I killed a man with my bare hands in his own basement—slowly, deliberately, for every bruise on my mother’s face. He screamed, begged, promised anything I wanted, but I didn’t hear any of it. Three men had terrorized an entire town.
The local deputy was on the take, the law looked the other way, so I became judge and jury. My name is Alex Gromer, twenty-three years old, two years in the Army, airborne infantry. I came home and found that while I was gone, my mother had been turned into a frightened, hunted thing.
The men who did it were still walking around town like nothing could touch them. They were wrong. The train pulled in early that morning, June 5, 1987.
I stepped off at the little station with a duffel bag over my shoulder, still wearing my faded Army uniform. Two years earlier I’d left this place a kid. I came back a man. Back straight, hands hard, eyes different.
The Army burns the extra out of you and leaves the steel. Nobody was waiting on the platform. Mom had said she’d meet me, but she wasn’t there.
I figured maybe she got the time wrong. I picked up my bag and started walking through town. It was about four miles to the house, a road I knew by heart.
June, warm air, birds carrying on. The town looked the same as ever: sagging fences, vegetable gardens, old folks on porches. A few people recognized me and nodded.
One of them, our neighbor Mrs. Clayton, gave me a strange look. Opened her mouth like she wanted to say something, but I’d already passed her by. I made it to our house.
The gate was half open, though my mother always kept it latched. The yard was a mess, trash scattered around, grass up to my knees. My stomach tightened. Something was wrong.
I went up the porch steps. The front door wasn’t locked either. I pushed it open and stopped cold.
The place had been torn apart. The table was overturned, chairs broken, dishes smashed across the floor. There was a dent in the wall like somebody had thrown something heavy.
I stepped inside and set my bag by the door. Silence, except for a fly hitting the window. “Mom!” I called, but nobody answered.
I checked the front room. Worse there. Closet doors open, clothes on the floor, mattress yanked off the bed.
I looked around and felt a chill run up my back. Where is she? I headed for the kitchen. My mother was lying on the floor by the stove, curled up with her knees pulled in.
Her hair was tangled, one eye swollen nearly shut, her lip split open. Her dress was dirty and torn. She was breathing, thank God, but it was shallow and ragged.
I dropped to my knees beside her and took her by the shoulders. “Mom. Mom, it’s me. Alex.” She opened her eyes.
One eye was almost closed, the other cloudy and scared. She looked at me without recognizing me at first. Then it clicked, and her mouth started to tremble.
“Alex,” she whispered. “Honey.” I lifted her up and got her into the only chair in one piece. Her hands were shaking.
I’d seen plenty in the Army—training accidents, hard drills, guys pushed to the edge on obstacle courses. But seeing my mother beaten on the floor of her own kitchen was worse than any of it. “Who?” was all I could get out. “Who did this to you?”
She didn’t answer. Just stared at the floor. I lifted her chin carefully so I wouldn’t hurt her. What I saw wasn’t just bruises. It was fear.
Deep, animal fear. “Mom, tell me who.” She shook her head.
“Don’t, Alex. Don’t get involved. Just go back. You weren’t here, and you don’t know anything.”
I clenched my fists. “Go back where? I just got home. Who did this?”
“Some local boys,” she said quietly. “Don’t mess with them. They’re dangerous.” “Which boys?”
She flinched and glanced toward the door like she thought someone might be listening. Then she said, barely above a whisper, “Crispin. Wade Crispin and his brother.”
“And another one—Luke Cabbott. They keep coming by and demanding money. They say I owe on the house.”
“I couldn’t pay, so they…” Her voice broke. She covered her face with her hands and cried without making a sound.
Her shoulders shook. I watched her and felt something cold and heavy rise up inside me. Not anger. Anger burns hot and fast.
This was ice. Slow, hard, settling in my chest and staying there. Then I noticed her hands.
Two fingers on her left hand were bent the wrong way. Wrapped badly in a dirty bandage. “They broke your fingers?”
She nodded without looking up. “Why?” “Because I wouldn’t hand over Grandma’s earrings.”
“They told me to bring out any gold I had left to pay down the debt. I said those earrings were all I had left of my mother. Wade grabbed my hand and snapped them.”
“Said next time he’d break my legs.” I stood up slowly. Took in the wrecked kitchen, my mother sitting there with broken fingers and a battered face.
The house I grew up in turned into a dump. “Where do they live?” “Alex, please, don’t.”
“They’re dangerous. They’ve got guns and knives. They’ll kill you.” I looked at her and answered in a calm, even voice.
“No, they won’t, Mom. I’m home now.” She grabbed my arm with her good hand. “Please don’t go.”
“I spent two years afraid you wouldn’t come back from the Army, and now you’re here and I’m scared all over again. Please, honey.” I crouched down in front of her and held her face in my hands.
“Mom, I spent two years learning how to fight, how to survive, how to keep my head when things go bad. I jumped out of planes, trained with weapons, lived in the field with next to nothing.”
“I’m airborne infantry. They’re just local thugs. Don’t be afraid. Where are they?”
