The Second Book of the Dun Cow: Lamentations

by Walter Wangerin Jr.

  First he betakes himself to the ledge outside their den. He enters and finds his daughters lying pressed together as if sleeping. But they are not sleeping. They are starving.

  He nuzzles them. They both speak with scarcely enough strength to add thanksgiving to their words. “Papa. Here you are.”

  Ferric says, “I know where food is. I will take you to the food.”

  His second job is the weightier one.

  The rust-red Coyote walks down the steps, half-way to the stones below. His wife and his son should have appropriate graves.

  But when he has descended to the level where he last saw them, he finds that the grievous deed has already been accomplished.

  Who?

  There are three vaults in the wall, each one sealed with a well-cut, elaborate stone door.

  And upon the doors have been carved three names.

  “Rest in peace, Rachel Coyote.”

  “Rest in peace, Benoni Coyote.”

  “Rest in peace, Black-Pale-on-a-Silver-Field.”

  Who?

  Ferric smells the scent of sweet timothy and a benevolent cud.

  So, then: interment was not necessary. It is mercy. It is the shriving of all his iniquities.

  [Thirty] A legend

  In the ancient ages there was a Creature named Leviathan who sported in the ocean waters. Eyes lidded had the Creature, like the closings of the day. His breath could kindle coals on the surface of the waters. His heart was as hard as a millstone. And when the behemoth swam, he left a hoary wake behind him.

  Once, so the legend goes, a flock of Swans, wearied by their long migrations, spied an island midway between the northern shores and the southern shores of the global ocean. It was a bald land. It offered nothing more than a place to rest. The sea was too briny for the oils in their feathers which kept them afloat, for it dissolvedthe oils and soaked their plumage, bidding fair to drown the great Birds. Therefore, they were forced land and to rest on that island.

  After the Swans had regained strength, they flew on, telling every ocean-going Bird of the island in the middle of the sea.

  Through the years that followed, then, generations of itinerate Birds took advantage of the dry ground. Their guano piled up. Seeds in the guano germinated and sprouted. Grasses and reeds, bushes and, finally, small trees graced its land .

  Why, the Birds asked themselves, should we leave this so fruitful an island?

  So they spend their broody seasons right where they nest and hatched their helpless chicks, feeding them until they were fully fledged and able to fly.

  They came and they stayed.

  Ants arrived. Butterflies, Bugs, Beetles, and soon a goodly society populated the place. Peace prevailed. They did not hurt nor destroy on all this holy, oval land.

  But then, in the perfect month of Creaturely fellowship, when Chicks could cheep but could not fly, the entire island rose up, seawater sluicing down its sides, tsunamis rolling like foothills in ever widening circles. For from the beginning the island had been the monster Leviathan.

  And now Leviathan, wearing the green and breathing laurels of victory, plunged down into the deeps.

  And they, good Creatures all, drowned.

  [Thirty-One] Home Again

  Chauntecleer’s return was inauspicious. He came soundlessly in the night. The wakeful Pertelote heard a small Tink outside the Hemlock. With the second Tink she knew its source. It was the tip of a spur touching ice.

  Chauntecleer!

  She wanted her husband all to herself. Therefore she muffled her flight like the wings of Owls and went out to meet him.

  “Chauntecleer?”

  He stood stupidly, avoiding her eyes. When she reached for him, he moved away.

  “My Lord?”

  He turned his back.

  Even in the darkness she saw that his pearl eye was gone. Pertelote could see this because something else was glowing amber in the socket. And look: something amber was hanging from his nostrils. Chauntecleer shook his head: Get away from me. And amber tendrils dropped to the ground.

  Pertelote felt a kind of horror, watching the ghastly discharge.

  “Chauntecleer? Won’t you speak to me?”

  He shook his head, No.

  “Please tell me what happened to you.”

  No.

  “I will give you my heart, if it could heal you.”

  But the Rooster began heavily to move toward the Hemlock. He could not so much as raise his head. He was fat with grease.

  So then: the world was lost. All the Creatures were all lost if Chauntecleer had lost bravura.

  Oh, my soul, what sadness has come upon us now?

  So the Rooster had come home. Hope was extinguished. He spent his days and his nights crouched of his roosting limb.

