The Book of the Dun Cow (10 page)

“But in the
first
place,” he continued, his eyes faraway, “the flea is a sinister, quick critter, well capable of running faster than one may turn his neck to pounce. Welts, then, may be raised. Scabs produced, and tremendous spasms of the muscles endured. Devilish, devilish, the flea! And in the,
er, second
place, it is a painful operation and timeconsuming—that is, to pluck one's hair. And then there is a
third
place, some,
um
, where. So then, these failing, how does one deliver himself of the flea? More to the point, how does one remove from his hide
many
fleas? Ah, by a trick. One must know the Trick of the Stick!”

“But you said,” said Ten Pin, suddenly having second thoughts, “that there's no beating.”

“A careful and most critical objection, Pin the Tenth. Yet, please understand,
ahem
, that this is not a stick for beating. No, sir. It is a stick of trickery! Your uncle, mind you, is a Fox. Shrewdish he is; brutish he is,
er
, not!”

Lord Russel paused to smile. He was taking note of his joke before launching into his explanation of the Trick of the Stick. And then, with much windy groaning, that is what he did: He launched.

The trick was not at all a bad one, but clever. Russel's reputation had some substance to it.

One found for himself a stick which was at least the length of one's own body. (Lord Russel demonstrated taking the length of one's own body, and the Pins collapsed with laughter.) With that stick one went to the river. There one held the stick firmly in one's mouth and then began to sink into the water. This sinking must be done slowly and with patience; for as the tail and then the hinder portions went under, the fleas rushed north, up onto one's back. As that back descended in its turn, the fleas ran higher, ahead of the water lest they drown—sinister critters, they were, quite committed to their own lives! They huddled in the neck and behind the ears and on the crown of one's head. Now, when one had slid one's neck into the water as well, one must take a deep breath, hold it, and slowly lower one's whole head under water. The fleas, panicked and confused by the flood, would rush to the snout and, after that, leap onto the stick. Behold! One's body is totally underwater, and the fleas are totally on a stick. Spit out the stick and let it float away. Wait. Come up for air. Rejoice! It is done.

Ten Pin flashed a look at Five Pin, who flashed a look at One Pin. Then Ten Pin fell down on the ground with a great shout and began to scratch his little body wherever the down grew yellow. Pins Five and One followed suit.

“Uncle! Uncle! It's getting worse,” cried Ten Pin. “It was bad last night; but it's terrible today.”

The Fox stood back, put his paws together, and looked on them with pity.

“Dear, dear,” he said, reaching into their storm, attempting to help scratch, then snatching his paw back again. Quickly he took another tack: “Would you, Pin the Tenth,” he shouted, “diagnose it as,
er
, irritation?”

“Terrible irritation, Uncle.”

“As in, say, a
leaping
irritation?”

“Terrible leaping irritation of the skin!”

“Or, from another point of medical view, would you, perhaps, consider it a
galloping
irritation?”

“Oh, Uncle, it gallops and leaps and claws all over us!”

“Fleas?”

“Fleas! Yes, fleas! Oh,
such
fleas!”

“And you said terrible?” The Fox's eyes ran with sympathy. “I believe I heard you to mention terrible. And it is, after all, the first day of the summer.”

With luminous honesty Ten Pin said: “This is the most terrible case of fleas that I have ever known.”

“
THEN TO THE NORTH
!” cried the Fox, suddenly running furious circles around the Pins. “
TENTH PIN, TO THE NORTH AND PICK YOU OUT A LIKELY STICK
!”

Ten Pin scooted away without another question.

“WESTWARD, FIFTH PIN!”
Lord Russel bellowed as he ran his tight, intense circles around the two remaining Pins. “
SEEK YOUR STICK IN THE REGIONS OF THE WEST
!”

Five Pin was gone.

“
AND LET THE FIRST OF ALL PINS DO HIS SEARCHING IN THE EAST!”

One Pin zipped away to do so.

