The first days were the harshest. I couldn’t understand why he left. Had I done something wrong? Had he never really trusted me? Had I dreamed of that night when his head rested on my hand? On the third day, I took my old geologist’s bag, filled it with water, a few energy bars, a lamp, and went out. Mike called and said, “Dad, you can’t wander in the desert like that. You are sixty-eight years old. I replied, “Jess spent seven months trying to trust me. I can try to find him. He was silent. Then he said, “Send me a message every hour.”

For the first week, I stayed within a five-kilometre radius of the house. I called his name in front of every rock, every canyon, every hilltop. My voice was lost in the cliffs, echoing back to me like a mockery. “Jess!” – “Jess!” – “Jess!” Nothing but my voice, no other. The second week, I expanded the scope. Eight kilometres. Then fifteen.

My shoes wore out, blisters burst under my toes. I didn’t stop. Every morning, even before sunrise, I left the hut without drinking my coffee, and walked north to where he had been able to go. The canyons in the desert are like wrinkles on ancient skin: deep, easy to get lost in.

I knew this place from studying its rocks for thirty years, but I had never gone as far as I do now.

After a month, I started to notice traces. Not Jess’s, but other dogs, coyotes, and even a mountain lion.

Every night when I came back to the cabin, I would sit on the porch, look at the moon and think, “I’m an old man gone crazy because of a dog who didn’t even trust me.” But then I remembered that night when his head had touched my hand, and I knew I couldn’t stop. On the fiftieth day, I fell into a canyon.

Nothing deep, barely two meters, but my knee swelled and blued. I lay down on the rock, looked up at the sky and saw a bird drawing circles. “That’s stupid,” I thought. Then I got up and continued.

On the seventieth day, I came across a shepherd. He looked at me like I was a ghost. “Old man, what are you looking for around here?” he asked. “A dog,” I replied. “A big grey dog, with scars on his muzzle.” He shook his head. “Two weeks ago, I saw a dog near the North Col. I didn’t come close. He looked wild. I didn’t know if it was Jess, but it was the first news I’d had in two months. I went in that direction. I walked for three days without stopping, until my water ran out. I went back to the cabin, filled my reserves, and left. By the ninetieth day, I had stopped counting the miles. I was only counting the days. And every morning, at dawn, I would climb a hill and call. “Jess!”

The one hundred and thirteenth day was a day of bright sunshine. The sky, a blue so pure that it seemed infinite, stretched over the canyons without the slightest cloud. The heat rose from the stones in invisible waves, and the air vibrated in the distance like a trembling canvas. I had been walking since dawn, my legs were shaking, my throat was so dry that I had trouble swallowing my own saliva. I was standing on a rocky ridge, wiping the sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand, when suddenly, at the bottom of the valley, nearly two hundred yards away, I saw something move.

A gray shape, barely distinguishable from the stony ground, slowly moved what could be a tail or a flank. My heart stopped for a second, then resumed its beating so violently that I thought it was going to go through my chest.

“Jess,” I whispered, but no sound came out. My voice was dead, burned by weeks of screams thrown to the wind. I tried to run, but my legs refused to obey me. I staggered three steps, and then my knees touched the ground. I fell to my knees on the burning rock, and I dug deep into what was left of my strength. I opened my mouth, I closed my eyes, and I screamed. “JESS! JESS! IT’S ME! IT’S RICHARD! My voice broke, cracked like old wood, but it crossed the valley. The gray shape froze. Then it moved again. Slowly, very slowly, she began to move in my direction. Not running. Not even while jogging. She was almost crawling, exhausted, stopping every three meters, her head down.

I was still on my knees, my hands flat on the hot stone, and I was crying silently. The gray form was getting closer. Now I could make out his ribs, his dull fur, his floppy ears. It was him. It was Jess. But something was wrong. He stopped five meters away from me. He looked at me. And in his eyes, I didn’t see any recognition. No joy. No fear either. Just an emptiness, an exhaustion so deep that he seemed to see nothing at all. He took a step back. Then another. “Jess, it’s me,” I repeated, my voice barely maintaining a whisper. “It’s me, I’ve come to get you.” He tilted his head to the side, as if trying to remember something very far away, something that had existed before the desert, before the hunger, before the endless loneliness. He has taken a step forward. Then another. He came within two meters of me. He sniffed the air. Once. Twice. Three times.

His whole body shook. I saw him. A shudder that ran down his spine from the nape of his neck to his tail. His eyes widened. They suddenly found a glimmer, a spark, as if a light had been rekindled somewhere in the back of his extinguished mind. He let out a small, barely audible moan, a sound I had never heard him make.

And then he got closer. He dragged his exhausted body to me, and he rested his head against my chest. I remained on my knees, my arms around him, my cheek resting against his bony skull. He was still trembling. So do I. The sun burned our backs, but neither of us wanted to move.

I don’t know how long we stayed like this. I only know that at some point he closed his eyes, and a long sigh came out of his throat. Not a sigh of pain. A sigh of abandonment. As if he were saying: “You have come. You really came. I can finally stop. »

I didn’t try to get him to stand up. I stayed there, on my knees, holding him against me. When night started to fall, I took out of my bag a blanket that I had taken just in case. I wrapped it around the two of us. Jess didn’t move. His head was still resting on my chest, and I felt his weak but steady breath against my neck. We slept like this, on the ground, in the canyon.

The next morning, he looked up at me. He had eaten a little. He had been drinking a little. And in his eyes, there was something that wasn’t there the day before. A glimmer of recognition, yes, but even more: a certainty. He knew now that I wasn’t going to leave him. That I had never left him. He tried to get up. It has fallen back. I helped him. We started walking. One step. Stop. One step. Stop. He was still three meters behind me, but he was following me.

It took us two days to get back to the hut. The first night we camped in a cave I knew. The second night, we slept on the porch of the cabin, because Jess no longer had the strength to climb the stairs. I stayed outside with him. The next morning, he climbed the three steps, one by one, with infinite patience. He came in. He didn’t go to his corner. He came and sat at my feet and laid his head on my lap.

I put my hand on his head. He closed his eyes. I heard that sigh. The same as the first night, the same as in the canyon. A sigh of appeasement.

The next morning, I called Mike. “I found him,” I told him. “In the desert?” he asked. “Yes.” “After one hundred and fifty-eight days.” “After one hundred and fifty-eight days,” I repeated. Mike fell silent. Then he said, “Dad, you’re crazy.” I laughed. “I know.” He fell silent again. “I’m proud of you,” he said. I hung up and looked at Jess. He was lying in the sun, with his head between his paws, and he was asleep. For the first time, I saw him so calm.

From this day forward, we don’t go anywhere without each other. I took him to the vet. He weighed only nineteen kilos when I found him. Four months later, he weighed twenty-nine. Today, he sleeps on my bed, his head on my pillow, and when I wake up in the morning, his eyes are already open. He looks at me. I look at him.

And we both know that there is no longer path in the world than the one we walk for the other. I have walked this path. So does he. Now we’re just together. And that’s way more than I ever dared to ask.