it big, Jo?’ said Christine tugging at his arm. She was full of questions. You could never ignore Christine or her questions – she wouldn’t let you. ‘Was it as big as Hubert?’ And she held up her hands as high as she could.
‘Bigger,’ said Jo.
Bandaged like a wounded soldier he was taken up to his bedroom and tucked under the blankets. He stayed in bed only until Maman left the room, and then he sprang out of bed and ran to the window. He could see nothing but the narrow streets and the grey roofs of the village, and beyond the church-tower just a glimpse of the jagged mountain peaks still white in places with winter snow. The streets were empty of people, all except the priest, Father Lasalle, who was hurrying past, his hand on his hat to stop it blowing away.
All afternoon Jo watched as the clouds came down and began to swallow the valley. It was just after the church clock struck five that he heard a distant baying of dogs, and shortly after a volley of shots that echoed through the mountains and left a terrible silence hanging over the village.
He was down in the Square half an hour later with everyone else to watch the triumphant procession as it wound its way through the streets. Grandpère came first, Hubert gambolling alongside him.
‘We got her,’ Grandpère was shouting. ‘We got her. Give us a hand here Hubert, give us a hand.’ And they disappeared together into the café. They brought out two chairs each and set them down in front of the war memorial.
Limp in death, carried on two long poles by four men, the bear rocked into view, blood on her lolling tongue. She was laid out on the chairs, her legs hanging down on either side, her snout pressed up against the back of a chair. Jo was looking everywhere for Rouf but could not find him. He asked Grandpère if he had seen him but like everyone else Grandpère was too busy telling the story of the hunt or having his photograph taken. It was the grocer, Armand Jollet, who took pride of place in the photograph; it seemed he was the one who had actually shot the bear. He proclaimed this noisily, his round face red with pride and exhilaration. ‘Two hundred metres away I was, and I hit him right between the eyes.’
‘It’s a she,’ said Father Lasalle bending over the bear.
‘What’s the difference?’ said Armand Jollet. ‘He or she, that skin’s worth a fortune.’
In the celebrations that followed the photograph, the war was suddenly forgotten. Even Marie, Cousin Jean’s young widow, was laughing with them, swept along on a tide of communal joy and relief. Hubert clapped and cavorted about the place like a wild thing. He reared up like a bear and roared around the streets chasing screaming children and shouting, ‘Baar! Baar!’ Jo looked down at the bear and stroked her back. The fur was long and close and soft, the body still warm with life. Blood from the bear’s nose dropped on to his shoe and he felt suddenly sick. He turned to run away but Monsieur Sarthol had his arm around his shoulders and was calling for silence.
‘Here’s the lad himself,’ he said. ‘Without Jo Lalande there’d be no bear. This is the first bear we have shot in Lescun for over twenty-five years.’
‘Thirty,’ said Father Lasalle.
The Mayor ignored him and went on. ‘Lord knows how many of our sheep she’d have killed. We’ve a lot to thank him for.’ Jo saw Maman’s eyes smiling back at him in the front of the crowd but he could not smile back. The Mayor lifted his glass – most people seemed to have a glass in their hand by now. ‘So, here’s to Jo and here’s to the bear, and down with the Boche.’
‘Long live the bear,’ someone shouted and the laughter that followed echoed in Jo’s head. He could stand it no longer. He pulled away and ran, ignoring Maman’s call to come back.
Until the Mayor’s speech he had not thought about his part in it all. The she-bear was lying there dead, spread out on the chairs in the Square and he knew now it was all his doing. And perhaps Rouf was out there in the hills with his throat torn out, and none of it would have happened if he had not fallen asleep.
He ran all the way back along the track to the sheep pastures and up towards the trees. He stood there and called for Rouf again and again until his voice cracked, but only the crows answered him. He pushed the tears back out of his eyes and tried to calm himself, to remember the exact spot where he’d last seen Rouf. He called again, he whistled; but the clouds seemed to soak up the echoes. He looked up. There were no longer any mountains to be seen above the tree line, only a pall of thick mist. It was still now, not a whisper of wind. He could see where the sheep had been; there was wool caught on the bark of the trees, there were droppings here, footprints there. And then he saw the blood, Rouf’s blood perhaps, a brown smattering on the root of a tree.
He could not be sure what it was that he was hearing, not at first. He thought perhaps it was the mewing of an invisible buzzard flying through the clouds but then he heard the sound again and knew it for what it was, the whining of a dog – high-pitched and distant but now quite unmistakable. He called and he climbed, it was too steep to run. He ducked under low-slung branches, he clambered over fallen trees calling all the while: ‘I’m coming Rouf, I’m coming.’
The whining was punctuated now with a strange, intermittent growling, quite unlike anything he had heard before. He came upon Rouf sooner than he had expected. He spotted him through the trees sitting still as a rock, his head lowered as if he was pointing. He did not even turn round to look as Jo broke through into the clearing behind him. He seemed intent upon something in the mouth of a small cave. It was brown and it was small; and then it moved and became a bear cub. It was sitting in the shadows and waving one of its front paws at Rouf. Jo crouched down and put a hand on Rouf’s neck. Rouf looked up at him whining with excitement. He licked his lips and resumed his focus on the bear cub, his body taut. The bear cub rocked back against the side of the cave, legs apart, and growled. Yet it was hardly a growl, more a bleat of hunger, a cry for help, a call for mother. ‘They’ll kill him, Rouf,’ he whispered. ‘If they find out about him they’ll hunt him down and kill him, just like his mother.’ Still looking at the bear he stroked Rouf’s neck. It was matted and wet to the touch – like blood – but when he looked down at Rouf there wasn’t a mark on him.
Suddenly Rouf was on his feet, he swung round, hackles up, a rumbling growl in his throat. Jo turned. There was a man standing under the trees at the edge of the clearing. He wore a dirty black coat, a battered hat on his head. They looked at each other. Rouf stopped growling and his tail began to wag.
‘Only me again,’ said the man coming out of the trees towards them. Even with his hat he was a short man and as he came closer Jo saw that he had the gaunt, grey look of old men, yet his beard was rust red with not a fleck of white in it. There was a wine bottle in one hand and a stick in the other.
‘Milk,’ he said holding out the bottle. Rouf sniffed at it and the man laughed. ‘Not for you,’ he said and he patted Rouf on the head. ‘For the little fellow. Starving he is. Perhaps you’d hold my stick for me,’ he said. ‘We don’t want to frighten him do we?’ He gave his hat to Jo as well and took off his coat. ‘I saw the whole thing, you know. I saw you running off too. Your dog is he?’ Jo nodded. ‘Fights like a tiger doesn’t he? Bears like that can knock your head off you know. One swipe of the paw that’s all it takes. He was lucky. She tore his ear a bit, a lot of blood; but we soon cleaned you up didn’t we old son? Right as rain he is now.’ He bent down and poured some milk on to a rock. ‘Now, let’s see if we can get this little fellow to take a drink.’ He backed away a few paces and knelt down. ‘He’ll smell it soon, you’ll see. Give him time and he won’t be able to resist it.’ He sat back on his heels.
The cub ventured out of the shadows of the cave, lifting his nose and sniffing the air as he came. ‘Come
