Chapter 1

When I was nineteen years old, I did a senseless and unforgivable thing. I took a girl out to Kraemer's Junction, after a movie date, and, heedless to her cries, and unmindful of her desperate pleas for me to stop, I physically assaulted and raped her. It was only our fourth date, she was sixteen years old, and she was a virgin.

It hadn't been anything that I'd consciously premeditated doing, and I believe I was at least as surprised by my actions as she was. The very next day, without talking to anyone about my plans, I went three towns over, to the nearest recruiter's office, and enlisted in the Army for three years. As soon as basic training and infantry school were finished, they shipped me off to Viet Nam.

I reenlisted at the end of two years, taking an early release so that I could sign up for another four year hitch. I then spent two years stationed over in Germany, before being rotated back to the states. As soon as I returned stateside, I volunteered for another hitch in Viet Nam, and the Army granted my somewhat unusual request.

During those six years, I saw a lot, in and out of combat, and, I learned a lot about what it meant to be a man. I began to think a lot about owning up to this past mistake. I knew that the time had come for me to return home and face the consequences. I understood that I wouldn't ever be able to put my guilt and shame behind me, not as long as I was continuing to try to run away from the consequences that were due me.

I was medically retired from the Army, and returned home to face up to my earlier shame. I hadn't been home since the morning I had first left to join up, six long years before.

I had been gone almost two years before I had even called home to try to speak with my mother. My dad had died in a truck crash when I was only nine years old. That first time I called, I was just back from my tour in Viet Nam. It had been a harrowing thirteen months over there. I needed to contact someone I knew to let them know that I'd survived the experience. My mother hung up on me as soon as she recognized who it was that was calling her. I was in the hospital at that time, Letterman Army Hospital, in The Presidio of San Francisco when I called her.

A month later, after I'd been released as being once again fit for duty, I took a short discharge, and re-upped again. Having my own mom hang up on me had greatly affected me. Since I was her only child, and her sole living relative, I knew how mad and disappointed she had to have been at me to do such a thing. We had been close before that night of the rape, especially so, in the years following my father's death. Her refusal to speak with me was almost more than I could bear.

I called home again, right before I began my second tour in Viet Nam. I was afraid on this tour I'd probably be killed. I wanted my mother's forgiveness and her blessing. This time, my mother spoke to me, but what she told me simply reinforced my own opinion about the terrible act I had committed. She told me that she had stayed in town, and she had lived with my shame every day since I left. She told me that she wished with all her heart that I had never been born. After that call, I believe I started welcoming the idea of dying.

Four months before my second enlistment expired, I received word, through the American Red Cross, that my mother had suffered a massive stroke, and had died in the hospital. I called Mr. Chalmers, the family attorney, and explained to him the reason that I would be unable to come back home for four more months. I asked him to please handle my mother's funeral for me. He agreed, and I signed all the paperwork he later sent, including an unlimited power of attorney for him to act, on my behalf, and in my stead. Mr. Chalmers had been my father's best friend. He had looked after our family interests ever since I could remember.

When my mom passed away, I was back at Letterman Hospital in the Presidio. This time, I had lost my right leg, and needed to stay there to be rehabbed, and fitted with a prosthesis. I had managed to plow through a trip wire out in the bush. Luckily, I still had plenty of stump on my thigh, so a prosthesis could easily be fitted. At the hospital I met a lot of men who weren't as lucky. When they retired me, they gave me a fifty per cent disability pension. It was only one hundred and twenty eight dollars a month, but it was for life, and income tax free. I was also qualified to go to college as part of the V.A.'s vocational rehabilitation program. They covered my tuition, books, lab fees, and a living allowance of one hundred seventy five dollars a month.

When my bus pulled up in front of the library in Ridgeline, it was a little after nine at night. No one besides Mr. Chalmers even knew I was coming back, so I needed to take the cab out to my house. Ernie, the only cabbie in Ridgeline, took me right to my front doorstep without me having to tell him where to go. Ernie knew everybody in town. I knew that most people would know I was back by noon the next day, at the latest. It was that kind of a town.

The house didn't smell musty or unused, so I assumed that Mr. Chalmers had someone come by and air it out for me. I left my duffel bag and suitcase by the door, where Ernie had placed them, and went into my old room, got undressed, and went to bed.

The next morning, I cleaned up, got dressed in my best civvies, then walked the two blocks over to Brenda Sinclair's house. I really didn't have a plan, other than to apologize to her, and tell her that I was ready to face the consequences for my earlier actions. I figured that I'd be willing to pretty much do whatever she and her family decided was best. I knew that there was no chance for me to even consider making a new start until after we'd settled up for the rape.

