Ten years after Earth's electronics were fried by an immense solar flare, most human technology has turned useless and civilization has begun to fail.
But one thriving pocket is a valley on California's coast, where farmers in a religious cult dwell.
A tribe of local hunters protect them.
But this arrangement gets upended when a young refugee, Kyle Skander, wrecks his kayak there as he seeks to paddle north to Arcata.
Kyle finds himself accused of murdering a young woman from the commune.
Elkheart Books Came a horseman: a hard ride in a fierce world, paperback/paul mchugh
