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From behind her and at either side, deep growls rose and came nearer.

    Hayley swiveled to see a huge brown bear approach from each side. Their teeth were bared and their heads were forward, low and twisting. Their eyes were locked on Jeb. He ran.

    The bears picked up speed and passed Hayley. Jeb dashed for the bushes. The bears chased after him. The sound of a rustling, cracking pursuit with the pounding of heavy paws faded into the woods.

    Hayley stood for some time watching the spot where they had disappeared. Her emotions churned as she recalled the breeze in the wake of the two rushing bears and how their soft, thick fur rippled as they’d cannoned by her.

    Deep inside her a fantasy flickered that somehow the two bears had been there to protect her. That they had bounded after the hunter to keep her safe. Safe from him. Safe for themselves. She trembled at the thought, then she tried to dismiss it.

    Through the diner window, all of the customers had huddled back around the counter. Dick’s head was down, too. Hayley had no idea how much of what occurred they had witnessed, if any.

    No matter, and she wouldn’t let it spoil her day on the mountain. She headed up the slope and toward the sun.

    The higher Hayley hiked, the less she felt the tug of the world below. The rent, the damned job—it all melted away behind the sounds and scents of the high forest and faded below the horizons of her sketches.

    The wild, natural world was where Hayley felt at home. Among the trees and birds, with earth beneath her feet and wind in her hair. This was where she belonged. If only there was a way to for her to remain up here, up in the cool, fresh air.

    Between the clear sky and the green trees, Hayley felt as though this was her place. In her younger days when she escaped to the woods and the mountains, she felt more at home there than she did with her unpredictable, explosive family.

    Now on this clear day she felt that her home was not just in the mountains, but on this mountain. She sat to draw. Meeting the bears had given her a feeling that wouldn’t leave. Were there two bears, she wondered, or three?

    The man in the diner had said there were just three bears left up here. Could she have seen all three of them, here on her first visit? Hayley wondered what it would take for her to see them again.

    Through the last of the morning and on into the afternoon, she found trees and vistas to draw. She stopped near to a running spring so that she could make one or two quick watercolor paintings.

    As she looked through her drawings, she remembered the photo of the valley in the morning mist that she had taken with her phone. She got herself a little water, laid out her colors, and found the photo.

    It was perfect. Time slipped away as Hayley immersed herself in the delicate rendering of the depth of the gorge and the mist as it rose from the valley floor. She was excited as she caught the softness of the morning light.

    Her colors blended to give shape to the steep slopes and the pointed trees as they stretched up through the haze. She paused to check the photograph. Something in the corner caught her eye and she pinched the screen to enlarge it.

    How had she not seen that before? Small but distinct in the corner, looking right at the camera under cover of thick red and turquoise shrubs, were the snout, ears, and shining eyes of a bear.

    As Hayley stared at her phone in disbelief, she ignored the first couple of tiny drops of water. In her cocoon of concentration, she hadn’t noticed the light dimming as the sky grayed. A drop of water made a pool as it fell onto her painting. Then another.

    Hayley dabbed at the marks with a soft tissue and tried to shield the picture. The few drops became many. The picture was beginning to run as she pressed a clean piece of paper to it in an effort to protect the work.

    The few drops became a drizzle and she looked around her for better cover. As she slipped under the shade of a