Blackburn

NINE

When he was clear of Houston, Blackburn tried to head for northern Louisiana. But he couldn't keep his direction constant because he was sticking to back roads. After nightfall he used some of the money he had taken from his attorney to buy gas, a candy bar, and a cheap digital watch at a small-town convenience store. The Ford's odometer said that he had driven three hundred and sixteen miles, but because of his route he doubted that he was any farther than two hundred miles from Houston.

Clouds moved in to cover the stars as he resumed driving, and by 2:00 A.M. on Thursday, May 15, he was lost on a dirt road in an East Texas forest. Then rain began to fall, and he discovered that the pickup's windshield wipers didn't work. He pulled over to the edge of the road and tried to nap, but lightning and thunder kept him awake. Each flash lit up the pines and dogwoods and cast their shadows across the road. As thunder rattled the truck, Blackburn imagined the trees catching fire in white bursts.

The rain fell until daybreak, and when the clouds cleared, the rising sun showed Blackburn that the dirt road ran north and south. It had become a narrow sea of mud. Blackburn started the Ford and tried to continue driving, but the truck slid into the ditch and sank until mud covered its rear axle. So Blackburn took his Colt Python, climbed to the road, and struck out northward on foot.

The road sucked at his shoes, so he jumped across the ditch and walked in the weeds next to the trees. The ground was uneven and thickets of brush were frequent, so it was slow going. The humidity was high, and the temperature was rising fast. Blackburn took off his suit jacket and necktie, but that didn't help much. The shirt his attorney had given him to wear to court was polyester, and the slacks were wool. The Python was too heavy in his waistband and kept trying to slide down, so he removed it and rolled it up in the jacket, carrying the bundle under his arm. He sweated and itched and was sure that he was breaking out in boils. When he became thirsty he licked rainwater from leaves. He also had to use leaves as toilet paper. By midmorning he was plagued by swarms of gnats and flies. Added to all this was his growing hunger; except for the candy bar, he had not eaten since breakfast the day before.

Blackburn began to think he was being forced to pay penance for his one sin. He wondered if he should start believing in God.

The woods on both sides of the road were unbroken by buildings or clearings. There weren't even any fences. After hours of walking, Blackburn crossed another mud road, and then another, and in the early afternoon came to a two-lane strip of pavement. He stepped onto it and stamped his feet to knock the mud from his shoes.

As he stamped, he heard the hum of an automobile approaching from the east. He looked toward the sound and saw that there was a hill between him and the vehicle. If he wanted to, he could run into the trees and hide. But his clothes were sticking to his skin, and his feet were blistering. There was a chance that the vehicle contained a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper-but he would take that chance rather than slog back into the mud. He crossed to the north side of the asphalt and slipped his right hand into his rolled-up jacket, curling his fingers around the butt of the Python. His muscles tensed, and he waited.

The vehicle turned out to be a slow-moving white van. Blackburn relaxed a little as he watched it come over the hill, and then he took his hand from his jacket and waved. The van pulled to the edge of the pavement and came to a stop beside him. Black lettering on its side panel said RUSK STATE HOSPITAL RUSK TX 75785.

Blackburn looked at the two men inside the van and tensed up again. The plump, balding man in the passenger seat was wearing a short-sleeved yellow shirt, but the driver was a younger, thinner man wearing a blue uniform that made him look like a cop. Blackburn didn't see a gun, though, so he didn't put his hand back into his jacket.

The plump man rolled down his window, and Blackburn felt a puff of air-conditioning. He stepped closer.

"Having trouble?" the plump man asked.

Blackburn forced a smile. He had to look friendly, like someone who deserved to be helped. "Yes. I was exploring some of these back roads looking for dogwood blossoms to photograph." He pointed at the mud road. "But I didn't realize that one was in such bad shape until I was on it. My car bogged down, and I had to leave my camera equipment so I could walk out."

"You're about a month late for dogwood blossoms," the plump man said. "The end of March and the first week of April are best."

The driver was muttering. "Dirt road after a rainstorm," he said. "Not too bright."

Blackburn ignored him. "Well, I'm a transplanted Northerner," he said to the plump man. "I just now moved down here, and I forgot to allow for the earlier spring." He squinted up at the sun. "Feels like summer already."

"It's getting warm, all right," the plump man said. "Could we give you a lift into Palestine? It's over ten miles, and you look like you've walked a piece already."

"I'd appreciate it," Blackburn said. "I drove my car out from Palestine this morning, but I was starting to think I'd be going back in a box."

The plump man started to open his door. "You're lucky we came along. This road doesn't get much use."

The driver made a noise in his throat. "Uh, Doctor, what if we find Morton?"

