The Book of the Dun Cow

by Walter Wangerin Jr.

  Lord Russel was sitting near his hole in the forest. The Three Pins were sitting in front of him, cuffing one another with glee, giggling, and smelling adventure. So wide was their world! Wider than ever they had imagined. So high went the trees, now that they sat at the roots of them. So wise was their uncle. Just look at the eyes on him!—slanted, with a yellow rheum in the corners, signifying (so he himself had told them) much thought and many sights seen.

  “Peep,” said Ten Pin aloud, wriggling with expectation. He could hardly keep his tummy still.

  “To be sure,” cried the Fox. “There is wise counsel in your peep. It is the right time to, as we say, present you with this trick, that is to say, make a present of this trick to you, because it has only just become the summer, er, time.”

  “Peep.”

  “Er, yes: peep. To be sure. This trick is most effective in the summertime, for it is with the summertime that one begins to experience a mild, albeit irritating and painful, but mild, discomfort. Nephews: fleas! Fleas! And fleas are what this particular trick is about. Therefore, now is the time!”

  No matter that the Pins would never get fleas.

  “Peep!” Ten Pin cried, beside himself at the revelation that this trick was about fleas. “Peep! Peep!” Pins Five and One clapped their stubby wings.

  “Now. Then,” began the Fox of Good Sense, cutting through the clamor. “How does one deliver himself of the flea? One cannot, er, beat it away from oneself; for in that case one would be beating oneself.”

  The Pins shouted their laughter at that picture. But the Fox took no notice.

  “One could, perhaps, pluck one’s hair—er, feathers—until one had rendered himself naked from the nave to the, er, chaps. And then one might actually see the flea in order to chase him all up and down one’s, ahem, spine—”

  How the Pins roared! Oh, how they loved their uncle!

  “But in the first place,” he continued, his eyes faraway, “the flea is a sinister, quick critter, well capable of running faster than one may turn his neck to pounce. Welts, then, may be raised. Scabs produced, and tremendous spasms of the muscles endured. Devilish, devilish, the flea! And in the, er, second place, it is a painful operation and timeconsuming—that is, to pluck one’s hair. And then there is a third place, some, um, where. So then, these failing, how does one deliver himself of the flea? More to the point, how does one remove from his hide many fleas? Ah, by a trick. One must know the Trick of the Stick!”

  “But you said,” said Ten Pin, suddenly having second thoughts, “that there’s no beating.”

  “A careful and most critical objection, Pin the Tenth. Yet, please understand, ahem, that this is not a stick for beating. No, sir. It is a stick of trickery! Your uncle, mind you, is a Fox. Shrewdish he is; brutish he is, er, not!”

  Lord Russel paused to smile. He was taking note of his joke before launching into his explanation of the Trick of the Stick. And then, with much windy groaning, that is what he did: He launched.

  The trick was not at all a bad one, but clever. Russel’s reputation had some substance to it.

  One found for himself a stick which was at least the length of one’s own body. (Lord Russel demonstrated taking the length of one’s own body, and the Pins collapsed with laughter.) With that stick one went to the river. There one held the stick firmly in one’s mouth and then began to sink into the water. This sinking must be done slowly and with patience; for as the tail and then the hinder portions went under, the fleas rushed north, up onto one’s back. As that back descended in its turn, the fleas ran higher, ahead of the water lest they drown—sinister critters, they were, quite committed to their own lives! They huddled in the neck and behind the ears and on the crown of one’s head. Now, when one had slid one’s neck into the water as well, one must take a deep breath, hold it, and slowly lower one’s whole head under water. The fleas, panicked and confused by the flood, would rush to the snout and, after that, leap onto the stick. Behold! One’s body is totally underwater, and the fleas are totally on a stick. Spit out the stick and let it float away. Wait. Come up for air. Rejoice! It is done.

  Ten Pin flashed a look at Five Pin, who flashed a look at One Pin. Then Ten Pin fell down on the ground with a great shout and began to scratch his little body wherever the down grew yellow. Pins Five and One followed suit.

