Martha was saying, “Santa Fe is the oldest capital in the United States. It’s seven thousand feet above sea level and surrounded by the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.” She pointed to a long, low adobe building. “That was the Palace of the Governors; it’s a museum now. We’ll set up here. It’s a perfect place to do close-up and wide-angle shots. I assume you all brought tripods?”

Everyone but Miriam carried a tripod across their shoulder.

Martha’s eyes swept the semicircle of students. “My protocol is for you to shoot a minimum, but not a maximum, of two rolls of thirty-six slides every day.”

Amelia pulled out the green sheet from the packet distributed to them earlier and read quickly down a list. The subjects to be photographed included landscapes, architecture, nature, which she said meant flowers or animals, and candid shots of adults and children.

Martha said, “We’ll be going on two field trips. We’ll go by bus to Taos Pueblo tomorrow. The bus leaves from the portico in front of the hotel at eight A.M. sharp, so breakfast will be at seven. Another day, we’ll travel to the old mining town of Madrid. The remainder of the days, you’ll be on your own. The assignments are on the sheets I gave you. Each night you’ll turn in your film, and the following evening I’ll critique the slides.”

Amelia felt a twinge of regret. Bandelier National Monument, an ancient Indian site, was not a field trip. Taos was a living pueblo; Native Americans lived there; but Amelia wanted to shoot the ruins of a long-vanished civilization, and that was Bandelier. Now she set up her tripod as everyone else was doing.

On the ground, under the Palace portico, Native American women sat cross-legged beside beautiful silver and turquoise jewelry and pottery, spread out for sale on exquisitely hand-woven rugs.

Amelia had done her homework; she recognized the rosette style, Hopi bracelets and Navajo bracelets characterized by five oval stones. Stepping forward, she noticed a little girl of about four with flowing black hair and huge dark eyes, sitting close by the wares of an older woman, perhaps her grandmother. The child’s legs formed a triangle, within which she stacked seven or eight small drums of different sizes and colors, sometimes placing a smaller drum on the bottom, the wider, bigger drums on top, resulting in the drums toppling over.

As she watched the child’s unself-conscious play, Amelia unscrewed her camera from the tripod, squatted, and photographed the child stacking the drums. She caught the swish of little hands, and the blow that sent the drums tumbling and scattering. Head tipped back, her dark hair sweeping the richly woven blanket on which she sat, the child laughed loudly.