The Second Book of the Dun Cow: Lamentations

by Walter Wangerin Jr.

  “No’m. To help papa.”

  “Whisht. So you think your papa needs help?”

  She feels his small head nod.

  “You think papa is weak?”

  “No. Not weak. He is…. Mama, he is afraid. I came to help him fight enemies. But I got lost.”

  “Benoni, Benoni.”

  Soon, she thought behind the wash in her eyes. Too soon.

  [Twenty] A Legend

  There stands at the edge of time the Eschaton-Bull. His head hangs low from a muscled hump. His nostrils blow a red smoke. The horns that curve from his shaggy hair seem to be too small for one so big and so mighty.

  It is the Bull’s slow molting that numbers the years. For every one hair shed, one year passes by. One hundred haiars are a century, one thousand a millennium.

  When one of his legs break, that marks an eon gone.

  At the end of three ages, the Eschaton-Bull must balance on a single leg. This is his last leg.

  And that is the saying the Animal’s know.

  [Twenty-One] Chauntecleer’s Descent

  The StagBlack-Pale stands at the edge of a rocky defile. The crown in the forest of his antlers is the golden Chauntecleer. Chauntecleer gazes down at the family before him and greets the male with a grave formality.

  “Ferric, I presume?”

  Straightway the rusty Coyote suffers lockjaw.

  Chauntecleer thinks, What ails this red poltroon?

  John Wesley dashes happily to the female.

  “Salue-bretations, Mama! Is a tried-and-blue-true Double-u what’s come back again!”

  John jumps about and spreads food on the ground: a bundle of honey-soaked reeds. “Sweet, sweet, sweet!” For the kids he opens a bag of ice cream.

  “Isn’t only-est a Fox what knows tricks,” John exults. Oh, he is so glad to be with the kids again. “Is a John Double-u, too!” He puts on the face of a serious instructor and instructs. “Is in springtime, cubby-kids. Bark of a cottonwood—rip it off! White of the woodiness inside—scrape and scrape the pretty white sap-foam! Pretty white sap-foam—bag it! Is in wintertime—freeze it! Hoopla! Ice cream!”

  Black-Pale keeps his own counsel. His motive for allowing the Rooster to ride the tines of his antlers has had little to do with the Rooster wishes because that one has been imperious, scarcely acknowledging the Stag’s nobility. No, it was for the sake of the Weasel that he has come. For John Wesley, who brought cheer to the Fawn De La Coeur and who persuaded Black-Pale to carry his daughter south to a healing ward where she was brought back to health again. And isn’t it the better part of nobility to serve good heart without expecting a return?

  The boy-cub—Benoni?—neglects the ice cream and trots to Black-Pale. He says to the golden Cock, “Papa’s tired.” Then the little Coyote bows his little head, and the Stag recognizes honor in the gesture.

  Chauntecleer says, “I have been informed, boy, that you have found, and yourself have half-entered, the tunnels that open the way to the Wickedness that dwells in the earth. Is this true?”

  Benoni nods.

  “A hero, then, of the first waters.”

  Two reactions: the boy-cub grows sober and pulls himself up to full height. The female Coyote whispers, “Don’t believe it, Benoni.”

  John Wesley seconds Chauntecleer. “John,” he tips, “he’s seen a kid’s dauntlessnesses, yes! Yes! And John, he knows. Tough little Benoni! Brave little Benoni!”

  Chauntecleer’s voice grows suddenly strident. “Enough of banter. I’ve come to enter the netherworld. Benoni, Coyote! Show me your tunnels.”

  “Yessir.”

  Rachel cries, “No sir!”

  “Silence, woman! Benoni, go.”

  At the Rooster’s command Benoni drops over the cleft onto the den-ledge and prepares to scramble the steps into steam.

  Rachel leaps after him and shrieks, “No! I will not lose you!”

  From nowhere a Brown Bird appears and flies into the boy-cub’s face.

  “Auntie!” Benoni tries to slap her away “Let me go!”

  “Zicküt!” With her long bill the Bird yanks hairs out of his ears.

  “Ouchy! Ouchy!”

  Chauntecleer touches Black-Pale’s neck with the points of his spurs. “Go!”

  John Wesley shouts to everyone, “Is okay! Woody-Coyotes, the Rooster, he gots to go down. Is to murder Wyrm, and nobodies, nobodies ever hurts again.”

