme. At twenty-six, he stood five feet, eleven inches tall with a narrow waist, thick golden hair, blue eyes, and, according to his mother, the face of an angel that hid the devil inside.
Coulter would easily pass muster anywhere else, but in this bar in the Idaho wilderness filled with bikers, survivalists, and lumberjacks, he seemed almost feminine…which now explained the uncomfortable incident with the miner in the urinal.
“He cheated,” the Hulk yelled. “Something happened to the table.”
Coulter swiped the wad of money off the table and widened his blue eyes innocently. “Prove it,” he said.
They never could.
Putting on his white Stetson, Coulter threw on his denim jacket and slipped out into the cold, dark night. He headed straight for the bus station.