The plump man paused with his door open a few inches. He looked down at the asphalt and frowned. "Good point," he said. He looked back up at Blackburn. "We're searching for a patient who wandered off Monday evening. The sheriff and DPS are checking the main highways, but we thought we'd improve our chances and look along some of the back roads ourselves. If we were to run across him before dropping you off, you might be…"

"In the way?" Blackburn asked.

"Frankly, yes," the plump man said. "And there might be a question of liability if anything should happen."

"Morton's a handful," the driver said. His voice was flat.

"So perhaps what we should do instead of giving you a lift," the plump man said, "is to call a tow truck for you when we reach Palestine. Would that be all right?"

Blackburn tried to look politely dissatisfied. "I'm afraid my car's so far down that road, and stuck so badly, that a tow truck won't be any use until things dry out. So, well…" He hesitated, hoping to imply that he really hated to impose. "If you'll let me ride with you, I promise I'll get out if you find this Morton. That would still get me closer to town than I am now."

The plump man glanced at the driver. The driver shrugged, looking disgusted, and the plump man pushed his door open. "That sounds reasonable," he said. "And the odds are that we won't come across Morton anyway. But we have to try."

Blackburn squeezed past the plump man and sat on the bench seat behind him. The cool air inside the van was wonderful. "I'll be happy to pay for your gas," Blackburn said. "I'm on vacation this week, so I'm getting paid for nothing. And right now I'd rather buy a ride to town than anything else."

"No need," the plump man said, shutting his door and rolling up his window as the van started moving again. "We're going as far as Palestine anyway, and then we'll drive back to Rusk on another path less taken."

"Waste of time," the driver muttered.

The plump man looked back at Blackburn. "I hope you don't mind if we aren't too talkative. We need to keep our eyes peeled."

"I don't mind at all," Blackburn said. It was the truth. Not having to talk would mean that he wouldn't need to elaborate on his story about being a Northerner transplanted to Palestine.

"And if you should happen to see someone wearing a white hospital gown," the plump man said, "be sure to holler."

"Where should I be looking?" Blackburn asked.

The plump man gestured at the forest alongside the road. "In there. Morton likes to play in the woods." He stuck his right hand back at Blackburn. "By the way, I'm Dr. Joe Norris."

Blackburn shook his hand. "Bruce Rayburn," he said. "Just down from Iowa City."

The driver looked at him in the rearview mirror and grimaced.

"How'd you get the shiner, Bruce?" Dr. Norris asked.

Blackburn touched his right cheekbone, where the DPS trooper had hit him with the Python. It was tender. His nose was sore from the trooper's forearm, too.

"I was carrying a chair into my new house and ran into a doorjamb," he said.

Dr. Norris nodded. "That's why I always hire movers." He turned away and peered out at the trees.

The driver whispered "Dumbass Yankee" just loud enough for Blackburn to hear.

The van proceeded west at forty miles per hour. Blackburn wiped his shoes on the floor mat and watched the woods for a glimpse of a man in a white gown. If he saw him, he would keep his mouth shut.

As the van approached a state highway loop on the outskirts of Palestine, Blackburn spotted a shopping center with an H.E.B. supermarket. He asked Dr. Norris to let him off there. He would call his wife at work, he said, and she would pick him up. Norris's driver muttered something about not having been hired as a chauffeur, but he pulled the van into the H.E.B. parking lot.

Blackburn got out, and as the van drove off, he looked up and down the highway loop and saw a sign for a Best Western motel about a mile to the north. That motel would be his next stop, but first things first. He tucked his rolled-up jacket under his arm and went into the supermarket.

He bought bread and cheese, a couple of apples, a Texas highway map, a disposable razor, and a meat-tenderizing mallet. Then he went outside and bought a copy of the Dallas Morning News from a machine. He sat down on a bench beside the machine, made a cheese sandwich, and found Palestine on the map. His zigzagging during the night had taken him back farther to the west than he had realized; Palestine was a hundred and fifty miles straight north of the western edge of Houston. He was no closer to Louisiana than he had been before his escape.

On the other hand, the DPS would be keeping an eye on the Louisiana border, and they wouldn't be looking for him here. Plus, Palestine had a population of sixteen thousand, which was big enough for him not to be noticed as a stranger. It was also big enough for him to find a car. As long as he wasn't spotted by a city cop, sheriff's deputy, or DPS trooper, he could rest here until after dark, then acquire a vehicle and head for Oklahoma. He didn't think the DPS would be expecting him to try for Oklahoma.

He folded the map and then looked at the newspaper while eating his sandwich. His escape had made the front page, but the article was at the bottom right corner, and there was no photograph of him. The article did mention the brown wool suit he was wearing, but nothing else that would identify him. Its lead paragraph claimed that he had escaped during a "gun battle" with police and DPS troopers. Blackburn thought it was stretching the truth to call one shot a "battle."