  Rachel pleads, “Let me show the way.”

  “Zicküt!” the Brown Bird insists through her scorched voice. “Zichűt! Zichűt!”

  Rachel, I will go. You watch out for the children.

  Least flies urgently back and forth between Chauntecleer and the rocky defile. It’s not long before the Rooster understands that she has become his guide.

  The Rooster drives both spurs into Black-Pale’s neck. The Stag wants to rear up and shake the Cock from his antlers, except that John Wesley is tumbling after the Bird and crying everyone forward. And the Cock has, in fact, almighty strength and an ineluctable purpose.

  So three Creatures plunge into the vomiting cloud. Black-Pale is as sure-footed as a Bighorn Ram. He never falters on the stones. Chauntecleer strikes the rocky sides of the defile with Gaff and the Slasher, who spark and ring and are sharpened.

  “Behold, Wyrm! Behold, I come!”

  Athousand hissings answer: “Veni, mortalis. Et pere.”

  Come, thou mortal. And die.

  Then the Brown Bird comes to a fluttering hover. The tunnel is immediately beneath her. And the air therein, having not yet met the cold, is clear.

  John Wesley cries, “Do and do and do!”

  Chauntecleer responds with cold command, “This is mine.”

  He wings down from Black-Pale’s antlers and passes through the portal alone.

  Chauntecleer slits his eye, but sees nothing. The floor and the walls are path enough. They seem to have been carved in marble.

  Saluto te, a myriad spigots hiss in the depths of the earth.

  Welcome.

  Chauntecleer’s flight is not foreshortened. His energies do not abate. If it took ten days he would not rest.

  Soon he spies a vague light ahead. An amber glowing. His heart beats wildly. His mind enters that zone of absolute focus, where the world slows down like a ponderous metronome, and he himself is speed, the thing itself.

  The tunnel widens. Chauntecleer finds himself in a cathedral-like cavern, The amber light is now as round as a rose window. And lying like great cable upon the floor of the nave, Wyrm!

  Chauntecleer murmurs, “I am for you now.”

  The Lord Rooster spreads his mighty wings. He soars from the amber light into the pitchy heights, directly over the skull of his Foe.

  Like the Hawk, Chauntecleer tilts and swoops down. Just before he hits flesh, the glorious Rooster catches air beneath his wings, doubles his hocks and, holds the points of his weapons foremost

  “Damn you!” he cries spears the skull of Wickedness.

  But there comes no cry of outrage.

  And the spurs don’t cut tough, living tissue. Instead, they sink into a pulpy rot. Chauntecleer’s momentum takes him likewise into the mire of Wyrm’s dead flesh. Valiant Chauntecleer is enveloped by an oily putrefaction. When he struggles to find a way out, he falls instead into a chamber of amber light.

  Chauntecleer guts spasm. Over and over again he vomits a bilious, fetid gore. Where his vomit splashes the ground, it puts out a host of the tiny amber lights. But other lights, a myriad of lights, cover the walls and the ceiling of the chamber.

  Chauntecleer peers at them and realizes what they are. Maggots! Thin tendrils attached to every surface. All together, they mark the shape of the room in which the Rooster stands, and he realizes the truth.

  The is Wyrm’s eye socket. Massy Wyrm is already dead.

  Chauntecleer has been denied his glory.

  A voice says, Sing.

  V
oices say, What shall we sing?

  The voice says, Of the hero who dared the depths of the earth.

  Multitudinous tendril worms say, Eum laudamus.

  We do. We praise him.

  The voice says, O Galle magne, tu es filius meus dilectus.

  O great Rooster, thou art my most darling son.

  And again that singular voice says, Si me filius mei liberavit, vere liber ero.

  If my son sets me free, I will be free indeed.

  [Twenty-Two] In Which the Weasel Follows

  Both John Wesley and Black-Pale-On-A-Silver-Field have obeyed Chauntecleer’s command to remain among the stones before portal that opens into the tunnel that leads into the underworld. They’ve waited a day and a night and now the half of a second day. And though the Weasel would have loved to share confidences with the Stag, Black-Pale has been keeping his own counsel and has not answered. Finally John shut up too and slumped into an anxiety on behalf of his Rooster.

  Indeed, it is a tremendous undertaking, to slay ancient Hatred. And it surely must take time to complete. But this was too much time.

