Praying for Sleep

“That’s not what I heard.”
    “From who?”
    “From my old boss at the state police. Don Haversham. He’s the one called me about the search. He said something ’bout seven hospitals your boy’d hightailed it outta.”
    Kohler was laughing. “Sure. But ask Michael which ones. He’ll tell you they were prison hospitals. And when he escaped he was on horseback, dodging musket balls. See what I mean?”
    Heck wasn’t quite sure that he did. “Musket balls. Heh. We’ve gotta head through this brush here.”
    They plunged down a steep dirt path into a valley below. Kohler was soon winded by the arduous trek. When they reached flat ground, he caught his breath and said, “Of course you don’t know for certain that he isn’t headed for Boston.”
    “How’s that?”
    “Well, if he was smart enough,” the doctor pointed out, “to fool you into thinking he was going east, maybe now he’s fooling you into thinking he’s going west. Double bluff.”
    Well. This was something Heck hadn’t thought about. Sure, why couldn’t Hrubek just do the same thing all over again and turn east? Maybe he did have Boston in mind. But he thought for a minute and then told Kohler the truth: “That might be but I can’t search the whole of the Northeast. All I can do is follow my dog’s nose.”
    Though he was painfully aware that this particular nose presently had no notion of where his prey was.
    “Just something to think about,” the doctor said.
    They followed the path through a valley beside an old quarry. Heck remembered in his youth, a solitary boy, he’d taken an interest in geology. He’d spent many hours pounding with a hammer in a quarry similar to this one, snitching honest quartz, mica and granite rocks for his collection. Tonight, he found himself staring at the tall cliffs, scarred and chopped—the way bone was gouged by a doctor’s metal tools. He thought of the X-rays of his shattered leg, showing where the bullet cracked his femur. Why, he’d wondered at the time, as he wondered now, had the goddamn doctor shown him that artwork?
    The hound turned abruptly several times, paused then turned again.
    “Has he got the track?” Kohler asked, whispering.
    “Nope,” Heck replied in a conversational voice. “We’ll know when he does.”
    They walked behind Emil as he snaked along the base of the tall yellow-white cliffs around pools of brackish water.
    They emerged from the rocky valley and climbed slowly. They found themselves once again back at the disabled MG. Heck was grimacing. “Hell, back to square one.”
    “Why’re you out here by yourself?” Kohler asked, breathing heavily.
    “Just am.”
    “There’s a reward for him.”
    Heck looped the track line for a moment. Finally he said, “How’d you know that?”
    “I didn’t. But it explains why you’re out here by yourself.”
    “And how ’bout you, Doc? If you spotted him, how come you didn’t call out the Marines?”
    “He panics easily. I can get him back without anybody getting hurt. He knows me. He trusts me.”
    Emil suddenly stiffened and turned to the forest, tensing. In an instant Heck drew and cocked his pistol. The underbrush shook.
    “No!” Kohler shouted, glancing at the gun. He started forward into the bush.
    But Heck gripped him by the arm and whispered, “I’d be quiet there, sir. Let’s don’t give our position away.”
    There was silence for a moment. Then the muscular doe bounded in a gray-brown arc over a low hedge and vanished.
    Heck put the gun away. “You oughta be a little more careful. You’re kinda trusting, you know what I mean?” He looked south along the road, where the gray asphalt disappeared into the hills. Emil’d shown no interest in that direction but Heck thought they ought to try it nonetheless. He started to hold the plastic bag containing Hrubek’s shorts down to the dog once more. But Kohler stopped his arm.
    “How much?” the doctor asked.
    “How’s that, sir?” Heck stood.
    “How much is the reward?”
    Emil was aware that a scent article was dangling over his head and he shivered. Heck closed the bag up again to keep the dog from growing too skittish. He said to the doctor, “That’s sort of between me and the people paying it, sir.”
    “Is that Adler?”
    Heck nodded slowly.
    “Well,” Kohler continued, “he’s a colleague. We work together.”
    “If he’s a buddy then how come you don’t know ’bout it? The reward?”
    Kohler asked, “How much, Mr.