“
WE
'
LL MEET AT THE RIVER
!
TAKE THE ROAD TO THE
RIVER!”
For a moment the Fox flew after his own tail before he fully realized that he was alone. But as soon as that piece of information dawned on him, he fell into a sudden heap, thoroughly worn out from his excitement. By chance, his chin landed on his tail—welcome chance. Lord Russel fell asleep.

Beryl's fears were altogether lost on Chauntecleer; and his nasal efforts to calm her only made the fear bitter in her soul. When the respectful amount of time had been paid him, then, but without satisfaction, she lowered her head and left his presence. For just a few minutes she took herself to a hidden place, where she could pray earnestly on the Pins' behalf and where she could compose herself, so that the children would not see her afraid. After that, she went to gather them in.

But the circle, when she came to it, was empty.

“Oh, Lord,” Beryl breathed, catching at her breast, “gone!”

Anger flashed into her eyes, that they hadn't listened to her. She bustled everywhere in the yard, scratched grass, where sometimes they hid, fidgeted into hollows, poked into all the corners of the Coop, always crying out their names.
They had left the circle!
And now she found them nowhere where they ought to be.

All propriety forgotten, she burst into the Coop to find Chauntecleer for the second time that day. But neither was he to be found. Beryl could not know that the Rooster had taken with him Pertelote and Mundo Cani to show them the southern flood—and the Coop was empty, of all save herself alone. There was no help for her from any corner. She couldn't even share the bad news.

Soon her anger melted into fear again; and fear turned into guilt.

“Why did I leave them alone?” she said aloud, shrugging her shoulders and turning in helpless little circles. “I knew they shouldn't be alone. Children! They're no more than children! But Beryl left them alone.”

Then, before the tears could come, Beryl did a thing which is, perhaps, never to be explained. Violently she grabbed a broom, and in a white fury she spent an hour cleaning the empty Coop all on her own—singing, at the top of her lungs. The floor, the walls, the roosts, the nests, and the very ceiling she made to dazzle with cleanliness; and every piece of goods and furniture she placed precisely in its proper place. Order! Lord, how her soul wanted order and cleanliness now; and the more she broke her back to get it, the better it was.

“Madam!” A cold, stentorian voice roared at her from the doorway. Beryl had to look twice to see Tick-tock the Black Ant standing there; and she had to think twice in order to cool her fury and to stop for him.

“Madam, you may wish to know that the children of your heart are loose in the forest. While you sing your songs here—heedless”—Tick-tock's voice was brittle, frozen, heavy with ice—“your charges, nurse, are bucking about the forest looking for sticks! They told my workers that they had plans to go to the river—”

“The river!” shrieked the Hen.

“—and obediently my workers reported to me.” Having delivered his message, the Ant was about to turn on his heel. But a Hen overran him with such passion that he fell out of the doorway and bent his nose out of shape.

“A blind nurse is not a nurse,” Beryl wept as she hurried out of the yard, southward to the river. “A fool is nothing but a fool. Alas, my heart, that ever I should wink and cease to care for them. I'll nevermore be nurse to the three little children. Oh, my Lord, I'm not worthy. I'm not worthy!”

It was some little time after this that Lord Russel the Fox bethought himself to rise and go, and to see about the Chicks. It had been an enormously fine day for him. He had taken a particular pleasure in revealing to the Pins the trick about the fleas; and, on account of that, he had taken a particular pleasure in the nap which followed. It was a nap of the reputable, of one successful in his position, whose success has been noted and applauded by others. More than that, it had been a
dry
nap, so that the Fox had been reluctant to get up even after he had awakened. Therefore, Lord Russel stretched the pleasure of it and lay still before making his decision to go.

Then he arose and aimed himself south, toward the river, where he intended to see how well the Pins had learned their lesson.

Since Foxes travel faster than Chicks, he made no great hurry of his going. Rather, he made mental notes of how the dry twigs crackled underneath his step. Casually he glanced about to find a good stick of his own. And several times over he took his own measure, just to be sure of the stick he found.

The forest knew a fine, dry breeze; in its high places, the soil itself was dry: a good day! And on the way to the river Lord Russel once in a while scrubbed his paws with the oil of the rue plant. This was another trick of his, and one which he planned to deliver to the Pins tomorrow: It threw anyone who might be pursuing him off his scent.