  John believes in Chauntecleer. Didn’t the Rooster schooled him in social behaviors? And wasn’t it the Rooster who praised a Weasel’s guts and fighting? Do and do and do for you, slithery little Buggars. By which John meant the Basilisks. It was glorious Chauntecleer who led them in the war to victory.

  But what if the Rooster were overcome? What if he lay dead…?

  Not at speed, not dashing, but restraining himself, John Russel creeps down the long marble tunnel. If Chauntecleer is still engaged in his war for the world, John will not intrude. Zoom, he will shoot straight back and up.

  Down the marble hallway, and counting the time as he goes. If it’s taking John Wesley this long, well, maybe that’s the reason for the Rooster’s malingering.

  The Weasel listens for sounds below. But he hears nothing of battle. He hears no cries of victory.

  Soon the tunnel begins to widen. John sees something ahead of him, but it is so vague it could be a dream.

  John has always been fearless. But this subterranean cave makes a sound that is no sound at all. It is like the air in a vast cathedral which oppresses the ears. That amber light is ghastly. The air smells like candle-smoke when the monks have pinched their wicks and left the room in a monastic silence. Not fearful, then, but wary. Oh, how he admires his Lord Chauntecleer’s audacity!

  John creeps across a rock-hewn floor toward a cavern where glows the soft amber light.

  There! There! There sits the Rooster! Like a saint in a shell of sacred glory!

  But he isn’t moving. And his feathers are no longer golden. They are slimy with the oils of corruption.

  John Wesley begins to run to his Lord Chauntecleer. Just before he reaches the amber chamber, he kicks something that goes rattling away. A bone. John Wesley feels across the floor and finds more bones. He squints and makes out a skull. By the tissue where its nose once was the Weasel sees how gigantic that nose must have been.

  He yells, “Mundo Cani!”

  Now the Rooster moves.

  “Who’s out there?”

  “Me, Chanti-cleer! John Double-u.”

  “You disobeyed me!”

  “Is a John what comes, might-be, to help a Rooster.”

  “You said Mundo Cani!”

  The Rooster’s angry. Why should the Rooster be angry?

  “Is fightings all done? Did the Rooster, he kill Wyrm?”

  “Wyrm is dead.”

  With little conviction the Weasel says, “Hoopla.” And with false bravado says, “Cut for cut. The Rooster, he won the day.”

  Why then should Chauntecleer be angry if he did what he came to do?

  “Weasel! You said Mundo Cani’s name! Why?”

  “On account of….”

  But this is such a sad thing to say, for John remembers that it was the Rooster’s purpose also to bring the Hound home again, alive.

  “Dammit, Weasel, why?”

  “Is bones.”

  “What? What did you say?”

  John Wesley raises his sorrowful voice and yells, “Is the Dog’s bones down here.”

  For the space of a minute Chauntecleer stands inside the glowing chamber with his beak open, stunned.

  Then he roars, “Get the hell out of here! Leave me alone!”

  John Wesley does not obey. He is bewildered. Uncertainly he says, “Rooster, he comes too.”

  “I deny you, Weasel! I refuse to let pettiness look upon the disaster I have become! Run! Run before I tear pettiness to pieces!”

  Again, John Wesley cannot obey. No matter disasters. No matter defeats. How can the Animals survive without a leader to lead them?

  Old boldness takes hold of the Weasel’s heart again.

  “So tear a Weasel to pieces!” he yells. “Try a Weasel! Is a Weasel what will fight you!” And he adds, “Bastard!”

  Chauntecleer turns his head away from John Wesley. He withdraws inside himself. He sits, his wings slick oil. Miserably he says, “Oh, leave me alone.”

  John is dancing on two paws, striking the air with his fists. “Fight and fight and fight a Weasel!”

  But it does not rouse Chauntecleer.

  “John, he says spit on a Rooster! He says piss on a Rooster! But John, he gots to stay here till a Rooster, he don’t stay here no more.”

  Can it be? Is Chauntecleer weeping tears? Oh, no, no! Look at those tears. They are sliding tendrils of amber worms falling from his eyes.

  John Wesley will not be done until it is good and done. He picks up a thigh-bone of the Dog and hurls it at Chauntecleer. It skids across a paste of worms. He throws pay-bones like dice. They rain on the Rooster, who does not move. Finally the Weasel heaves up Mundo Cani skull and runs with it into Chauntecleer’s chamber and drops it on the Rooster’s head.

