The answer dawns on him slowly—an answer, at least, and he’s damned if it doesn’t feel like the right one. They missed him because he was able to slip into a different version of America as he lay behind the tangle of kudzu and sumac, peering out at Route 3. Maybe different in only a few small details — Lincoln on the one and Washington on the five instead of the other way around, let us say— but enough. Just enough. And that’s good, because these guys aren’t brain-blasted, like the dead folks, or blind to him, like the bloodsucking folks. These people, whoever they are, are the most dangerous of all.

Finally, Callahan goes back out to the road. Eventually a black man in a straw hat and overalls comes driving along in an old beat-up Ford. He looks so much like a Negro farmer from a thirties movie that Callahan almost expects him to laugh and slap his knee and give out occasional cries of “Yassuh, boss! Ain’t dat de troof!” Instead, the black man engages him in a discussion about politics prompted by an item on National Public Radio, to which he is listening. And when Callahan leaves him, in Shady Grove, the black man gives him five dollars and a spare baseball cap.

“I have money,” Callahan says, trying to give back the five.

“A man on the run never has enough,” says the black man. “And please don’t tell me you’re not on the run. Don’t insult my intelligence.”

“I thank you,” Callahan says.

“De nada, ” says the black man. “Where are you going? Roughly speaking?”

“I don’t have a clue,” Callahan replies, then smiles. “Roughly speaking.”