I walked up to her porch and rang the doorbell. In my mind, I had envisioned many scenarios that might unfold. The most common of these was for Brenda's father, or her brother, Tommy, to come to the door and either shoot me, or beat me to death.

Sometimes, it was Brenda who answered the door in my mind, and that usually turned out worse for me. I had prepared myself for a long time to face up to this. I really wanted to get it settled and over with, even if it meant prison for me, or, possibly, even death. The whole thing was weighing on me, even more so in the time since my mom's death.

From the first, I knew that Brenda was affected by this much more than I had been. Because I realized and recognized this, I was willing to have her determine what my punishment should be.

I didn't recognize the woman that answered the door. It sure wasn't Brenda or her mom.

"May I help you?"

"Yes, is this still the Sinclair's residence?"

"Is that you, Gainey? It is! We heard you were coming back home. It's me, Linda Fuller. Well, Linda Sinclair now, I guess. Me and Tommy got married three years ago. Are you looking for Brenda? She lives over to Bolling, now. She moved there right after she finished up high school. Tommy's going to kick your ass. He told everybody that he's going to do it as soon as he sees you in town."

"Where is he now?" I could hardly believe that was Linda Fuller standing in front of me. When I left before, Linda was one of the best looking girls in town. The woman in front of me was at least sixty pounds overweight. Her complexion was terrible, with acne pits and scarring on her chins and cheeks. I wondered what the hell had happened to her. Even her hair, which had once been long, straight and blonde, was now cut short, a mousy looking brown color, and looked all drab and lifeless. She had been two years ahead of me in school, so she couldn't be more than twenty seven or so

"He still works at McCutchean's, but don't go by there, because he needs to keep his job. Wait til he gets off. He usually stops over at Jr's for a beer or two after five thirty. If you're going to go there though, it would be better to wait until Wednesday, because tonight's bowling night, and he's going to need his hands to bowl. You know that Tommy's father died? He wanted a piece of you too. Tommy says he's going to give you some shots for his daddy too."

"You tell Tommy that I'm staying back at my house. If he thinks he has business with me, I'll see him there. Where abouts in Bolling does Brenda live?"

"I can't be telling you that. Tommy would kill me if he knew I'd told you anything about her. He's meaner now than when you knew him. I'd appreciate it if you didn't get him all stirred up over this. Let him whomp on you a few times and that can be the end of it. If you try to stand up to him there's going to be a lot of trouble again. I wish you hadn't decided to come back after all this time, Gainey. He won't be able to rest now until he does what he's promised to do."

"I didn't come back to cause any trouble, Linda. I need to speak with Brenda, to see what she wants me to do. I'll meet with Tommy too, if that's what he needs. If it was my sister, I'd probably feel just like he does."

"But, you don't have a sister, Gainey. You don't know what he's feeling."

"I think I understand it. I don't need a sister to know how that would make me feel if I did have one, and somebody did that to her. You tell Tommy what I said. He can come by the house." I turned and tried to walk away, but my new leg wasn't cooperating very well, and I almost fell off the porch. I grabbed hold of the porch post and steadied myself for a second before carefully making my way down the three remaining steps. Linda didn't say anything about my near accident. I was kind of hoping that everyone in town didn't already know about my leg. I didn't want their pity.

I walked back home and called Ernie's number. When I told him who it was, and that I needed to hire him to take me over to Bolling, he told me that he couldn't take me until after eleven. Ernie had some kind of contract with the township to take people to their medical appointments and to the pharmacy for their prescriptions. Mostly, people had Ernie pick up their medicine, and just run it out to them when he happened to be passing by. Right before eleven o'clock, Ernie pulled up outside and honked his horn at me. I came out and sat up front with him. It was too hard for me to get in and out of the back seat on his cab. The front was a lot easier, and I could lift my leg in easier too.When I got in and had the door closed again, Ernie started in talking to me.

"You're going over to see Brenda, aren't you? She might just shoot you when she sees you. No one would blame her if she did."

"Why don't you mind your own business and drive, Ernie?"

"What's wrong with your leg? Did you get shot over there with them Vietnammers?" I just ignored his question. If I had told him anything, I knew it would be all over town, as soon as his cab got back to town. We didn't have our own newspaper in Ridgeline, so I guess Ernie tried to make up for that lack. "Did you lose that leg? Is that one of them wooden ones you got on? Is that why you can't drive yourself?"

"Don't you ever shut up, Ernie? I hate to pay good money for your services, and then have to listen to you yapping at me for the whole time I'm in your cab. If you don't quiet down, I'm going to get that other cab company over in Holton to come get me and drive me back home." Finally, Ernie decided to be quiet. I knew he had been hoping that he'd somehow get the whole skinny on what went on during my meeting with Brenda. I was just as determined that he wouldn't get to be a witness to our talk.

