She believed Charlie was playing a trick on them. He was letting them hide like children, letting them play their game, but as Charlie got closer she could see his face and she knew. His eyes watered with the hard setting sun. Baptiste tapped Louise’s hand. “We are hidden,” he said. He pointed toward the stiff juniper that lined the river. She looked carefully.

“See that,” Baptiste said. “See.”

She saw the large herd of deer as if she were imagining it. First a twitch. Then a rolling haze. A great shuddering movement like wind on grass.

She could see the gray highway, the stuttering light on the river. She could see light cradled in sweetgrass. She could not remember seeing light as if it were more than just light. Silver light channeled down the rock face of Revais Hill. Light glanced off Charlie’s smooth face. Louise wondered if the sun itself shed its skin to hide all the animals. “That’s right,” Baptiste said, and she wondered if he was answering her.

In this field, these hills, the sun ached over red leaves, hid bear and deer. Trout slept in the hazy shadow of early evening, safe. She wanted to believe she was safe, too, that there was a place for her to hide from all of them, from Baptiste Yellow Knife, from Mr. Bradlock, from Charlie Kicking Woman’s chase.

Charlie’s shadow darkened the spot where Louise sat with Baptiste. Louise was close enough to Charlie to touch his gun. She felt like a snake coiled and ready to strike. She could feel the heat of his leg, smell the singed heat of his wool slacks. She looked up, saw the wind stiffen the hair up from Charlie’s forehead. Baptiste looked up too. Charlie was so close Louise could hear the tight squeak of his leather holster. She drew her knees tighter to her chest and heard the blood beating in her throat. Charlie shook his head and kicked at a rock beside her, his boot skimming her thigh. She felt laughter curdle her stomach. The idea that Charlie could not see them in the cover of the weeds began to fill Louise.

Charlie scanned the base of White Lodge Hill. When he left, he walked carefully, turning back to gaze in their direction with eyes steady and unseeing. She thought Charlie held only the vision of certain trees, a few rock swells he could not distinguish from dirt, everything blending to nothing. Maybe Charlie saw the curve of her hip as only another slope of land, her fingers stark as the weeds that surrounded her. Maybe Charlie could not see the meadowlark in the pine branches, the distant white heat lifting, the separate river rocks, the sleek dark shale that rose from the hill. Louise could feel a low shifting breeze. Charlie turned his broad back to them. Baptiste held her safe. He was talking to her, telling her a story. She wanted to lay back in the prickle of weeds beside him and listen to his dry voice. She could still see Charlie but then he began running, running as if from a cold place where the only name spoken was his own.