Louis and Father Secours spent the day suggesting and dismissing various plans of action while they kept an eye on Sylvie and Martine as they went about their outside chores taking care of the animals, fetching milk and water. Louis led Modestine out into the gravel yard between the buildings and she lay herself down on her side again, soaking up the sun. It was a beautiful day, but that didn’t raise their spirits much.
The two men went back and forth, pacing the yard—Louis with his revolver in his belt—devising a number of possible arrangements, but in the end, each one required having some idea as to the cloaked man’s whereabouts, or even just a concept of his behavior. So far, there had been no conspicuous pattern and this monster just wasn’t the type of foe you took chances with. But as the day wore on and no battle map emerged, they realized that the only plan they had was to take a chance.
“We don’t know where he’ll be,” said Louis. “The fact is that he appears from nowhere, whenever he wants.”
The women returned to their inside duties, and the men now sat beneath the small, rose-covered awning above the front door, Louis smoking a cigarette and Father Secours eating an orange.
“It might be best if we just assumed ourselves bait, all the time, everywhere,” said the priest.
“We make terrible bait.” Louis rejoined. “He knows I’m armed.”
“I don’t know that he cares,” Father Secours said, and Louis nodded.
Just then, a set of wooden shutters clacked open above them.
“Use me,” a voice said. It was Clémence. “I can go. I’m not afraid.”
Father Secours stood and walked a few paces out to look up at his young cousin.
“Don’t you think you’ve been through enough?” he asked.
“What will a little more make?” she said. “I’m already scarred.”
“And we won’t have you any more so,” Louis said, joining Father Secours to look up at his addressee.
She looked down at them both, defiant.
“Look,” said the priest, “all having you join us does is put one more person in harm’s way.”
Clémence made to protest, but Father Secours put his hands up and stopped her.
“Non, absolutely not,” he said. “And besides, you are wounded. And you might think you’re well enough to take this on, but I assure you that you are not. You just need to stay here and recuperate. Monsieur Stevenson and I will return to inform you of what takes place.”
She stared at them a moment longer and then huffed and slammed the shutters closed. They moved away from the house and toward the stable to continue their talk. Modestine shifted in the dirt, lazing in the tingling warmth of the sun.
“She has a will,” said Father Secours, “and that is good. But she is still a child.”
“Oui,” Louis agreed. “I don’t doubt that she would be brave, but it is too risky.”
Eventually, the shadows grew long, and Gilles and Thierry returned from the fields, filthy, weary, but happy enough. They washed, and by the time everyone had finished another delectable dinner prepared by Sylvie and Martine, it was hard on dusk.
“We should be going,” said Father Secours. Louis nodded, and they both stood from the table. Clémence, who had joined the family for dinner, also stood, but she said nothing, looked at no one, and quietly went upstairs.
“What will you do?” asked Gilles.
“We’re not yet sure,” answered his cousin, “but we feel we should probably not be here. The longer we’re here, the better the chance that we will draw him near, and we don’t want that.”
“Aussi,”[1] Louis added, “we think we might be able to convince the authorities in town of the danger he poses. At first, we thought perhaps we wouldn’t be believed, but we don’t seem to have many choices.”
“However,” the priest continued. “We’ll wait until nightfall to head back into Florac because we expect that he’ll be waiting for us, which he wouldn’t be in the daylight. If he is, we won’t have to involve anyone else, and we can hopefully take care of him.”
“Instead of his taking care of us,” Louis added.
Gilles nodded gravely, and then he, Sylvie, and their two children, accompanied the two men out to the stable where Modestine had been re-installed. Louis packed her while the family said their goodbyes. He double-checked that his revolver was fully loaded, and then turned to Father Secours.
“Is there anything that could be spared,” he asked, “for you to employ as a weapon?”
The priest put up his hands.
“I do not need one, Monsieur Stevenson,” he said, and then added, “I have taken a vow to do no harm.”
“The Lord will protect you?”
The priest smiled.
Louis returned to packing his donkey, not overjoyed that the one person he had to watch his back was a pacifist, and he hoped that God’s defense extended to him as well.
When he was ready, he added the priest’s knapsack to the pack, and they waved to the family as they started off. The evening air had grown chill; the sky was rapidly turning azure and would soon shroud the travelers in night.
* * *
The men walked side by side, Louis driving Modestine only slightly ahead, across the valley, along the well-tread cattle path. At about the halfway point, Father Secours stopped them.
“I think I should be off some,” he said.
Louis looked at him for explanation.
“Maybe I could follow alongside you,” the priest continued. “But off road, along the foliage. That way . . .”
“It will look like I left you back at the farm and therefore am more vulnerable.”
“Precisely.”
Louis nodded, and Father Secours strained to scan the meadows to the south of them.
“I don’t even need to go as far as the trees,” Father Secours said. “There is enough brush just there.”
He pointed roughly twenty yards off and again Louis nodded.
“Be vigilant,” Louis reminded the priest before he made his way out of sight.
“I will,” Father Secours replied. “Fear not.”
Louis doubted his ability to quell his fears—walking along a blackened path, in the middle of nowhere, moving to confront a vicious murderer. Even Modestine seemed to realize that something was amiss, that this trek was different from the rest. She shivered occasionally, as if she knew that there was a genuine possibility that harm could come to one or all of them. But she moved when prodded, though she moved slowly.
He walked, his eyes wide, trying to see in the dark, but the gloom was so full, he could only make out shadows nearby. To his right, he could not even tell where Father Secours had gone, though he felt confident through his trepidation that the priest was near and on guard.
