The Third Book of the Dun Cow: Peace at the Last

by Walter Wangerin Jr.

  Since then Pertelote’s Animals have braved the various seasons, but have never stayed in one place long.

  The tangled, vine-whipped, leaf-rotten woods and its thorny undergrowth have made their going difficult. Chickens have been unhappy and besides that, embarrassed. How is a fastidious Hen to get cobwebs out of her eyes? The little tongues of little Mice could trick by the lickings. Okay. But how is a virtuous Hen to pluck burrs from her butt? Why, it’s too shameful to mention. The Chickens, therefore, did not so much poop as extrude.

  Early in the summer of their travels Mr. Pertinax Cobb would hang back, gazing toward the east. Perhaps it was because the generations of his race had made their homes always under the Hemlock, and he was yearning to honor his forebears by maintaining the custom. Or perhaps it was just that he yearned a home where everything was familiar and he was its citizen.

  As the community continued forward without him, Pertinax would pop upright and stand in sad meditations, his paws upon his chest—then, compulsively, start digging a tunnel underground.

  “Mr. Cobb,” his wife would say.

  “Not now!” he’d yip, digging, shooting dirt out between his legs.

  “Indeed,” his wife would say. “A famous digger has to dig. It is in his born nature.”

  “Right!”

  “No one should interrupt a famous digger.”

  “Right!”

  “And you, Mr. Cobb, are a very famous digger.”

  “Well, then,” answered Pertinax, his words muffled in the hole, “here is my reason. You should have a home, Mrs. Cobb.”

  His wife sat musing, her bright bead of an eye resting on her husband’s labors. She was caught in a dilemma: whether to let her husband continue rooting, as it was his nature to do, or whether to argue what loneliness would be theirs once Pertelote and her good community had traveled away and left two Ground Squirrels behind.

  Finally, love overcame Mrs. Cobb’s soul. “Mr. Cobb?” she said.

  “Mrs. Cobb?”

  “Where you are, there is my home.”

  “Where the Animals are going, Mrs. Cobb, will be strange and dangerous.”

  “But if you dig a den, then where will we be?”

  “Comfy.”

  “No, Mr. Cobb. Lonely.”

  “Two can be friends.”

  “But who will sing the songs for us?”

  Mr. Cobb said, “Hmph.”

  “And who will tell us jokes?”

  “I can tell jokes.”

  “Yes. You have two very funny jokes to tell. But who will laugh at your jokes?”

  “You. Me.”

  “Dear Mr. Cobb, you can’t laugh. And I have heard your jokes maybe three hundred times.”

  In the end Mr. Cobb stopped digging holes. For the sake of his Mrs. Cobb he has traded a homeland for the blessings of good company. Mrs. Cobb, he admitted to himself, wouldn’t live happily if she were not surrounded by friends.

  [Three] Of Creation and Its Fall

  In the beginning the Creator spoke. He uttered a universe.

  At his word the universe emerged as a wild, churning chaos of water, which the Lord called “Techom.” But then he opened his nostrils and blasted the wild waters with his breath. He commanded them to keep within the boundary shores that he had set for them: rivers, lakes, and the sea whose boundary is the round horizon.

  The Lord God robed himself in light. He gave the clouds their shapes. They became his many-wheeled chariots by which he rides to and fro across the cosmos.

  Time began.

  The Creator drove pilings into the beds of the seas on which he laid the foundations of the continents. Mountains rose and valleys sank. Forests and plains, deserts and fields, bushes and plants and fruits of every kind began to clothe the earth. The Creator made fountains to gush forth from the mountains. Their waters he made to wrinkle down the faces of the hills, and waterfalls to thunder into chasms.

  He fashioned Fish to swim in the waters, and Birds to sing in the branches, and Beasts to drink from the streams.

  He made the moon to mark the months. He taught the sun to mark the days and the years and the seasons. He flung planets into the midnight darkness and called forth stars to dance from eventide until the breaking of the day.

  He fed his Creatures. When he opened his hand they were satisfied.

  When he hid his face they were desolated. When he smiled the whole earth bloomed.