  Chauntecleer stands and looks at the thing. Then, slowly, he wraps his wings around it, sits, and begins to rock.

  “I can’t,” he whimpers. “I can’t even confess my sin to you, nor can you cleanse my soul. Oh, Mundo Cani, Mundo Cani.”

  Well, the Weasel has had just about enough of this. He thrusts his arms into the Hound’s eye sockets, runs out of the chamber and pitches the skull as far as he can. It bounces and rolls and stops.

  Now the Rooster is aroused.

  “Bring that back!”

  “Roostie-riddle, come and get it!” John kicks the skull like a ball, kicks it into the nether-tunnel. Need it be said that John does what he does for the love of his Rooster?

  Chauntecleer breathes fury. “Sacrilege!” he screams.

  “Prove it, Roostie-riddle! Fight a Douoble-u to gets it back!” John keeps kicking the skull ahead of him, up the marble tunnel.

  Now he can hear Chauntecleer coming behind. He takes a quick glance backward. The Rooster’s wings are slopping on the ground. Their oils have rendered him flightless. John Wesley has the advantage.

  [Twenty-Three] Oh, Benoni

  The first to emerge from the throat of the underworld, the first to gain the shelf at Rachel’s den is John Wesley Weasel.

  “Inside, Coyote’s! John, he’s gots the Rooster at his back!”

  “Twill! Hopsacking do what the Weasel asks!”

  They do, backing into the den. Rachel herself stands guard.

  “Benoni,” she says. “You too.”

  But Benoni hesitates.

  “Rooster! He’s not happy!”

  John races down the steps to the stones below. Black-Pale stands as he stood when Chauntecleer first marched through the portal to do battle.

  The Weasel pleads with him, “Is not good the Stag, he stays here. Up, Stag! And out!!”

  Black-Pale gives no sign that he has heard. He stands unmoved.

  “Please, please, please, pretty Stag! Is a Rooster coming!”

  Failing to persuade Black-Pale, John rushes up again.

  It i
sn’t more than a minute when the Weasel and Rachel and Benoni hear a mighty bugling below.

  Then, galloping up the steps of the defile, there come the second two Creatures out of darkness. Chauntecleer rides the Stag’s neck. His weapons, his spurs both Gaff and the Slasher, rake Black-Pale’s flesh. John Wesley shrinks from an angry crow, “I am for you, John Wesley!”

  Benoni cries, “Do and do for you!” He steps off the shelf and begins to descend the steps.

  Black-Pale’s tongue is thrust out between his teeth. His head is thrown back, his nose in the air. With his antlers he is trying to unseat the Rooster. He does not see where he’s going.

  Benoni cries, “Do for you!”

  Rachel races down to Benoni in order to bring him back.

  Then the Stag’s right fore-hoof comes down on the young Coyote, snapping his spine. The little Coyote falls several steps lower then lies still as if he were sleeping.

  His mother wails, “Benoni! Oh, Benoni!” then throws herself over the ledge. The Stag’s hooves trample her too. Then she lies beside her son, licking his face. There isn’t a mark on him. But the small Coyote is dead. Then Rachel, his mother, sighs and gives up her ghost.

  Running the tundra, Black-Pale-On-A-Silver-Field manages finally to dislodge the Rooster.

  [Twenty-Four] Pertelote at the Sea

  “And why mayn’t Chalcedony bear a child as Hens do? As any Hen might?”

  In the evening before he had departed the Hemlock with the glorious Lord Chauntecleer as the crown in his antlers, Black-Pale-on-a-Silver-Field knelt before his daughter. He nuzzled her for affection and farewell.

  De La Coeur had whispered, “Papa, who will watch over me when you are gone?”

  The Fawn had regained her health. Her coat was smooth. And bright were her large, liquid eyes.

  “Those who have nursed you,” her father answered. “They have been kind souls, every one.”

  Sitting close to this darling family was the Hen Chalcedony. Though Pertelote had ministered most the ailing De La Coeur, it was Chalcedony who had sat by the Fawn all the days and all the nights of her convalescence.

  Now she thought to herself, Why mayn’t Chalcedony be the one, she as loves the precious bairn and kissed clean her rheumy eye—?