He hadn’t anticipated having to drive for almost two hours in a torrential downpour that kept dumping sheets of water onto the asphalt, his face pressed to the windshield while the Sat Nav went haywire. And when he’d finally reached the valley, he’d had to deal with the ice. The car kept skidding over sharp, slippery turns, making his heart skip several beats. Once or twice he got stuck on an upward slope because he had the wrong type of tires on, without the kind of grip needed to deal with icy roads. Then, a passing tractor had stopped in front of him. The driver, an old man with wine on his breath and an unsteady parlance, insisted on helping Massimo. This kind of thing always happened with tourists around that time of year; he’d be happy to haul Massimo’s car to level ground.

“Timber, manure, or cars, makes no difference to me,” he’d said.

Massimo had accepted the offer with a reluctant shiver. With one last worried glance at the car, he’d hooked the tractor chain to the bumper, jumped back inside, and shifted to neutral.

And that was how he’d arrived in Travenì: hauled by a tractor.

The muscles in his back had seized up from the stress, he had a pounding headache, but at least he could concentrate on the view. There was a primitive beauty about that landscape, the kind that made you lose your bearings. Snow-capped peaks towered over a millennial forest, soaring like dull blades over a thick woodland carpet. They stood like mythical titans and compelled you to turn your face upward while a sense of vertigo filled your soul. Clear rivulets swept nimbly around rocks, icicles, and fragrant moss, gushing through the undergrowth of pine trees and bilberry shrubs. Massimo had noticed numerous animal tracks in the snow lining the road.

It was a world far removed from the one he was used to, a world that whispered of human insignificance, and hinted at the senselessness of worldly concerns. It was a natural paradise—but nowhere near pristine. One side of a mountain was almost completely bare; parked on a plateau were bulldozers and other excavation tools next to a group of sheds that served as a construction site. The slope was being cleared of trees.

Massimo had looked away, as if he’d seen a blemish on an otherwise beautiful painting.