  Then there came of its own volition a magnificent wingéd Serpent who would not bow down before the Lord. Instead he accused the Creator and scorned his handiwork.

  The Serpent hissed, “Your good is my evil.”

  The Serpent took flight, crying down the corridors of the universe, “If you are God, and if you are good, prove it! Prove that what your hand has made is good and faithful altogether. Release me. Let me test your Creatures’ spirits and see which one of us they will obey.”

  God released the Serpent, and then wept.

  For the Serpent soared among the planets. He wrapped himself around the summits of the mountains. He traveled the forests, the swamps, the wilderness, the prairies and the plains, singing a most beautiful, enticing song.

  “Curse God,” he sang, “and he will have no power over you, but you yourselves shall become gods.”

  The Serpent’s intent was to turn the earth into a howling desolation, to destroy the sun and the moon and time itself, so that the Lord would have nothing left to love.

  The Serpent’s power and his temptations terrified everything in which there was life. But no one disobeyed except one Midge who came and made her home as a bloodworm in the Serpent’s eye.

  In that day the Creator created the thing that grieved him to tears: Retribution.

  He caused caverns to yawn in the crust of the earth, caves whose throats ran down into the deepest dungeons of the globe, for the Lord was Lord indeed. He felt what he had not felt since the beginning of time. He felt wrath, and his wrath drove the wingéd Serpent into the dungeons he had made.

  But ever thereafter the Lord’s heart was bound by sorrow, for his Creatures—the children into whom he had blown the breath of life—had learned uncertainty and fear.

  [Four] In Which a Thunderstorm Terrifies a Wolf

  The Cream-Colored Wolf’s tongue hangs out of the side of her mouth like a dry towel. The prairie grass has withered. It has been blown so flat and sere that the Wolf’s tread makes a crushing sound. For the last five days every streambed where she went to look for water has been baked and cracked like broken potsherds. Last week there was a mud wherein she could press small cups of water with her paws. Now her moisture was the morning dew.

  Until this morning dust devils had whirled, confusing her. The arid wind turned her eyelids into sandpaper. But today the air is dead-still, hanging fire, as it were, and waiting.

  Thirst has driven her, not good sense. The search for water took her miles away from the path of the Ancients. She’s been running without direction, footsore—until just now when one paw sinks into a Prairie-Dog hole. The Cream-Colored Wolf somersaults, and lands on her back, and lies inert, but running still, still running in her dreams.

  The finger of a cool wind touches the Wolf’s snout. She wakes but doesn’t open her eyes. She is grateful for the new sensation. Some day she will repay the kindness. Her soul smiles. She wants to go back to sleep.

  Suddenly a ripping Crack! of lightning shakes the firmament.

  And the wind picks up. It trills the Wolf’s whiskers and causes the hair in her ears to crackle with static.

  The Wolf whimpers. She squeezes her eyes tight. If she doesn’t see it, it can’t be real.

  Boom!

  The Cream-Wolf is up and running—blind-speeding with the wind, though the wind is faster and passes her, blowing her ruff forward.

  A bank of black clouds has massed in the west behind her. In front of her the sky is an eerie, lucent yellow. Her jowls bowl in the wi
nd. Foam flecks her cheeks. Her fur snaps like a tiny fireworks. A bright bolt of lightning issues from the dark cloud down.

  Boom!

  The Wolf springs fifteen feet at a leap.

  As if on spiders’ legs the lightning chases her, strutting and stuttering over the landscape.

  Shelter! But there is no shelter on the infinite prairie. No hill that she can hide behind.

  All at once rain begins to strafe her, bulleting her backside.

  The Cream Wolf’s coat grows sodden and heavy. She is sick with the cold. The rain becomes hail, firing pellets the size of dried peas. These beat her into a dreary submission. She drops and skids and curls into herself and waits to die.

  Then a swart Bird lands beside her and cries, “Follow me!”

  [Five] In Which Pertelote Hatches a Plan

  The Band of Pertelote’s Animals has spread itself along the banks of a wide river. They can see the other side, but the muddy brown water is far too broad for the lesser Creatures to swim it.

