Praying for Sleep

the glove compartment he took a long black flashlight, a halogen with six D cells in the tube, the lens masked by a piece of shirt cardboard to limit the refraction of the light. Locking the doors he once again checked to see that his pistol was loaded then walked in a zigzag pattern along the shoulder until he found four hyphens of skid marks—where a car had stopped abruptly then sped off just as fast.
    Playing the light over the ground he found where Hrubek had jumped from the hearse: the bent grass, the overturned stones, the muddy bare footprints. Owen continued in a slow circle. Why, he wondered, had Hrubek rolled in the grass? Why had he ripped up several handsfuls of it? To staunch a wound? Was he trying to force himself to vomit? Was it part of a disguise? Camouflage?
    What was in his mind?
    Six feet from the shoulder was a muddle of prints, many of them Hrubek’s, most of them the trackers’ boot prints and the dogs’ paw prints. Three animals, he noticed. Here Hrubek had paced for a time then started running east through the grass and brush just beyond the shoulder. Owen followed the trail for a hundred yards then noted that Hrubek had turned off the road, plowing south, aiming for a ridge of hill paralleling the highway fifty feet away.
    Owen continued along this track until it simply vanished altogether. Dropping to his knees he scanned the area, wondering if the man was smart enough to deer-walk, an evasion technique used by professional poachers: stepping straight down on the ground, avoiding the most telltale signs of passage (not prints but overturned pebbles, leaves and twigs). But he could find no bent blades of grass—the only evidence most deer walkers leave behind. He concluded Hrubek had simply backtracked, aborting his southward journey and returning to the path beside the road.
    Fifty yards east he found where Hrubek had once again done the same—turned south, walked a short way then backtracked. So, yes, he was moving east but at the same time was drawn to something south of the road. Owen followed this second detour some distance from the highway. He stood in the midst of a field of tall grass and once more saw that the trackers had paused here.
    Shutting off the flashlight, he took his pistol from his pocket and waded into the pool of cold darkness that rolled off the rocky hills in front of him and gathered at his feet like snow. He paused here and, against all reason, closed his eyes.
    Owen Atcheson tried to rid himself of the hardened, savvy, forty-eight-year-old WASP lawyer inside him. He struggled to become Michael Hrubek, a man consumed by madness. He stood this way, swaying in the darkness, for several minutes.
    Nothing.
    He could get no sense whatsoever of Hrubek’s mind. He opened his eyes, fingering his pistol.
    He was about to return to the Cherokee and drive on to the truck stop in Watertown when a thought came to him. What if he was allowing Hrubek too much madness?> Was it possible that, even if his world was demented, the rules that governed that world were as logical as everyone else’s? Adler was fast to talk about mix-ups and doped-up patients ambling off. But step back, Owen told himself. Why, look at what Michael Hrubek’s done—he’s devised a plan to escape from a hospital for the criminally insane, he’s executed it and he’s managed to evade professional pursuers. Owen decided it was time to give Hrubek a little more credit.
    Returning to the spot where Hrubek’s trail ended he placed his feet squarely in the huge muddy indentations left by the madman’s feet. With eyes open this time, he found himself looking directly at the crest of the rocky hill. He gazed at it for a moment then walked to the base of the rock. He dabbed his fingers in mud and smeared it on his cheekbones and forehead. From his back pocket he took a navy-blue stocking cap and pulled it over his head. He started to climb.
    In five minutes he found what he sought. The nest on the top of the rocks contained broken twigs and grass and the marks of boots. Their indentations were deep—made by someone who’d weigh close to three hundred pounds. And they were fresh. He also found button marks from where the man had lain prone and looked at the highway below, maybe waiting for the trackers and their dogs to leave. Pressed into the mud was a huge handprint above the word rEVEnge. Hrubek had been here no more than an hour before. He’d gone east, yes, but only for clothes, perhaps, or to