That was assuming that Brenda would even agree to talk to me. I wasn't very confident that she would agree. I'd promised myself that I'd try. We rode in silence for the last fifteen minutes. Bolling was twenty three miles from Ridgeline. It was also three times as big as Ridgeline. The big tire distribution warehouse was the main employer in the town back in those days. If Brenda was living in Bolling, the odds were that she worked at the warehouse too.

"You going to her apartment or her job?"

"Which is closer?"

"Her job. Is that where you want me to take you?"

"All right."

"Going to be a long wait for you then. She works the night shift. Doesn't even get there until six tonight. I'm not sure whether she even works there on Tuesdays."

"Why didn't you just say so? Take me to her apartment then."

"You told me to shut up. Don't you remember?" He turned onto the main drag and went down a few blocks before turning left onto a residential side street. In another three blocks, he slowed and pulled up in front of some one story apartments, finding a place to park. "You want me to wait here for you, or you want to call me when you're finished? I charge five bucks an hour for waiting time."

"How much do I owe you right now?"

"Call it fifteen even. If you want me to wait for one hour, I'll do it for no charge if you're going to want me to drive you back. More than an hour, I'll have to charge you for waiting time."

"Are you going to stay in your cab and mind your own business?"

"Even better than that. How about I leave, and go get myself something to eat? I'll come back when I'm done, and start that hour I promised you." I thought that was a better deal than I could have expected from Ernie, so I paid him his fifteen dollars and watched as he drove off. There were eight apartments in the complex, but none of the mailboxes had any Sinclair's or Brenda's listed on them. I could almost hear Ernie cackling in glee at my ignorance for not asking which apartment was hers. I decided to just start with the first one on the left side and work my way down until I found her. There was no answer at the first two apartments. I guessed that whoever lived there was at work. At the third one, an old lady answered and told me that Brenda lived on the other side in the third apartment from the street. I walked across and knocked on her door.

When she opened up, I recognized her right away. I had been afraid that I might not be able to because it had been so long since I'd seen her. Unlike with Linda Fuller, time had been good to Brenda. I'd been picturing her in my mind as she'd been the last time I saw her. She had been tall and thin then, with brown hair and eyes, and not much in the way of womanly attributes. Now, her hair was longer, and her figure was fully developed. She looked like a full grown woman.

I knew that she recognized me too, because she slammed the door right in my face. I stepped back from the door and waited.

"Go away! How dare you come looking for me like this?" Her voice was muffled from the closed door that stood between us.

"I can't leave until I speak with you, Brenda. In a minute, Ernie's going to come back here and then everyone will know our private business."

"We don't have any private business, Gainey. You raped me, and then you ran away. There's nothing we need to talk about. You better leave or else I'm calling the police on you."

"Call them if that's what you want to do. I think we need to settle this. I came to see how you wanted to handle it. I'm sorry I ran away before. I'm very sorry that I did that to you. I want to pay for what I did, so I can put it behind me and move on with my life."

"Don't you think you're a little bit late? It's been six years. I never filed any charges, even though everyone in town already knew what you did to me. I don't know how you have the nerve to try to move back to Ridgeline. Tommy is going to kill you, I bet."

"Is that what you want to happen? For Tommy to kill me?"

"No, because then he'd have to go to jail, and you're not worth killing, not if it means him having to be the one to pay for it."

"Would that satisfy you though? I could kill myself if that's what you want from me."

"Yes, that's what I want. Kill yourself. How many other girls lives have you ruined in the last six years?"

"I haven't even been with another woman since that night. Goodbye, Brenda. I'm awful sorry for what I did, and I'm sorry for waiting so long to come see you, to take my punishment." I left her doorway, and walked back out to the street to wait for Ernie. I had had a feeling for a long time that this was the price I'd have to pay. It even seemed to me like it was pretty fair. The only question in my mind was whether or not to wait around long enough to let Tommy have his crack at me. I had never liked Tommy, but it still didn't seem right for me to cheat him out of his revenge.

Ernie came back after I'd been waiting for about half an hour. We rode back to my house in silence. At four in the afternoon I had an appointment with Mr. Chalmers. We discussed my mother's estate. Besides the house, which she had owned free and clear, there were some pieces of land she had inherited from her father, back when he had died, and about ninety thousand dollars in her savings account. I was her sole heir. Her will had been changed only two years before. I guess she didn't have any one else she wanted to leave everything to. I had Mr. Chalmers draw up a simple will for me, leaving everything to Brenda.

