“You’ve got to let me drive that someday,” he said, jogging in place as she got out of the truck.

“No way, Billy.”

He saw the CB antenna and the call number on the back window. “I didn’t know you were a CBer.”

“Yep,” she said, locking up and turning to walk into the hospital.

“What’s your handle?” he asked, following her inside.

“Deerslayer.”

“That’s a strange handle for a woman. Why’d you choose that?”

“Because I like to hunt deer.”

He stopped and stared at her.

“What’s the matter?”

“You hunt deer? You kill animals?”

She looked him in the eye. “I shot my first buck when I was twelve years old, and I’ve hunted every year since. I didn’t have much luck last season, but I can tell you I’m lookin’ forward to goin’ out next fall. I hunt for the meat. I think it’s right. So don’t start arguing about it.”

They rode up together in the elevator. Billy went to his room and tore up the sketches for her deer painting.

On July 7, 1979, boxed in red on the front page, the Columbus Dispatch ran a banner-headlined story by Robert Ruth:

Rapist Milligan Could Be Free Within Few Months

Describing the possibility that Milligan might be found sane in three or four months, and that he might be released under U.S. Supreme Court interpretations of federal law, the article concluded:

“He [Rep. Mike Stinziano] predicted Milligan’s life might be in danger if some Columbus residents found him wandering in the city.”

After reading the story, Dr. Caul said, “I’m afraid that newspaper article is going to put ideas into some people’s heads.”

Kathy’s fiance, Rob Baumgardt, and his brother Boyce, wearing Army fatigues from work as extras in Robert Redford’s movie Brubaker, came to pick Billy up a week later for his chaperoned weekend leave. As he walked down the steps with the uniformed men Billy saw the officers staring through the window of the security office. He tried to keep from smiling while he was driven off by what must have looked like a military escort.

Billy told the writer of disturbing changes he was noticing in himself. Without switching to Tommy, he opened locked doors without keys. He rode his new motorcycle without switching to Ragen, yet he rode it as Ragen would have, up steep hills. He felt the pulsating adrenaline, as Ragen had felt it, physically aware of himself every muscle working well to do the things he was now able to do, though he himself had never been on a bike before.

He also found himself becoming antisocial, annoyed at the other inmates, impatient with the staff. He had the strange sense of wanting desperately to get a six-foot metal rod with a hook at the end and go down to the electric terminal. He knew where the U-80 current transformer was. By pulling it down, he could turn the juice off.

He argued with himself that it was wrong. If the pole lights went off in the street, someone might have a wreck. But why did he want to do it? Then he remembered one night when his mother and Chalmer had been arguing. Unable to stand it, Tommy had gone off on his bicycle down Spring Street. He’d [ridden to the terminal, crawled in and knocked the electricity out. Tommy knew that when the lights went out, people got [calmer. They’d have to stop fighting. Three streets had lost power—Hubert Avenue, Methoff Drive and Spring Street. When he got back it was dark, but the argument was over, and Dorothy and Chalmer were sitting in the kitchen, drinking coffee by candlelight.