Suddenly, from the top of a hill, the Fox saw Chauntecleer and his company as they were returning to the Coop. They moved slowly, obviously talking with one another as they went. Lord Russel judged that their talk was grave and important, for so their slow steps seemed to indicate. But he couldn't hear it from his distance.

He was just about to raise his stick and to halloo them, cheered to have come upon them so unexpectedly. But something caught his attention instead—a small pile of white and yellow in the path ahead of Chauntecleer.

With foreboding, the Fox squinted to see clearly what it was. He wanted, and he did not want, to know. He blinked several times, his poor heart racing. Then his eyes focused, and he was struck dumb.

He saw a Hen and three Chicks, lying down together.

Unable to speak a word, Lord Russel glanced back at the company walking down the path. Pertelote was saying something, while Chauntecleer shook his head. Chauntecleer put his wings apart in a gesture of helplessness, and then he began to speak while the other two listened. He spoke strongly, sweeping his wings wide, as if he were referring to all of his land. Always, the three continued to walk closer to the soft heap, while Lord Russel, fixed in his silence, could do nothing but watch.

Suddenly Mundo Cani stopped, went rigid, and stared straight ahead of him. Chauntecleer looked at the Dog; then he, too, looked straight ahead. The Rooster froze stiff. He stood absolutely still for a moment. Then he spoke a word to the other two without looking at them and walked forward by himself.

Lord Russel felt boulders in his throat. He couldn't cry warnings. He couldn't whisper. He could only watch.

The Rooster came to the place where the Hen and the Chicks were lying. He reached to touch them once. And then he stood wooden for a very long time.

A strange sound filled the air. Lord Russel heard it. It was a keening wail, as if the wind were passing away through the branches of naked trees. But now there was no wind.

Where she stood, Pertelote had turned away from the sight in front of her. She was looking back toward the river. Her head was high. She was weeping for her children.

The sound of her weeping loosened the Fox from his sorrowful trance. He began to run, though he knew that Chauntecleer watched him as he came. When he drew near, Lord Russel saw that it was Beryl who lay beside the children.

“I was going to—to meet them there,” the Fox said miserably.

“Where?” Chauntecleer spoke quietly. The Fox could not look at him.

“At the,
ah
. Beside,
ah
, the—They were to have,
ah
, brought—”

“Where?” the Rooster said again.

“—sticks. The river.”

“The river,” Chauntecleer breathed. A low, menacing growl began in Mundo Cani's chest; his head was slung low between his powerful shoulder blades, his eyes smoking. Lord Russel cringed.

“Shut up,” the Rooster said, and the Dog was quiet.

“They are dead, Lord Russel,” Chauntecleer said quietly. “Sticks and rivers, floods and thunderclouds, serpents aground or flying—my children are dead, Lord Russel.”

“I know,” the Fox said, and he said no more.

“And the sadness is—they were killed.”

Beryl lay on her back, as if she had been struck across her throat, a frightful blow. Her head was loose and turned to the side, because her neck was broken. Ten Pin, Five Pin, and One Pin were lying in a little group beside her. Their backs were together as if they were merely leaning that way for the comfort. But their beaks were open, their eyes closed, and their chests each bore the marks of a bite. A circle had been marked in the ground around all four.

“Now we will carry them back to the Coop,” Chauntecleer said. Mundo Cani came forward.

“Lord Russel will bear the nurse, Beryl,” said Chauntecleer, and suddenly the Dog did not know what to do. “Tenderly, Russel. You shall walk most tenderly with this lady.”

Chauntecleer watched him narrowly to see whether his walk was indeed a tender one.

Lord Russel was suffering mightily. He had not yet looked at the Rooster. Nevertheless, he lifted Beryl in his jaws and began to walk back to the Coop alone. He walked tenderly. And he was grateful for Chauntecleer's remembrance of him.

Then Chauntecleer spread his wings and gathered his children together beneath them. He raised his head and held his children to his breast.

“Mundo Cani Dog.” His voice was as thin as a reed. “Please look after the Beautiful Pertelote, and bring her.”

