“The war knocked the man out of me. Left the animal.” They sat there in the rain.
A woman in black and a scarred veteran. Two people broken in different ways by war and life. At last Eleanor stood.
“Come on.” Croft got up obediently. “Where?” “You’ll see.”
They walked through the cemetery in silence. The rain grew heavier, turning the paths to mud. At the gate Eleanor stopped.
“You can run if you want. I won’t chase you. Leave town. Disappear. But if you stay…”
Croft shook his head. “Nowhere to run. No reason to. Do what you have to do.” And they kept walking.
To that same shed where it had all begun. Eleanor did not tie him up. There was no need.
Croft lay down on the filthy tarp by himself. Closed his eyes on his own. “Just make it quick,” he said.
“No,” Eleanor answered. “You need to feel at least a fraction of what she felt.” It took less time than with the others.
Not because Eleanor hurried or pitied him. Simply because Croft did not resist. He lay there in silence, only now and then giving a low groan through clenched teeth.
When it was over, he opened his eyes and looked at Eleanor. There was almost gratitude in his face. “Now we’re even,” he rasped.
“No,” she said. “There is no even after something like this. But part of the debt is paid.” Croft was found there the next morning.
But unlike the others, he had dragged himself to the road and flagged down the first wagon he saw. At the hospital he told the doctors at once: “It was fair punishment. I earned it.” He flatly refused to file a complaint.
Detective Warren came three times, but Croft kept quiet like a man under oath. Only once did he say, “Detective, don’t look for anybody. It was done right.”
“The three of us acted worse than animals. Now we got ours.” After that conversation Warren sat in his office a long time, smoking cigarette after cigarette, then called in his assistant.
“Suspend the assault cases. No statements from the victims, no witnesses. Send the files to archives.” The assistant was surprised. “But they’re obviously connected.”
“Archives,” Warren snapped. And that was that. Unofficially, quietly, but that was that.
The last days of May passed in a strange, tense silence. The town seemed to be holding its breath. Everybody knew what had happened.
But nobody said it out loud. People whispered in corners, exchanged looks when the three men came up. Women looked at men with something new in their eyes: part warning, part grim satisfaction.
Men became more careful, more polite, especially around young women. Eleanor went on with her measured life. Work, hospital, home…
