"So it was a woman," Joan said.

Anna heard the threadbare weariness in her voice and knew she was probably running on nerve; muscle and bone were exhausted. Joan Rand was in fairly good shape, but she carried an extra twenty pounds. Most of that, Anna guessed, was heart. Joan was carrying the pain, Anna only the work and a few ounces of the horror. Either she'd been born heartless or over the years had grown inured to the tragedies of others.

"A woman," she confirmed.

"Do we know who she was?"

"Not yet."

As if admitting a failing on her part, Joan said, "You know, I was so glad it wasn't Rory I didn't even bother to ask Vic who she was."

Rory Van Slyke. Anna hadn't given him a moment's consideration since the chief ranger had said of the corpse, "This is not our boy." If Rory's trail had been picked up by the backcountry ranger or the other members of the team, they would have heard. He was still out there lost or hurt or dead.

"At least we know our bear-presuming this was done by the same bear-has moved on," Joan said. "If it had taken Rory, cached him, it would have made a nest nearby and stayed there to feed." The logic of bear behavior was cheering her considerably. Anna was about to put an end to that. It wasn't that she was in a foul mood herself and so wanted to spread the wretchedness around. It was that she respected Joan enough to know she'd want to know the facts and liked her enough to guess she'd rather be told under cover of darkness by another woman than back in camp under the glare of Coleman lanterns and men's eyes.

"This lady wasn't killed by our bear or any bear. She was hacked up by an edged weapon. A human being killed her. Or something with opposable thumbs masquerading as a human being."

Ahead was the camp. Lanterns had been set up, and four men and one woman bustled purposefully about. Three tents had been pitched and Anna heard the familiar hiss of a gas stove. Environmentalist that she was, it would still have given her hope and courage had there been a great roaring fire to welcome them, warm their bones and keep the monsters of the dark away. In this group of conservationists, she wouldn't dare to so much as voice her primitive longings.

"This is it," Joan said, stopping. Ruick and Bradley carried the corpse past them into camp like hunters returning with the day's kill.

"Did you hear me?" Anna asked when Joan didn't fall into step behind them.

"I did," Joan answered quietly. "I just couldn't think of anything to say."

They stayed a moment in silence on the edge of the circle of light carved out of the night.

"Hot drinks?" Anna said finally.

"Hot drinks," Joan agreed.

Between Anna and Harry they had thirty-one years of law enforcement in America 's national parks, yet the body of the murder victim created a dilemma neither of them had faced before. Because of Glacier's active grizzly bear population the remains were not only evidence but meat, carrion. Trails in the park were routinely closed by the bear management team if a dead deer or elk was found on or near them. A carcass attracted bears. What they'd so laboriously carried out of the ravine might be a corpse tomorrow in a morgue. Tonight it was a carcass, just beginning to get ripe and alluring.

Faced with a problem pertaining to Ursus horribilis,Joan regained her equilibrium and took charge. The body was wrapped in plastic garbage bags-not because it would keep the smell from the keen noses of any bears in the neighborhood but to shield the delicate sensibilities of the humans-and hung up in a tree thirty yards from camp along with the other edibles.

That more than anything seemed to bring a bleakness of mood over everyone. Though several people made a weak joke or two and nobody stared at the ghoulish tree decoration outright, Anna was sure everyone was as acutely aware as she that it was hanging there, high in the branches, just beyond the reach of light, like a Windigo in the north woods.

They ate in silence and crawled into the tents. There were six bear-team members, plus Harry, Anna and Joan. Though as strays, Anna and Joan were invited to make a third in somebody's tent, Anna opted to sleep in the open.

Better to face down the devil than blindly hear him circling.

Despite the fact there seemed to be a bear in Glacier with Anna's name on it and a lunatic who sliced off women's faces, she slept very well. Harry Ruick woke her just after five by clanging around with stove and coffeepot.

Having only the truly vile clothes she'd worn the day before, Anna had slept in nothing but her shirt and had to spend an awkward minute struggling into underpants and shorts in the narrow confines of a sleeping bag. Trained in backcountry etiquette, Ruick did not deign to notice her until she was decent.

Joan had selected their camp with foresight. Two downed logs, fallen at right angles to one another, formed a natural seating area. Having stuffed the borrowed sleeping bag into its sack, Anna made herself a cup of coffee from a flow-through bag and joined the chief ranger where he sat on a log.

"Buck got to the Van Slyke boy's dad up at Fifty Mountain yesterday afternoon, so the folks know the kid's missing," Ruick said in lieu of "good morning."

Anna nodded. Buck was probably the backcountry ranger from down toward Waterton Lake.

"The helicopter will be able to land as soon as it's light. If I remember right, there's a good flat spot on the burn less than a mile from here. We'll need to go check it and flag it."

Harry wasn't so much talking to Anna as planning his operation. She was content to serve the passive role of sounding board. Till Harry Ruick arrived on horseback the day before, she'd never met him. He struck her as the new breed of administrator-infused with a genuine love of the resource but a political animal for all that, with an eye to the next rung up the ladder. Old-school park rangers-or at least the lingering myth of them-would have it that they put the needs of the park before their own. Enlightened self-interest was the current trend.

"You're here sort of apprenticing on Kate's bear DNA project, that right?" he asked. Despite the time they'd spent together floundering around in the shrubbery, Anna had the feeling this was probably the first time he'd really seen her.

"Yes," she said. "My home park's the Natchez Trace Parkway in Mississippi."

"You know John Brown?"

"He's chief ranger there."

"John and I went to FLETC together," Ruick named the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, which NPS enforcement rangers filtered through at some point in their careers. "Tell him I said 'hey' when you see him."

Anna promised she would. She wasn't surprised the two men knew each other. The National Park Service was spread over a lot of real estate but there weren't that many full-time employees. The game of "who do you know" was played successfully from Joshua Tree to Acadia.

Amenities observed, he returned to the issues at hand. "We're going to do double duty today. Split our forces. You and I will go over the crime scene this morning. Two of my district rangers and about a third of my field rangers are in California on the Angeles National Forest. The damn annual pilgrimage to keep the movie stars from being burned out of house and home. Talk about a prime location for a 'let burn' policy. But be that as it may, I'm short-handed. So if you wouldn't mind playing step-'n'-fetchit for me, I'd appreciate it."

In one sentence he'd managed to give Anna the illusion of a gracious request and at the same time let her know her official status in the investigation was that of a gofer. A manager's manager.

"Glad to help any way I can," she said, and meant it.

"Good girl."