  “Uncle! Uncle! It’s getting worse,” cried Ten Pin. “It was bad last night; but it’s terrible today.”

  The Fox stood back, put his paws together, and looked on them with pity.

  “Dear, dear,” he said, reaching into their storm, attempting to help scratch, then snatching his paw back again. Quickly he took another tack: “Would you, Pin the Tenth,” he shouted, “diagnose it as, er, irritation?”

  “Terrible irritation, Uncle.”

  “As in, say, a leaping irritation?”

  “Terrible leaping irritation of the skin!”

  “Or, from another point of medical view, would you, perhaps, consider it a galloping irritation?”

  “Oh, Uncle, it gallops and leaps and claws all over us!”

  “Fleas?”

  “Fleas! Yes, fleas! Oh, such fleas!”

  “And you said terrible?” The Fox’s eyes ran with sympathy. “I believe I heard you to mention terrible. And it is, after all, the first day of the summer.”

  With luminous honesty Ten Pin said: “This is the most terrible case of fleas that I have ever known.”

  “THEN TO THE NORTH!” cried the Fox, suddenly running furious circles around the Pins. “TENTH PIN, TO THE NORTH AND PICK YOU OUT A LIKELY STICK!”

  Ten Pin scooted away without another question.

  “WESTWARD, FIFTH PIN!” Lord Russel bellowed as he ran his tight, intense circles around the two remaining Pins. “SEEK YOUR STICK IN THE REGIONS OF THE WEST!”

  Five Pin was gone.

  “AND LET THE FIRST OF ALL PINS DO HIS SEARCHING IN THE EAST!”

  One Pin zipped away to do so.

  “WE’LL MEET AT THE RIVER! TAKE THE ROAD TO THE RIVER!” For a moment the Fox flew after his own tail before he fully realized that he was alone. But as soon as that piece of information dawned on him, he fell into a sudden heap, thoroughly worn out from his excitement. By chance, his chin landed on his tail—welcome chance. Lord Russel fell asleep.

  Beryl’s fears were altogether lost on Chauntecleer; and his nasal efforts to calm her only made the fear bitter in her soul. When the respectful amount of time had been paid him, then, but without satisfaction, she lowered her head and left his presence. For just a few minutes she took herself to a hidden place, where she could pray earnestly on the Pins’ behalf and where she could compose herself, so that the children would not see her afraid. After that, she went to gather them in.

  But the circle, when she came to it, was empty.

  “Oh, Lord,” Beryl breathed, catching at her breast, “gone!”

  Anger flashed into her eyes, that they hadn’t listened to her. She bustled everywhere in the yard, scratched grass, where sometimes they hid, fidgeted into hollows, poked into all the corners of the Coop, always crying out their names. They had left the circle! And now she found them nowhere where they ought to be.

  All propriety forgotten, she burst into the Coop to find Chauntecleer for the second time that day. But neither was he to be found. Beryl could not know that the Rooster had taken with him Pertelote and Mundo Cani to show them the southern flood—and the Coop was empty, of all save herself alone. There was no help for her from any corner. She couldn’t even share the bad news.

  Soon her anger melted into fear again; and fear turned into guilt.

  “Why did I leave them alone?” she said aloud, shrugging her shoulders and turning in helpless little circles. “I knew they shouldn’t be alone. Children! They’re no more than children! But Beryl left them alone
.”

  Then, before the tears could come, Beryl did a thing which is, perhaps, never to be explained. Violently she grabbed a broom, and in a white fury she spent an hour cleaning the empty Coop all on her own—singing, at the top of her lungs. The floor, the walls, the roosts, the nests, and the very ceiling she made to dazzle with cleanliness; and every piece of goods and furniture she placed precisely in its proper place. Order! Lord, how her soul wanted order and cleanliness now; and the more she broke her back to get it, the better it was.

  “Madam!” A cold, stentorian voice roared at her from the doorway. Beryl had to look twice to see Tick-tock the Black Ant standing there; and she had to think twice in order to cool her fury and to stop for him.

