“What do you suppose they want?” he asked, staring down at the passing procession, now less than five hundred yards below the ridge where they sat.

That seemed to pull Cliff out of his thoughts. He turned and walked swiftly to where the horses were tethered. “That is what we’re supposed to find out. It will take them about twenty minutes or so to loop around the road and reach the spot where we dropped that tree across the highway. We can be there in half that. Let’s get into position.”

They cut directly down the back side of the ridge, the way they had come up earlier. In ten minutes they reached a place where they had a clear view of the road and the clearing where they had dropped a big pine across it and blocked it off.

Cliff pulled up and pointed with his rifle toward a thick clump of undergrowth. “You stay up here. That’ll give you a clear line of fire to the road where they’ll have to stop.” His face softened slightly. “But don’t, for heaven’s sake, get jumpy until I’ve had a chance to see if they’re friendly. Okay? You’ll be close enough you should be able to hear what we say clearly.”

“Yes, but—”

“Once I’m sure it’s safe, I’ll wave you down.”

“Cliff,” Eric protested, “I want to come down with you. If something goes wrong, I can’t be much help from up here.”

Cliff let his voice ease into what Eric’s father called his cornpone drawl. “Ricky, my boy, if somethin’ goes wrong, Ol’ Doc can handle hisself. You git yo’self off to where yo’ daddy is settin’ up at the river crossin’. You hear me, boy?”

“But Cliff!”

“Eric!” The sharpness in Cliff’s voice sliced off further protest. “That’s an order. We’ve had people come to our little valley before—some friendly, some with murder in their hearts—but we’ve never had a group this large or this well equipped. It’s my fervent hope that they come in peace.” His eyes darkened momentarily. “Surely after what the world has seen—surely they come in peace.”

As quickly as it had come, the dark mood had gone, and his mouth set into a firm line. “But if not, your job is to slow up this column and then get to your dad as soon as possible. Tell him what’s happening. Understood?”

Eric took a deep breath. “Yes, sir.”

Cliff’s hands, surprisingly gentle for their bigness, came up and rested briefly on Eric’s shoulders. “I’ll be fine. In fact, I have to admit, I’m actually tingling with excitement. Imagine—people! Civilization! You’ve no idea what that could mean.” Then he was gone, moving through the trees like the patterns of shadow and sunlight in the forest.