was close to the place. Not any more. His awareness of things was automatic, and his actions merely coasted on the strength of what had been planned long in the past. So he looked as though he were coming from somewhere and going somewhere, but since he had left the apartment, far back sometime in Santa Monica, there had been no will in him. The wheel had stopped turning.

“You know what’s going to happen if that bird ever leaves the highway, don’t ya?” Rosen said.

“What? We lose him?”

“That’s right. We lose him.”

“Catell’s a city boy, don’t forget. He wouldn’t hole up out there someplace. He wouldn’t know what to do.”

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

“My guess is he isn’t going to stop for anything. He needs distance, Rosen. He’s trying to get away as fast and as far as possible. And not just from us. From the mess he left, too.”

Rosen and Herron were on the highway now, traveling at a good clip toward the darkening east.

“Think they’ll snag him before dark, Rosen?”

“Ought to. Look at the map. Blocked here, here, here. Even this burg here, Joiner’s Creek, they even got an alert out for him there.”

“Not that it matters,” Herron said “If I know my city boys, they’ll always stick to the highway and rely on a fast car. And Catell’s no different.”

The rutted side road wound through a landscape of caked dirt and dry sage. Every so often there were rocks. Catell never slowed down. He had started with high speed; he had stayed with it. He did what he was doing because he was doing it.

When the road dipped he saw the green trees for a moment. They were some distance off, but they meant that Joiner’s Creek was there. Catell slowed down, looking. With a sudden twist he pulled the car off the road, bumped over the sage that rattled under the car, and stopped beside a gray outcropping of rock.

Catell got out of the car and walked around the rock to a place where the stone sank vertically into the ground. Squinting in the failing light, Catell stooped low, walking, then stopped. He went to his knees.

For a faint moment the old fire tried to leap in him again, but there was no fuel to feed it, and it died.

Catell just dug.

When his nails hit the metal, he reached down, felt the handle, and pulled out the dented cartridge box. He carried it to the car and set it on the floor in the back. Then he drove away.

Herron had slept badly and the morning sun coming up over the flat land felt like a sledgehammer. He left the cabin and walked across the gravel court to the diner. Rosen was already there, working on a cheeseburger and French fries.

“Sit down, Jackie, sit down. Ready for some breakfast?”

“Rosen, please, you trying to make me sick? And keep those potatoes out from under my nose.”

“Jeeze, you always like this in the morning?”

“I forgot my toothbrush. I thought this chase would be over before long, so like a fool I took off minus a toothbrush. Coffee, miss. Black.”

“Don’t bother buying one, Jackie. This caper is almost up. We got the planes out now. Patrol just came by and told me.”

“You talked the same way yesterday, Rosen. By now history is beginning to prove you’re wrong.”

“Crap. How can we miss? You know what this country-side looks like from up there? A pancake. Like a pockmarked pancake.”

“For chrissakes, Rosen, let me enjoy my coffee. And put those damn potatoes someplace else.”

“Sensitive, ain’t ya? Well, Jackie, I can understand that. Some guys, when they don’t have their toothbrush in the morning—”

“Aw, shut up.”

After they had drunk their coffee, Rosen pulled out a map.

“Take a look here, Jackie. We figure he’s in here, and bottled up good. Now the planes are going to spot this area there, other side of Joiner’s Creek, and over here, too. I can see that crazy hood right now, shivering behind some rock there and watching the planes overhead.”

That same afternoon the big car was racing its sharp shadow down the white highway. Catell handled the car with no wasted motion. He sat stolidly, without blinking, even though he headed south with the sun in his eyes most of the time. Sometimes he switched on the radio and listened to the police calls. But you couldn’t tell by looking at him that he knew they were chasing him farther north; he had crashed the dragnet