Fernand and Couderc tried to set the villagers’ minds at ease by organising a meeting in the big old farm at the bottom of the village. Everyone had their say. All had tales of grandparents or great-grandparents bitten by rabid wolves, innocents who foamed so badly at the mouth that the parish priest could not even give them extreme unction. The Dauclercqs’ cowherd had been eaten by a wolf in the time of Napoleon III, a boy of fourteen of whom only his head and part of his arm were found. His death had made a profound impression on the villagers, not least because the province of Gévaudan, where a man-eating beast had once roamed, was just the other side of the hills; the Lot ran through it. No one wanted to see a return to those days.

‘If we turn on him, who’s to say he won’t set the lions on us? Who’s to say he won’t round up all the wild animals and get them to attack us? There are hundreds of wild dogs, lynxes, boar and wolves in the hills round here …’

August 2017

August 2017

Franck drew on his anger, the anger of someone who is worn out and feels threatened by everything. Fear can drive you crazy. He had walked a long way from the house and was now standing at the top of the hill, clutching the knife in his hand and ready for a fight; with whom, he did not know. The noises were getting louder and louder, coming from the valley below. He walked towards the sloping meadow, but each step was painful without shoes. The dry grass stabbed the soles of his feet, every little twig and wisp cutting into him. It was like treading on thousands of tiny knives, and it got worse and worse as the slope steepened. He couldn’t go any further. It was three hundred metres from here to the hill opposite. Shining a light would have been no use; it would only show the enemy he was there. It infuriated him that he couldn’t keep going, if only to scare off the terrible shadowy creatures that panted and pawed the ground. Edgy from tiredness, travelling and sleeplessness, he imagined himself hurtling down and destroying them all.