He finished his sandwich and was about to leave the newspaper on the bench when another article on the front page caught his eye. It said that a Texas prison inmate named Jay Pinkerton was to be executed by lethal injection at Huntsville that night. He would be the third man to be executed in Texas so far in 1986. He had been seventeen years old when he had committed rape and murder, and had now been on Death Row for four years. He had been taken to the execution chamber once before and had received a stay only minutes before the intravenous solution was to have been administered. Now his time had run out again. The article suggested that there would not be another stay.

Blackburn's sandwich lay in his stomach like concrete.

He too had killed at seventeen. He too was accused of rape and murder. If they had convicted him and sent him to Huntsville, would they have made him wait four years before giving him the needle?

The thought was sickening. If you had to kill someone, it was better to do it quickly. If you had a choice. And surely the State of Texas had a choice.

Blackburn felt sorry for Jay Pinkerton. Not that Pinkerton didn't deserve to die; the article made it clear that he did. He had raped and killed a woman, which put him in the same class as Roy-Boy. But Blackburn would not have made even Roy-Boy wait on his death for four years. That would have been sadism on the order of Roy-Boy's own.

He pulled the front page from the newspaper, crumpled it, and tossed it into a garbage can beside the bench. He folded the rest of the paper and laid it on the bench for someone else to read, then took his rolled-up jacket and his plastic grocery bag and walked down the shopping center's sidewalk to a sporting goods store. There he bought black shorts, a white T-shirt with ADIDAS stenciled on the chest in red, an athletic supporter, white socks, and the cheapest pair of running shoes he could find. That still left him with almost a hundred dollars of his attorney's money. His jacket, with the Python, fit inside the sporting-goods-store bag with his new clothes.

He walked to the Best Western and rented a room from the dazed old woman in the office. She didn't even glance at the phony name and auto-license number he wrote on the check-in form. Nor did she seem to notice that he was sweating and carrying two plastic bags instead of luggage. Blackburn was pleased.

His room was on the second floor on the north side of the building. Once inside, he turned the air conditioner on high, stripped, and lay on the bed in the cold breeze. When his skin was dry, he sat up and ate another cheese sandwich and both apples. Then he lay back down for a nap.

He was exhausted, but he had trouble falling asleep. He should have passed over the Dallas Morning News and picked up a comic book instead.

Blackburn awoke to red and blue flashing lights and sat up gasping. He had been dreaming of drowning, and had seen the lights filtered through the water. Now he saw them filtered through the curtains over his motel room window. Except for them, the room was dark.

He slid out of bed and crept on all fours toward the window. The carpet was stiff and grungy. Beneath the window, the air conditioner was still blasting. He gulped a lungful of iced air and shivered.

At the window he peeked between the curtains and saw that it was night. Down in the parking lot, a police car sat with its lights whirling as two cops shoved a shirtless man into the back seat. Several yards from the car, a young woman in a short nightgown was standing barefoot, hugging herself and crying. Other people stood nearby, watching. Something violent had happened at the motel in the past hour, but Blackburn had heard none of it. The air conditioner had drowned it out. There must have been a siren too, but Blackburn had not heard that either. He switched off the air conditioner, and it stopped with a loud, shuddering chunk. The people in the parking lot looked up.

Blackburn ducked and held his breath. After several seconds he risked another look. Everyone was watching the police car again. The cops shut the shirtless man into the back seat and got into the front seat. The red and blue lights stopped flashing, and the car moved off toward the highway loop. Blackburn let out his breath and stood. The police car hadn't come for him, but sooner or later one would. He took his disposable razor from the grocery bag and went into the bathroom, where he turned on a light and looked at his watch. It was after eleven; time to get on to Oklahoma and beyond. Maybe he would give Canada a try. It was cold, but there was national health insurance.

He took a shower, then went to the sink and worked the remaining sliver of motel soap into a lather. He spread the foam on his cheeks and throat and got too much around his mouth, so he made a mad-dog face in the mirror. Then he shaved. The State of Texas would be thinking of him as a desperate, dirty animal on the run. Maybe he was, but he could try not to look like one.

After shaving, he toweled off and returned to the bedroom. The room was steamy from his shower, but he didn't turn the air conditioner back on. He put on the clothes and shoes he had bought that afternoon, then stuffed his other clothes and shoes into the sporting-goods bag. He had to hang on to them until he could dump them where they wouldn't be found. The jacket, still wrapped around the Python, went on top. Obtaining more ammunition would be a priority as soon as he was out of the state. His five remaining cartridges would be adequate for now, but they wouldn't last forever.

He picked up his plastic bags and was about to leave, but heard a knock at the door of the room next to his. He heard the door open and then voices on the balcony. He set down his bags, went to the window, and peeked between the curtains again, looking sideways. He saw the two cops who had been in the parking lot, and the old woman from the motel office. The cops were talking to a man in the next room, asking whether he had seen or heard anything unusual that evening. They were looking for witnesses against the man they had arrested.

