flattening the contrast and perspective. Something about the change gripped her and she reached for the camera, taking a number of quick shots.
“Hey!”
The sharp, annoyed cry was so unexpected that she nearly dropped her camera and swung around. A burly man was striding out of the woods just behind her to the left. He wore woodland camouflage head to toe.
She gaped, uncertain how to respond.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Still shocked by the unexpectedness of the man’s arrival and his apparent irritation, she sat frozen. One of the things she’d always hated about herself was her occasional slowness to react. It might have saved her some trouble at times simply because she thought first, but at other times it was potentially dangerous.
The man strode closer, and there was nothing casual in his approach.
Suddenly galvanized, she jumped to her feet, still holding the camera.
“I asked what the hell you’re doing!”
He was getting so close that nervousness assailed her. Instinctively, she braced herself in a defensive posture in case she needed to protect herself. They were all alone up here, miles from anywhere.
“Painting,” she finally said.
“That looks like a camera to me.”
She wondered what the hell was going on, but surprise began giving way to anger as she measured the implied threat in his voice and his approach. “So?”
He got close enough to see the canvas and hesitated. Finally he said, “We don’t like spies around here. You find some place else to take your pictures. I mean it.”
He glared at her for a palpable second, then turned and strode away.
“What the hell?” she said aloud to the now empty hilltop. “What is going on?”
The grasses, trees and mountains didn’t answer. The breeze kicked up a bit, chilling her. She looked around, trying to re-center herself. Same hill, same mountains, so why did she feel she’d just slipped realities?
“Idiot,” she muttered finally. Probably some cranky old curmudgeon who thought he owned the entire state. Defiantly, she picked up her camera and looked through the viewfinder and her telescopic lens. Mountains, trees, grasses, wildflowers. A cabin.
She turned the camera back. She hadn’t really been looking that way because the lighting was bad and didn’t appeal to her, but examining more closely now she saw what appeared to be some kind of homestead across the valley on a higher elevation. She could have zoomed in more, but decided not to. Spy? Really?
Damn it, she thought, this was national forest land. She wasn’t trespassing and had every right to be here. But did she really want to get into it with that nut?
Annoyed, she squatted and began to pack up. There were probably a hundred places where she could get a view just as good without the hassles, and who needed the hassles? The stubborn part of her defiantly wanted to remain, but she’d come out here for peace, not conflict. God knew, she’d endured enough conflict for a while.
She unscrewed the lens from the camera, slipped it into its case, then put everything in her camera bag. It took a little longer to put up her paints, soak the brushes and wrap them in cloth and plastic. When she was sure everything was secure in her backpack, she started to fold her tarp.
Irritated in ways she couldn’t quite put her finger on, she damned the man for destroying a perfectly beautiful day. Part of her wanted to stay put, just to show him, but given the isolation out here, she had to admit that might not be wise. Just find another place, Sky.
God, she was learning to hate men. Such a sense of privilege, as if they were masters of the universe. She had a right to be here, too.
She was stuffing the tarp in her backpack when she saw another man emerge from the trees from the opposite direction, this one riding a horse. She tensed at once, then recognized the colors of the U.S. Forest Service. A ranger. She decided to stay right where she was and give this guy an earful about what had just happened. After all, wasn’t it his job to make sure the public wasn’t harassed on public land?
She wasn’t at all clear what these folks did, but she was sure of one thing: at the ranger station before she’d come up here, a very nice woman had told her she was free to go anywhere she liked in the forest, but advised her to file a description of her planned activities and check in when