Galloway crouched on one knee and listened, his left hand touching the snow as if he might feel the vibration of the dogs running in the woods below. The hounds' cries grew dim, then began steadily rising.

"You best get them fancy guns of yours ready," Galloway said. "They're coming this way."

BY late afternoon the Pembertons and Buchanan had killed a dozen deer. Galloway made a mound of the carcasses in the meadow's center, and blood streaked the snow red. Buchanan had wearied of the shooting after his third deer and sat down with his rifle propped against a tree, content to let the Pembertons make the last kills. Midday there had been the sound of ice unshackling from limbs, the woods popping and crackling as if arthritic, but now the temperature had dropped, the woods silent but for the clamor of the hounds.

What sun the day's gray sky had allowed was settling atop Balsam Mountain when the hollow cries of the Plotts and Redbones quickened into rapid barks. Galloway and Vaughn stood at the woods' edge, not far from where Pemberton waited, rifle in hand. The barks grew more resonant, urgent, almost a sobbing.

"Struck them a bear, a damn big one from the fuss they're allowing it," Galloway said, his breath whitened by the cold. "Mama told me we'd have some good hunting today."

As the hounds' barks lengthened and deepened into bays, Pemberton thought of Galloway 's mother, how her eyes were the color of pockets of morning fog the workers called bluejon, like mist filling two inward-probing cavities. Pemberton remembered how those eyes had turned in his direction and lingered. A way to stupefy the credulous, he knew, but done damn well.

"You best be ready, for that bear's coming and once he hits this meadow he won't be dawdling," Galloway said, and turned to Serena and winked. "He won't care if you're man nor woman neither."

Buchanan picked up his rifle and positioned himself on the clearing's left, Serena in the center, Pemberton on the right. Galloway moved behind Serena, his eyes closed as he listened. The hounds were frantically baying now, yelping as well when the bear turned and swatted at its pursuers. Then Pemberton heard the bear itself, crashing through the woods with the torrent of dogs in pursuit.

It came into the meadow between Serena and Pemberton. The bear paused a moment and swatted the largest Plott off its hind leg, the bear's claws raking the dog's flank. The big Plott lay on the snow a moment before rising and attacking again. The bear's paw caught the dog on the same flank, only lower this time, the Plott sent tumbling into the air. It landed yards away, the hide on the dog's right side shred thin as shoestrings.

The bear rushed onward, straight towards Pemberton, only twenty yards away when it saw the man and swerved left just as Pemberton pulled the trigger. The bullet hit between shoulder and chest, enough to make the animal fall sideways as its left front leg buckled. The hounds leaped upon the bear, draping the creature's midquarters. The bear rose onto its back legs, and the dogs rose with it like pelts hung around the bear's belly.

The animal fell forward, steadied itself for a moment before charging toward Pemberton, whose second shot clipped a Plott's ear before entering the bear's stomach. There was no time for a third shot. The bear rose and pressed its bulk against Pemberton, and he felt himself swallowed within a vast weighted shadow. His rifle slipped from his hand as the bear clutched him. Instinct pushed Pemberton deeper into the bear's grasp, so close the creature's claws could do no more than rake the back of his duckcloth hunting jacket. The dogs leaped upon them, lunging and snapping at Pemberton as if believing him now part of the bear. Pemberton's head pressed deep against the bear's chest. Pemberton felt the creature's fur and flesh and the breastbone beneath and the quickened beat of the heart and the heat stoked by that heart. He smelled the bear, the musk of its fur, its spilling blood, smelled the forest itself in the earthy linger of acorn each time the bear exhaled. Everything, even the cries of the dogs, became slower, more distinct and heightened. He felt the whole of the bear's bulk as it teetered slightly, regained balance, felt also the bear's front right limb batting his shoulder as it slashed at the hounds. The bear growled and Pemberton heard the sound gather deep in the bear's chest before rumbling upward into the throat and out the mouth.

The Plotts circled and leaped, holding onto the bear with teeth and claw a few moments before falling away only to circle and leap again, the Redbones yelping and darting in to snap at the legs. Then Pemberton felt the barrel of a rifle against his side, felt its reverberation as the weapon fired. The bear staggered two steps backward. As Pemberton fell, he turned and saw Serena place a second shot just above the bear's eyes. The creature wavered a moment, then toppled to the ground and disappeared under a moiling quilt of dogs.

Pemberton lay on the ground as well, unsure if he'd been shoved by the bear or simply fallen. He didn't move until the side of his face pressed into the snow began to numb. With the help of his forearm, Pemberton raised his head. For a few moments, he watched Galloway as the highlander stood amid the squabbling pack, leashing the hounds so Vaughn could drag them off the bear one at a time. Footsteps crunched toward Pemberton, then stopped. Serena kneeled beside him, her face keen as she brushed snow off his face and shoulders. After the sheer physicality of the bear's embrace, he felt a kind of lightness, as if his body had been set gently upon the calmest water.

Serena helped him to a sitting position, and Pemberton's head swirled for a few moments, left a residue of grogginess. Blood covered the snow, and Pemberton wondered if any of it was his. Serena pulled off his hunting jacket and lifted the wool shirt and flannel undershirt. She ran her hand across his back and stomach before pulling the clothing back down.

"I was sure it had gutted you," Serena said as she helped him put his jacket back on.

Pemberton watched tears well up in Serena's eyes. She turned and wiped her coat sleeve across her face. Seconds passed before she turned back to him. When she did, her eyes were dry, and Pemberton wondered if his muddledness had caused him to imagine the tears.

Buchanan was also beside them now. He lifted Pemberton's rifle out of the snow but seemed unsure what to do with it.

"You need me to help you get him standing?" Buchanan asked.

"No," Serena replied.

"What about his gun?"

Serena nodded to where her rifle leaned against a redbud sapling.

"Put it over there beside mine."

In a few minutes Galloway had tied the last hound to a tree. Vaughn kneeled beside the injured dog, one hand stroking the Plott's head while the other probed the wounds. Galloway walked over to the bear, kicked its massive haunches with his boot toe to verify the creature was indeed dead.

"This is a quality black bear," he said. "I'd bet him to go five hundred."

Galloway turned his gaze from the bear to Serena, letting his eyes slowly lift to take in Serena's boots and breeches and hunting jacket, finally her face, even then appearing to look not only at Serena but beyond her into the woods.

"I've never seen a woman shoot a bear before," he said, "and I've known but a couple of men with the sand to have gone right at him the way you done."

"Pemberton would have done the same for me," Serena said.

"You sure of that, are you?" Galloway said, a grin slicing his face as he watched Serena help Pemberton to his feet. "A bear's more to handle than a drunk like Harmon."

Vaughn held the injured Plott in his arms. The youth stepped closer to the bear, showing the dog the bear was dead.