The Second Book of the Dun Cow: Lamentations

by Walter Wangerin Jr.

  They worked their ways under an ice-tinkling bush and came out the other side where Pertinax’s tail sprang straight up. The sight held both him and his wife fast.

  For they had known Sweet Baby Blue.

  Her eyes were closed; her grey tongue was stuck out and stiff as though beseeching heaven with an unheard cry. Oh, this was all too private. How could friends look on the gnawed-blood-nakedness of a once good friend?

  But neither Cobb considered running. Their eyes had shifted to the cavity where her guts had been. Tiny eggs were attached to her interior meat, massed in perfect rows, rows upon rows.

  Pertinax took several steps nearer, but then, feeling ghoulish, halted.

  He whispered, “Mrs. Cobb, this is wrong.”

  She whispered, “Poor Baby Blue.”

  He said, “Yes. What happened to her is wrong. But—“

  Under the death odor he’d caught the scent of spite, the treacle of hubris and of Lupine savagery. Pertinax was angry. Now he moved, stepping toward the ravaged Baby Blue.

  Then a Hen came thrashing through the frozen bushes, swearing. “Chip-shit! Chippy-chippy Chipmunks! Them eggs is mine!”

  Jasper the Hen pitched her fat body at Pertinax.

  “Mr. Cobb!” shrieked Mrs. Cobb.

  The Hen caught Pertinax in her right claw. Four yellow nails encaged him.

  Mrs. Cobb wrung her forepaws. She should save her husband. But there were no holes for refuge.

  “Feathers and fur,” Jasper cackled. “Fur and feathers—and which d’you thinks is prettier, Mister?”

  Pertinax determined not to answer, not to beg. He must leave Mrs. Cobb with the memory of a courageous Mr. Cobb.

  Jasper screamed, “Which is the prettier, Rat?”

  Manfully, Peretinax kept his mouth shut.

  “Feathers, Rat-shit! Feathers!”

  In her claw Jasper carried Pertinax over to a smooth stone, yelling, “Knock-a-the, knock-a-the, knock-a-the Rat’s head dead!”

  She pinned Pertinax to the ground. She picked up a stone—

  Just then another Hen raised a voice as frightening as a siren, “Jasper! For the love of God!”

  Pertelote swooped down on the fat Hen, seized her head in one furious claw, and wrenched it.

  Jasper gurgled. She spat out a knot of amber worms, then screamed, “Off-a-me, you Rooster’s bitch!” She twisted and bit one of Pertelote’s toes. The two Hens fell away from each other. Pertinax Cobb jumped free.

  Jasper yelped at the loss of her prisoner.

  Pertelote had the clearer mind. She dived at Jasper’s, flipped her, and tore at the fat Hen’s wattles till they bled.

  Jasper shrieked curses. She found her feet and paddled away as fast as her legs could carry her. “See if I don’t, Missus,” she screeched. “Just see if I don’t!”

  Pertelote lay down and groaned. “I hate this,” she sobbed. “I hate this.”

  While the Hen and the two Ground Squirrels were mourning Sweet Baby Blue, the soot-colored Nota prowled west of the Hemlock, hungry again.

  Her head slung low between her shoulders, she had tracked the Fawn De La Coeur to this valley. This prey would be an easy catch, for she reclined, having folded her forelegs under her chest, and seemed oblivious, lost in sorrow. A stringy Hen stood by, murmuring words in the Fawn’s ear. Nota wondered whether the Hen thought she was guarding the Fawn. If so, she was no more than a trinket constructed of tendons and reeds and not worth the trouble.

  All at once the Hen set up a piercing clamor. She ran round and round the Fawn, raising a hell of a squawk. “Wolf,” she gabbled. “O Baby get up and go. It’s a Wolf in the thicket!”

  The Hen’s alarum electrified Nota. As a single, taut nerve she broke from cover. Kill that damn Hen? Or skip her and strike the Fawn’s tender flesh?

  Both!

  Nota seized the Hen in her teeth, and whirled her, and slammed her to the ground. Chalcedony managed one pitiful cry, then quivered and went slack.

  In the time it took to kill the Hen, the Fawn had leaped to her feet and went bounding, twenty-five feet in a flight.