  The Black Ants grew aggravated. Dizziness ain’t work, sir! Blast you for your—oh shit. Forget it.

  Pertinax Cobb chose to keep inside his burrow.

  “This time, Mrs. Cobb, I don’t mind saying: I am complaining.”

  “This time you have every right.”

  “The dismal Rooster makes a powerful stink.”

  “Mr. Cobb, you speak my very thoughts.”

  Mrs. Cobb said, “The stink could suffocate an unwary Squirrel.”

  “Indeed.”

  “No need to share our food no more.”

  “You are a thoughty one, Mr. Cobb.”

  “They pee on food, the stupid Animals.”

  Even Pertelote had no will for housecleaning, nor the strength for song. Her single consolation was the abiding Beetle, Lazara.

  “My Lady.”

  “My Lady.”

  Nothing deterred the Dung Beetle from her duty. The floor of the hall might be covered in a thick mat of waste. The smell might burn Pertelote’s eyes. But Lazara never protested. Devoutly she rolled it all into balls and rolled the balls away.

  The Brothers Mice, on the other hand, did not doubt the possibilities of healing. They loved their Rooster. They believed that laughter could lighten the deepest darkness.

  There came the day, then, when Chauntecleer developed a double—a tiny self behind himself.

  For here came Freitag, hopping like a Bird on two legs, his forepaws clasped behind his back, his little face scrunched into the lines of desolation.

  The big Cock stepped. The little one stepped.

  In circles went Chauntecleer. In circles, Freitag.

  “Hum,” said the Mouse, overcome with melancholia. “Hum, hum, hum.”

  Suddenly six more Mice lined up in front of Chauntecleer intended to go. They began to clap.

  Chauntecleer stepped over them. So they ran ahead and lined up again. “Look,” they cried. “Watch Freitag, dear Chanty-cleer.”

  Again the Rooster stepped over the line of Mice. Again they scrambled forward and lined up directly in his way. Samstag jumped up and kissed the Rooster on his beak.

  Chauntecleer stopped. He blinked. The Mice cried, “Hoorah!” and Freitag commenced the best part of his act.

  “Heh,” he said. This was a sigh. He mopped is face and rolled his eyes to the skies and said: “Oh, ‘tis a monumental sad thing, to be alive.”

  Freitag folded his paws and began to pray: “If only a body could walk the world another way than alive! Heh and heh, and mercy me.”

  The little Mouse bent down and delivered a truly tragic moan, moaned until there wasn’t another scrap of air left in his tiny lungs, and, the best thespian of the seven Mice, looked crushed by misery.

  Well! Then his brothers broke into a wild applause. “You got him, Freitag! You got him to a T!”

  Freitag began to pump his small head up and down. In perfect solemnity he spun both forelegs like propellers. He leaned back and opened his mouth, and his brothers cried: “It’s Chanty-cleer! It’s Chanty-cleer, getting ready to crow!”

  Freitag made a Crick sound, then yelled, “Stop, sun! Halt, moon! D
on’t none of you clouds go potty on me. I’m gonna tell you of times and the time!”

  Then, throwing back his head the Mouse crowed:

  “Kicky-kee-diddle-dee-dee!

  I make the laws up for ye!

  And here’s the main one

  To kicky your bum:

  Shut up! And leave-a-me be!”

  Oh, what a crow! Straight from the good old days!

  The Brothers beat each others’ backs and roared with laughter until they collapsed, tears of happiness running from their eyes. They beeped and blew their noses.

  “Oh,” they sobbed. “Oh, dear Rooster, wasn’t that the most wonderfulest thing?”

  But Chauntecleer stepped over them all as if nothing had happened, and walked away.

  He left the Mice feeling ashamed.

  Freitag, little Freitag, their second youngest Brother, fought with all his might to keep his lower lip from trembling.

  That night Chauntecleer returned to his roost and took his place by Pertelote. She could not bring herself to be grateful, yet she chose to stay beside him. He did not touch her, nor was there warmth in his body. There were, instead, those incomprehensible worms.

  But he spoke.

  “No one,” he said as if to no one, “knows failure as I know failure now.”

  And that was all he said, and she suffered his cold silence.

