Flying Home (10 page)

“Doggone! Them hens better watch that fool!”

“He can fight with ’em too, man. When he gits them spurs into another chicken, he jus rides right on to the promise’ lan’.”

Ole Bill clucked softly and the hens scurried to where he scratched.

“Man, man! He’s the fightin’est, crowin’est rooster in the whole wide world!”

Suddenly the rooster flapped his wings and crowed, his chest swelling and his neck arching forward with the sound.

“Lissen to that son-of-a-gun!”

“Aaaaw, sing it, Bill!”

“Man, thass li’l Gabriel!”

“Shucks, he’s the Louie Armstrong of the chickens!”

“Blowin his golden trumpet, Lawd …”

“An’ tellin’ all the roosters they better be good …”

“ ’Cause he won’t stan for no foolishness …”

“Ole Bill says,
Tell all the dogs, an’ tell all the cats, they better be good or go join the bats,”
rhymed Riley,
“ ’cause the mighty Ole Bill’s in town.”

“Naw, naw, man. He’s the Louie Armstrong of the chickens playing ‘Hold That Tiger …’ ”

“Yeah, tellin’ that tiger not to act no fool …”

“Thass it, hittin’ high
p
 …”

“Boy, ain’t no
p
on no horn. It’s
do re me,”
sang Riley.

“Yeah, ’tis. When Louie plays it, ’tis. It’s
do re me fa sol la ti
an’
p
too!”

They bent double with laughter. Ole Bill arched his neck and swallowed, his sharp bill parting like the curved blades of a pair of scissors.

Riley became sober. “My ole man is really proud of that there rooster,” he said. “If yuh want to make him mad, jus tell him Ole Bill got run over. Corse, I don’t blame him, ’cause if I wuz to die and come back a bird like Aunt Kate says folks do, I’d want to be just like Ole Bill.”

“Not me,” said Buster. “I wouldn’t want to come back no rooster.”

“How come? Ole Bill’s good-lookin’ an’ he can fight like Joe Louis!”

“Shucks, but he caint fly!”

“The heck he caint fly!”

“Caint
no
roosters fly!”

“I kin prove it!”

“Yuh crazy, Riley. How yuh gon prove a rooster kin fly?”

“Easy. I’ll git up on top of the chicken house and yuh han’ Ole Bill up to me—”

“Aw naw,” said Buster. “Aw naw. I ain’t goin’ in there with all them spurs.”

Riley spat in disgust. “Yuh make me sick.”

“Yeah? Well I still ain’t goin’ in there.”

“Awright, yuh go on top an’ I’ll han’ him up to yuh. Okay?”

“Okay. I don’t guess he kin spur me when he’s off the ground.”

Riley glanced furtively toward where Aunt Kate usually sat at the kitchen window, then entered the yard, fastening the gate behind him.

“Hurry up, man,” called Buster from the roof. “It’s hot up here.”

“Gimme time,” called Riley. “Jus gimme time.”

He moved stealthily toward Ole Bill, brushing along the fence. The hens squawked. Ole Bill stepped angrily about, his head jerking rapidly.

“Yuh better watch that fool,” yelled Buster.

“Who yuh tellin’?
Come here to me, Ole Bill!”

As he reached out, the big rooster charged, his neck feathers standing out like a ruff, his legs churning the air, spurring. Riley covered his face with his arm.

“Grab holt to him, man!”

He lunged, grabbing. The dust flew. Ole Bill struck the ground and danced away. Riley dived, seeing Ole Bill bounce away like a puffed-up feather duster.

“What I tell yuh ’bout this fool?” he panted.

“Yuh sho didn’t tell no lie.
Watch ’im!”

The charge took Riley unaware. He went over fast, landing hard. He couldn’t breathe. The rooster swarmed over him. He guarded his eyes. The rooster clawed his legs, pecked at his face. He felt a spur go into his shirt, the point against his ribs. Little evil yellow eyes, old like Aunt Kate’s, danced sinisterly over his face. As his hand connected with a horny leg, he heard his shirt rip and held on, the pungent odor of dusty feathers hot in his nostrils. Panting, he scrambled to his feet. Ole Bill jerked powerfully, the scaly legs rough to his hands, the sharp bill stabbing.

“Hold ’im till I git down there!” yelled Buster.

“Hecks, I almost got him now,” he panted. He held the rooster over his head, trying to keep his face clear of the whipping wings. Suddenly he pinned the wings to Ole Bill’s sides and gave a heave, his body arching backward, sending the rooster sailing across the yard. The air filled with dust as Ole Bill skidded. Riley whirled, sneezing and running for the gate, then stopped. The rooster was shaking the dust from his feathers. Watching him out of the corner of his eye, Riley walked slowly, deliberately, so that Buster would not think he was afraid. Before him the old hen was herding her brood out of his path. Obeying a sudden impulse, he swooped up two of the chicks and stepped swiftly outside the gate.