They grew closer and closer to Florac. He could make out a very faint glow over the town—the sum total of a few hundred torches and lanterns sending their radiance up to the sky—but only just. Against it, Louis could make out the copse of trees and bushes that concealed the Château de Florac. He began to think that the cloaked man was not abroad this night, and that they would indeed enter the town unscathed. From there, they would locate Yves, the constable known by Colette and Adèle, and hope for the best.
Abruptly, Louis grabbed Modestine’s bridle and yanked her to a halt. Just ahead, he could scarcely make out a shape.
He squinted, unsure of what he was seeing, if he was seeing anything. But then, it moved—the indefinite figure of a man moving along the path in front of them, also toward the town. Louis regretted their decision to leave without lamps, as they rightfully concluded that the light they threw would not go far enough to aid them, but only ruin their night vision and leave them blind if things got serious. They were about to get serious now, and he instinctively wished for light, like a child waking from a nightmare in the dark. He fumbled with his vest, to clear his way to the butt of the pistol.
The cloaked man laughed in the distance. By its quality, Louis could tell it wasn’t for his benefit, but nonetheless, the sound carried unobstructed and clear across the moor to the Scot’s unwelcoming ears. Louis strained to see him, relying more on sound than his sight. The man was moving toward the prison.
Louis pulled Modestine along and followed.
As they approached the imposing structure, light grey in the dark, Louis heard a door screech open and then a moment later slam.
Upon cautiously reaching the door, Louis looked in vain for a place to tie Modestine. He was rapidly losing this opportunity to corner the cloaked man, though the idea of doing so chilled his heart.
“You have to stay here,” he whispered in the donkey’s ear. “Don’t leave. Unless he comes. Then, run.”
It didn’t strike him as odd that he was talking to a pack animal this way. He almost expected that she understood completely and that, if it weren’t so physically awkward, she would enter the prison as well to help find him.
Louis left Modestine beside the door and attempted to open it as quietly as possible. This was out of the question. He started slowly, but upon realizing the futility of the endeavor, he yanked it open as quickly and painlessly as possible. The hinges shrieked and the shouts of a few inmates from the upper floors echoed down to him.
It was dark. Louis stood just inside the door and listened. There must have been a stairwell nearby, to his right, for he doubted there were cells on this ground floor and the movements of wakeful prisoners floated down to him from that direction. This level was more likely left for administrative purposes.
When his eyes adjusted a bit, he was able to discern a light, distant and faint, as if arriving only by way of a few turns and corners. Louis moved in that direction.
Where the cloaked man had gone, he couldn’t tell. Where the guard was, he didn’t know.
Louis held his revolver in one hand and felt his way along the wall with his other, toward the light, which grew brighter the further he went. Finally, he was able to see enough to remove his hand from the wall and soon an open door appeared from around the last corner. He stopped to listen, but heard nothing.
Leaning forward, as if it helped, Louis strained to hear anything. Being further removed from the stairwell to the upstairs cells, the sounds of the prisoners no longer distracted him. But here, the silence was so complete, it assaulted his ears with a fury all its own.
On his guard, he approached the door and gradually peeked his head around and into the room. There was no one. The small room was lighted with two bright lamps. It was, apparently, the guard’s quarters, complete with cot, a crude desk and two chairs, and a few shelves for books and whatnot. Louis inspected everything.
“Now you know, eh?” a man’s voice reached him, sounding about halfway between himself and the creaky entrance.
Louis jumped. He must have been hiding in some darkened side room, as he’d felt a number of closed doors as he passed through the darkness.
“Know what?” Louis stuttered a bit, but fought to keep control. He wondered why Father Secours had not followed and badly wished he’d had.
“That not all men are really just men.”
The more Louis heard his voice, though he was still unable to place it, the more disgusted he grew. The longer the vile man spoke, the more this disgust threatened to overtake his fear, and that made Louis nervous, for he was prone to fits of temper and throwing off caution like a too-hot blanket.
In the distance, Louis thought he heard Modestine bray.
“Not all men were meant to wallow in obscurity,” the cloaked man continued, a smile in his voice. “Some are filthy fiends, cursed and sickening things of the devil, who wreak havoc and then bask in their infamy. Some men were born to be animals,” he continued. “Some men were born to be heroes.”
“You’re no hero,” Louis rejoined, and laughed himself. Despite his nervousness at the unpredictability of the situation, this man revolted him beyond his senses. “You are a pathetic imbecile. You’re hardly a man at all. You are an idiot and a murderer.”
Modestine let forth another cry like a woodwind on fire.
“In any case,” the cloaked man said, seeming amused. “You’ll write about me. You will tell the world of the atrocities perpetuated on the simple people of this stricken city, committed by the wild beasts that have terrorized this region for over a century—allowed to slaughter with a free will—and you will tell all of humanity that I brought the terror to an end, and led the people to destroy every last vestige of that plague upon the land, La Famille de Loups.”
The man had worked himself into a quiet frenzy and Louis could almost hear his slobbering mouth spitting the words into the darkness.
“That will not happen,” Louis called to him. “I will do no such thing.”
The man stood in black silence for a moment, as if Louis refusing had been the last thing in the world he had expected.
“I think,” the man started, “that it would be in your best interest.” And with that, Louis heard the sound of metal against metal. He knew intuitively what it was. The fiend was clanging and scraping his clawed weapons together in an effort to terrify Louis, and the effect was successful.
“You cannot claim that I haven’t given you a choice,” the man continued coldly. “Say yes, and I will be with you every waking instant until the world knows of me, and then, you will never see me nor hear my voice as long as you live. Say no, and you will live only a few moments longer.”
[1] “Also, ”
Sock it to me...