  Watch Lazara. Try to take comfort in Lazara.

  “My Lady,” the Beetle said on the tick of midnight.

  But tonight Pertelote could not respond.

  Come morning and Chauntecleer heard the Hens cackling, fighting together. Their cries grew louder and angrier Chauntecleer dropped to the ground.

  He landed poorly. His first steps faltered.

  The Hens had formed a nattering circle. Inside it two Hens raced at breakneck speeds, one chasing the other. Fat Jasper nipped at Chalcedony’s heels. When Chalcedony tried to break through the circle, her sister caught her and pitched her back aat Jasper.

  Immediately Jasper leaped onto Chalcedony’s back. Jasper forced the skinny Hen to lie flat on the ground. Then began to peck the flesh behind her comb. The pink skin was already freckled with old scabs. Jasper was biting new wounds, her furious beak pinking Chalcedony’s skull with blood.

  Chauntecleer roared, “By God, stop this!”

  The whole community was stunned. For an instant everything stopped. The Hen’s circle fractured.

  Chauntecleer hissed, “Jassss-per.”

  The fat Hen jumped up. She ruffled her feathers and puffed her wattles with contempt and superiority. A hiss for a hiss: Jasper spat, “Not my fault!”

  “Whose fault then?”

  Jasper aimed a fat claw backward. “Hers! The rag that’s lying there! Her that took it on the lam soon’s the war was over. Pretending to be a dead, miss Good-for-Nothing, is what I say.”

  Chauntecleer whispered: “Started what?”

  “Stealing food.”

  “The rule is, Share.”

  “Don’t I know it! And you, bleeding itty bitty pary-sites! Mealy worms crawling in great Lord Rooster’s brains!”

  Chauntecleer raised a wing. Jasper ducked. But he only meant to cover his hollow socket.

  That duck on Jasper’s part, that compulsive defense increased the fat Hen’s indignation. “Mister Cock-of-the-Poop-Walk,” she snapped. “Hey, Mister Piss! You gonna come and tell us the rules?”

  She aimed a savage peck at his head. “Mister Fake! You cancel rules!”

  Then, forlornly, Chauntecleer stumbled out of the Hemlock hall.

  Now Pertelote flew from her roost and swooped at the Fat Hen. Pertelote’s claws became deadly weapons. She slashed the back of Jasper’s neck, then ripped the feathers out by their roots. But then Pertelote too sank to the ground. The fight went out of her. For she saw an amber maggot sticking to Jasper’s tongue. The fat Hen closed her beak and swallowed the maggot down.

  Chauntecleer had gone to seek sympathy from the sea.

  Once before its rolling breakers had thundered the rhythms that eased him. Father ocean. Booming lullabies. Oh, receive me now, and I will never leave you again.

  His legs ached. His wings drooped. His toes were crooked. His walk was crippled. His feathers were oily. They could not keep out the cold.

  Where else could he go but to Wyrmesmere?

  Prop me up, great sea. Prop me up in all my leaning places.

  He stopped and cocked his good eye forward. The ground had been disturbed. The Rooster saw distinctly a rupture on the battlefield.

  “Oh, no.”

  His heart began to beat. Emotion arose within him. He raised his head on a long stalk and peered at the ravaged earth.

  “No!” he snarled. “Not that!”

  Chauntecleer’s legs were empowered by a fresh vexation. He ran. For he had seen that Russel’s grave had been destroyed!

  Damn it! Bones and Fox teeth lay scattered about. A thighbone had been cracked and the marrow sucked out of it. And water swirled in the bottom of the hole that Lazara had digged.

  “Wyrm!” screamed Chauntecleer.

  He opened his wings and flew, unaware of his renewed strength. Rage enabled him. He stroked the air across the wide, lifeless scar, then landed on the white salt beaches of the sea.

  “Wyrm! Bastard! What have you done?” Wyrm was dead. But his mind must be alive!

  [Thirty-Two] An Experiment in Climbing

  Pertelote, weary and eternally awake on her roost, heard small scratchings at the base of the Hemlock. Then she heard Mouse-whisperings, tiny calculations like thieves preparing a raid.

