It is wrong to hate someone who does evil yet is redeemable. We should not scold like an old woman. Instead, show sympathy. But for a man twisted forever into pure evil, it is proper to uncork our hatred, whip up the mop and loose the dogs.

Plato, Laws 731d. (author's translation)

It is said the Palouse was once as green as the Pacific. That its rolling hills were like waves frozen in time. And that on this earthen surf the snowy-hipped horses of the Nez Perce frolicked like dolphins.

Chief Joseph and two hundred Nez Perce warriors made a dash for Canada on these tireless mounts. The cavalry tried to keep up but they rode ordinary horses. Their mounts lathered, groaned, and collapsed to roll dead onto their riders. More cavalry were sent. When their mounts foundered, these soldiers too passed the baton.

After fifteen hundred miles, the last mounted army finally caught up with Chief Joseph at Bear Paw Mountain only forty miles from the Canadian border. Snow had begun to fall. The soldiers saw a lone Indian in the distance, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders against the cold. The man advanced slowly, head down.

The soldiers knew Chief Joseph's real name. Thunder Rising In The Mountain. For months along the stretch of the chase that crossed five states, Joseph's sharpshooters had picked off troopers from a mile distant. The men fell dead before the sound of the shot arrived to pass over like rolling thunder, the bullet's rumble like an echo of death. The soldiers associated the sound with Joseph, and they trembled at the mention of his name.

But the tall Indian plodding toward them did not look like his name. He was beaten. Joseph was armed with a rifle, yet he carried the weapon like an old stick, dragging the rifle's butt in the snow. Joseph surrendered the rifle to an officer and proclaimed with a catch in his voice that he would "fight no more forever."

To make sure this was true, nine years later white men drove stakes on a rise where the Appaloosa once grazed, the sticks sinking to the hilt in topsoil a hundred feet thick. There they built a hallmark of their civilization - a brick prison with watchtowers at each corner. From afar, it looked like a cavalry fortress, as the architects intended.

The prison's first warden was a stern man named John Justice. The first inmate was a murderer named Bill Murphy. Soldiers of the state's National Guard wearing Union blue brought Murphy to the prison from a county jail in the rainforest on the coast. The journey took them over the high desert and they arrived at the prison as gray as Confederate soldiers. Their officer, a young lieutenant, ordered them to spiffy up. The troopers slapped their tunics and spanked prairie powder from thighs with their hats. Murphy wanted to swat dust too but his wrists were shackled, as were his ankles. The soldiers led him shuffling in his chains into the prison to meet Warden Justice, who handed Murphy his prison clothes.

On the back of Murphy's prison shirt was the number "1".

A century later the numbers were in five digits, but Washington State Penitentiary at Walla Walla was unchanged - a stolid red brick fortress in the middle of the humped prairie, baking in the relentless summer sun.

Eddie Dooley lay in his bed in the prison hospital ward, eyes fixed on the ceiling. It was silent except for the whir of the old fan, which suddenly clattered and died. Eddie blinked, the first in an hour, and angled his head to watch Dewey Cronk shamble to the fan and shake its cord. The fan stayed dead.

"Give it a swat!" Eddie said.

Dewey rapped the back of the fan's motor. The engine sputtered. He rapped it again and the motor came back to life. Dewey unbuttoned his shirt and stood in front of the fan.

"Don't go hogging the air, Cronk!"

Dewey moved far away from the fan. In six months he would turn seventy. He had spent forty-seven of those years in prison and survived because he did not take chances. Eddie Dooley was a crazy and Dewey did not mess with crazies. Though at this moment Eddie hardly looked very menacing. Word was he was dying. Eddie had been sent to hospitals for tests and returned forty pounds lighter with a cast on his left arm. Dewey wanted to

ask Eddie how he hurt his arm but he could not work up the nerve.

Eddie stared at the ceiling again, as though in a trance. He was still staring, lids frozen open, when two guards arrived.

Floyd, the larger guard, stood behind Elroy who had seniority.

"Time to see the new shrink," Elroy said.

