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film while documenting the park’s wildlife and had eaten both lunch and dinner with vacationers who’d insisted she share burgers and hot dogs with them. True, she hadn’t put up much of an argument when the invitations were offered. It wasn’t that she was a great fan of stale buns and wilted lettuce, but being around people kept her from thinking about that morning. And if there’d been times, like when she was trying to get close enough to capture a small herd of antelope in her telephoto lens, when she felt as if she were being watched, she’d chalked it up to that overactive imagination of hers.
    At least she tried to; only now, surrounded by night and alone with her thoughts, she couldn’t shake the suspicion—all right, the conviction—that something, or someone, had had his eye on her.
    Warrior. Although she barely whispered the word, it took on a life of its own, existed beside her in the small, kerosene-lit cabin, floated just beyond the two windows.
    Warrior—a man willing to give up his life for freedom.
    Unexpected emotion touched her, but she didn’t try to argue it away with twentieth-century logic. Once, men who answered to no name except “warrior” had roamed this land; that evocative word had spoken of what lived in their hearts.
    She’d seen their land today, at least what had once been theirs. The past year of her life had been taken up with one legal and political maneuver after another, all of it aimed at unlocking the key to a way of life that no longer existed.Consumed by those documents and studies and strategies and jockeying for position, she’d forgotten to take the time to focus on the actual people who had once lived the life she was so determined to record.
    But here at The Land Of Burned Out Fires not enough had changed. Although the wolves and grizzlies were gone, the deer and antelope that once sustained the Modocs still roamed free. The eagles they had turned to for guidance continued to soar through an unspoiled sky. And because ancient volcanoes had rendered it inhospitable to so-called progress, most of the land remained as it had always been. Only the Modocs had left.
    Feeling a little overwhelmed, she turned on the battery-controlled radio and chose an all-news station. While she did what cleaning up she could, she caught up on the outside world. By the time she changed to an easy-listening station, she’d gotten back in touch with what she’d long believed herself to be—an up-and-coming cultural anthropologist with more than thirty years of productivity ahead of her. Sentiment didn’t get the job done.
    She’d intended to do a little reading, fiction for a change of pace, but had read no more than five pages before hours of walking and fresh air caught up with her. She turned off the radio and climbed into the double bed with its sagging mattress. An owl kept hooting. She heard what seemed like a thousand crickets, and if she listened carefully, she caught what must be a few frogs somewhere in the sound. Just before she fell asleep, she asked herself when she’d last heard nothing except the sounds of nature. She couldn’t remember.
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    He came into her dream, a whispering presence, heat and weight. She was standing in the middle of a ring of rocks, but this time there were no weeds obscuring the dance area. A sound that was part crickets and owls and frogs and part something else spread over the night breeze like music from an ageless source. Bare toes digging into the sparse soil, she lifted her head so she could pull the incredibly clean air deepinto her lungs. She felt her hair sliding over her shoulders and realized with no sense of shock that she was naked.
    He walked toward her. This man, this warrior, wore no more than she did, and yet there was nothing vulnerable about his body. He strode out of the desert as if pride were as vital a part of him as the blood coursing through his veins.