To anyone who might have seen him standing on the Coop that night, Chauntecleer would have seemed to be black iron. A breeze tugged at his feathers; they flipped forward on his back—ragged, vagrant. But the Rooster himself was iron and immoveable. On this night he had nothing to do with breezes.

At dusk he had crowed the crow of grief. But there had been no satisfaction in it. He had done it more the Lord of the land than father of the children: abruptly, briefly, bitterly, formally—a bitten crow. And all who lay awake listening were left more agonized than had the crow rung truly with Chauntecleer's deeper sadness.

But then, when the crow was done, the Rooster was not done. And so he held his position for hours against the night, while the animals beneath him, though they did not sleep, honored him with stillness and silence.

“You, God,” Chauntecleer finally said; but his iron body did not move. His muscles were taut wire. Had someone touched him at that moment, he would have spun and murdered him.

“You, God, promise—then break promises,” he said. “You give. You warm me to your gift. You cause love to go out of me to your gift—and then you kill me. You kill my gift.

“I did not want this land. I would just as soon have traveled my way, taken what came to me by chance and left the rest. I would just as soon have gone a-mucking through this world of yours unnoticed, untouched by—your—righteous—hand. Then I may have been empty, but not bereft; I didn't know what blessing you had it in you to offer. Then I may have been alone, but not lonely; I didn't know what love you could ordain. You, God! You took me out of my life! You set me into this false place. You made me believe in you. You gave me hope! O my God, you taught me to
hope
! And then you killed me.”

Chauntecleer trembled where he stood. He closed his eyes against the darkness to control the trembling—not because he thought his words were wicked; simply because he did not want to tremble before God.

“If I had never had sons, how could I lose sons? If I had never ruled a land, how could I fear to lose the land? It is in the
giving
that treachery begins. If I had never loved these animals, which the almighty God put into my keeping, I would not die thinking that they may die.

“But by
your
will I am where I am. By
your
will things are what they are. Now by
my
will I demand to hear it from your own mouth:
Where are my sons
? Why is Pertelote weeping underneath me in the Coop? And what am I to say to her? Bear them, bless them, watch them; then ball them into tiny balls and stuff them in the earth! I'll tell her. She'll be comforted. I'll tell her of the will of God.”

Chauntecleer drove hot air deep into his lungs. He roared: “And by
my
will I demand to know now—it is most certainly time now to know:
O God, where are you
? Why have you hidden your face from us? Why now, of all times, when things are on the rim of disaster, have you turned away? Nine months! I have not seen the stars for nine months! In nine months we have not seen a single passing of the sun, and the moon is only a memory. Faith, right? By faith I should believe that the spheres still turn above these everlasting clouds. Tell me! Tell me! Infinite God, tell me what we have done to be shut from the rest of the universe! But you won't tell me. You've dropped us in a bucket and let us be. It wears a person out, you know. Yeah, well.”

Then the Rooster did move. His head sank between his shoulders. His wings drooped. He broke into tears. “My sons, my sons,” he wept. “Why didn't God let me die instead of you?”

Chauntecleer sobbed several moments together. Then he spoke in another voice, without raising his head.

“Aye. He wills that I work his work in this place. Indeed. I am left behind to labor. Right.

“And one day he may show his face beneath his damnable clouds to tell me what that work might be; what's worth so many tears; what's so important in his sight that it needs to be done
this
way. . . .

“O my sons!” Chauntecleer suddenly wailed at the top of his lungs, a light flaring before it goes out:
“How much I want you with me!
”

The dark land everywhere held still, as if on purpose before such a ringing, echoing cry. The dark sky said nothing. The Rooster, with not an effort to save himself, sagged, rolled down the roof, slipped over the edge of the Coop, and fell heavily to the ground. Wind and sobs together were knocked out of him; he lay dazed.

And then it was that the Dun Cow came to him.

She put her soft nose against him, to nudge him into a more peaceful position. Gently she arranged his head so that he might clearly see her. Her sweet breath went into his nostrils, and he assumed that he woke up; but he didn't move. The Dun Cow took a single step back from the Rooster, then, and looked at him.