  “Madam, you may wish to know that the children of your heart are loose in the forest. While you sing your songs here—heedless”—Tick-tock’s voice was brittle, frozen, heavy with ice—“your charges, nurse, are bucking about the forest looking for sticks! They told my workers that they had plans to go to the river—”

  “The river!” shrieked the Hen.

  “—and obediently my workers reported to me.” Having delivered his message, the Ant was about to turn on his heel. But a Hen overran him with such passion that he fell out of the doorway and bent his nose out of shape.

  “A blind nurse is not a nurse,” Beryl wept as she hurried out of the yard, southward to the river. “A fool is nothing but a fool. Alas, my heart, that ever I should wink and cease to care for them. I’ll nevermore be nurse to the three little children. Oh, my Lord, I’m not worthy. I’m not worthy!”

  It was some little time after this that Lord Russel the Fox bethought himself to rise and go, and to see about the Chicks. It had been an enormously fine day for him. He had taken a particular pleasure in revealing to the Pins the trick about the fleas; and, on account of that, he had taken a particular pleasure in the nap which followed. It was a nap of the reputable, of one successful in his position, whose success has been noted and applauded by others. More than that, it had been a dry nap, so that the Fox had been reluctant to get up even after he had awakened. Therefore, Lord Russel stretched the pleasure of it and lay still before making his decision to go.

  Then he arose and aimed himself south, toward the river, where he intended to see how well the Pins had learned their lesson.

  Since Foxes travel faster than Chicks, he made no great hurry of his going. Rather, he made mental notes of how the dry twigs crackled underneath his step. Casually he glanced about to find a good stick of his own. And several times over he took his own measure, just to be sure of the stick he found.

  The forest knew a fine, dry breeze; in its high places, the soil itself was dry: a good day! And on the way to the river Lord Russel once in a while scrubbed his paws with the oil of the rue plant. This was another trick of his, and one which he planned to deliver to the Pins tomorrow: It threw anyone who might be pursuing him off his scent.

  Suddenly, from the top of a hill, the Fox saw Chauntecleer and his company as they were returning to the Coop. They moved slowly, obviously talking with one another as they went. Lord Russel judged that their talk was grave and important, for so their slow steps seemed to indicate. But he couldn’t hear it from his distance.

  He was just about to raise his stick and to halloo them, cheered to have come upon them so unexpectedly. But something caught his attention instead—a small pile of white and yellow in the path ahead of Chauntecleer.

  With foreboding, the Fox squinted to see clearly what it was. He wanted, and he did not want, to know. He blinked several times, his poor heart racing. Then his eyes focused, and he was struck dumb.

  He saw a Hen and three Chicks, lying down together.

  Unable to speak a word, Lord Russel glanced back at the company walking down the path. Pertelote was saying something, while Chauntecleer shook his head. Chauntecleer put his wings apart in a gesture of helplessness, and then he began to speak while the other two listened. He spoke strongly, sweeping his wings wide, as if he were referring to all of his land. Always, the three continued to walk closer to the soft heap, while Lord Russel, fixed in his silence, could do nothing but watch.

  Suddenly Mundo Cani stopped, went rigid, and stared straight ahead of him. Chauntecleer looked at the Dog; then he, too, looked straight ahead. The Rooster froze stiff. He stood absolutely still for a moment. Then he spoke a word to the other two without looking at them and walked forward by himself.

  Lord Russel felt boulders in his throat. He couldn’t cry warnings. He couldn’t whisper. He could only watch.

  The Rooster came to the place where the Hen and the Chicks were lying. He reached to touch them once. And then he stood wooden for a very long time.

  A strange sound filled the air. Lord Russel heard it. It was a keening wail, as if the wind were passing away through the branches of naked trees. But now there was no wind.

  Where she stood, Pertelote had turned away from the sight in front of her. She was looking back toward the river. Her head was high. She was weeping for her children.