One of the cops said, "If you think of anything, give us a call." The door closed, and the cops and the old woman started toward Blackburn's room. Blackburn backed away from the window, then stood still as they knocked on his door. He breathed in short, shallow puffs.

"Excuse me," one of the cops said in a loud voice. "We're police officers, and we need to ask a few questions."

Blackburn squatted and reached into the sporting-goods bag. He put his hand into his rolled-up jacket, but his palm came up against the Python's muzzle. He pulled his hand out again.

"I know this room's occupied," the old woman said. "Maybe he's gone out." Blackburn heard the rattle of keys. "We'll just take a look."

Blackburn picked up his bags and went into the bathroom. "Just a minute!" he yelled. "I'm on the pot!" He put the bags into the bathtub and pulled the shower curtain across to hide them. Then he took some deep breaths. There was nothing to worry about. These cops weren't here for him. They wouldn't be thinking about him. He wasn't wearing the same clothes as yesterday. He could leave the bathroom light on, and that would draw their eyes away from his face. Even if they did look at his face, his hair was wet and looked darker than it really was. He flushed the toilet and went to answer the door.

As the door opened, Blackburn saw that the cops were young, in their early twenties. They looked grim. "Sorry to bother you at such a late hour, sir," the closest one said. He didn't sound sorry. "But we had a disturbance downstairs, and we were wondering if you might have seen or heard anything that could help us with our investigation."

"I'm afraid not," Blackburn said. "I had the air conditioner on, and I didn't even wake up until you were putting the guy into your car. I did see that."

"You slept through the disturbance, sir?" the cop asked.

"I guess so."

The other cop pointed at Blackburn's feet. "Do you sleep in your shoes, sir?"

Blackburn looked down at his new running shoes. "No," he said. "But I couldn't get back to sleep, so I thought I'd go for a jog to tire myself out."

"Jogging at night isn't advisable, sir," the first cop said. "You might be hit by a motorist."

"Oh," Blackburn said. "I won't do it, then."

"Maybe you could watch TV instead," the cop suggested.

"I'll do that."

"And if you happen to remember anything that might help us, please call the Palestine Police Department. Or tell the front desk here at the motel."

The old woman rattled her keys. "I'm sorry about the ruckus," she said. "I hope you can get back to sleep."

"Not your fault," Blackburn said.

The cops and the old woman moved on toward the next room. As Blackburn closed the door, he saw the second cop look back at him and scowl. But there was no recognition in the look, only the normal aggressive distrust of a young male.

Blackburn turned on the television so the cops would hear that he had taken their advice. He couldn't leave until he was sure they were gone anyway. As he sat down on the bed, the television screen brightened into an artist's rendering of Jay Pinkerton lying strapped to a gurney. According to the voiceover, the execution was taking place at that moment.

Blackburn got up and turned off the television. He went into the bathroom, took his plastic bags from the tub, and returned to the bed. He pulled the Python from his jacket and cocked it. Then he sat with his back against the headboard and waited.

Several minutes later he heard the cops' voices in the parking lot, and then a car starting and driving away. He waited ten more minutes before uncocking the Python and replacing it in his jacket in the sporting-goods bag. Then he picked up both bags and left the room. The sky was covered with clouds again.

Blackburn walked behind the motel and out to a tree-canopied side street. There was no traffic. He headed east, away from the highway loop, until he came to a small apartment house with a ripe parking lot. There he wrapped his polyester courtroom shirt around his meat-tenderizing mallet and broke the driver's-side wing window from an old Dodge Coronet sedan. He reached in and unlocked the door, then opened it and tossed his bags inside. He glanced at the apartment house to be sure no lights were coming on, then squirmed under the car's dashboard.

When the engine started, Blackburn came out from under the dashboard and looked at the apartment house again. There were still no lights. He settled into the driver's seat, pulled out of the lot, and drove back toward the highway loop. The Coronet's engine stumbled, but he thought it would get him to Oklahoma.

As he turned north onto the highway loop beside the Best Western, he saw that the police car was back again, parked in front of the motel. The two cops were coming out of the office. One of them seemed to stare at Blackburn as he drove past.

Blackburn watched his rearview mirror and saw the police car pull onto the loop and also head north. But it was half a mile behind him, and its flashing lights weren't coming on. Blackburn turned west at a stoplight, and although the police car turned west there too, it dropped back even farther. By the time Blackburn was out of the city, accelerating northwest on U.S. 287, there were no headlights in his mirror. It had been thirty-six hours since he had escaped from the courthouse in Houston, and he was still alive and free.

That put him two up on a lot of people. Including, by now, Jay Pinkerton.

