He slings the long rifle from his shoulder and drops the canvas pack. He burrows down between the dark trunks of conifer trees, and she mimics his every movement. Great alpine limbs droop above. No tracks anywhere save their own. The known world is lost behind them. Across the field lies a white forest.

“You must hold the rifle steady to keep the sighting post straight. See?” Bardem shows her how to handle the gun. “Lie on your belly. See? Your body is most stable in this position. Your hand will rest here. Your grip will be light. Like a bad handshake. Wrist straight, fingers curled. Steady the butt against your shoulder. Like this.”

She watches carefully. She tries to listen. To make him happy.

“Elbows down and in. Don’t curl your finger around the trigger until you’re ready to fire.”

He hands her the rifle, and she follows each step precisely. Breathing softly. Controlled. The butt of the rifle in the pocket of her shoulder. She is being what he wants her to be.

“You must hold the rifle the same way each time,” he says. “You will practice holding the same position. Steady. Solid. Stable. The same position each time, changing nothing. Accuracy is a function of consistency. Understand?”

She nods.

He watches her with great tenderness. He takes the rifle from her and lies beside her and turns her chin so that she is looking at him. He smiles. “Good work.”

“What do we do now?”

“We wait.”

They watch the glinting hillside and drink hot coffee straight from the thermos, their breath smoking. The shadow of the woods falls far across the field. Ava’s belly warms. She sweats inside her coat. Her boots. The sun lifts higher, and everywhere the silent trees gleam. Like glitter inside a snow globe. Untouched.

“See there?” Bardem says.

She looks to where he points.

“Right out there,” he says. “Someday that’s where we’ll build a house. A cabin. It will be a home. Just for us.”

The spot is tranquil. She looks and imagines and hopes.

He rises and pulls a Marlboro and lighter from his jacket pocket and ignites the tip and smokes. He squats on his heels with his elbows on his knees, watching. He doesn’t take his eyes from the tree line.

A breeze rustles pine needles and dies away. The sky is a blue vault.

As she lies there, looking out across the snow-mantled field and into the dark line of trees, a brief shape bounds through dappled sunlight. It disappears, and she perks up and squints. She thinks it’s a trick of her mind until the shape emerges from the edge of the woods.

It’s a deer. Lithe, graceful. A doe, she thinks. The deer halts in the fresh, pure snow and pricks her ears and raises her nose and listens. And Ava thinks: What beauty there is in this world.