Eric turned his head slightly and studied the lean whip of a man, now in his seventy-first year, who sat a few feet away. His bony frame was cushioned in a small mound of pine needles, and his elbows rested on his knees, holding the binoculars to his eyes with steadiness. The afternoon breeze moaned in the pine branches above them, then softly ruffled Cliff’s short-cropped hair, once saddle-brown but now mostly gray. Except for that slight motion, he could have passed as part of the forest, a gnarled old stump clad in brown deerskin. Somewhere behind them a red squirrel scolded harshly, breaking the gentle quiet of the forest.

Eric shook his head. It must have been that kind of singleminded concentration that had made Dr. Clifford Cameron one of the foremost neurosurgeons on the West Coast—and the most consistently successful hunter in the village.

The Appaloosa mare and the black gelding tethered a few feet behind them stopped their stamping and turned toward the canyon below them, their ears cocked forward. “Cliff,” Eric said softly, “the horses hear something.”

There was no response for almost a full minute; then a deep grunt and a low whistle from Cliff brought Eric’s head up sharply. He peered down into the canyon below them, where the steep, thickly forested mountainside formed a V and allowed the Salt River to disappear from sight. Even to the naked eye it was evident that the bright orange object emerging from the gorge about half a mile from where they sat was not natural to the forest.

“It is!” Cliff exclaimed, his voice tinged with awe. “It’s an automobile!” He lowered the glasses, stared at Eric for a moment without seeing him, then swung back to peer through the binoculars once more. “And there’s another one! Can you believe it? After eighteen years—cars!” Cliff was rarely awed by anything, and Eric felt a tiny shiver, half fear, half excitement, run down his spine.

“Look!” Cliff commanded, tossing the glasses to Eric.

It took Eric a moment to find the vehicles, but then he too stared. Through the binoculars, he could see both vehicles clearly. They were not unlike the automobiles he had seen many times in books and in old videotapes, and yet they were different. Clear, bubble-shaped covers sat atop squat, nearly square bodies. Oversized tires held them well above the weed-strewn highway, giving them an awkward, overbalanced look. Though the hot afternoon sunshine glinted off the bubble, Eric could make out several figures inside each car. They were coming slowly, almost cautiously, moving not much faster than a man could walk.

He handed the glasses back to Cliff, his expression puzzled.