  Nota streaked after her. The wind ripped strings of saliva from her jowls. She had strength and endurance and the rage of a hunter. She would run a mile if she had to, but didn’t think she’d have to. The Black Wolf skimmed the ground like an arrow launched. Hunter and hunted performed a Totentanz, a mortal dance across the valley.

  In half a minute Nota reached the aerial Deer. Nota leaped. She lanced the space between them, almost pouncing on the Fawn’s hindquarters—

  But then the whole world seemed to slow down, and Nota floated as in a dream.

  She heard a specter-like crow: “For your father, child.”

  Then the crow was close above her: “For your father, too noble for this earth.”

  The Wolf experienced a clean, painless parting of the artery in her neck. The world turned.

  Nota thought, Am I this child? Am I a child again?

  The ground came up, and her fall came down, and she and the earth met as loves meet. Darkness swaddled her, and Nota never woke to another morning.

  In the sound of a whirlwind Lord Chauntecleer swept away.

  Feathers like banners, glorious, golden,

  Upon his frame once floated and flowed.

  (This, all this, was in the olden

  Long-ago.)

  And though the golden Lord once dallied

  (In those sweet days)

  Around the Hemlock, plumed and grand, he’s

  Gone away.

  [Thirty-Eight] All the Dying, All the Dead

  The Marten Selkirk has left the Hemlock of his own accord.

  The blood which he drank from the veins of Ratotosk the Grey Squirrel congealed in his stomach. Spasms wracked his body. And then the Hen Pertelote arose to damn his carnage, and this, he believes, was the beginning of his punishment.

  A part of his soul is riven, for he deserves any punishment to which righteousness condemns him.

  But another part of his soul craves slaughter, and more pulsing blood.

  He knows not which part will dominate: decency or bestiality.

  Therefore, Selkirk roams the frozen wilderness alone.

  A mother’s children never completely leave her. Not even death is thief enough to destroy their spirits.

  Pertelote remembers their burial. Remembers the small tombstones set like dolmens upon their graves. Her children were lost in Wyrm’s destructions, but she did not, and does not, rue the loss. The stones are in her bosom now. She bears them lightly. She has herself become her sons’ memorial.

  But now this, Sweet Baby Blue violated. How did the Wolf’s fangs feel in the Ewe’s throat? What could Blue have been thinking in the moment of her suffocation?

  And Jasper was slashed by her own claws. Pertelote, too, has shed blood.

  And Chalcedony: “Why mayn’t I have children as any other Hen?” Chalcedony shall never know the motherhood born of her tender womb.

  Shame. And who can survive such sorrows?

  John Wesley maunders to the south. He goes without conviction. But if he didn’t go, something inside him would cease to exist.

  Might-be he gives up his soul by finding and fighting his dear Rooster. Would be like fighting himself. Might-be he dies by a slash of the Rooster’s spur. Might-be he rips the wiggle-worms from his Lord Rooster. Well, and so.

  The weather is malarial. John Wesley’s heart is heavy laden.

  Eurus, the Yellow-Eyed Wolf, has come to loath society. He despises these mealy-mouthed Creatures, the Meek who pretend to be warriors. Community? They deceive themselves. Ruled by bluster. Afraid of a damn Cock.

  So Brown Eurus courses the outlands. Elk. Moose. Venison. He has better game to kill.

  The corpse of the Char-Black Nota lies still unburied, but busy. For the nearly invisible Insects were quick to impregnate her dead flesh with masse
s of their myriad progeny. Fat little buntings which, when they hatch, will feed on her corpse as she has fed on others. They will enlighten her inward parts with a gentle amber glow.

  String Jack has become a carving in marble.

  The Animal’s dread of the monstrous Wyrm had become the Animal’s dread of Lord Chauntecleer.

  PART FIVE

  Pertelote and a Psalm of Innocence

  [Thirty-Nine] Madness

  Wyrm deliberate, Wyrm malefic! Wyrm who has destroyed good order and caused community to be divisible wiped out that past of playfulness. And the Rooster? Well, the Rooster has by some fierce reversal taken Wyrm’s place.

  John Wesley can smell the salt of the sea. But before he sees its waters he feels its breakers pounding the shore. Yet between the thunderous waves, in the wash of the wave’s withdrawing, he hears a hissing.

  Sing, says a voice.

