Keith replied, "We tried."

Billy laughed and said, "I bet you did. This is like round two, I guess."

"Two, maybe three, four, or five. But who's counting?"

"And I guess this is the last round."

"I'm sure it is."

"You gonna kill him?"

Keith thought a moment, then replied, "I'd rather not."

"Why not?"

"That's too good for him."

Billy nodded and didn't reply.

Keith said, "If I take you all the way, you're going to follow my orders. Right?"

Billy nodded.

"Can't hear you, soldier."

"Yes, sir."

They drove in silence awhile, then Billy said, "She's with him, ain't she?"

"She is."

"Right. So we got to take him without hurting her."

"That's right."

"That ain't gonna be easy."

"No, it's not."

"Three dogs?"

"I think."

"What kinda stuff is he packin'?"

"You name it, he's probably got it. He's a hunter and a cop."

"Yeah, he is." Billy asked, "He got any night-vision stuff?"

"Probably. Compliments of the Spencerville P.D."

"Okay... and I guess he's holed up in a cabin or somethin', someplace where he knows the lay of the land."

"That's right." Keith glanced at Marlon. In medical terms, a doctor would say Billy Marlon's brain had suffered prolonged alcohol insult, and in human terms, anyone who knew him would say his spirit had suffered too many of life's insults. Yet Keith had no doubt whatsoever that Billy Marlon had reached deep down inside himself today, and this was going to be his finest and most lucid hour. Keith said, "Tell me about Beth."

"I can't."

"Sure you can."

Billy sat quietly for a few minutes, then pulled out his wallet and fished out a grubby photo. He handed it to Keith.

Keith looked at it. The color photograph showed a head-and-shoulders shot of a woman in her mid-thirties, short blond hair, quite pretty in fact, with big eyes and a big smile. Keith was sort of surprised at how good-looking she was and not at all surprised that she should have come to the attention of Chief Baxter. There was certainly a normal ratio of pretty women in Spencer County, as Keith had observed, but he understood why this one had become Baxter's victim, and the reason was sitting in the seat beside him. Civilization and civility aside, a weak man with an exceptionally endowed wife was bound to lose her — perhaps on a temporary basis — to someone like Cliff Baxter. Keith handed the photograph back to Billy and said, "She's very beautiful."

"Yeah."

"How long has it been?"

"Two years."

"She remarry?"

"Don't think so. She's still in the Columbus phone book as Beth Marlon."

"Maybe you'll go look her up after this."

"Yeah, maybe."

After a few minutes, Billy seemed in better spirits and said, "Hey, time for a war story."

Keith thought not and asked, "You know this road?"

"Yeah, I take this up now and then. Good huntin' up in Hartwick Pines State Park. You ever been up there?"

"No, never been this far north. You remember a gas station around here?"

"Let's see..."He looked out the window. "Yeah, another mile or so. Hey, how far up we goin'?"

"Near the tip of the peninsula. Another two hours, I guess." Keith added, "You don't have to come all the way. I can drop you at a motel and come back for you."

"Yeah? And what if you don't come back?"

"I'll be back."

Billy suddenly grinned. "You got your shit together, man. Hey, tell you what — we get this fucker, we gut him, and drive into Spencerville with him tied onto the roof like a deer. Whataya say?"

"Don't tempt me."

Billy let out a howl of delight and slapped his thigh. "Yeah! Yeah! Up and down Main Street with the horn honkin' and Baxter's naked butt stickin' up in the air, and the fuckin' wolves eatin' his guts back in Michigan. Yeah!"

Keith ignored this bloodthirsty outburst, not because he thought it was disgusting, but because he thought it wasn't.

He saw the service station up ahead and pointed it out to Billy, who pulled in. Keith gave Billy money for snacks, and Billy went into the building. Keith got behind the wheel.

The attendant filled the tank, and Keith paid him while Billy went to the men's room. Keith's impulse was to leave Billy there, not because Billy Marlon was a burnout — Keith understood burned-out, and he appreciated Marlon's rising to this occasion. The problem was that the occasion that Billy had risen to included Billy's own agenda, and his presence added another dimension to the problem.

But Keith, in a weak moment, had acknowledged what it was he was hunting for, and Billy knew too much, so Billy couldn't be cut loose and left wandering around.

Billy came back to the truck and got in the passenger seat. He looked at Keith, and they both understood that Billy Marlon was a man who was used to being tricked, snubbed, and left behind. Billy said, "Thanks."

Keith got back onto Route 127.

The farms thinned out, and the hills became higher and more thickly wooded. The oaks and maples had lost most of their leaves, and the birch and aspen were almost bare. There were more evergreens, too, Keith noticed, white and red pines and hemlock, some of them reaching towering heights. The sign at the last county line they'd crossed had announced a population of 6,200, about one-tenth the population of Spencer County, which was considered rural. Truly, he thought, this place was remote and nearly uninhabited, bypassed by the great wave of westward pioneers.

The daylight was starting to fade, and the trees cast long shadows over the hills. It was very still outside the truck, and except for an occasional small herd of cattle on a hillside, nothing moved.

Billy asked, "You think she's okay?"

Keith didn't reply.

"He wouldn't hurt her, would he?"

"No. He loves her."

Billy stayed silent for a minute, then commented, "I can't think about him lovin' nobody but himself."

"Yeah, well, maybe love isn't the right word. Whatever it is, he needs her."

"Yeah. I think I know what you mean." Billy added, "She's okay."

At Gaylord, in Otsego County, Keith turned east onto Route 32, and twenty minutes later, at seven-fifteen P.M., they reached Atlanta, the principal town in the area, with a population of about six hundred souls. Keith said to Billy, "We'll stop for gas. Don't mention Grey Lake."

Keith pulled into the only service station and topped off the tank on the assumption that he would be leaving Grey Lake at some late hour, with no known destination.

The attendant made small talk, and Billy spun a yarn about going up to Presque Isle to shoot duck.

Keith went to the pay phone and dialed the Baxter house in Spencerville. As Terry had said, the call was automatically forwarded, and a voice answered, "Spencerville police, Sergeant Blake speaking."

Keith said, "Blake, this is your old pal Keith Landry. Your missing car and man are sitting in a cornfield off Route 8, north side, about a mile west of the city line."

"What?.."

Keith hung up. He felt obliged to make the call, to get Ward out of the trunk before the harvesters found him dead. Keith doubted if his call from Michigan to the Baxter house, forwarded to the police headquarters, would be displayed on any caller ID that the Spencerville P.D. had. Normally, he wouldn't have done anything so charitable if it had even the slightest element of risk to himself, but he didn't want Ward to die, and when the police found Ward, Ward would tell them that Landry was heading to Daytona. The Spencerville police would alert the Ohio state police to look for their fugitive witness at nearby airports or in Florida. There was no reason why they would think of Grey Lake, or of Billy Marlon, or the pickup truck. He hoped not.

Keith had also wanted to see if anyone answered the phone at the Baxter house. Keith believed, based on what Terry had said and Annie's clue about Atlanta — this Atlanta — that Baxter was at Grey Lake. On the other hand, Keith had the nagging thought that this was a setup. But if it was, it was a very elaborate setup and probably too sophisticated for Cliff Baxter. Keith's problem, he knew, was that he'd lived too long in that wilderness of mirrors where thousands of bright boys played the most elaborate and sophisticated tricks on one another. This was not the case here. Baxter was in the only place he could be — his lodge at Grey Lake; and he was alone, except for Annie, and he didn't know Keith Landry was on his way. Reassured, Keith put this out of his mind and thought about the immediate problem at hand.