"Not yet," he said softly.

Pemberton slid closer to wrap his other arm around Serena's waist. He pressed his face to the small of her back, closed his eyes and inhaled the smell of her.

"You need to get up," Serena said, freeing herself and leaving the bed.

"Why?" Pemberton asked, opening his eyes. "It's Sunday."

"Galloway said be ready by eleven," Serena replied, slipping on her breeches and riding jacket. "Your mountain lion awaits you."

"I'd forgotten," Pemberton said, and slowly sat up, the room leaning for a few moments then righting itself.

He rose, still groggy as he walked over to the chifforobe. He lifted his duckcloth pants and wool socks from the shelf, stripped his hunting jacket from a hanger. Pemberton tossed them on the bed, then retrieved his heavy lace-up hunting boots from the hall closet before sitting beside Serena, who was pulling on her jodhpurs. He closed his eyes, trying to stall the headache the morning light intensified.

"And you're fine here alone?" Pemberton said, his eyes still shut as he spoke.

"Yes, all I've got to do is make sure what's left in the kitchen and the commissary gets loaded on a railcar. But first I'll take the eagle out, a final hunt before we leave this place."

Serena rose, looking toward the door as she spoke.

"I have to go."

Pemberton reached for her hand, held it a moment.

"Thank you for the rifle, and the birthday party."

"You're welcome," Serena said, withdrawing her hand. "I hope you find your panther, Pemberton."

After Serena left, he contemplated going to the dining hall for breakfast, but his stomach argued against it. He dressed but for his boots, then lay back down on the bed and closed his eyes. For just a few minutes, he told himself, but Pemberton didn't wake until Galloway knocked on the door.

Pemberton yelled he'd be out in ten minutes and went to the bathroom. He filled the basin with cold water and plunged his whole head into it, kept it submerged as long as he could stand. He raised up and did the same thing again. The cold water helped. Pemberton toweled off and combed his hair so it lay sleek against his scalp, then he brushed his teeth as well to dim the nauseating smell of his own breath. He found the aspirin bottle on the medicine shelf and took out two, capped the bottle and put it in his pocket. As he was about to turn, he saw himself in the mirror. His eyes were bloodshot and his pallor could have been better, but his being up and about at all seemed a triumph considering how he'd felt earlier. Pemberton picked up his jacket from the bed and went into the front of the house where the new rifle lay on the fireboard. He couldn't remember setting it there last night, or being given the box of.35 caliber bullets beside it.

"Heard you had quite a evening of it," Galloway said as Pemberton stepped onto the porch, his face grimacing against the bright cloudless day.

Pemberton ignored Galloway's comment, focusing instead on Frizzell's truck parked beside the commissary. The photographer had set up his tripod on the railless track where the skidder boom had once sat, his camera aimed not at any worker living or the dead but the decimated valley itself. Frizzell hunched beneath his black shawl, oblivious to the fact that Serena, atop the gelding with the eagle on the pommel, rode toward him.

"What the hell is he doing?" Pemberton asked.

"No idea, but your missus looks to be going to find out," Galloway said and glanced skyward. "We need to be going. We got us a late start as it is."

"Go on to the car," Pemberton said, and handed the rifle and box of bullets to Galloway. "I'm going to find out what this is about."

Pemberton walked toward the commissary as Frizzell emerged from beneath the cloth, eyes blinking as if just awakened as he spoke with Serena. Pemberton passed the office, empty now, even the windows taken to the camp. The door was ajar, a few skittering leaves already wind-brushed inside.

"Secretary Albright's commissioned a photograph of the devastation we've wrecked upon the land," Serena said to Pemberton when he joined her. "A further way to justify his park."

"This land is still ours for another week," Pemberton said to Frizzell. "You're trespassing."

"But she just said I'm free to take all the photographs I wish," Frizzell objected.

"Why not, Pemberton," Serena said. "I'm pleased with what we've done here. Aren't you?"

"Yes, of course," Pemberton said, "but I do think Mr. Frizzell should compensate us with a photograph."

Frizzell's brow furrowed in surprise.

"Of this?" the photographer asked, his palm turned upward toward the valley.

"No, a photograph of us," Pemberton replied.

"I thought I made my views on such things clear at the Vanderbilt Estate," Serena said.

"Not a portrait, just a photograph."

Serena did not answer.

"Indulge me this one time," Pemberton said. "We have no photograph of us together. Think of it as a last birthday present."

For a few moments Serena did not respond. Then something in her countenance let go, not so much a softening as a yielding that Pemberton thought at first was resignation but then seemed more like sadness. He remembered the photographs she left in the Colorado house to burn, and wondered, for all her denying of the past, if some part of her yet dwelled on those photographs.

"All right, Pemberton."

Frizzell slid the negative plate from his last photograph into its protective metal sleeve and placed a new one in the camera.

"We'll need a less dreary backdrop, so I'll have to move my equipment," Frizzell said irritably.

"No," Pemberton said. "The backdrop is fine as it is. As Mrs. Pemberton says, we're pleased with what we've done here."

"Very well," Frizzell said, turning to Serena, "but surely you're not staying on your horse?"

"Yes," Serena said. "I am."

"Well," Frizzell said with utter exasperation, "if the photograph is blurred you'll only have yourselves to blame."

Frizzell disappeared under his shawl, and the photograph was taken. The photographer began packing his equipment as Galloway gave a long blast of his car horn.

"I'll have one of my men pick it up in Waynesville tomorrow," Pemberton said, lingering beside Serena.

"You need to go, Pemberton," Serena said.

She leaned in the saddle and pressed her hand against his face. Pemberton took her hand and pressed it to his lips a moment.

"I love you," he said.

Serena nodded and turned away. She rode off toward Noland Mountain, black puffs of lingering ash rising around the horse's hooves. Pemberton watched her a few moments and then walked to the car, but he paused before opening the passenger door.

"What is it?" Galloway asked.

"Just trying to think if there's anything else I may need."

"I got us food," Galloway said. "Got your hunting knife too. The Missus had me fetch it. It's in my tote sack."

As they left camp, Pemberton glanced up the ridge at Galloway's stringhouse, one of the few that hadn't yet been hauled to the new site. The old woman wasn't on the porch, was probably inside sitting at the table. Pemberton smiled as he thought of her prophecy, the way they'd all been taken in by her performance. They rode north, Galloway using his stub to guide the wheel when he shifted gears. Pemberton closed his eyes and waited for the aspirin to ease his headache.

After a while the Packard slowed and turned. Pemberton opened his eyes. Trees closed in around them. They bumped down into Ivy Gap, a swathe of private land just east of the park holdings. The car passed over a wooden plank bridge, and the automobile's vibration caused Pemberton's latent headache to return.

"Why don't you get a damn fender brace for this thing," Pemberton said, "that or slow down."

"Maybe it'll shake that hang over out of your head," Galloway said, swerving to avoid a washout.