he watched the lunge , the arm moving , the wrist flicking back , the elbow turning inside out , and he planted his feet and jerked from the waist and drove the heel of his hand into the knob of the guy 's elbow , that huge force jabbing one way , the weight of the swinging hammer pulling the other way , the elbow joint cracking , the wrist overextending , the hammer falling , the guy instantly crumpling and dancing and hopping and trying to force his body to a place where his elbow stayed bent the right way around , which pulled him through a tight counterclockwise circle and left him unsteady and unbalanced and face to face with reacher , who paused less time than it took for the hammer to hit the floor and then head-butted him hard in the face , a savage , snapping movement , solid bone-to-bone contact , and then reacher danced away towards the wrecked subaru and turned and planned the next second and a half .