The Coronet died soon after he turned off U.S. 287 onto Texas 19, before he could find one of the back roads that he preferred. There was a grinding noise, and then the engine quit. Blackburn let the car coast into the ditch and stopped it under an overhanging tree. God was still trying to get him to believe in Him, and had decided that he should wander on foot for a while longer.

Blackburn didn't think that would have to be for long. After turning onto Texas 19, he had passed a gravel road with a sign beside it that said Palestine community forest, and he had seen red taillights wink off among the trees. At least one car was parked in there.

He took his two plastic bags and trudged back toward the gravel road. The ground was moist rather than muddy, so he knew the rain had not been as heavy here. A car passed by on the highway, and he lay down in the grass at the bottom of the ditch so its occupants wouldn't see him. When he stood, his clothes were damp, and he felt bugs, probably ticks, crawling on his skin. He stopped and set down his bags to brush himself off, but it was too dark for him to see whether he was successful. The sensation of things crawling on him didn't go away, so he had to walk on and try to ignore it. He couldn't wait to get out of Texas.

When he could see the flat shadow that was the mouth of the gravel road, he climbed the slope of the ditch and entered the forest, weaving his way between the trees. The woods were alive with chirps, clicks, and scrabblings, some of which ceased as Blackburn passed by. He didn't want to think about all the ticks he was rousing, so he thought about snakes instead. Snakes could be shot.

A few hundred yards into the forest, an automobile appeared among the trees. It was a Nissan Z car that, in the darkness, appeared to be a dull gray color. It was parked in a clearing at the end of a dirt track that Blackburn assumed led back to the gravel road. The Nissan's windows were down, and as Blackburn approached, he heard slurping sounds from within. Kids making out.

Blackburn's plan was simple. He would force the Nissan's occupants out of the car and take it. But he would have to be careful. In Texas, even people in sports cars were often armed. Blackburn set down his bags among the roots of an elm, removed the Python from his rolled-up suit jacket, and stepped into the clearing.

At that moment, another man emerged from the trees on the opposite side of the clearing. This man's shirt, like Blackburn's, was white, and his legs, like Blackburn's, were bare. He stood out so sharply against the dark trees that he seemed to glow. Blackburn stopped and stared, thinking at first that he was seeing a reflection of himself, a terrestrial gegenschein. Then, as the other man continued to approach, Blackburn saw that he was small and walked in a stoop, and that his shirt was in fact a gown that stopped at mid-thigh. His gray hair was long and matted, and his beard touched his chest. He was not a reflection of Blackburn.

The man raised his hands above his head and shouted in a high-pitched, cracking voice: "Fornicators! Repent!"

Two heads popped up in the Nissan. Blackburn hissed "Shit" and stepped back into the trees. He didn't know if the people in the car had seen him or not.

The long-haired man continued to shout. "The wages of sin is death!" he cried. He was standing beside the car now, pounding its roof with his fists. "At least use a rubber!"

The Nissan's engine started, and its headlights came on. The beams stabbed into the woods and pinned Blackburn against a tree trunk. He dropped to the ground, hoping the kids were too intent on getting away to notice him. The Nissan spun its rear wheels, backed up in a half circle, and scraped against a cedar. Metal squealed as it lurched forward onto the dirt track, and then it was gone. Blackburn heard it turn onto the gravel road and roar off toward the highway.

"Oh, generation of vipers!" the long-haired man shouted, shaking a finger toward the sound of the departing car. "Who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Me, that's who!"

Blackburn was perturbed. He stood, sure that he was covered with ticks again, and stepped back into the clearing.

"Hey, you!" he said. "You're Morton, right?"

The long-haired man froze, his finger still raised. Then his head swiveled, and he stared at Blackburn.

"My child," he said. His voice was hoarse.

Blackburn raised the Python and shook it as the longhaired man had shaken his finger. "You may have just ruined my chances for getting out of here alive. I'd kill you, but killing crazy people is bad luck."

The long-haired man turned so that his finger pointed at Blackburn. "I am the good shepherd," he said, "and know my sheep, and am known of mine. Thou knowest I am the Morton. Thou art mine." He lowered his hand and scratched his crotch. "As for killing me, go ahead. That's what I'm here for. But if ye seek to be set free-" He turned and shuffled toward the trees from which he had emerged. "Follow me."

Blackburn considered. Insane or not, Morton had managed to escape from a state hospital, and so far he had avoided capture for three days. Blackburn followed him into the forest.

Morton was fast, and Blackburn had trouble keeping up. Sometimes Morton vanished, then reappeared farther away, a will o' the wisp in a hospital gown. Blackburn scraped his elbows on tree trunks, and tripped and fell twice. The forest seemed endless, and Morton flitted through it as if he were composed not of flesh, but of white gases that could pass through tree trunks as easily as through air.

