Franck didn’t move. He could hear the dog coming back from his exploration of the bushes; he must have found a spring or puddle of water because he was soaked, looking thoroughly refreshed with his head glistening. Seeing him so alert and excited, Franck knew he wanted them to set off again straight away. Movement and action were all he wanted. At times, the dog seemed to be truly at home in the wild, especially lost in the woods like this. In this environment, he was in control and became the master. He looked at Franck as he always did when he was waiting for him to move or get back up again, but Franck wanted to relax a bit longer and enjoy the coolness. The squirrel above them still wasn’t moving; either it wasn’t frightened or it was too terrified to stir. Franck was watching it from below, and the dog understood perfectly. The animals around here were continually observing one another; they were always on the alert, either because they feared the other or were hunting it. The forest is a place of combat. Peace seems to reign, but when you stop for a moment, you become aware of an entire kingdom of vigilant creatures around you, you can sense thousands of ears listening out and eyes keeping a close watch; the tension is palpable. Perhaps the deer were observing him at the bottom of the gully and the wild boar were hiding, or the foxes were patiently waiting for him to leave, because, in every human, these animals could smell only one thing: a hunter.

The dog’s gaze was fixed on the squirrel. Franck knew it would only take one word, not even an order, for the dog to rush headlong at this tree and do everything he could to try to catch the rodent up there, just as he would do with any other game animal. Say the word and he would go after it. He was almost waiting for the order to throw himself at the little creature. Franck feared that the dog would get caught up in the game again, that he would start barking like mad and try to climb the tree to catch the squirrel, breaking its neck in one swift bite. A bird settled on top of a tree to its left. It was a jay, one of those big birds that occasionally let out a terrible noise, an exotic-sounding alarm call that cuts through the silence and, as you approach, other birds echo their cry, warning each other that there’s someone there. The jays are at home in the forest; it’s their territory, and they’ll betray the presence of any human.

‘Go, fetch!’

The dog started moving frantically at the bottom of the big tree, mortified by the complete impossibility of climbing it, infuriated that he couldn’t honour the command.

‘Come on, catch it!’