He cut across the freshly mowed field, walked toward the footbridge over the creek that bordered the hospital property, and saw the car for the fourth time, turning up Dairy Lane, the road between the creek and the inn, the road he would have to pass after he crossed the footbridge.

As he stepped on the bridge, the car window rolled down. A hand held a gun. Someone yelled, “Milligan!”

He froze.

He defused.

The shot missed Ragen as he turned and jumped into the k creek. The second shot also missed. Then another. Ragen grabbed a broken branch from the creek bed, scrambled up the bank and, using the branch as a club, shattered the rear window of the car before it sped off.

He stood there for a long time, trembling with rage. The Teacher had frozen on that bridge—weak and indecisive. If not for his own quick action on the spot, they would all have been dead.

Ragen walked back slowly to the hospital, discussing with Allen and Arthur what to do. Dr. Caul had to be told. Here in the hospital, they were an easy target. They could be found and killed anytime.

Allen told Dr. Caul about it. Furloughs from the hospital were now more important than ever, he argued, because he had to find a place that would be safe until his hearing in Lancaster to vacate his guilty plea. Then he could arrange to leave Ohio and go to Kentucky to be treated by Dr. Cornelia Wilbur.

“It is important,” Arthur told Allen, “not to release word of this attack. If those men read nothing about it in the newspapers, .they will be off balance. They will fear that Billy is doing something.”

“Do we tell the writer?” Allen asked.

“No one but Dr. Caul must know,” Ragen insisted.

“Well, the Teacher has his regular one o’clock appointment with the writer. Will the Teacher be there?”

“I don’t know,” Arthur said. “The Teacher is gone. I believe he’s ashamed of freezing on the bridge.”

“So what do I tell the writer?”

“You are good talker,” Ragen said. “Pretend you are Teacher.”

“He’ll know.”

“Not if you tell him you’re the Teacher,” Arthur said. “He’ll believe you.”

“You mean lie?”

“It will upset the man if he knows the Teacher has unfused and disappeared. They’ve become friends. We cannot take a chance of jeopardizing the book. Everything must go forward just as before this attempt on Billy’s life.”

Allen shook his head. “I never thought you’d tell me to lie.” “If it’s done in a good cause,” Arthur said, “to keep someone from being hurt, it’s not really a lie.”

But during the meeting, the writer found himself uncomfortable with Billy’s attitudes and actions. He seemed too arrogant, too manipulative and demanding. He had always been taught to look for the worst, Billy said, and hope for the best. Now his hopes had been turned around. He was sure he’d be sent back to prison.