At last, when Blackburn was sweating and his lungs had been aching for what seemed like hours, Morton stopped in a clearing. Blackburn collapsed a few yards away from him, breathing hard, not caring about ticks. After a minute or two he was able to sit up and saw that Morton had made a small pile of sticks on a strip of bare earth. Morton was sitting cross-legged before the sticks and setting them on fire with a butane lighter. When the fire was burning well, Morton tossed the lighter over his shoulder. It landed behind him with a clink.

"Isn't it warm enough already?" Blackburn asked, rising to a crouch and moving closer. He saw now that Morton was wearing dirty high-topped sneakers with cracked soles and no shoelaces.

"Be willing for a season to rejoice in a burning and shining light," Morton said. He leaned over the blaze and grinned. "Fire good," he said.

Blackburn sat down across the fire from Morton and laid the Python beside him. "You said you'd set me free," he said, "and for me that means getting out of Texas. You don't happen to have a car, do you?"

Morton shrugged. "I am the way, the truth, and the life, but I got no wheels."

"So how do I get out of here?" Blackburn asked. "I'm lost."

"Yea, the son of Stan is come to save that which was lost," Morton said. "No man cometh unto the fat herd, but by me."

"What's that mean?"

"Hang out with me until the old farts come from town for their picnics tomorrow," Morton said. "Then you can snag a Buick and take a journey into a far country. But waste not your substance with riotous living unless your old man is a soft touch. Fatted calves don't grow on trees."

Blackburn decided that, at its core, Morton's plan made sense. His only alternative was to take off through the woods on foot again, and that would get him nowhere. He had no idea where the nearest road might be or what he would do even if he found it. He might as well consider himself settled in for the night.

"Speaking of fatted calves," he said, "I'm hungry. I had some bread and cheese, but I left it beside a tree. Do you have anything?"

"I have food for the spirit, my son," Morton said.

"Anything else?"

Morton reached behind his back and produced a small foil-covered box. "A few Cracker Jacks," he said. He held the box out to Blackburn. "Take, eat; this is my body."

Blackburn accepted the box and shook some of the contents into his mouth. He had to chew for a long time before swallowing. "You're a little stale," he said.

"Watch your mouth. Know that I am indeed the Morton, the Savior of the world."

Blackburn took another mouthful of Cracker Jacks. "No fooling?"

"I shit you not," Morton said. "For lo, Stan went up from Indiana, out of the city of Goshen, into Pennsylvania, unto the city of Bethlehem. And there Bernice his espoused wife, being great with child, brought forth her firstborn son and did call him Morton, saying, This city doth reek with the fumes of many mills of steel, and it is not meet that a child of decent people should be brought up in a stinking cesspool. So Stan took the young child and his mother, and turned aside into the parts of Kentucky; and he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, population seven hundred. But lo, there was no labor for Stan in the parts of Kentucky thereabouts, and he didst drink of the fruit of the vine and clobber his wife and child when they didst cry out for meat. And behold, an angel of the Lord appeareth to Stan in a dream, saying, Arise, and dump yonder bitch and brat. For what dost thou need this crap? And verily, Stan did arise, and gat himself the hell out of Dodge."

"You were better off without him," Blackburn said.

"Tell me about it," Morton said. He reached behind his back again and produced a quart bottle of orange Gatorade. He held it out to Blackburn. "Drink ye all of it, for this is the blood of Morton of Nazareth, which is shed for many for the remission of sins." His eyes narrowed. "You do have sins, don't you? I don't want to waste this stuff. We're talking blood here."

Blackburn was thirsty, so he took the bottle. "I only have one sin," he said, "but it's a big one. A woman was raped because I didn't do anything to stop it." He shook the bottle, took off the cap, and drank. The Gatorade was warm and salty. He drank half the bottle in seven gulps, then lowered it and caught his breath.

"I said all of it," Morton said. "Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. So chugalug." He clapped his hands and chanted. "Chugalug, chugalug, chugalug."

Blackburn chugalugged, draining the bottle. Then he belched.

"Attaboy," Morton said. "Now, if thou wilt confess thy sins unto me and accept me as thy Savior, thou wilt be born again of water and of the Spirit and dwell in Paradise, a small town in Utah."

Blackburn dropped the bottle, and it clanked against the Python. He saw then that the Python's muzzle was clogged with mulch from his falls in the woods, so he picked up the pistol and removed its cartridge cylinder. "I told you, I only have one sin," he said, pulling a weed and running it into the Python's barrel. "And the woman I committed it against has already absolved me, so I don't need to be born again."

Morton sat up straighter and glared. "Unless she has written permission, she can't absolve squat. And even if she does, you still need a Savior."

Blackburn continued cleaning the Python. "I don't think so. I was willing to accept a Savior when I was a kid, but everyone who tried to sell me one turned out to be peddling snake oil."

