“A Dog should never impose his nose,” he sobs. “A Dog should jump in the river before he—”
But Mundo Cani cannot restrain himself. He kisses Pertelote. Which is to say, he slobbers on her. He wipes her whole head wet and with a tongue as wide as a sopping towel. “’Or-’ive!” he weeps without the benefit of a tongue. “’Or-’ive.” Which is to say, Forgive. Forgive— because he simply cannot help himself.
Suddenly Pertelote draws back and says, “Did you hear that?”
Mundo Cani grieves: “Oh, let a Dog go where a Dog deserves!”
“John Wesley, did you hear that?”
From the hilltop ahead of them comes a stunning, clarion Crow.
Pertelote holds her breath, fearful that she has only imagined the Crow.
The Dog whips around.
John Wesley hops up and down. “Him what is Lord-and-Master-of-All!”
Cock of the hilltops he is a medallion on the heights! Golden below the sky! He is a Rooster robed in glory and singing a supreme greeting.
Pertelote spreads her wings and strokes the intermediate air.
Come closer, beloved. Come closer.
His legs are azure, his comb as red as coral, his tail a very fountain of feathers, his toenails white and as smooth as pebbles.
Come, my Beautiful Pertelote. Come to me.
She does. She lands directly in front of him. He looks on her and smiles.
“Well met, my young and lovely wife.”
She says, “Chauntecleer,” then loses her words in sobbings.
The Rooster kisses the Hen’s vermillion throat.
“Thou art an archangel, Pertelote. The Animals I have loved—you guided them across treacherous lands to the Lord God. Tenacious, bold, unstinting—how I love you.”
Pertelote says, “This is enough, my husband. You are my reward.”
“Not quite enough. Look behind you.”
At first Pertelote is mystified. And then—
Oh, blessings upon blessings! It is almost more than the poor Hen can bear. For here come her three children, zipping up the back of the hill and peeping with delight.
“One Pin,” the Rooster announces. “And Five Pin—”
The three Chicks scoot to their mother’s breast.
And she laughs the third name: “Ten Pin! All my pretty little Pins!”
The Rooster watches the sweet reunion. He grins. His chest swells. “Rewards,” he says, “and yet more rewards.”
Pertelote raises her face and looks again down the far side of the hill.
“All is finished,” says Chauntecleer. “But all is not yet finished.”
Pertelote hears fine confabulations, chit-chattings, busy gossipings.
Up the hill whence her children came comes a great to-do of Creatures:
Twenty Hens as happy as ice cream, among them that skinny Hen Chalcedony blooming with well-being. A Stag, Black-Pale on a Silver Field, who carries a majestic, sixteen pointed set of antlers on his head. Another Stag named Nimbus, who perished in the battles against Wyrm’s minions. And Benoni! That little Coyote!
Quietly arrives a Marten. He seeks no attention—not because he hides the past hungers of his stomach, but because his soul in this green place is no longer hungry.
Suddenly John Wesley Weasel dances and cavorts all out of mind. “Wee Widow Mouse!” he cries. “What cleans in spring! Hoopla! Hoopla! Is a Weasel wants to kiss a Mouse—if a Mouse don’t hates tickly whiskers.”
Now, across the greensward before her, comes Pertelote’s own little band of Animals.
Otters mad-dashing up and over and down the banks of the river. A Doe with a tawny coat, walking on long, graceful legs who, when she recognizes her father on the hill, bounds fifteen and twenty feet until she reaches him, and he murmurs, “How like your mother you have grown.”
Seven Mice roll in a happy dither—until they too recognize the Wee Mouse on the Hill. “Mother! Mother!”
A Ground Squirrel walks with dignity to the ground beneath the double-trunk tree and begins to dig a hole. Another Ground Squirrel comes and sits like a pepper-shaker beside him, smiling and saying nothing.
Black Ants quick-march hither, their Captain crying, “Whee-ya-hoo!”
A Fox! Russel the Fox, talking and talking whether anyone’s listening or not. It doesn’t matter, for talking is how he knows he is alive.
A rust-red Coyote comes strutting as if he were a citizen of the whole wide world, his two daughters trotting beside him, each with a cheerful little Chick riding her ruff.
All at once Ferric Coyote is streaking toward the hill. In a choked howl he cries, “Rachel! Oh, my Rachel!” And when he has achieved the top of the hill, he plain breaks down and boo-hoos. For here is his wife and his buster-pup Benoni. “Papa,” says Benoni, “don’t be sad.”
A Plain Brown Bird drops from the sky and twitters to the brave Benoni, “My name is Least. Call me Least. Can you say Least? It’s my name.”
The cub cries, “Least! Least! But ‘Auntie’ was a good name too.”
“Hey, hey, hey!” As if the sky were an eye, it has a speck in it. “My best bro Weasel!” The speck has a voice like a trashcan. “Hot-To-Trot! Captain of a band, how ya doin’ these days? Fuss-budgeting as always?”
The Weasel growls, “Damn Boogaloo Crow.”
The beautiful Hen suffers a fleeting moment of sadness. “I’m sorry, Kangi Sapa,” she murmurs. “Wachanga isn’t here to meet you.”
The Raven doesn’t so much land as dumps himself on the green grass.
“Hey ho, Mrs. P! I’m chuck full of stories now!”
Pertelote’s apology is swallowed up in a wonder. The Hen sees one last Creature walking up the back of the hillside, a Hen groomed and, by her aspect, kindly.
“You too,” the Hen murmurs. “You are coming too.”
The lesser Hen stops before the greater. She bows her head and waits, uncertain how she may be received.
Pertelote with flames at her throat lays a wing on the other Hen’s neck. “Jasper,” she says, “all is well and all things very well.”
Kangi Sapa laughs at so much happiness.
“Shut your boogaloo beak,” the Weasel scolds the Raven. “Is Chantycleer here. Is Chantycleer what’s getting ready to crow Compline-ings.”
“Hey, bro, I don’t know from Chanty … What’s Comp—”
“Shut, shut, shut your clacky beak, or John ties a Crow’s tongue in knots.”
And these are the dreams the Dun Cow dreams.
Lord Chauntecleer the Rooster draws a long breath and extends his neck and trumpets a brilliant Laudamus. Praise for mercy. Praise for grace.
The congregation of Animals peopling the fields and the hills falls silent. Eyes of every kind. The four leggeds, the two leggeds, and the feathered—all gaze up to the Rooster splendid on the hill.
He surveys them all, the Creatures whom he has loved. Finished now is finished altogether.
Chauntecleer chants:
“This is the gladness that knows no end,
Alleluia!
We are the hosts of Heaven now,
Alleluia!
This is the land whose citizens
Wear pure white gowns.”
The Creatures shiver to hear such holiness.
The Hen beside the Rooster whispers, “O my God, the homecoming.”
Then Pertelote joins Chauntecleer’s choral song, repeating his words with her own sweet, crystalline echo:
“Death shall be no more, nor fears.
Nor fears.
Tears, afflictions, pain, my dears,
My dears,
Are past.
We are one brilliant unity,
One unity,
Robed in glory, clothed in peace
Souls at peace
At last.
At last.
These are the dreams the Du
n Cow dreams, she who was born and bred of the breath of God.
She lows, her voice like the wind over a long pipe. And the towering clouds bow down. The greensward land is filled with the Cow’s luminous music, and every Creature is embraced.
And this is the word with which the Dun Cow brings the tale to its end:
“Amen.”
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The Third Book of the Dun Cow: Peace at the Last Page 11
