Experimentally Anna waved the ruler about, trying to ascertain the possible uses for a finished length of hardwood, several times the thickness of a ruler, packed into the backcountry. Perhaps a woodcarver, seeking his muse in the mountains, might carry in a prize piece of wood. If she remembered right, the piece she and Joan found had been battered and worn smooth with much handling. Perhaps a woodcarver who went for long periods of time between artistic inspirations.

To the detriment of the ruler's edge, she drummed it lightly against the chair arm as she thought. The minor cracking sound as she played startled her. Before and, she thought but wasn't sure, during the attack on their camp by the bear, she'd heard the crack of wood on wood. That same sound had awakened her from her troubled sleep in the rocks on the flank of Cathedral Peak. Both times she'd written it off to twigs snapping under the weight of real or imagined marauders. Whacking the chair's arm again she noted the distinct quality of the sound.

So what? So somebody was banging pieces of wood together while a bear ransacked the camp or, even less likely, while a bear thoughtfully returned Anna's water bottle to her. Did Rory hear in his dreams the crack of wood before his mother's water bottle was left beside him the night he'd been lost? Why? A signal? Nervous habit? Voodoo ritual?

"Damn," Anna repeated to herself. All roads led to blasphemy. She put the ruler back where she'd found it.

The rest of the reports had little more information to be wrung out of them. The lab report on the blue stuff sack had yet to be returned but she expected no surprises. From her intimate and prolonged traverse across the alpine talus with its moth-bearing rocks, she had no doubt the traces on the bag were just as Joan had said: rock and moth-wing dust. The bloody traces within might be other than that of Carolyn Van Slyke, but Anna doubted it. The lab report on the peanut and biscuit fragment would probably be equally unenlightening. Most often things were precisely what they appeared to be.

Because she was there and could think of nothing better to do, she filled out a BIMS, a bear incident management systems report on the sow and two cubs she'd seen feeding in the cirque below Cathedral Peak. After she'd finished, she thumbed through BIMS submitted since she'd come to Glacier. She didn't know what she hoped for.

"Validation," she said aloud. Since she had no hard evidence to base it on, she'd not bothered to put it into words for Harry Ruick, or even more damning, into writing on any reports, but she had an overweening sense of bear, a bear padding through the incidents in Glacier. The obvious was the tearing apart of the camp. Less so was the flesh of the victim cached out of reach of a bear. A man digging the food of and dwelling in the den of a bear. The water bottle with teethmarks of a bear.

Nothing striking presented itself. The BIMS that were totally bogus, the lavender ink describing the bear juggling the hedgehog and the report of the dancing bear, Anna set aside. The rest, including the report of the attack on their camp, painted an active but not extraordinarily so, picture of bears being bears.

Shuffling the crazies back into the pile, Anna felt a sudden sympathy with the lavender ink. Things were not necessarily untrue simply because they were unbelievable.

She had done what she could. Her ear was hot from being pressed to a phone all day. Her stomach was full of complaining gummi bears and the light was going from Joan's window.

Anna went "home." Home for so many years had been wherever she fed the cat. Walking through a rapidly cooling twilight enlivened by mosquitoes bent on fueling reproduction with her blood, Anna found herself terribly lonely for her critters, Piedmont's comforting purr and even Taco's three-legged bounding, leaping, licking, declaration of welcome that she'd come to expect whenever she opened the front door. Sheriff Davidson, Paul, the new man in her life, she missed as well but not with the same childish want. Davidson hadn't seen her cry like Piedmont had, hadn't saved her life like Taco had.

The next morning Anna slept in, then typed up the scraps and snippets of information she'd gleaned in a day's calling and turned them in to Harry. He read them through carefully and, in the end, could find nothing more enlightening than she had.

"We'll follow up on this Fetterman thing," he said. "I'll call Tampa and see if we can't get the local police to make a few inquiries for us."

He didn't sound overly enthused. Anna didn't blame him. If they could connect the name of Fetterman to Van Slyke, which they'd failed to do, it might be of some interest but probably wouldn't go far toward solving their murder.

"We got the lab reports back," Ruick said. "Rush job because I hinted it was part of the murder investigation but I think what you stumbled across on Cathedral Peak was an amateur entomologist with a dog off leash." He pushed the folder across the desk and Anna read it without picking it up. The peanut was, near as they could tell, a peanut. The crust of biscuit she'd found was broken down: twenty-three percent protein, four percent fat, ten percent fiber, seven percent ash, a little calcium and a dash of phosphorus. The rest was dry matter and moisture.

"Dog food." Being a responsible pet owner she'd read the backs of dog food bags to make sure Taco got a balanced diet.

They sat for a bit. Maryanne stuck her head in the office and reminded Harry that the fire management officer from Waterton was due in a few minutes.

"Well," Harry said, "I hate to keep you tied up when there's no point in it. Not to mention when I borrowed you, Glacier started paying your salary." He smiled to let Anna know it was a joke. Anna smiled back politely, pretending she believed him. Budgets were counted out by nickels and dimes. Money was always tight. "You can either pack it in and go back to the Trace or go on up. Joan's got another four days before this round of traps is completed. You can probably pick up enough about DNA testing to convince John Brown we didn't waste your time completely."

"I'll give him a call," Anna said. "See what he wants me to do." The interview was over. She pushed up out of the chair.

"I'll see an official letter of thanks gets into your personnel file," Ruick said. He stood and shook hands with her. He was warm and friendly, but she could tell she was already sinking out of his sight. Chances were he'd barely remember her name when next they met. The chief ranger was moving on to the next crisis to threaten his park. Or his career.

"You can leave your gear with the receptionist any time today," Maryanne told her as she left. A nice way of reminding her the radio needed to be checked in ASAP. Ponce had already gone back to the comfort of his paddock.

"Will do," Anna said, feeling mildly miffed. In her mind she heard her ti ny, m e an, l o ng-d ead gra n d m other cac k ling: "Think you're so important? Put your finger in a bucket of water, pull it out and see how big a hole it leaves."