A SCREAM SOUNDED IN THE VILLAGE, a race for help, but it was on foot; when they arrived, nothing was left of the hayloft; what did remain was the haystack, bare and blackening; they planted great metal hooks inside of it and they mowed it down.
And sometime before sunset, the four chosen men had already left, climbing up toward the mayens where they had seen Jean-Luc go off. There was his cousin Théodule, and old Romain, who were both in Sassette, the counselor Chrétien Rey, and a plainclothes officer.
They walked with haste. First the land is flat, you pass the sawmill, the wheel was stopped; the sawyer cried: “I saw him too, he went up through the meadows over there.” The officer said: “We’re going in the right direction.” Next you enter the woods; the birds were going to bed; the path turning narrow, the men walked behind one another. You go up, they went up; and all of a sudden, in the forest, you arrive at one of the ponds, calm and beautiful water, the canal on one side, and the whole way around, trees that had grown inside of it; you walk alongside the pond, and these parts resemble a park, with squares of grass, a fine grass like the one on lawns, and beautiful bouquets of larches that seemed arranged all around, as well as streams that flow through the moss; then a smooth trail, without stones, that looks covered in sand—which they continued to follow all the way to the second berm above. These vast plateaus are covered with thin grass, which advances like waves that move from one side to another, before dying afar between knolls. There the four men were caught in the fog.
And the night was on its way too; they saw it would be impossible to go any farther that evening, and went to sleep in a hayloft; they made a fire before the door, they sat around it. The flames lit the sky suspiciously, in the same way they flicker upon a ceiling, then quickly diminished; they pulled some bread and cheese from a bag they had brought, along with a bottle of eau-de-vie; they ate and drank.
Next, they went to sleep, lying down on the hay. Little by little the flames dimmed and the fog fell upon them like a lid smothering embers; the last cinders were already emitting black smoke. But the clouds still descended little by little, as sometimes happens when they form around the mountain peaks in the evening, and crept slowly all the way to the back of the valley. In the morning, the sky was immaculate. It turned white toward the Orient; and this first light, like a sheaf one releases, opened up at the base of the sky; then the brightness increased with, above, a flame shining on the tips of boulders; and the birds cried out in the great calm of the morning.
They were already up; they immediately set off. The trail crosses the forest once more, only it’s narrower, rockier, hollowed out by the rain, it veers, then climbs straight up: the fir trees dwindle, replaced by the larches and their light greenery; at once, on a new berm, where you can still scythe, the mayens appear, seven or eight of them, forming a very small village. Sometimes you can find a kitchen or a room there; a window will be shining under the shadow of a roof.
The officer said: “Watch out!”; the four men walked a little farther through the woods. Then, at the border, they dispersed, but not high enough, they couldn’t see anything; which is why Théodule walked a little bit farther to the side, climbing up a bank; and once higher up, suddenly waved to the others, who came. And so it was that, from where they stood, they discovered Jean-Luc’s mayen, small and a little closer than the others, with Jean-Luc in front of it.
They saw him clearly, they recognized him without hesitation due to his beard and his untidy shirt, but they thought: “What is he doing?” There he was, sitting in front of the door, not on the steps, but on the ground; and at times he looked up, and laughed, as if he were talking to someone, at times he kept his head down as if he were busy with a task. He had made little piles of dirt, all tidy in a row; he had planted green branches and flowers in these little piles; all around, with fir tree needles, he had built a sort of fence: it was a little garden. They understood; they thought: “He thinks he’s found the little one.”
And they noticed, too, how happy Jean-Luc now seemed, for he smiled the entire time, or laughed, his mouth open; and went on with his task, now beginning to build a second garden. Then, standing up, he went to a nearby spring, filled the inside of his hat with water and emptied it in a little channel dug for this purpose; and it became a stream, and underneath, there was a dyke with a wisp of straw: it formed a fountain.
—You see, they said to each other, it’s taken hold of him again.
And one of them:
—That’s why he started the fire.
And the other men:
—You think?
—Yes of course, to get him back. And he’s happy about the fire, because he has him back now.
And so they asked themselves:
—What should we do?
They went back to where they’d been standing. Then, coming out all together, they approached the mayen. Théodule cried:
—Give yourself up, Jean-Luc!
But he, having seen them, suddenly stood up, he answered:
—He’s mine, you won’t take him from me.