  Pertelote sits on the lowest limb of an oak tree. John Wesley leans against the trunk. Both are cudgeling their brains, considering what they ought to do.

  The Mad House of Otter, of course, is wild with joy. To their minds it has been much too long since they’ve been able to toboggan on their bellies, slicking down slopes to splash nose-first into a body of water. They chatter and laugh. They call each other names. They dive like fish and rise like ducks.

  The Otters will have no trouble crossing the muddy brown river.

  Boreas the White Wolf has spent the day running both north and south along the shores of the river. But he hasn’t been able to find ford. Everywhere the current snaggles its banks and runs too deep.

  If the rusty Ferric Coyote could unlock his limbs, he might be able to swim it. Right now he’s hiding in green vegetation, gaping at the terrible waters. Waters are always terrible, and though this river runs ever so slow, it’s water, and terrible. Ferric is hiding for three: for his daughters and himself. But those daughters! That Twill and that Hopsacking! What are they doing? They’re happily dabbling their forepaws in the water. It is this very happiness that nerves the poor Coyote. He has never been able to train them in the dangers of the world.

  So, then: who else can swim? The Doe De La Coeur, but the width would tax her strength. Boreas the White Wolf. He can swim. John Wesley swears that he can too, though he has always abhorred wetness. Least, the Plain Brown Bird—she can fly over mountains if she has to. But not the Brothers Mice. Not the Mr. and Mrs. Cobbs. And definitely, absolutely not the flutter-gutting Chickens!

  Suddenly John Wesley pushes away from the tree and cries, “Lookee!”

  He points.

  Pertelote looks.

  “Is a little Mousey!” John rattles, amazed. “Like is icy-skating!”

  Indeed, there seems to be a small Mouse racing on hind feet over the surface of the river—and not sinking! He cuts a small V behind him. In front of him there darts a Water-Skeeter. The tiny Mouse snatches the Skeeter, swallows it, then zips to shore.

  John Wesley can hardly stand it. He throws himself full tilt down to the river, crying, “Lady Hen! Here’s a what what can trick it! Cross we, cross we over the river!”

  The Weasel skids to a stop before the Mouse and aims an eye in his direction.

  “Little geezer!” he cries.

  The geezer stands still, vibrating.

  “Is John Double-U,” he says by way of introductions, “of the Double-U’s. How-some-ever does tiny little buggar walks on water?”

  Pertelote calls, “John!”

  Just then the Weasel notices the Creature’s back paws. “Itty bitty boat-feet!” he cries. Crouching down till he’s face to face with the Shrew, he says: “Is Mouse’s water-skippings what’s gots John bamboozled. Might-be inchy-little half-Mouse, he tells John the hows and the hooplas of the whats he does?”

  Pertelote, closer now, says, “John!”

  The Shrew bursts into an oration delivered with dramatic gestures:

  “Ticken dee dally twist. Sip fiddle calidity. Skit dis-stichery and dolly-mop!”

  John steps back. “What?” Then in order to make himself the better understood, the Weasel yells. “John! He! Wants! To know! The howsomenesses! And the why-fors…”

  Pertelote is right beside the John Wesley. “John!” she says smartly. “This is no Mouse. He’s a Shrew!”

  But John has been trying to understand the Shrew’s speech. “What is dolly mopses?”

  The Shrew beep-giggles again, turns, and dashes in pretty plinkings across the water.

  That night in a dream Pertelote discovers the solution for her small community’s problem. See sees small boats in a long flotilla and hears a soft instruction:

  Let greater Creatures serve the small

  That Animal on Animal

  Can cross.

  Encourage those who are dismayed,

  Discourage those who would gainsay

  Your call.

  At dawn Pertelote reveals her solution to the Watch-Watcher Weasel, who rises immediately as charged with energy as he was yesterday.

  “Hoopla!” he cries. “Up! Up! Lady Hen, she gots a plan!”

  Difficulties have always delighted the Weasel. And insofar as he can do something about them, he becomes a whirligig of motion.

  Detail by detail Pertelote explains the what-to-do, and detail by detail John yells commands:

  “Mices! Brother Mices, jump on Wolfie’s head! Deery De La Coeur—Squirrelies on your withers! Sistie Coyotes! Go punch your papa!”

