"How many, Liz? Let's decide how far we'll go with this thing."

"Ten more minutes," she said.

"Okay," he said, "ten minutes."

He was looking at his gas gauge when Liz threw her hand to her mouth and said, "Dan!" Baker turned back to the road just in time to see a shape flash by - a man, in brown, at the side of the road - and hear a loud thump from the side of the car.

"Oh my God!" she said. "We hit him!"

"What?"

"We hit that guy."

"No, we didn't. We hit a pothole."

In the rearview mirror, Baker could see the man still standing at the side of the road. A figure in brown, rapidly disappearing in the dust cloud behind the car as they drove away.

"We couldn't have hit him," Baker said. "He's still standing."

"Dan. We hit him. I saw it."

"I don't think so, honey."

Baker looked again in the rearview mirror. But now he saw nothing except the cloud of dust behind the car.

"We better go back," she said.

"Why?"

Baker was pretty sure that his wife was wrong and that they hadn't hit the man on the road. But if they had hit him, and if he was even slightly injured - just a head cut, a scratch - then it was going to mean a very long delay in their trip. They'd never get to Phoenix by nightfall. Anybody out here was undoubtedly a Navajo; they'd have to take him to a hospital, or at least to the nearest big town, which was Gallup, and that was out of their way-

"I thought you wanted to go back," she said.

"I do."

"Then let's go back."

"I just don't want any problems, Liz."

"Dan. I don't believe this."

He sighed, and slowed the car. "Okay, I'm turning. I'm turning."

And he turned around, being careful not to get stuck in the red sand at the side of the road, and headed back the way they had come.

"Oh Jesus."

Baker pulled over, and jumped out into the dust cloud of his own car. He gasped as he felt the blast of heat on his face and body. It must be 120 degrees out here, he thought.