  It was night. What she saw below looked like nothing so much as purposeful hair-balls, yet she recognized Wodenstag by his manner and Donnerstag by his leadership.

  Six of the Brothers stood semi-circle, staring straight up with their mouths hanging open, while the seventh, Wodenstag, began to climb the tree’s trunk. All four of his little limbs were extended as wide as they could no. He was a daddy-longlegs clinging to the bark. And he was trembling so violently that he looked like a plucked rubber band. Yet his expression was earnest, and somewhere inside of him was the conviction that a Mouse could climb a tree.

  The Brothers whispered, and Pertelote heard them whispering, “Are you going to fall, Wodenstag? Should we get out of the way?”

  By a grand effort the mighty Wodenstag stuck to the trunk. He chin was drumming it like a woodpecker—and lo! His eyes lit up. It must have been the chin-drumming that presented him with a solution for climbing better, for he whispered to his Brothers, “Bite the bark.” Six Mice cheered scarcely audible cheers. (“Hoo-ray.”)

  Wodenstag planted his teeth in a bit of wood, which allowed him to reach higher and grab new bark with the nails of his paws. Up a step, up a step.

  Six Brothers began to attempt the climb themselves, making a constant buzzing of grunts. A string of thieves up a tree. And how they encouraged Samstag, the youngest of them all.

  One by one they gained a tough limb above. Whisperingly they congratulated Samstag when he arrived beside them. In unison then they turned and looked down the limb to the Lady Hen who was roosting maybe ten feet away.

  “Shhh,” said Wodenstag. “Shouldn’t wake her.”

  Pertelote experienced a true consolation. Of all the Creatures it was the Brothers Mice who remembered kindness.

  Then here came brave Wodenstag, balancing along the limb, picking his inches with monumental care. After him came Donnerstag, frowning severely. And Sonntag, and so forth, all staring at the precious limb as if to stare was to grip.

  Then this is what they did: they lined up next to Pertelote side by side, sitting on two legs—which was the peril, sitting on two legs only.

  Independently of one another, the Mice began to rock. Forward and backward like round-bottomed pepper shakers. Too far forward (“Whoa!”), too far backward (“Whoa! Whoa!), but all with the greatest sol
emnity and an air that it was proper to be right here, that there was no other place to be, Amen.

  Pertelote, the Hen for whom they came, felt a pressure in her breast which might have been laughter, or it might have been sobbing, either one.

  “Tags,” she whispered.

  “Ah, Lady, we didn’t mean to wake you up. Wodenstag began to pat her wing.

  “But you are here.”

  “Yes. All of us, one, two, six, seven.”

  “Whoa!” said Samstag. Then Freitag said, “Whoa!” spinning his forelegs like whirligigs.

  “A very hard thing,” said Pertelote, “to climb a tree.”

  “But we,” said Wondenstag, “tricked it.”

  “Whoa!” cried Dienstag, and he fell of the limb.

  Pertelote said, “I don’t suppose it’s easy for a Mouse to sit this way.”

  “Roosting,” said Wodenstag.

  And Pertelote said, “Roosting.”

  “Whoa!” One by one the Brothers dropped.

  Wodnstag said, “But we agreed that this would be an excellent wasy to sleep sometimes.”

  Plop, plop, plop. Mice hit the ground. And Plop—Wodenstag might have followed, except that he grabbed a Pertelote-feather and dangled over emptiness.

  “So,” he said, “we said, ‘We should keep the Lady company.’ We have us, but you have nobody.”

  Pertelote sobbed. It was both laughter and tears inside her breast. The sob felt very good, but it did no good for Wodenstag, who lost his grip and dropped right past Diestag, already on his way up the trunk again.

  “The carefulest,” Pertelote sighed, “and the kindest friends I know.”

  She spread her wings and sank to the ground. Instantly every Mouse that was ascending became Mice descending.

  Pertelote said, “Do you think that we could all sleep on the ground tonight?”

  Wodenstag said, “A very fine idea.”

  Soon, under her wings, seven separate paws were patting the down upon her breast.

  And Pertelote sang, as if her husband had come and were sitting beside them all.

  “Chauntecleer, remember laughter.

  Chauntecleer, let your long langour

  Cease.

  O Chauntecleer, your Creatures weep.