A divorcée with three grown children, Walton was the general manager of a large restaurant in Phoenix. She was as reliably even-tempered as True was mercurial. The Mas Locos generally agreed: Maria was an infusion of love and serenity into Caballo’s life. He called her by the spirit name La Mariposa, the butterfly.

True spent two weeks in Phoenix, then drove east with the dog to the Gila Wilderness in southwestern New Mexico, one of his favorite retreats. His friends Dean and Jane Bruemmer own a small lodge there. He sometimes stayed with them, although other times he camped out. Either way, in the mornings he used their wireless Internet connection. He remained compulsive about reading his e-mail.

“Life was going good for Micah; actually, life was going great,” Jane Bruemmer said. She had been unsure how well he was handling his sudden starburst of fame. “He didn’t seek it or need it, but he was using it now to fund his favorite cause,” she said. “He had an agent.” She found that so astonishing she needed to repeat it with more inflection: “Micah True had an agent!”

“Born to Run” was being made into a movie. The business deal did not involve True, and for a while he thought: Here it comes again. The film will bring as much upheaval into my life as the book. Sarsgaard — the director and co-author of the script — had warned him that no one watches a two-hour movie about himself and comes away thinking, that’s me up there.

True thought things had also taken an amusing karmic twist. McDougall, not him, was going to be the movie’s main character, and after reading a draft of the script, the book’s author, in an e-mail to True, called it “ridiculous” and said his “high expectations for the movie had plummeted.”

True took satisfaction in that. Now McDougall would find out how it felt to be defined by someone else. In an e-mail sent to Sarsgaard on March 26, he wrote, “As we know, I would have much liked to at least proofread, fact-check, and/or co-write what” McDougall said about him in the book. “Soooooo....... It is hard to feel toooo sorry for him.”

True spent much of that night writing messages, but he was up early the next day. Dean Bruemmer made him blueberry pancakes. True said he was going on a 12-mile run but leaving Guadajuko behind. The dog had sore paws from their jaunt the day before.