  And voices say, What shall we sing?

  The voice says, Immolation.

  And the voices answer, Fires in the fabric of the Keepers. The conflagrations of the Lord.

  But when he reaches the salt sea, John Wesley finds no fires. He can make out a broad, dark, thick tar riding the swells, and nothing more.

  Then like a cyclone a wind gets up and slams into the Weasel. Likewise, it tears pieces from the black island and flings them like rubber balls ashore.

  Suddenly a an almighty crow dominates the wind and the waves: “Consummatum est! The bill is ended!”

  Lord Chauntecleer! John sees the form of Lord Chauntecleer aloft and under the clouds, crowing a taunting Crow.

  “Oh, taste my weapons, Surt! Though I come alone, though you may cinder my feathers and I die in your furnace, I shall first stab you and cut out your flaming heart, and you shall be quenched!”

  At the zenith of his life and of all his flights, John Wesley thinks to himself, the Rooster sails in a whistling solitude, and he only, John Wesley Weasel, is here to witness his madness.

  “Despair be damned! Come to me, O all ye powers! I am the Lord of vengeance! I shall be deified!”

  Chauntecleer lays back his wings, balls his claws, and, like the Falcon, plummets.

  [Forty] Harmony

  Ferric Coyote minces toward the Hemlock through a dismal, despoiled camp. Times past, he would have snapped into a spectacular freeze. Tonight it’s Rachel’s spirit in his breast. He steps around the bodies of insensate Creatures, seeking scraps to feed his daughters. He recognizes the death-scent everywhere. The corpses of his son and of his wife gave off a smell of spices. Here the scent is of corruptions.

  Ferric has always loved the forests more than the plains. This tree is itself a forest. He leads Twill and Hopsacking under its boughs.

  The plain Brown Bird flies down from darkness.

  “Zicküt,” she calls and leads Ferric to a form on the ground which is shaped like a dumdum.

  The Coyote sits on his haunches and lowers his nose and crosses his eyes.

  Ah. A Beetle. The plain Brown Bird has found a companion. And at the Beetle’s back—what? For heaven’s sake, it is a large, round dollop of poop.

  The Beetle says, “Lazara, sir. Housekeeping.”

  Ferric frowns, because, what’s a Lazara?

  The Brown Bird says, “Zicküt.”

  The Beetle says, “Your friend the Bird tells me that your name is Ferric.”

  “Zicküt.”

  “And she tells me you are hungry.”

  Twill yaps, “Starving!”

  Hopsacking seconds her sister: “Me too. Starving!”

  Some of the inert animals begin to groan.

  The Beetle leans back, twiddles her forelegs, parts her coverlets as if to fly, but calls with decorum, “My Lady?”

  A tree branch shudders. Ice slides down the boughs outside.

  Lazara repeats, “My Lady.”

  A Hen speaks in the limbs above: “No reason for greetings. But it isn’t midnight, Lazara. It will never be midnight again.”

  “We’ve guests, my Lady.”

  The Hen says, “Lazara, we have become a charnel house.”

  The Black Beetle maintains her courtly timbre. “Obligations,” she says, “are wanting.”

  The Lady Hen sighs, “Obligations. Obligations. Obligations.”

  “My Lady. Your guests are hungry.”

  The Hen is a spirit wandering the sands. “I am hungry for sunlight. I am hungry for sleep. I am hungry for summer, and the seasons, and the harvest, and righteousness. I am hungry for Chalcedony. O my God, I am hungry for—”

  She would have said Chauntecleer, but the Coyote’s sudden wailing. His sympathy has overflowed. He points his snout upward and howls a song of lamentation and bitter weeping for the woman who suffers on her perch.

  Ferric’s daughters join him. They raise pennywhistle voices and howl along.

  The expressions of their own sorrows disturb the sleepers. There is a general waking both outside and inside the Hemlock hall. Animals are listening, but they stay in their places. This is like no song they’ve ever heard.

  Oh, for children lost and for innocence.

  The littlest Creatures close their eyes and begin to rock. Birds bow their heads. The four-leggeds fold their paws together. And everyone in every voice begins to hum lows moans: Mmmm. A wordless, steady middle music: Ahhh. And the Coyote’s wailing mounts the firmament.