“Fool, yuh better come on outa there,” warned Buster.

“I ain’t scaired like yuh,” he taunted. But it was a relief to be outside.

“Take these,” he called as he started to climb up to the roof.

“Whut?”

“Aw, take ’em, fraidy. These li’l ones won’t spur yuh.”

Buster reached down and cradled the yellow chicks in his short brown fingers.

Riley leaped up, catching the slanting roof. A line of brown ants hurried nervously down the gray sunheated boards. He hoisted himself carefully, placing his hands and knees so as not to crush the ants. Up on top, he took the peeping chicks and placed them carefully inside his torn shirt. They were soft, like bolls of cotton.

“Yuh liable to smother ’em, man,” said Buster.

“Naw, I won’t. See, they ain’t even cryin’ no more.”

“They ain’t, but they maw sho is. Jus lissen to her.”

“Don’t pay her no min’. She’s always squawkin’. Jus like Aunt Kate,” he said.

“Lemme hol’ one of them li’l biddies, hear, Riley?”

Riley hesitated, then handed Buster a chick.

“If yuh wasn’t so scaired, yuh could go git yuh some,” he said.

“Look at him, Riley. He’s scaired without his mama!”

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t be afraid, li’l feller,” cooed Riley. “We yo friends.”

“Maybe it’s too hot up here. Maybe we better take ’em down,” said Buster.

“Saaay! We can teach these li’l son-of-a-guns to fly!”

“I never seen a li’l chicken fly,” said Buster skeptically.

“Well, they ’bout the size of a chee-chee bird,” said Riley.

“But they ain’t got no long wings like a chee-chee bird.”

“Hecks, thass right,” he said disappointedly. If they wings wuz jus a li’l longer—like the li’l robin’s, he thought.

“Hey! Look whut mine kin do,” yelled Buster.

He saw Buster place the chick on the ridge of his leg and the little chick flex its wings as it hopped off to the roof.

“He wuz tryin’ to fly,” he yelled. “These li’l guys wants to fly and they wings ain’t strong enough yit!”

“Thass right,” agreed Buster. “He wuz really tryin’ to fly!”

“I’m gon
make
’em fly,” said Riley.

“How, man?”

“With a parachute!”

“Shoots, ain’t no parachute that little.”

“Sho there is. We kin make one outa a rag and some string. Then these li’l guys kin go sailing down to their ma,” said Riley, making a falling leaf of his hand.

“Suppose they gits hurt and Aunt Kate tells yo mama?”

Riley looked toward the house. Aunt Kate was nowhere to be seen. He looked at the chicks.

“Aw, yuh jus scaired,” he taunted Buster.

“Naw I ain’t neither. I jus don’t want to see ’em hurt, thass all.”

“It won’t hurt ’em, man. They’ll like it. All birds likes to fly, man, even chickens. Jus looka yonder!” he broke off, pointing.

A flock of pigeons circled a distant red brick chimney, dazzling the sunlight with their wings.

“Ain’t that something, man?”

“But them’s
pigeons
, Riley …”

“That ain’t nothin’,” said Riley, bouncing the chick gently
in his palm. “We kin make ’em go sailing down and down and down and down!”

“But we ain’t got no cloth,” protested Buster.

Riley bent, taking the cloth where Ole Bill had torn his shirt, pulled it taut and ripped it away. He held the blue piece triumphantly before Buster’s face.

“Here’s the cloth, right here!”

Buster squirmed. “But we ain’t got no string.”

“Oh, I got string,” said Riley. “I got string and ever’thin.”

He fished a ball of twine out of his pocket and held it lovingly. Yesterday he had watched the twine snap with a kite sailing high above the rooftops, and the kite had gone jerking and swooping crazily out of sight, and he had felt that same strange tightness he knew watching the birds fly south in the fall.

“Man, looka there …” said Buster, awe in his voice.

A delicate curtain of flesh covered the chick’s eye, making it look dead. He paused, about to tie a knot. Then the beady black eyes were open again. Sighing, he held up the cloth, seeing the strings stream lazily in the wind.

“Come on, man. We ready to make these li’l ole guys fly like chee-chee birds.”

He paused, looking at the circling pigeons.

“Buster, don’t yuh wish somebody would teach yuh an’ me how to fly?”

“Well, maybe,” Buster said guardedly, “I guess I would. But we needs two parachutes for these here aviators. How yuh gonna make ’em both fly with jus one?”

