Monsieur Félix shrugged. “There are many crimes committed in this world, but this isn’t one of them.”

Bluebell had come to see what the commotion was.

“Really? Would you eat Bluebell?” Julien asked.

“I know Bluebell,” the old man responded.

“Well I know that heron.”

They stared at each other, and Monsieur Félix backed down. “You should have said so.”

Julien managed to smile then. “I did.” He handed the old man his gun.

“Then we understand each other,” Monsieur Félix said.

Every day after, Julien went back to the hill to scan the sky for the heron. But Monsieur Félix was right, it was the season of migration. One drowsy afternoon, Julien fell asleep in the grass and stayed away longer than he’d planned. He awoke disoriented and chilled to the bone. He started back, and as he approached the farm he knew something was wrong. He shielded his eyes from the sun and immediately spied the imprints of truck treads in the muddy drive. Monsieur Félix did not own a truck, only a cart without a donkey or horse to pull it. The cart was over by the barn, the wood rotting. Victor was nowhere in sight, and, anyway, he preferred cars to trucks, the faster the better. Julien felt a warning bell ring inside of him.

He crouched behind the hedges. Blackbirds were in the yellow stalks of tall grass, but when they sensed his presence they arose all at once in a swirl of life. He looked up, holding his hands over his ears. The ringing was so bad, like church bells inside his head. In the farthest field there were the stalks of sunflowers, all the flowers cut down for the seeds that were drying in the barn in wire baskets. He hoped Victor had returned with a truck, or perhaps Marianne had come back from the border. But he realized it was too quiet. Beneath the ringing in his head, there was no sound of Monsieur Félix at work, not at the well or in the garden or in the small barn. Only the blackbirds taking flight.