The Crowded Grave

at the narrow iron-studded door, avoiding the public entrance with the modern elevator and preferring to climb the ancient stone steps. At the top, he found the mayor filling his pipe and waiting patiently for his arrival.
    “Thank you for being there,” Bruno said. “I saw you in the crowd.”
    “Thank you for doing this, Bruno, and the music was a lovely touch. It will be a sad day if France fails to honor thosewho fall for the Republic. I saw Capitaine Duroc had once again managed to extract himself from an embarrassing situation.”
    “Well, sir, luckily I only have to answer to you, not the government of France.”
    The mayor’s eyes twinkled. “Ah, Bruno, how very nice of you to say so. If only it were true.”

1
    It felt like the first morning of spring. The early sun was chasing the mist from the wooded hollows that sheltered the small streams flowing busily down to the River Vézère. Drops of dew sparkled on the new buds that seemed to have appeared overnight on the bare trees. The air smelled somehow different, fresh and hopeful, and enlivened by the tuneful notes of a dozen different birdsongs. Excited by the change in scents and season, even after his early morning walk through the woods, Gigi the basset hound thrust his nose at the open window of the small police van that descended the steep and curving lane from his master’s home. At the wheel, Bruno was singing a half-remembered song about springtime in Paris and vaguely thinking of the duties of the day that stretched before him, when rounding the last bend he was suddenly forced to brake.
    For the first time in his memory, the quiet road ahead was blocked with a line of cars and tractors, their engines running and their drivers’ heads poking from windows. Some were out of their cars, looking at the road that led to St. Denis. Several were talking urgently into cell phones. In the distance a car horn sounded, swiftly joined by others in discordant chorus.As Bruno surveyed the scene his own phone began to ring. He checked the screen, recognized the name of Pierre, a neighbor who lived farther up the road. He ignored it, assuming Pierre would be calling to complain at being stuck in the jam ahead. There had to be an accident of some sort.
    Bruno pushed aside the thought that he could have avoided this delay if he’d stayed the night with Pamela, the Englishwoman he’d been seeing since the autumn. She had called off the arrangement that he would dine with her and stay the night, saying she’d finally secured an early morning appointment with the
maréchal
, the traveling farrier who was to reshoe her horses. Pamela postponed their meetings too frequently for Bruno’s comfort, and he was never quite sure whether she was cooling on their relationship or simply wary of commitment. They were to meet again that evening, he reminded himself, without feeling greatly reassured. He parked the van and climbed out to investigate. The best view of the long traffic jam was commanded by Alain, who kept a dairy farm farther up the road to Les Eyzies.
    “Geese—the road’s full of ducks and geese,” he called down to Bruno from his perch high on a tractor. “They’re all over the place.”
    Bruno heard the sound of rival honking as the geese called back in response to the car horns, and he quickly clambered up beside Alain to peer ahead. The traffic jam stretched as far up the road as he could see. Darting between the stalled cars were perhaps hundreds of ducks and geese, streaming through the woods on the side of the road and heading across it to settle in a broad pond that spread across the meadow, swollen by the spring rains.
    “That’s Louis Villatte’s farm, behind those woods,” said Alain. “A tree must have come down and broken his fence, letthem all escape. There’s over three thousand birds in there. Or rather, there used to be. Looks like he’s lost a few to the cars too.”
    “Have you got his number?” Bruno asked. Alain nodded. “Call him, see if he knows his birds have escaped. Then go through those woods and see if you can help Louis block the gap in his fence. I’ll try and sort this out here. Join you later.”
    Bruno went back to his van, released Gigi, and walked with him down the road, brushing aside the drivers’ angry queries. A driver he knew was looking mournfully at a broken headlamp while a wounded goose lay half pinned under his car, honking feebly.
    “You grew up on a farm, Pierre,” Bruno told him,