one by his front-seat passenger, and each had a lens the size of a
salad plate. Considering their candlepower, they could have been
operated only off the Hummer engine.
The driver extinguished his light and put the Hummer in gear.
The big wagon sped out from under the spreading limbs of the oak and
shot across the high meadow as though it were cruising a freeway,
putting its tailgate toward me. It vanished over the far edge, soon
reappeared out of a hollow, and rapidly ascended a more distant slope,
effortlessly conquering these coastal hills.
The men on foot, with flashlights and perhaps handguns, were keeping to
the hollows. In an attempt to prevent me from using the high ground,
to force me down where the searchers might find me, the Hummer was
patrolling the hilltops.
“Who are You people?” I muttered.
Searchlights slashed out from the Hummer, raking farther hills, a sea
of grass in an indecisive breeze that ebbed and flowed. Wave after
wave broke across the rising land and lapped against the trunks of the
island oaks.
Then the big wagon was on the move again, rollicking over less
hospitable terrain. Headlights bobbling, one searchlight swinging
wildly, along a crest, into a hollow and out again, motored east and
south to another vantage point.
I wondered how visible this activity might be from the streets of
Moonlight Bay on the lower hills and the flatlands, closer to the
ocean.
Possibly only a few townspeople happened to be outside and looking up
at an angle that revealed enough commotion to engage their curiosity.
Those who glimpsed the searchlights might assume that teenagers or
college boys in an ordinary four-by-four were spotting coastal elk or
deer: an illegal but bloodless sport of which most people are
tolerant.
Soon the Hummer would arc back toward me. judging by the pattern of
its search, it might arrive on this very hill in two more moves.
I retreated down the slope, into the hollow from which I had climbed:
exactly where they wanted me. I had no better choice.
Heretofore, I had been confident that I would escape. Now my
confidence was ebbing.
I pushed through the prairie grass into the drainage swale and
continued in the direction that I had been headed before the
searchlights had drawn me uphill. After only a few steps, I halted,
startled by something with radiant green eyes that waited on the trail
in front of me.
Coyote.
Wolflike but smaller, with a narrower muzzle than that of a wolf, these
rangy creatures could nonetheless be dangerous. As civilization
encroached on them, they were quite literally murder on family pets
even in the supposedly safe backyards of residential neighborhoods near
the open hills. In fact, from time to time You heard of a coyote
savaging and dragging off a child if the prey was young and small
enough.
Although they attacked adult humans only rarely, I wouldn’t care to
rely on their restraint or on my superior size if I was to encounter a
pack-or even a pair-of them on their home ground.
My night vision was still recovering from the dazzle of the
searchlights, and a tense moment passed before I perceived that these
hot green eyes were too closely set to be those of a coyote.
Furthermore, unless this beast was in a full pounce posture with its
chest pressed to the ground, its baleful stare was directed at me from
too low a position to be that of a coyote.
As my vision readjusted to nightshade and moonlight, I saw that nothing
more threatening than a cat stood before me. Not a cougar, which would
have been far worse than a coyote and reason for genuine terror, but a
mere house cat: pale gray or light beige, impossible to tell which in
this gloom.
Most cats are not stupid. Even in the obsessive pursuit of field mice
or little desert lizards, they will not venture deeply into coyote
country.
Indeed, as I got a clearer view of it, the particular creature before
me seemed more than usually quick and alert. It sat erect, head cocked
quizzically, ears pricked, studying me intensely.
As I took a step toward it, the cat rose onto all fours. When I