There had been a Gainey, my mother's maiden name, and a Crocker, my dad's family name, in Ridgeline, ever since it was first settled in 1853. Both those family lines would be extinguished with my death. I waited out in the foyer for the will to be typed up, then signed it. Mr. Chalmers had two of his office staff sign as witnesses. I got to keep the original and one copy, and Mr. Chalmers kept another in my records file in his office.

My leg was sore from walking down to Mr. Chalmers office, so I needed to call Ernie for a ride back home. The only comment he made was that he was glad I was back in town, because he hadn't been so busy in a long while.

That night, Tommy Sinclair, and a few of his bowling buddies came over to my house. It was after ten o'clock and I was already in bed with my leg off. It took me awhile to put it back on and to get myself dressed. When I opened the door, Tommy rushed me, and we wound up on my mother's Persian carpet. Tommy's breath smelled strongly of whiskey, but it didn't seem to slow him down any. I remember the first seven or eight punches to my head, but, after that, I lost all track of anything else.

I spent the next two days drifting in and out of consciousness. At some point, I realized I was in the hospital. By the third day, I started becoming aware enough that my doctor started discussing my injuries with me. I had a broken nose and cheek bone, my jaw was broken in two places, and I had a badly injured right eye, probably the result of being gouged with a thumb. My ribs were bruised, but not cracked or broken.

Tommy Sinclair was sitting in jail, facing some pretty serious charges. The doctor told me that there were two detectives that needed to speak to me to get my side of things, but he also said he didn't want me trying to talk for at least a week. My jaw hadn't been wired because the fractures were hairline rather than clean breaks. Hairline or not, my whole face was all puffed up and swollen. It hurt even though they were giving me some shots for the pain. My nose and the right side of my face hurt me the most.

I was in the hospital for eleven days. When they released me, I had a nurse call Ernie, and he came to pick me up and bring me back home. I'd spoken with the detectives earlier in the week and explained to them why Tommy had attacked me. I told them that I wouldn't press charges, but they said I didn't need to press charges. I told them that I'd testify in Tommy's defense then. The younger detective snorted in derision at me. The day after I got back home, an assistant district attorney came to interview me. I told him the same thing I'd told the two detectives.

Three days later, Tommy's lawyer stopped by. I offered to testify that I'd have done the same thing to anyone else who had done what I did to Brenda, if I had been her brother. He asked if he could come by later with a statement for me to sign to that effect. When he came back, later that day, I signed the statement that he had prepared for me. Tommy's lawyer was the only one who seemed to think that my testimony would benefit Tommy's case.

I learned, later on, that the prosecutor had agreed to let Tommy plead guilty to a greatly reduced misdemeanor charge, and he was given a small fine and a year's probation. Ernie told me that this happened because they would have looked foolish trying to convict Tommy when the victim was going to testify that he deserved what he got. Ernie knew almost everything that went on in Ridgeline.

As soon as I was feeling stronger, I called Ernie, and got him to drive me over to Holton, so I could visit the pawn shop there. I purchased a .38 caliber snub nosed pistol, and a box with fifty rounds of ammo. I refused the clerk's recommendation for me to buy a cleaning kit for the gun. When I came out, Ernie asked me if I was planning on going after Tommy. He was looking right at the box of ammunition and the pistol in the bag I had laid on the floor of the cab.

"Mind your own business, Ernie. I'm not mad at anyone. I'm just used to having a gun close by, that's all." We rode back home in silence. I knew that Ernie would be spreading the word about where I'd gone and what I'd bought as soon as he got somewhere where someone would listen, after he dropped me off.

On my second tour in Viet Nam, I'd seen the corpses of two guys who killed themselves by putting their rifles in their mouths and pulling the trigger. Their faces didn't look too bad, just some powder burns on the inside of their mouths, but the backs of their skulls were blown out. I had decided on a temple shot for myself, it was just as effective, and not quite as messy. I didn't want anything to go wrong, but I didn't want to put the barrel in my mouth either.

At seven that evening, those same two detectives who interviewed me about Tommy, came by my house and placed me under arrest. They took me down and booked me on a charge of attempted suicide. Brenda had called and told them I'd threatened to kill myself. Ernie had also called to say that I'd bought a pistol and some ammo. As soon as they booked me in, they transferred me to the psychiatric hospital in Fair Oaks, for observation, and for psychiatric assessment and evaluation. They also confiscated my pistol, claiming it was needed as evidence in my case. On the ride over to the psychiatric unit, the young detective told me that, if it was up to him, he'd have left me alone, just to see if I had the balls to do it.