And escaped, clutching the child, clutching the void in his arms, running uphill with all of his strength, on the slope, where the others chased him; but he ran with a strength beyond the strength of an ordinary man; so that they quickly gave up, and having regrouped once more, held council. For they were drawn into the chase and thrilled by this latest escape, which they now discussed, one of them saying:
—He’ll get away if he gets to Les Roffes.
Another one:
—If we aren’t the ones to grab him, there will always be someone to stop him over there.
Théodule:
—I think he’s gone to the chalet.
Upon which, they decided to go to the chalet and have a look. There is another steep hill, another forest to cross, where the first boulders appear; and there on top, like a wall, the pastures begin to show. And even farther, the grass ceases at once, and the rockery begins, upon which the last ridges rise, with their great precipitous walls, with no further trails, or else impassable, except in one or two places, where there are cols with marked passages. So, toward the Orient, the pastures unfurl in the distance; toward the Occident, on the contrary, they’re abruptly cut off by a deep notch, which is the top of the gorges of La Zaut. There, a saber has slashed into the mountain; it falls apart stone by stone and crumbles through the wood passages, molded by the frost, with, above, what look like leaning towers, mined by the foot, along with some cracked rocky grounds. But the snow lasts in the folds, which explains why the gray stone was stained white in certain places.
Through the last larches and the mountain pines that surfaced, they urged each other on once more. The sun was strong, for the shade had made itself sparse, large treeless areas and only a few miserable branches left to those that remained. The great buzzing of flies sounded, and from over there, toward La Zaut, there rose, similar to a great wind, the roar of water, which you could see hanging from a knoll a little higher up, in waterfalls, forming a bend and awakening. The nails on their shoes screeched as they gnawed into the stone; because they had picked up their pace, the four men did not speak anymore. They passed near a great larch that had been struck down by lightning, with no remaining branches, with nothing but its big blackened trunk, hollow in the middle; and all around it the thin ground was dressed in clumps of juniper, with here and there, on the banks of stone that pierced through, blocks of compost glued together; and soon even the mountain pines were smaller, now stunted and rocky; then there’s a tiny path, carved into the rock, with a cow fence running alongside the void, and, from there, you arrive at the pasture.
It spreads across rather flat large spaces; and in some areas of the short and grazed grass, the tall gentians appeared, with their thick and glistening leaves.
The chalet is farther up; the chalet was empty, because the herd had left two or three days earlier.
You saw it in the distance, short beneath its roof, coarse with its dry stone walls, a door in front, but no window or chimney, and nearby, in a hollow, there was a great pond of green water, with muddy banks, pierced with holes by the hooves of cows. Nothing stirred. And everything looked small, due to the great wall that rises behind the chalet and seems to lean forward, because of how steep it is; the chalet was small, smaller still were the four men, who had halted, not having found anything.
They hesitated a moment, then sat down at the edge of the stream and started eating again, for running provokes hunger, and the fresh air digs a hole in your stomach. And they didn’t suspect they had been found, it was the truth, however: Jean-Luc was hidden, a little higher up than the chalet, behind the great quarter of a boulder; he had chosen this spot because of the moss, upon which he had put down the child, or so he thought. And from there he spied on the men.
They were still talking, you could hear their voices, but could not understand what they were saying. Jean-Luc watched their gestures, one of them pointing to the rocks, the other to the pastures; time passed; the sun calmly rose in the sky, supported on each side by the columns of the mountains.
And you saw Théodule flip the bottle, showing them it was empty, so they pulled another one out of the bag, and the glass again passed from hand to hand, the four men in a circle; and far below them the great land opened up, with all of its rich plains, from which a lukewarm air rose, and the echoes of the sounds of men.
Then they closed the bag back up, and ascended toward the chalet: the door was shut, but not locked, for there’s no lock, and no one leaves anything inside it: as they approached, they slowed their pace, walking with precaution, and Jean-Luc heard Théodule saying: “He might be inside.” And so two of them entered, while the other two remained at the door; the two who had entered probably searched the chalet’s nooks and crannies, for they stayed inside a long time, but finally came out again, shaking their heads; then Romain stomped his foot and said: “Hell!” For he was peeved, and the others too; at the time they were losing. And one of them repeated: “He went off toward Les Roffes.” And the others: “What would he do there?” “If it was up to me,” said Théodule, “I’d go and have another look in the sheep enclosure, and then never mind, go back down.”