Eddie seemed not to hear. Elroy nodded at Floyd, who walked to the bed and placed a hand on Eddie's bony shoulder. Floyd squeezed. Suddenly there was life in Eddie's eyes. They reflexively homed in on Floyd's throat. The fingers of Eddie's good hand twitched. Floyd's Adams apple began to bob nervously. He stepped sharply back from the bed.

"Eddie will come along," Elroy said. "Cause Eddie knows if he don't, we're going for some iron; come back with help. Eddie, I know how you hate restraints."

Eddie sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. "That's the truth." His back and lean buttocks showed through the gap in the hospital gown.

"Get Eddie his pants, Floyd. We can't have him walking bare-assed through C Block. Some of them queens would have a heart attack in this heat."

The warden wore size fourteen cowboy boots and even without his gray Stetson had to duck to get through doorways. At their first meeting, the warden had insisted they remain standing, inching closer as they talked until Dr. Melon could feel the boss of the big Calgary Stampede belt buckle. The warden belly bumped him. Said into his face that hed never seen a convict improved by treatment. It was the prison board that wanted a psychiatrist. They thought it was modern. The warden belly bumped Dr. Melon again and warned the prison was a dangerous place. Convicts blew up the last warden with a homemade bomb. It was a lot easier to kill a psychiatrist. He advised Dr. Melon to always keep guards close by.

Dr. Melon believed in psychiatry. He would use Eddie to demonstrate its power and prove the warden wrong. The psychiatrist had examined Eddies files, arranging them in separate stacks: (1) Kingsboro Psychiatric Center, (2) New York Youth Authority, (3) Sing Sing and Rikers Island, (4) U.S. army, (5) reports from French Hospital and Sacred Heart Medical Center, and (6) notes of Dr. Philip Ankenny, Dr. Melons predecessor.

Eddie had an IQ of 144. Kingsboro Psychiatric Center had tested him twice. The first test was the Stanford-Binet. Dr. Melon guessed they thought the score a fluke. The second test was the Wechsler for children. Eddie again scored 144.

When Eddie was fifteen, he murdered a policeman. He was to be executed at Sing Sing, but the sentence was commuted and Eddie sent to Rikers Island. Somehow, he wound up in the army. By his medals, Eddie must have been a standout soldier in Vietnam. Bronze Star with a V for valor, two Silver Stars, the Vietnamese Medal of Valor, two Distinguished Flying Crosses, three Purple Hearts, and two Presidential citations. The rest of Eddies Vietnam record had been redacted; twenty-three pages. Except for a page at the end that looked like a PX shopping list.

There were six pages on Eddies time at a base in Augsburg, Germany. His fitness reports as headquarters clerk were excellent. How had Eddie gone from two Silver Stars to clerk? And why were the last two pages from Augsburg blacked out?

The physicians reports and lab work from French Hospital and Sacred Heart Medical Center were not good news. Eddie was dying. Dr. Melon thought about that for a long time.

Dr. Mellons predecessor, Philip Ankenny, had diagnosed Eddie as psychotic and homicidal, with a hatred of blacks that was textbook paranoia. There was a cryptic line at the end of Ankenny's notes about Eddies mother. Something about a scooter.

There was a warning rap on the door before it swung open.

"Here's Dooley," Elroy said.

Elroy and Floyd walked Eddie to the conference table. Eddie flumped into the chair, face ashen, the swollen veins in his neck almost black.

"You all right?" Dr. Melon asked.

"Its the hospital food," Eddie said.

Elroy and Floyd went to the door and parked. They crossed their arms and lowered their heads, shifting into neutral.

"Do you have to stay?"

It took Elroy a moment to realize the psychiatrist was addressing him. He looked up. "You want us to leave?"

"Sessions are supposed to be private."

"Ankenny had us stay."

"Im not Ankenny."

"Your skin, doc," Elroy said. "We can wait outside."

Dr. Melon thought of the homemade bomb. He looked at Eddie slumped in the chair, the swollen veins on his neck pulsing. How could he start something? He could barely walk. "Well be fine," Dr. Melon said to Elroy. "Ill call if I need assistance."

Dr. Melon waited for the door to close and introduced himself to Eddie. He showed Eddie a file. "Did Dr. Ankenny discuss this?"

"What is it?"

"Physician reports and lab results from French Hospital in Seattle and Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane. Know what they say?"

