He began to consider what a thousand soldiers could look at a thousand times and never think anything might be hidden there. He knew there was a rational manner in which to approach this problem. Mathematics had been his first language, after all. He cut the farm into sections in his mind, as if it were a pie. The house was in one section, the barn in another, the vegetable garden in another, the field in still another, and then there were the woods beyond. He thought about each of those sections, and where the papers might be, but all of the possibilities seemed too obvious. What would a thousand soldiers ignore?

He walked into the field. It was the least likely place. There wasn’t much there. Cabbages, leeks, the large sunflower stalks leaning over like dead men in the chill air, an overturned wheelbarrow. The bees were clustered in the hive, keeping each other warm, but a few that had been guarding the entrance flitted out and surrounded him, so many their buzzing rang in his ears. He had no fear at all, only curiosity. The hives were at the edge of the far woods. It was possible to see the mountains from here, with their crags of gray volcanic rock. The sky was so blue, but inside that blue there were a hundred shades. There were bees buzzing around him. The old man had once told him he had no fear of God’s creatures, and in turn the creatures knew this and respected him.

Julien stopped in his tracks. The least likely place was right in front of him.

He slipped on the mask he had found in the jacket pocket. As he approached a hive, he was covered with bees. He slid his hand inside the wooden box and reached up. The buzzing was more like a throbbing now, but he was used to noise inside his head and this was better than the dreadful ringing he alone could hear.

More bees rushed out into the air. At the top of the hive, his fingers hit against what felt like a piece of metal. He pulled at whatever it was, then used the knife he’d taken from the kitchen to work it free, and it soon dislodged. When he took it out he saw that it was a flat tin covered in honey. He was stung several times, and the feeling burned through him so that he didn’t notice the other stings that followed. His arms and neck were dotted with red welts, but it didn’t matter. He loped back to the barn, the bees following him until a gust of wind came up. They scattered and he laughed because they forgot about him and went back to their work in the hive and he felt lucky, which seemed such a far-fetched thing to feel, and yet it was there, making him grin with the joy of his discovery.