"You for that park, too, Sheriff?"

"Yes," McDowell said.

"I wonder why that doesn't surprise me," Pemberton said.

"Move on, or I'll arrest you for trespassing," McDowell said. "And if I hear that gun go off, I'll arrest you for hunting out of season."

Galloway grinned and was about to say something, but Pemberton spoke first.

"Let's go."

They walked around the cabin, then passed a woodshed, behind which a rusty window screen lay atop two sawhorses. On the screen were arrowheads and spear points, other stones various in size and hue, including some little more than pebbles. Galloway paused to inspect these, lifting one into the light to reveal its murky red color.

"I wonder where he found you," Galloway mused.

"What is it?" Pemberton asked.

"Ruby. These ain't big enough to be worth anything, but if you was to find a bigger one, you'd have something that sure enough would get your pockets jingling."

"Do you think Kephart found them around here?"

"Doubt it," Galloway said, tossing the stone back on the screen. "Probably found them over near Franklin. Still, I'll keep my eyes open while we're sauntering around the creek. Might be something hiding around here besides a panther."

They walked on past the woodshed and followed the trail into the forest. Few hardwoods rose around them, and those that did were small. After a while Pemberton heard the stream, then saw it through the trees, larger than he'd imagined, more a small river than a creek. Galloway's eyes focused intently on the sand and mud. He pointed to a small set of tracks on a sand bar.

"Mink. I'll be back to trap him this winter when his fur thickens up."

They moved upstream, Galloway stopping to peruse tracks, sometimes kneeling to trace their indentions with his index finger. They came to a deep pool, above it a boggy swath of mud printed with tracks larger than any they'd yet seen.

"Cat?" Pemberton asked.

"Yeah, it's a cat."

"I'd have thought there'd be claw marks."

"No," Galloway said. "Them claws don't come out until it's time to do some killing."

Galloway grunted as he settled himself on one knee. He placed a finger to the side of a track, pressed into the mud so water drained from the print.

"Bobcat," Galloway said after a few more moments. "A damn big one, though."

"You're sure it can't be a mountain lion?"

Galloway looked up, something of both irritation and amusement on his face.

"I reckon you could stick a tail on it and claim it for a panther," Galloway snorted. "There's fools that'd not know the difference."

The highlander stood up and stared at the sun to gauge the time.

"Time to go," he said, and stepped onto the bank. "Too bad Mama's with us or we could stay longer. If that panther's really around, come the nightfall we might hear him."

"What do they sound like?" Pemberton asked.

"Just like a baby crying," Galloway said, "except after a few seconds it shuts off of a sudden like something that's had its throat slashed. You'll have need to hear it only once to know what it is. It'll make the back of your neck bristle up like a porcupine."

They made their way back up the ridge, the sound of the stream's fall and rush dimming behind them. In a few minutes, Kephart's cabin came into view.

"Want to find out if that sheriff has some real sand in him or is just talk?" Galloway asked.

"Another time," Pemberton said.

"All right," Galloway said, veering right and crossing a small creek. "This way then. But I'm getting some water out of that springhouse. Mamai will be thirsty after sucking on that candy."

When they came to the springhouse, Galloway took a tobacco tin from his back pocket and poured out what crumbs remained in it. As Galloway filled the tin, Pemberton looked through the trees at the cabin. A chess board had replaced the map, and Kephart and McDowell stared at it intently. One of Pemberton's fencing partners at Harvard had introduced him to the game, claiming it was fencing with the mind instead of the body, but Pemberton had found the slow pace and lack of physical movement tedious.

The match was nearing its end, fewer than a dozen pieces left on the board. McDowell placed his finger and thumb on his remaining knight and made his move, its forward-left motion angling not only toward Kephart's king but also into the path of his rook. Pemberton thought the sheriff had made a mistake, but Kephart saw something Pemberton didn't. The older man resignedly took the knight with his rook. The sheriff moved his queen across the board, and Pemberton saw it then. Kephart made a final move and the match was over.

"Let's go," Galloway said, holding the tin so as not to slosh out the water. "I got better things to do than watch grown men play tiddly-winks."

They walked on, finding Galloway's mother just as they'd left her. The only sign that she'd made the slightest movement was the wadded paper bag on the floorboard.

"Brought you some cold spring water, Mama," Galloway said and lifted the tobacco tin to his mother's cracked purplish lips.

The old woman made sucking sounds as her son slowly tilted the container, pulled it back so she could swallow before pressing it to her lips again. Doing this several times until all the water had been drunk.

As they drove back to camp, Galloway looked out the window toward the Smokies.

"Don't worry," he said. "We'll get you a panther yet."

They rode the rest of the way in silence, following the blacktop as it made a convoluted circuit through the landscape's see-saws and swerves. Outside Bryson City, the mountains swelled upward as if taking a last deep breath before slowly exhaling toward Cove Creek Valley.

As they drove into camp, Pemberton saw a green pickup parked beside the commissary. Shakily affixed to its flatbed was a wooden building, steep-pitched and wide-doored, resembling a very large doghouse or very small church. On the sides in black letters R.L. FRIZZELL-PHOTOGRAPHER. Pemberton watched as the vehicle's owner lifted his tripod and camera from the truck's work shed, set up the equipment with the swift deftness of one long practiced in his trade. The photographer looked to be in his sixties, and he wore a wrinkled black suit and wide somber tie. A loupe dangled from the silver chain around his neck, the instrument worn with the same authority a doctor might wear a stethoscope.

"What's going on over there?" Pemberton asked.

"Ledbetter, the sawyer that got killed yesterday," Galloway said. "They're taking his picture for a remembering."

Pemberton understood then. Another local custom that fascinated Buchanan-taking a picture of the deceased, the photograph a keepsake for the bereaved to place on a wall or fireboard. Campbell stood behind the photographer, though for what reason, if any, Pemberton could not discern.

"Put this in the office," Pemberton said, and handed Galloway the rifle before walking toward the commissary to stand with Campbell.

An unlidded pine coffin leaned against the commissary's back wall, the deceased propped up inside. A placard bearing the words REST IN PEACE had been placed on the coffin's squared head, but the corpse's tight-shouldered rigidity belied the notion, as if even in death Ledbetter anticipated another falling tree. Frizzell squeezed the shutter release. On one side of the coffin was a haggard woman Pemberton assumed was Ledbetter's wife, beside her a boy of six or seven. As soon as a click confirmed the picture taken, two sawyers came forward and placed the lid on the coffin, entombing Ledbetter in the very thing that had killed him.

"Where's my wife?" Pemberton asked Campbell.

Campbell nodded toward Noland Mountain.

"She's up there with the eagle."

The photographer emerged from beneath the cloth, eyes blinking in the mid-afternoon light. He slid the negative into its protective metal sleeve, then went to his truck and took out a wicker fishing creel he slung over his shoulder before procuring another plate. Frizzell inserted the new plate before lifting the camera and tripod into his arms and making awkward sidling movements toward the dining hall where Reverend Bolick's congregation had taken advantage of the warm day and brought tables from the dining hall for an after-service meal. The food had been eaten and the tables cleared, but many of the congregants lingered. The women wore cheap cotton-print dresses, the men rumpled white dress shirts and trousers, a few in threadbare coats. The children were arrayed in everything from cheap bright dresses to jumpers fashioned out of burlap potato sacks.