  The sound of her weeping loosened the Fox from his sorrowful trance. He began to run, though he knew that Chauntecleer watched him as he came. When he drew near, Lord Russel saw that it was Beryl who lay beside the children.

  “I was going to—to meet them there,” the Fox said miserably.

  “Where?” Chauntecleer spoke quietly. The Fox could not look at him.

  “At the, ah. Beside, ah, the—They were to have, ah, brought—”

  “Where?” the Rooster said again.

  “—sticks. The river.”

  “The river,” Chauntecleer breathed. A low, menacing growl began in Mundo Cani’s chest; his head was slung low between his powerful shoulder blades, his eyes smoking. Lord Russel cringed.

  “Shut up,” the Rooster said, and the Dog was quiet.

  “They are dead, Lord Russel,” Chauntecleer said quietly. “Sticks and rivers, floods and thunderclouds, serpents aground or flying—my children are dead, Lord Russel.”

  “I know,” the Fox said, and he said no more.

  “And the sadness is—they were killed.”

  Beryl lay on her back, as if she had been struck across her throat, a frightful blow. Her head was loose and turned to the side, because her neck was broken. Ten Pin, Five Pin, and One Pin were lying in a little group beside her. Their backs were together as if they were merely leaning that way for the comfort. But their beaks were open, their eyes closed, and their chests each bore the marks of a bite. A circle had been marked in the ground around all four.

  “Now we will carry them back to the Coop,” Chauntecleer said. Mundo Cani came forward.

  “Lord Russel will bear the nurse, Beryl,” said Chauntecleer, and suddenly the Dog did not know what to do. “Tenderly, Russel. You shall walk most tenderly with this lady.”

  Chauntecleer watched him narrowly to see whether his walk was indeed a tender one.

  Lord Russel was suffering mightily. He had not yet looked at the Rooster. Nevertheless, he lifted Beryl in his jaws and began to walk back to the Coop alone. He walked tenderly. And he was grateful for Chauntecleer’s remembrance of him.

  Then Chauntecleer spread his wings and gathered his children together beneath them. He raised his head and held his children to his breast.

  “Mundo Cani Dog.” His voice was as thin as a reed. “Please look after the Beautiful Pertelote, and bring her.”

  [SIXTEEN] Chauntecleer’s prayer is met by one thing, John Wesley’s rage by another

  To anyone who might have seen him standing on the Coop that night, Chauntecleer would have seemed to be black iron. A breeze tugged at his feathers; they flipped forward on his back—ragged, vagrant. But the Rooster himself was iron and immoveable. On this night he had nothing to do with breezes.

  At dusk he had crowed the crow of
grief. But there had been no satisfaction in it. He had done it more the Lord of the land than father of the children: abruptly, briefly, bitterly, formally—a bitten crow. And all who lay awake listening were left more agonized than had the crow rung truly with Chauntecleer’s deeper sadness.

  But then, when the crow was done, the Rooster was not done. And so he held his position for hours against the night, while the animals beneath him, though they did not sleep, honored him with stillness and silence.

  “You, God,” Chauntecleer finally said; but his iron body did not move. His muscles were taut wire. Had someone touched him at that moment, he would have spun and murdered him.

  “You, God, promise—then break promises,” he said. “You give. You warm me to your gift. You cause love to go out of me to your gift—and then you kill me. You kill my gift.

  “I did not want this land. I would just as soon have traveled my way, taken what came to me by chance and left the rest. I would just as soon have gone a-mucking through this world of yours unnoticed, untouched by—your—righteous—hand. Then I may have been empty, but not bereft; I didn’t know what blessing you had it in you to offer. Then I may have been alone, but not lonely; I didn’t know what love you could ordain. You, God! You took me out of my life! You set me into this false place. You made me believe in you. You gave me hope! O my God, you taught me to hope! And then you killed me.”

  Chauntecleer trembled where he stood. He closed his eyes against the darkness to control the trembling—not because he thought his words were wicked; simply because he did not want to tremble before God.