"I had lumps on my wrist. They cut them out and grafted bone from my hip to my wrist. Its why I have the cast."

"There were other lumps. In your chest and along your ribs. Theres a cluster on your spine."

Eddie twisted in the chair and showed his back. He stretched his right arm behind him and touched between his shoulder blades. "There?"

"Yes. Along the thoracic vertebrae, but not on the surface; distal underneath the spine. There are also lumps near your heart."

"Is it cancer?"

"Not yet. Theyre anomalous tumors. The consensus is they are the result of long exposure to Agent Orange. One of the physicians at French Hospital is doing research on the condition. I called him."

"What did he say?"

A beat and then, "You're going to die."

Eddie scratched his chin. "Anything else?"

"I needed you to understand your medical condition. Its part of the reason I wanted you as a patient."

"You can cure me?"

"Not the tumors. I can help with your other problems. If you show progress, I can get you paroled."

"Let me get this straight. You want to fix my head. Get everything in order. Then you kick my ass out so I can die in the WORLD."

"It would give you a chance to settle your affairs. You could see your family. Be with people you love."

"Be a short list."

"Still"

"I had an aunt like you. Her cousin Caroline lived on the same block. Almost next-door. Aunt Rose didnt like Caroline because she got divorced and wouldnt go to mass or confession, and had a string of boyfriends until she lost her looks and took up with a low-life Sicilian who couldnt hold a job and lived off Caroline like a bum. When Caroline got sick, Aunt Rose wouldnt go to see her, or help with the medical bills. She could have helped. Aunt Rose had money. Uncle Umberto was rolling in dough."

"You know what? Aunt Rose was in tears the day she learned Caroline died. She went to Carolines apartment to help arrange things; bought her a fancy dress to wear in the casket. During the funeral Aunt Rose kept saying how cousin Caroline looked so good, how she finally looked respectable. Man, thats all you want to do. Fix my head so Ill be respectable when they bury me."

"You can look at it that way, Dr. Melon said. But consider this. You may not die. And you want out, dont you? I can help. Besides, whats wrong with fixing your head?"

"You and Ankenny must have had a talk."

"Never met him. Hes moved to California. Works for a veterans hospital in Los Angeles. But I read his notes. He thinks youre psychotic and homicidal."

"Only homicidal."

"Think you can be one without the other?"

"I know for certain."

"Ankenny says you hate blacks."

"Not anymore. Dont like them much, but I dont hate them."

Dr. Melon opened a notepad. He wrote Eddies name and the date. "Have you ever wanted to hurt or kill a black man?"

"Not recently."

"In the past?"

"How far back you want to go?"

"As far back as you want."

"Killed a few when I was a kid. Three I know of. Maybe one more. Dont know for sure. I was only nine."

Dr. Melon was staring at Eddie, mouth slightly agape. He caught himself, straightened and gained a moment by looking at the blank page of his notepad. "Tell me about it."

Eddie was arguing with his brother Peter, who was three years older and a head taller. Eddie wasnt intimidated by size. If a larger boy crossed him, Eddie would fight. If he lost, he waited for his chance a rock in the back of the head, a push down stairs.

When Eddie was six, Peter slapped him around for playing with his Boy Scout compass. Eddie threw scalding water on Peter that afternoon. Peter tattled and Eddie was beaten, first by his mother and then by his father. Eddie waited two weeks to get even. They were walking to school and out of the blue Eddie picked up a two-by-four and smashed it across Peters right arm. Peter told his mother he broke his arm falling from a tree.

"All we need is some clothesline and lighter fluid. Ill do the hard stuff. Eddie flicked his hand as if dismissing something trivial. All you got to do is stop the bus."

Peter used his Boy Scout knife to cut the cord from Mrs. Delmonicos clothesline. Eddie coiled the cord neatly and carried it while they searched for a victim. They found Nathaniel Tucker sleeping off a drunk beside a stoop. It was nearly dark. Eddie tied the cord to Nathaniels ankles. He pinched his nose with two fingers when he finished. "He stinks. All niggers stink."

Peter didnt like blacks but he knew they didnt all stink. Mr. Johnson who sold papers on Church Street didnt have a bad smell. Nor did the two black kids who attended Holy Cross and arrived each morning as squeaky clean as the other students. "Not all of them."