  They do. Creatures are on the move.

  But at his daughters’ insistence, Ferric only hides the harder and utters a woebegone “Tssssssssss.”

  Pertelote spreads her wings and sails over to the skinny Coyote. “Your children love you,” she says in his ear. Her voice is husky with kindness. “And would you part from them? I love you too, Ferric, and I will never part from you.”

  “Otters,” John Wesley yells to his dumber cousins. “On accounts of buggar-Otters is gladsome for waters, Lady Hen says to be her float-boards!”

  Pertelote says to the Hens, “Sisters—”

  But the Weasel is a take-charge fellow. He yells, “Chickies!” his stentorian cry causing the Hens to dither in distress.

  Pertelote says, “Fly over the waters.”

  The Weasel yells, “Bustle up your skirtses. Beat your bubble-wings, Chickies. Fly!”

  Pertelote says, “Then land on the waters and walk.”

  The Weasel is about to say the same, when Pertelote’s request strikes him as impossible. He whispers, “Lady Hen, chickies gonna be drownded.”

  Apropos of nothing, as far as the Weasel is concerned, Pertlote says to the Coyote, “I will fly beside you, Ferric. I will be your strength.”

  Then she repeats to the Hens, “Fly up, sisters. Go your limit, then land.”

  The Animals are splashing into the river and swimming—all except for the Hens.

  John Wesley raises his paws like a first-class boxer and shouts, “Boo! Do and do and do for you, and go!” which, of course, is their undoing. Scared of the boisterous champion at their backs, they attempt the impossible. All ten Hens take billabong runs down the banks, thrum their stubby wings, lumber into flight, and fly.

  “Me kidneys!” complains an aging Hen. “Me kidneys!” But she flies till she can fly no more—then falls plump on an Otters’ back.

  For every Hen there is an Otter.

  All ten Hens squeal, made giddy by their feats of derring-do.

  And the whole band raises cheers of jubilation. There is not one Creature who does not cross.

  [Six] In Which the Cream-Colored Wolf Discovers Her True Name

  The Cream-Colored Wolf wakes after the storm. She cracks an eye and allows herself a peep at the morning. The sky is a high, fine, cloudless and blue. She is lying in a shallow scoop on a nest of bl
ack feathers. Her fur is fluffed again and clean. A single boulder humps the ground beside her. Was there? Was there really a storm last night? But the land is moist and her thirst has been satisfied and suddenly the prairie grass is green.

  She notices that the morning sunrays wink off bits of mica in the boulder. The air is unspeakably sweet.

  For an instant a shadow blocks the sun.

  She hears the sound of a trash-can word: “Quork!”

  A Raven drops a branch of gooseberries which land in front of her muzzle. “Quork!"—and he flies away.

  The Cream-Wolf watches the Raven until he is a dot in the sunrise.

  She stands. She reaches her forepaws out as far as she can and stretches. Her tail rises like a flag in the breeze. She pulls her back muscles taught from the neck to the rump and shivers with pleasure.

  Little things can feel so good.

  Now: what is it she’s trying to remember?

  “Quork!”

  Here comes that Raven again, this time with a rip of bark in his beak—and what a beak it is! Thick as a lumber-stick and black as coal. And there’s an unruly bunch of feathers hanging from his throat. The Bird is tramp-like.

  He lands on the top of the boulder. He thrusts his head down and scrutinizes the Wolf.

  “You’re a darlin’, babe,” he says. He takes a closer look. “Sick, are we?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Scared?”

  “Not any more, thank you.”

  The Raven draws back and throws out his messy chest, a bully-black Bird quite pleased with himself. “Hey, babe,” he says. “It was Kangi Sapa that saved your bacon yesterday.”

  The Cream-Colored Wolf casts her head to one side, considering. Then she says, “What is a Kangi Sapa?”

  “Me! That’s my name. Kangi Sapa, Bird of parts and many trades. Can tell a story, can feed the sick, can buck up the downhearted, can cadge your foreign languages. And I, babe, I say you’re sick.”