"That which is born of the flesh is flesh," Morton said, "and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. They were false prophets; I'm the real McCoy."

"The Christians say that Jesus is."

Morton snorted. "Yea, but if Jesus had to die for Christians to be saved, and Jews killed Him, then shouldn't Christians be kissing Jews on the backside at high noon instead of burying them in shallow graves at midnight? Hear then my condemnation: That light is come into the world, and men love darkness rather than light. Verily, a new, improved Savior with superior night vision is required."

Blackburn finished wiping the Python clean with his T-shirt. "You?"

"As foretold in the prophecies," Morton said. "Witness my birthplace, my home town, my ministry, my scourging, and my crown of thorns. Witness that I yearn to submit to the sacrifice, and that I shall exalt whosoever offs me as the instrument of man's salvation. I'd do it myself, but that would be an act of selfishness and would queer the deal. So pack up your doubts and troubles in your old kit bag and behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world!"

"I don't see a crown of thorns," Blackburn said.

Morton put his hands on his hips. "I took it off for the evening, okay? The damn thing hurts."

Blackburn snapped the Python's cartridge cylinder back in place and laid the gun on the ground again. "Sorry," he said. "No offense."

Morton took his hands from his hips and pointed a finger at Blackburn. "Art thou going to confess thy sins and be saved, or aren't thou?"

"I repeat, I only have one sin."

"I'll be the judge of that." Morton cleared his throat. "To begin: Hast thou had any other Gods before me?"

Blackburn peered across the fire at Morton, studying his dirty, lined face in the flickering light. "No," he said, "but I can't say that I've had you either."

"Close enough," Morton said. "Now for door number two: Hast thou ever taken my name in vain?"

" 'Morton'?"

"Okay, dumb question." Morton scratched his beard. "How about adultery? Ever done that?"

"No. It was done to me, though."

Morton gasped. "What'd you do to your wife when you found out?"

"I tied her upside-down in a closet. It didn't hurt her, but I guess I feel bad about it."

"You let her off easy," Morton said. "So forget it and tell me: Hast thou honored thy father and thy mother?"

Blackburn looked at the fire. "I tried to do what they said, when I was a kid. But I don't think I loved them. My mother was weak, and my father was-"

Morton interrupted. "A frustrated failure who became a mean-tempered, shit-heeled son of a bitch you wished you had the guts to kill?"

"Something like that," Blackburn said.

"Piss on 'em, then," Morton said. "My old man used to scourge me with baling wire, and when he left, my mom took up the slack. That's why in my church, commandments are conditional. Which brings me to: Hast thou killed? People and furry creatures, I mean. Serpents, bugs, and armadillos that jumped up into your transmission don't count."

"Yes," Blackburn admitted. "I've killed nineteen men."

Morton didn't seem surprised. "Did they deserve it?" he asked.

"Every one of them."

"Piss on 'em, then." Morton stood. His joints made popping sounds. "Come kneel thou before me."

Blackburn stood and went around the fire, then knelt beside a shallow hole that was just behind the spot where Morton had been sitting. The hole contained the butane lighter, another bottle of Gatorade, a bag of Fritos, and a dead mole. Blackburn clasped his hands before him in a prayerful attitude.

Morton placed his hands on Blackburn's head. "Dost thou repent of all thy manifold sins?" he cried.

"Well, the one, anyway," Blackburn said.

"Dost thou promise to walk in the way of righteousness?"

"Yea, verily," Blackburn said.

"Art thou now or hast thou ever been a member of the Communist Party?"

"Not to the best of my recollection."

Morton pressed down hard. "Be thou clean!" he shouted. "By the powers vested in Me by Me, I now pronounce you SAVED!" He leaned over and gave Blackburn a wet kiss on the mouth. Then he straightened and smiled. "Son, thy sins be forgiven thee. Let's us go find the nearest body of water." He wrinkled his nose. "You smell a little gamy."

Blackburn laughed. Morton might be crazy, but his craziness was more tolerable than what most of the world called sanity. He stood and shook Morton's hand.

"Thank you," Blackburn said.

"Thou art welcome," Morton said. "Maybe someday you can do something for me."

As Morton spoke, there was a crashing noise in the forest. Blackburn released Morton's hand and jumped across the fire. He scooped up the Python and cocked it, then stood with his back to the flames and looked into the woods. He saw bobbing disks of white and yellow light.

With the lights came voices. "There!" one cried. "I see him!"

Blackburn jumped back across the fire and grasped Morton's arm. "Come on," he said. "We'll head the other way."

But as he began to pull Morton that way, lights appeared among the trees there as well. So Blackburn turned another way, and then another. The lights were almost everywhere. Only one direction was free, but Blackburn and Morton had taken only a few steps when the sound of engines approached from there. Then headlights appeared, bearing down on them.