Eddie gave Peter a daggers look. "Most of them."

"Okay, most."

"I think this one pooped his pants. Theyre all bums like Dad says." Eddie took the can of lighter fluid from his pocket. He sprayed fluid on Nathaniels ankles, up his legs, and onto his crotch.

Peter was already at the curb. The street lamps began to flicker on. Peter looked down the street. "I see one coming."

"Get in the street and wave. Farther up so the driver cant see me".

Peter waved and the bus stopped. When the door opened, Peter asked about the bus route. Eddie was behind the bus tying the cord to the bumper. He ran back to Nathaniel, lit a match and held it up. When he heard the hiss of the closing door, Eddie dropped the match on Nathaniels pants.

Nathaniel stirred and opened his eyes. He slapped at the flames and tried to get up. "Oh Lord," he said when he realized his ankles were hobbled. As the fire chewed at Nathaniels crotch, the cord tied to his ankles lost slack. Nathaniel shot over the curb into the street, screaming. He zigzagged over the pavement as the bus accelerated, and then straightened as the speed steadied. The air rushing over his body fanned the flames. Nathaniels scream climbed an octave. The bus driver shifted gears. The pause and surge made Nathaniel bounce. The back of his head slammed hard onto the street; he was unconscious when the asphalt began to grind through his clothes and strip skin from his back.

Eddie ran after the bus, whooping. Peter dashed into an alley and crouched in the shadows.

Two blocks away the bus stopped for a rider. By then Nathaniel was already dead.

"You expect me to believe this?" Dr. Melon said.

"He was the first. The second time the bus stopped right away. But the driver had trouble putting out the fire. The guy died in the hospital. I know because Peter checked the newspaper."

"The third one .. . we used an old cord and it broke. He was only skinned up and burned a little. After that there were cops on every block. We had to walk a mile outside Flatbush for the next one. He didnt get far. A cab ran over him in an intersection. We did one more, but the bus stopped. I think the guy lived. I cant remember.

"Anyway, Peter wouldnt go with me anymore. He said I could kill him before he would go. Truth is, I was getting tired of it myself. But I wanted to be the one to say enough."

Dr. Melon did not want to believe Eddie. A nine-year-old wouldn't do what Eddie claimed. Eddie was smart. He was amusing himself by weaving a tale. "When did this happen?"

"Summer 1956."

Dr. Melon wrote it down.

There was a knock and the door opened a crack to accommodate Elroy's nose and mouth. He announced it was time to take Eddie back to the ward.

Elroy and Floyd let Eddie walk back to the ward at his own pace. Floyd went too far when he offered Eddie his shoulder for support. Elroy pulled Floyd aside and under his breath told Floyd never let Eddie touch him.

The two guards left Eddie sitting on the edge of his bed.

An hour later Eddie hadn't moved. Suddenly he cocked his head as though listening to a sound far away. He spoke to himself and shivered. Then he lay down and took a long, deep breath. His chest swelled as though it might burst. Eddie let the air out slowly, every muscle in his body relaxing. He sank into the mattress and stared at the ceiling. A glaze formed on his eyes. He seemed to have stopped breathing.

The first time Dewey saw Eddie do this he thought he had died. Dewey checked the sweep of the second hand on wall clock, waiting for the first breath. It was so shallow it was barely detectable. Three minutes had passed. It was four minutes to the next breath. Eddie wasnt human.

Dr. Melon dialed 9, and then the number for the New York Times. Fred Zabarski please." The secretary routed the call. "Fred. It's Bill." Yeah, a long time. No, Im not there anymore. In Washington state. It's a long story. We can catch up later. Listen, Fred, can you check if some people were dragged and killed by buses in the summer of 1956? It was in Flatbush or Brooklyn. What? Let me look. My fax is (509) 338-2271. How long should it take? That fast. Thanks."

A half-hour later the light on the fax machine flashed. Dr. Melon pushed the print button. There were fifteen articles. He read each one after it was printed, drumming fingers waiting for the next. Buses had dragged six people. Three had died. One was run over by a taxi. All the victims were black.

"Jesus!"