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from a non-professional."
    She softened, touched his arm.
    "Give."
    "Cameras laying in the gadget bag don't take any pictures, good or bad."
    "You're right," she said. Then, "Forgiven?"
    He said, "Sure." And added, "But you were counting on that anyway, weren't you?"
    Chastened, she said, "Yes, I guess I was."
    "You're too late with too little," said Kelly, piloting the jeep up the steep slope toward the ranger station.
    "Pictures are my business," said Allison Corwin, threading a 135mm telephoto lens into her Pentax. "Driving is yours. And if you don't watch yourself, you're going to drop us down into that gorge."
    "Like you said," Kelly replied, "driving's my business. And I've never skidded down into this gorge yet."
    Lifting the camera and peering through its viewfinder, Allison said, "There's always a first time."
    June Hamilton did not know how long she had been running. Her headlong flight had turned into a series of stumbling lunges, and twice she fell and rolled down the steep slope until the unyielding bark of a tree stopped her with a thump.
    The second time, she sat there for a moment, gasping. A sharp pain stabbed through her side.
    Her eyes searched the forest, back the way she'd come.
    Nothing. Not a bird, not a rabbit.
    And not the beast.
    "God," she whispered. "Oh, God. Please."
    She staggered to her feet and began to run again.
    "You're going to break your neck," Kelly Gordon yelled.
    Allison Corwin squinted down at him through her Pentax.
    "Smile," she said. "If you know how."
    "How much film do you burn up, anyway? I've counted six rolls already."
    "Seven."
    "Don't you ever stop shooting the same thing over and over?"
    "Most of what I get can't be used. Wrong angle . . . wrong light. Wrong composition."
    Kelly touched his jaw. "Wrong faces?"
    She laughed. "No. The faces are never wrong. That's what makes it good eventually."
    She scrambled down the eighteen-foot ladder.
    "I thought you wanted to get some animal shots," Kelly said. "I'm supposed to be working."
    "You are working," she said. "Just go about what you normally do. Forget I'm here."
    He leaned over the saddle cinch he was repairing. "I still think you picked the wrong face," he said.
    She moved in close and clicked off two more frames. "Every face is a story, baby."
    "Baby?" he said. "Have you been watching old Lauren Bacall movies again?"
    "Hold still."
    "What kind of story do you think you get from my face?"
    She lowered the camera. Her eyes met his.
    "You're a dissembler."
    "Yeah," he said. "That's what I'm doing now to this saddle cinch. Dissembling it."
    "Oh, pooh! Stop kicking cow flop. And you'd better stop hiding everything behind that very tight jaw. One day it's going to break into a thousand pieces."
    He smiled.
    "See?" she said. "It's starting to crack already!"
    June stumbled into the little clearing, crying with fear and exhaustion.
    The old cabin had once been a line shack, for the riders who patrolled these forests when they were private property more than fifty years ago. It was faded dull gray by the wind and snow, and looked as if the next strong wind would knock it down. But to the terrified girl, it was like a welcoming fortress.
    The door was jammed shut by the rusted hinges. She fought with the leather strap that served as a doorpull, broke it, almost wept with frustration, then managed to pry the door open far enough to get both hands on its edge. She put one foot against the wall and pulled with all her strength, and the rusty hinges wailed as they gave way.
    She plunged into the gloomy interior and pulled the door shut behind her.
    Sinking down in a corner, she began to choke, as she tried to calm her breathing.
    Only now did she notice that her hands and arms were bleeding from the many scratches the sharp pine needles had scourged her flesh with as she plunged through the forest.
    She hugged her knees close to her body and wept without sound.
    It hadn't happened. It was only a wild freak-out, like she'd had the one