And as they were beginning to climb through the rocks that had rolled down, all of a sudden, they heard a great cry, which rooted them to the spot, and Jean-Luc, lifting his empty arms in the air, came out from where he was hiding, and cried once again: “You won’t have him!” Then he left again, extending his long legs, leaning forward in the haste of his escape; upon which the others, motionless for an instant, hurled themselves behind him, while the counselor cried: “We’ve got him!” And the officer said while running: “Two of us should make a right to cut him off, in case he heads in the other direction.” So the counselor and Romain took off on the right, making a detour, while Jean-Luc continued to climb straight ahead, the two other men following him closely, for now he was visible from a distance on the more open terrain, even though he was in the lead; and at times he ran without turning around, at times he turned around, setting off again with new momentum.
Théodule cried a second time: “Give yourself up Jean-Luc, what can you do against the four of us?” He formed a bullhorn with his hands: “Give yourself up,” he said, “we won’t hurt you.” The echo returned his words, but Jean-Luc didn’t stop. “Let him be, we’ll get a hold of him at the boulders.” And indeed, off to the right, the two men pulled away then spaced out, and Théodule and the officer spaced out too, in case Jean-Luc came back down; but no sound could be heard passing over the fine lawn, where the soles of shoes get caught. At times they looked up, and there, a hundred meters from them, Jean-Luc passed by a sheep enclosure on a little eminence, walked to the back of it, where they followed him, then he reappeared, opposite the cliff face.
One more movement, and there he was. Then the shadow of a cloud came, enveloping him, and from the tips of the boulders, it fell upon him in what looked like an unfolded fabric; they saw him turn around, then he stood his back against the boulders. And so the officer shouted: “Watch out!”, and began to run, along with the other three men. But Jean-Luc burst into laughter.
He was standing there, arms over the load he still thought that he carried, and was leaning over it, considering it with fire and love; the wind ruffled his beard, he had lost his hat. He looked up and said softly (for the others were close enough to hear): “Come, but you’ll never have him.”
And there was no space left to him but the space toward the gorge; it opened up over there, cut distinctly from the edge; a fence ran along it, made of intertwined shards of wood; he looked that way and continued: “The Good Lord has returned him to me, I’ll return him to the Good Lord …” At that moment, the sun reappeared and the smooth rock glistened in the great radiant daylight. He leaned over the child, he kissed him twice. Next he said: “It’s over,” and he said: “You’ll say adieu for me and pray for him and me.” And he hurled himself toward the gorge.
—Run! cried the officer to Théodule, run, cut him off!
The other two, having arrived, followed him with difficulty, and the officer too, overtaken on the left; while Théodule ran right to the top with all of his strength, but it was too late; and all of a sudden they no longer had the heart for it, they all looked away—only the officer watched. He cried again:
—What are you doing? My God! What are you doing?
And then: “Grab him!”, for Jean-Luc had arrived at the fence, had jumped over it, and, standing at the ledge overlooking the void, had turned around one last time, to say:
—Come now!
And so they saw him kneel and begin to pray, upon which the officer, still hoping to reach him, hurled himself toward him, but Jean-Luc was already standing again; he slowly lifted his arms in the air as if they held a substantial weight, which he then threw before him into the void; he leaned forward, as if to watch it fall; and then it was his turn, he moved back, he gained momentum.
They had remained where they were standing, pale and breathless. Théodule said: “Damned!” Romain repeated: “Damned!” Everything was calm, a second cloud passed; the sound of water hadn’t changed, mingled with the long murmur of the wind; the light dimmed once more, then reappeared, casting shadows aside.
They allowed time to pass, no longer sure of anything. Then Théodule said: “We have to go.” And three of them descended into the gorge while the fourth ran to the village. They found Jean-Luc on a stone bank.
The torrent’s water was passing just near him, sliding soundlessly in its smooth bed; the men lifted the body; it was hard work, it took some time.
They had wrapped a cloth around his head; they said: “It cracked like a nut; the brains leapt out.”
There were open doors, lanterns, voices; Jean-Luc was heavy to carry all the way to his bed, where he remained lifeless.
And he was tall on the bed; he was ever so tall.