"Though I may not agree with your conclusions, you've been thorough, Anna. Good attention to detail, I'll give you that." The Chief Ranger tossed the slides down onto a yellow legal pad covered top to bottom with notes too small to be read upside down. Anna resisted the urge to rescue her fragile evidence.

"Then you'll stop the hunt."

Mathers took off her glasses-aviator style with gold rims-and pinched the bridge of her nose as if the little red marks there pained her. "It's not as simple as that, Anna."

"It's as simple as that. Just call off the dogs."

The Chief Ranger replaced the glasses and leaned across the desk. Her hands were folded on the legal pad, on the two ignored slides. "No. It's not." Deliberately, as if she wanted Anna to commit each word to memory, she said: "The cougar that we know to have killed Ranger Drury has already been dispatched."

6

Up on the Permian Ridge two miles north of Middle McKittrick Canyon a lioness had been shot and killed. Harland Roberts, Corinne Mathers, and two men from the New Mexico State Department of Fish and Wildlife had brought the body back to the park.

Anna's first lion had flies crawling from its mouth and blood, black as tar, matting the fur of its neck. The animal was five to seven years of age, weighed seventy-five pounds and was nursing at least one, possibly two kittens. The park's Public Information Officer released this information to the local papers suggesting it as the reason for the attack.

The kittens were not found.

The following day Anna rode Gideon up the four-mile trail to the ridge. As long as the light lasted she combed the area looking for the den. Near dark, when she knew her time was running out, she hobbled Gideon in a grassy place and climbed part way down the slope into Big Canyon, a wild area just to the north of the park's boundary over the Texas/ New Mexico border in the Lincoln National Forest.

Perched on an outcropping of limestone, she called down into the forested recesses of the ravines. "Come on kittens, here kitty, kitties. Come on."

The pathetic absurdity of it stung her eyes but she hoped, her heart in her voice, it would trigger some response; a sound from the cougar kittens. For an instant, as the call died away, swallowed by the trees, she thought she heard something. Not mewing, but a strange bird's call, or the wind on a stony bottleneck: four notes from a half-remembered song.

Again and again she called but never heard the sound a second time. Finally she came to doubt she'd really heard anything. Hope was such a creative companion.

Till the moon rose to light their way, Gideon had to pick his way down the mountain in darkness.

That had been nearly a week past. The moon was waning now, the nights dark till after midnight, the moon still up at nine a.m.

Anna could see it, pale against blue sky, over El Capitan. She forced her eyes back down to the 10-343 Case Incident Record she was typing up on the Drury Lion Kill. Offense/ Incident #50-01-00: DEATHS/ACCIDENTAL. Five copies. Five copies of every typographical error she made. This 343 had to be perfect, no strike-overs. This would be the official report requested by Sheila Drury's insurance company. Anna knew she'd end up redoing it half a dozen times unless she could con the secretary or the clerk-typist into typing it for her.

Carpeted half-walls corralled the two clericals in the central area of the administrative offices. The rooms with windows were parceled out to the higher-ups. Government Service and Private Industry did not differ in all respects.

Marta Freeman, the superintendent's secretary, was in the area furthest away. Marta, a determinedly blond, well-endowed woman in her fifties, was given to cleavage, knowing looks, and innuendo. Anna had never felt comfortable with her.

In the next corral, Christina Walters, the clerk-typist, bent over a computer terminal. Her pale brown hair, nearly the color of the oak veneer on the desk tops, fell in a curtain hiding her face. Anna wondered if she dared ask Christina. She scarcely knew the woman. Christina Walters had entered on duty a month or so after Sheila Drury. Most of Anna's time was spent in the field and they had different days off so their paths seldom crossed.

Anna knew she had a little girl who rode a pink tricycle around the housing area on Saturday mornings, wasn't married at the moment, and seemed competent enough. But this was the first time Anna had really noticed her, really looked at her.

Walters was good-looking with a brand of prettiness that was rare in the Park Service. She looked soft. Her hair curled softly, arms and neck and breasts rounded with a softness that somehow fell short of fat. Her muscles weren't corded from carrying a pack, her hands not calloused from shooting or riding or climbing. Her skin wasn't burned brown and creased by the sun and wind.

Urban, Anna thought. Christina Walters had a traditional urban femininity. Strangely, Anna liked it. On another woman it might have set her teeth on edge, but on the fair-haired clerk it looked good. Perhaps, Anna explained the phenomenon to herself, because Christina didn't push it: she chose it.

It crossed Anna's mind to put on a little lipstick and perfume when she got home that night. There'd been a time she'd lived in the stuff, a time she'd required it to feel attractive. With a sudden sense of achievement, she knew she could go back to it now just for fun, just for the sheer sensual pleasure of the commercial feminine luxury.

"Do you need something?" Christina was asking in a low voice with a hint of a drawl and Anna realized she had been staring.

"Do I look that desperate?" she answered with a laugh.

Christina Walters studied her gravely. "Yes."

"I'm afraid I'm fouling up in triplicate here." Anna almost said "fucking up" but there was something about Christina that made her want to seem a gentler person than she was.

"Let me see." Christina walked around the low wall and looked over Anna's shoulder. Delicate perfume drifted from her hair. White Linen, Anna guessed. It suited her.

"It's the 343 on the Drury Lion Kill," Anna said. She half turned in her chair and saw the fleeting freeze on Christina's oval face. An aging, a minute dying, as if for a moment pain- or hatred-had jabbed deep.

"Sony," Anna said with abrupt embarrassment. "I didn't realize you knew her that well."

Christina straightened up, her hair falling to hide her eyes. When she smoothed it back her face was working again. "I didn't know her that well. Here-" she pulled the form out of the typewriter "-it'll only take me a minute." Smiling with what looked like genuine warmth, she fluttered a manicured hand. "Magic fingers."

Anna's radio butted in before she had a chance to say thank you. "Three-one-five; three-eleven."

"Go ahead, Paul.

"Are you near a phone?"

"Ten-four."

"Call me at Frijole. Three-eleven clear."

Anna dialed the Ranger Division's extension and Paul picked up on the first ring. "Mrs. Drury is here," he said. By the formal measured tones, Anna knew Sheila's mother was there in the room with him. "She's come to retrieve Ranger Drury's belongings. Would you accompany her to Dog Canyon and see to it she gets all the help she needs?"

"I'll need a vehicle. I'm in that damned jeep."

"Take mine," Paul said. "Leave the keys in the jeep. I'll use it."

Anna smiled. Paul wanted out from under this chore in a bad way. He was trying to buy her goodwill with the new one-ton Chevy with the fancy arrowheads and striping, flashing light-bars, air-conditioning, and radio console.

"I'll be there in about ten minutes, Paul."

"Ranger Drury's pack will be in the back of the truck. And thanks, Anna." Gratitude warmed his voice.