In the descending dusk, the tour bus lies broken against a sheer cliff, split into near- perfect halves by a boulder that seemed to drop straight from the sky. Now, some twenty minutes later, the initial tumult has stilled to an unnatural hush, the bodies of passengers strewn along the roadside like the contents of a spilled basket at an interrupted picnic.

Many lie motionless, their postures and expressions registering a kind of blank surprise. The rest huddle beside their belongings, hunched low as though not to incur more of Fate’s wrath. Some stare back down the road, from which help must surely come soon. No one looks anymore at the other passengers, living or dead.

“Please?”

It is a small slumped woman, her blue-white hair in disarray, bent sideways over one of the still forms.

“Please, anyone? A camera? His is gone. It was in the bag by his feet, and now…” Her hands flutter over the old man’s body like a mother bird hovering above the frail hatchlings in her nest.

“What the hell you want a camera for?”

The large black woman is on the shoulder of the road above, leaning against the trunk of a sapling bent by the wind. It doesn’t look strong enough to bear her weight. One of her white sandals is missing, the black sock on that foot crumpled to a raw ankle.

The old woman trembles as though from cold in the still, overheated air. Her pale blue eyes skim the mounds around her, resting on none. “He would want to see this,” she says. “All our vacations, he always brings his camera, and that bag full of film.”

She turns to look up at the face of the cliff, above the carcass of the fallen bus. “He would definitely want that,” she says. “He takes everything important. Slides, not prints; he says they’re sharper, more true to life. Then he watches them all by himself. In the family room. With the lights off.”

She tilts her head back, frowns at the darkening sky. A voice comes out deeper: “We’re losing the light.”

“Please?” she says again.

The large woman pushes away from the sapling and descends the slope toward her. The older woman’s head jerks to attention with the anxious expression of a small dog uncertain whether to expect a treat or a slap.

As she comes, the black woman is hauling from across her chest the strap of a large red leather purse, from which she draws a small pouch.

Tentatively, the old woman’s hand lifts to accept it from the wide outstretched palm. She unzips the pouch and examines the silver object inside. “This must be one of those digital things. I wonder how…”

The larger woman reaches for it, but the old one clasps it to her chest. “No, I need it.”

“Give it here,” the woman says and takes it, presses a button that makes the front grow out like an accordion, then gives it back and wanders off, her gaze unfocused.

The wide screen is lit now, and everything in it is sharp and clear. But the old woman looks again at the sky. Is it too dark? Has she waited too long?

“Just do it!” orders the deep bass from her throat.

She nods and quickly bends and swivels sideways, watching the screen as the ground travels emptily across it. Until the body is right there.

She jerks backwards, dropping the camera, her hands flown to her mouth. Her lips form a single word, but no sound comes out.

It is several moments before her fingers slow from shaking to trembling and she again picks up the camera. She leans to gently brush the dust from the man’s old army-tan shirt, straightens it a little on his narrow chest.

“There,” she whispers, and lifts the camera again to her eye.

Click on the body. “Okay. Okay now.” Click. Click.

She rotates her shoulders in a slow circle toward each of the other still forms. “See? See how many?” Click. Click. Click. Click.

At the broken bus. Click.

The huge hole above it where the boulder had been. Click. “It’s okay now,” she murmurs. “See?”

Click.

Click.

Click.