Horns strangely dangerous on one so soft stood wide away and sharp from either side of her head.

Her eyes were liquid with compassion—deep, deep, as the earth is deep. Her brow knew his suffering and knew, besides that, worlds more. But the goodness was that, though this wide brow knew so much, yet it bent over his pain alone and creased with it.

Chauntecleer watched his own desolation appear in the brown eyes of the Cow, then sink so deeply into them that she shuddered. Her eyes pooled as she looked at him. The tears rose and spilled over. And then she was weeping even as he had wept a few minutes ago—except without the anger. Strangely, Chauntecleer felt an urge to comfort
her;
but at this moment he was no Lord, and the initiative was not in him. A simple creature only, he watched—felt—the miracle take place. Nothing changed: The clouds would not be removed, nor his sons returned, nor his knowledge plenished. But there was this. His grief had become her grief, his sorrow her own. And though he grieved not one bit less for that, yet his heart made room for her, for her will and wisdom, and he bore the sorrow better.

The Dun Cow lay down next to the Rooster and spent the rest of the night with him. She never spoke a word, and Chauntecleer did not sleep. But for a little while they were together.

At dawn Chauntecleer crowed lauds; and then he went alone into his Coop.

There was movement there in the dim light, as if the animals were waking up. But that movement was all pretending, since not one of them had been asleep. No rain, no wind—but there had been a storm that night nonetheless; and the silence of the last several hours had been unreadable. So the animals had blinked and breathed their ways through the long night, all of them awake: the Hens, the Mice, the Fox, the Dog, the Black Ant, too; the beautiful and mourning Pertelote—and a Weasel.

Everyone saw solemnity in their Lord. Everyone permitted him to walk to his perch undisturbed. Everyone except—

“Rooster knows who, don't he?” said John Wesley Weasel from a position directly in front of Chauntecleer.

But Chauntecleer hardly saw him. “I'm tired, John Wesley.” His eyes rested instead on Pertelote; and by the bowing of her head he saw that she was filled with sorrow. She was also very tired and should sleep.

“John knows who!” snapped the Weasel. “Once is, always is! No changing the wicked. No teaching the vile!”

“Ah, John—speak to me at prime. Explain yourself then.”

But the Weasel wouldn't let the Rooster pass.

“Is only clawing and killing for his like. Execution! Execution! Chop away his head!” He was warming to his subject.

Chauntecleer looked him in the eye for just a second, then looked away again. “You make no sense,” he said. Compulsively he glanced back to Pertelote. She was shivering. The Rooster felt that the Weasel's chatter added trouble to her sorrow. “Clear out!” he commanded.

But John Wesley suddenly hunched his back so high that his fore and hind legs pressed against each other. It was a fighting posture. He had waited all the night long to say what burned inside of him, and now it swept him away:

“Hate him! Hate him!” he hissed, flashing his teeth. “One murders Chicks! One breaks a Hen what should live! Oh, how John does hate him!”

That triggered Mundo Cani. Reading threat, the Dog reared from his place at the door and plunged toward the Weasel to pitch him out.

“Off, mountain back!” cried the Weasel. “Touch me and I touch you with what for!” The Weasel's teeth were razor sharp and furious. His courage was phenomenal.

“Mundo Cani!” Chauntecleer ordered. “Sit down!” He did. “You, John Wesley.” He glared at the Weasel. “I don't ever want to hear that again. Never again in this Coop or on this land do I want to hear that you hate a living soul.”

“One wants hating,” the Weasel persisted. “Pleads for hating. Kills for hating.”

“Not hating, John Wesley.”

“Look what he—”

“Not hating!
” Chauntecleer's crow was full of thunder. Hens tottered and began walking on their roosts. The Weasel cowered. But yet he didn't stop talking.

“Here's one Double-u,” he mumbled, “what won't kiss no Rat.”

Then Chauntecleer gazed at him with sudden understanding. “Wise little Weasel. So you think you know who killed my children.”

“Think! I think and then I know. I
know
!”

“Good thinking, perhaps, John Wesley. But your conclusions are bad. He couldn't have done it.”