Blackburn stopped, and now he saw that he and Morton were standing in the same clearing where the Nissan had been parked. He had followed Morton for miles, only to be led back to their starting point.

They were surrounded. A circle of more than a dozen armed men emerged from the trees, and two vehicles with not only headlights but spotlights entered the clearing. Blackburn and Morton were caught in their beams.

Morton pulled free of Blackburn's grasp and stepped toward the spotlights. "Whom seek ye?" he shouted.

One of the spotlights was blocked as a man stepped in front of it. "Morton," he said.

"Morton who?" Morton demanded.

The man came toward Morton, and Blackburn saw that it was Dr. Norris from the Rusk State Hospital.

"Morton of Nazareth," Dr. Norris said.

Morton's shoulders sagged. "I am he."

Then a voice behind Blackburn spoke. "You in the shorts," it said. "Drop that weapon and lie face-down."

Morton whirled around. "I have told you that I am he!" he shrieked. "If therefore ye seek me, let this schlemiel go his way!"

A figure dashed from behind the spotlights and charged toward Morton as if to tackle him from behind. Blackburn saw that it was Dr. Norris's blue-uniformed driver.

Blackburn raised the Python. "Stay away from him!" he yelled.

The driver came on, so Blackburn aimed and fired. The driver screamed and dropped to his knees, pressing a hand over his right ear. Some of the men in the circle shouted and raised their weapons, but Blackburn knew none of them could fire at him without the risk of hitting the men across from them.

Morton jumped at Blackburn and threw his arms around him. "Put up thy three fifty-seven into the sheath," he said. "The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not chugalug it?"

The circle of men tightened, and Blackburn saw among them the two cops who had questioned him at the motel. The one who had scowled at him was carrying the plastic bags containing Blackburn's clothes and food.

"My ear!" Norris's driver was shrieking. "He shot my fucking ear!"

"Don't bitch," Blackburn said. "I was aiming for your fucking skull."

Dr. Norris came closer. "Morton," he said in a syrupy voice. "Come along, now. You know we can make you better."

Morton twisted his head back. "How can Satan cast out Satan?" he yelled. "Dipshit!"

Blackburn looked for an escape route and did not see one. He cocked the Python again, but Morton was holding him so that he couldn't aim, and there were too many armed men anyway. All of them were pointing their guns at him. If he fired again, they might not worry about hitting each other.

"We're screwed," he told Morton.

Morton looked up at him. The Savior's hair fell back from his forehead, and Blackburn saw the cuts and scratches that the thorns had left.

"Do not forsake me unto them," Morton whispered. "Their soldiers smite me with coat hangers, and their concubines mock me. I cannot preach. I cannot wander in the wilderness of Palestine." He clutched Blackburn's right wrist and pulled it up so that the Python's muzzle touched his chest. "Ought not Morton to have suffered, and to enter into his glory?"

Blackburn tried to pull the gun away. "No," he said. "You don't deserve to die."

Morton was stronger than he looked. He held Blackburn's hand and pistol tight against his chest. "The beggar died and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom," he said. "The rich man also died, and fried like a sliced 'tater. Pull the trigger, asshole."

"Drop the weapon now!" a man in the circle bellowed. "If it moves any way but down, I'll blow your brains out!"

"It'll be all right, Morton," Dr. Norris cooed.

Blackburn decided that the question of whether Morton deserved to die wasn't the question he should be asking.

"Are you sure?" he whispered.

Morton nodded. "Verily, I say unto thee: Let's do it."

Blackburn pulled the trigger. The noise was a loud thump.

The men in the circle fell silent, unsure of what they had heard.

Morton closed his eyes and smiled. Blackburn lowered him to the ground.

"Let us go over unto the other side of the lake, Jimmy," Morton murmured. "We gonna catch us a whopper."

Then something hit Blackburn in the head, and he fell. A man with a rifle stood over him, tall as a tree. Others appeared beside him.

"I said drop the gun," the man with the rifle said.

Blackburn considered killing him and decided not to. The man's voice held no cruelty, only a resigned determination to do his job. That wasn't worth a bullet.

He let his fingers relax. The Python was taken away, and then the men jerked him to his feet.

"I know you now," the cop who had scowled said. "You're Jimmy Blackburn."

Blackburn looked down at Morton, and at the red spot on the white gown. Morton wasn't breathing. Even though Blackburn had not been able to make it a head shot, Morton had died fast.

"Yes," Blackburn said. "But I never told him my name, and he called me by it anyway. He said we'd go fishing."

He looked up at the angry faces, lit by white and yellow flashlight beams and orange flickers from the dying fire. He had to let them know what had really happened this night in the wilderness of Palestine.

"Truly," he said, "this was the Son of God." He looked down at Morton again. The smile was still there. "I shit you not."