  In this moment the community have become the choirs come down from heaven. They are the music of the spheres. Their hearts cry out in a global harmony. They are one. It is a renewed blessing.

  Pertelote, grateful for the reunion, breaks from her desolations and sings a benediction:

  “My loved ones, rest securely,

  For God this night must surely

  From peril guard your heads.

  Sweet slumbers he must send you,

  And bid his hosts attend you,

  And through the night watch o’er your beds”

  [Forty-One] ‘Love Wounds Me’

  It has been a night of solace. Moreover, the day breaks warm. So warm, in fact, that the sheath of ice that enclosed the boughs of the Hemlock is melting, trickling down the needles. Runnels of living water giggle along the ground.

  Pertelote wakes to the water-music. In wonder she drops from her limb and walks outside, and another water fills her eyes.

  Something cosmic has come to pass. The sun is shining!

  Dear Lord God, the sun is shining, and the sky is blue.

  “Lady Hen! Help me!”

  Help who?

  “John gots a Rooster what’s a Rooster here!”

  John Wesley Weasel!

  Pertelote runs to the south side of the Hemlock. The Weasel is striving backward, dragging a tarry body with his fore-claws. Pertelote takes a position beside John Wesley.

  “No wars,” he grunts. “Is no wars, was no wars.”

  Pertelote reaches to John’s burden and begins to comb the tar away—then stops, shocked.

  It’s Chauntecleer! His eye is closed.

  John says, “Salty waters, they shrivels little pinky worms. Worms outa the Rooster’s eye, Worms outa the Rooster’s nose and ears and mouth and feathers—all! Little maggots floats crispy like crackers.”

  Is he…? Is Chauntecleer alive?”

  “Might be,” says the Weasel.

  The two of them lug their Rooster through fresh mud to the Hemlock.

  “Chanty-cleer?” says Wodenstag. “Step-papa John, is it Chanty-cleer?”

  Seven Mice spit on the Rooster. Seven Mice use their furry sides like rags and try to wash him.

  The Mad House of Otter does a better job, and the Fawn De La Coeur still better. The Queen brings her Family Swarm, who cluster on the Rooster’s body and work as if they were gathering pollen. One of them happens to sting Chauntecleer’s comb, and the fallen Rooster twitches. His eye opens.

  Pertelote thinks, What a beautiful ir
is. Why have I never seen that blossom in his eye before?

  She murmurs, “Chauntecleer?”

  His eye finds her.

  “Pertelote.”

  “You have come home.” She seeks to embrace her messy husband, but he draws back.

  “No, no, I am not worthy.”

  She embraces him anyway.

  He cries out. “Oh, how your love wounds me!”

  “Wisht, wisht,” Pertelote answers. “My love will heal you.”

  John Wesley says, “Lady Hen. John thinks the Rooster, he might-be dying.”

  “No, John! Don’t say that!”

  “John, he’s a truth-teller.”

  Chauntecleer gargles in pain.

  His wife’s heart twists within her. “Somebody come!” she cries. “Somebody carry him out of the sun!”

  It is Ferric Coyote who steps forth.

  Chauntecleer sees him. Recognition destroys the Rooster. He begins to wail. “No, no, no, no, no—“

  Ferric looks upon the Rooster without recrimination.

  “Don’t look at me!”

  Ferric says, “Why?”

  “Kill me instead!”

  And Ferric says, “Why?”

  “I killed your wife! It was me. I killed your son!”

  “I know.”

  “I am so sorry, so sorry.”

  Pertelote says, “O my husband, do you know what you have done? Confessed. And your affliction is your penance. My sweet Chauntecleer, I love you. I love you. I have never not loved you.”

  “My God, who can forgive me now?” Having said that, Chauntecleer falters. He struggles against the tar. The Rooster is so exhausted.

  Ferric Coyote says, “I forgive you.”

  John Wesley says, “John, he heaved you like a load. Was his forgivy-ness all right.”

  Pertelote says, “Don’t leave us, Chauntecleer. You are good again. I want my good husband back. Don’t leave me now.”

  A great lowing now fills the world. Soft with compassion the Dun Cow lows, “Almighty God forgives the sinner.”

  Chauntecleer is weeping. He opens his beak. His weeping becomes a long, long sigh. His eye closes, and he gives up his spirit.