“Was Nezer,” said the Weasel—and that did it.

Immediately the Coop blew up: confusion, motion, wild clucking. Jacinth streaked through the air with no place to land, beating her wings as if she were cursed. The others responded, leaping in place and turning circles.

John Wesley was pleased. They, at least, believed him.

“Ebenezer Rat!” he cried above the blizzard.

Chauntecleer crowed for order. He crowed again. He crowed a third time. But the Hens were letting loose the strain of a wakeful night. Yesterday's horror, last night's dumb waiting, suddenly had a name, and that name had broken their control.

Chauntecleer moved. He laid a wing on Jacinth and another on Topaz and held them close until they were still. He did this to one after another until they all knew him by his touch and had finally settled into an uneasy peace.

“Did none of you sleep last night?” he asked.

They only looked at him, and he was moved to pity them.

“God help us all,” he said.

Then, while things were momentarily balanced, he rose to a perch above them. “All right. Take some comfort in this,” he said, “that it couldn't have been Ebenezer Rat. Whatever Nezer is, whatever he might wish to do, he couldn't have broken Beryl's neck as it was broken. Ebenezer can break egg shells, and he is wicked enough to eat the eggs in them. But this is just a fact: If he went against a full-grown Hen, either he would lose to her, or else her death would have been much bloodier than Beryl's.”

“Nezer has a grudge.” The Weasel pressed his argument in spite of the Rooster's words.

Chauntecleer whirled on him: “And a grudge may be strong. But a grudge isn't strength!” Right now he despised arguing with the insolent Weasel; but he desperately didn't want his Hens aroused again.

“Can want revenge, ha! Little grows big for revenge. Puny gets strong for revenge. Then hunt him! Kill him!”

“John Wesley Weasel, look at yourself!
Those
are the words of revenge!”

“Who kills three Chicks? Who leaves none to be prince? Who chooses three to kill three? Him what was humbled by their father: Nezer Rat!”

“John, don't you see what you're doing? Now you want me to choose one to kill one. You want me to do what he did. I should become a rat to kill a Rat! Avenge revenge? Why, that's sin—and a poor, defeating sin at that!”

“No. Not.”

“What then? Why do you push it so?”

“Let John Double-u be Double-u. John hunts him. John kills him”—the Weasel threw back his head, unmistakable contempt for Chauntecleer in his eyes—“for you.”

“Proof!” said the Rooster. “I want—”

Suddenly a high, tiny voice pierced the air:
“Out! Out! Out!
” The voice came from underneath the floor, bleating, chopped with panic. A windless skittering under the floorboard silenced both Rooster and Weasel; then the Wee Widow Mouse shot from her hole.

“Get him out of there!” she beseeched Chauntecleer, backing away even from him. “Please tell him to go away!”

The Hens began a nervous jerking. The Rooster hardly knew what to ask.

“He wants in the back hole,” the Widow pleaded. “Please tell him to go away.” The young Mice were tumbling out after her, bewildered.

Without a word Chauntecleer flew from his perch, directly out of the Coop. He spun round the corner to the back.

There—half in, half out of the Widow's back hole—he saw a body. The head had gone in first, and then the rest of the body could get no further. Yet, weakly, the four legs were pushing forward with a hopeless will. But the entrance was impossible. Two strong, white feathers were buried in the back of this body, their span much too wide to let it pass; so it was against these feathers that the legs were pushing, and the feathers denied it entrance.

Chauntecleer heard Mundo Cani speak behind him: “Ebenezer Rat,” the Dog said.

“Just so,” said the Rooster quietly. “Pull him out, Mundo Cani.”

The Dog took the body between his two paws and drew it backward.

Even on the open ground Nezer continued to tread his legs, ignorant that his home was no longer in front of him. His eyes were closed. He was nearly dead. He had an impossibly deep wound on the side of his neck. His fur was matted with blood.

John Wesley Weasel stood beside them. “You see?” he said.

“I see, you impertinent fool!” Chauntecleer hissed without lifting his eyes from the dying Rat. “Now, Weasel,
you
look and see!”