“Yuh jus hold ’em an’ watch ole papa fix it.” Riley grinned.

As Buster held the chicks, Riley hitched them together with a harness of twine, then tied them to the parachute strings.

“Now yuh jus watch,” he said. He grasped the cloth in its center and raised it gently, swinging the chicks clear of the roof. They peeped excitedly. Buster grinned.

“Come on, man.”

They crawled to the edge and looked down. A hen sang a lazy song. A distant rooster challenged the morning and Ole Bill screamed an answer.

“Riley …” began Buster.

“Now whut’s the matter?”

“Suppose ole Aunt Kate sees us?”

“Hecks, how come yuh have to start thinkin’ ’bout her? She’s inside talkin’ to her Jesus.”

“Well—” Buster said.

They sat on the edge now, their legs dangling. Riley trembled with anticipation.

“Yuh want to go down an’ bring ’em back?”

“That rooster’s still down there, man,” said Buster.

Shaking his head in mock hopelessness, Riley clambered down and entered the yard.

Ole Bill clucked a warning from a far corner.

“Les do it like they do in them airplane movies,” yelled Buster. “Switch on!”

“Well, switch on then!” Buster yelled.

“Contact!”

“Contact! It’s a nonstop flight, man.”

“Well, let ’em come down!” yelled Riley impatiently.

Then he was seeing Buster tossing the chicks and parachute into the air, seeing the cloth billow out umbrella-like as the chicks peeped excitedly underneath; seeing it sail slowly down, slowly, like fluff from a cottonwood tree.

“Git down from there, suh!!!”

He whirled, his body tense. Aunt Kate was coming across
the yard. He was poised, like a needle caught between two magnets.

“Riley! Catch ’em!”

He turned, seeing the parachute deflating like a bag of wind and the chicks diving the cloth earthward like a yellow piece of rock. He tried to run to catch the chicks and found himself standing still and hearing Buster and Aunt Kate yelling. Then he was stumbling to where the chicks lay hidden beneath the cloth. Please God, please, he breathed. But when he lifted the chicks, they made no sound and their heads wobbled lifelessly. He dropped slowly to his knees.

A shadow fell across the earth and grew. Looking around, he saw two huge black bunion-shaped shoes. It was Aunt Kate, wheezing noisily.

“Ah tole yuh, suh! Ah knowed yuh’d be into trouble ’fore the day was done! Whut kina devilment yuh up to now?”

He swallowed, his mouth dry.

“Yuh heah me talkin’ to yuh, boy!”

“We wuz jus playin’.”

“Playin’ whut? Whut yuh doin’ in there?”

“We … we wuz playin flyin’ …”

“Flyin’ the dickens!” she yelled suspiciously. “Lemme see under that there rag!”

“It’s jus a piece a rag.”

“Lemme see!”

He lifted the cloth. The chicks were heavy as lead. He closed his eyes.

“Ah knowed it! Yuh been killin’ off yo ma’s chickens!” she shouted. “An’ Ahm gon tell her, sho as mah name’s Kate.”

He stared at her mutely.

If only he hadn’t looked when she called, he might have caught the li’l chicks.

Suddenly the words rushed out, scalding: “I hate yuh,” he screamed. “I wish yuh had died back in slavery times …”

Her face shrank, turning a dirty gray. She was proud of being old. He felt a cold blast of fear.

“The Lawd’s gonna punish yuh in hellfire for that,” she said brokenly. “Someday yuh remember them words an’ moan an’ cry.”

There, she’d done put a curse on him. He felt pebbles cutting into his knees as he watched her turn and go. She padded painfully away, her head shaking indignantly, her white apron stiff over her wide, gingham-covered hips.

“These li’l nineteen hundred young’uns is jus full of the devil, that whut they is,” she muttered. “Jus full of the devil.”

For a long time he stared vacantly at the chicks lying upon the earth strewn with the chalk-green droppings of the fowls. The old hen circled cautiously before him, pleading noisily for her children. Fighting a sense of loathing, he lifted the chicks, removed the strings, and laid them down again …

For a little while they were flying
 …

Buster looked sorrowfully through the fence. “I’m sorry, Riley,” he said.

Riley did not answer. Suddenly aware of the foul odor of chicken dung, he stood, feeling the waxy smear upon his exposed flesh as he absently wiped his fingers.

If I jus hadn’t looked at her, he thought. His eyes swam. And so great was his anguish he did not hear the swift rush
of feathers or see the brilliant flash of outspread wings as Ole Bill charged. The blow staggered him, and looking down, he saw with tear-filled eyes the bright red stream against the brown where the spur had torn his leg.