The Book of the Dun Cow

by Walter Wangerin Jr.

  Were?

  “I was a father. I provided for my family. I knew peace. To every one of their questions I had an answer. Every one of my plans had a good ending—”

  Why does he say “had”? Why does he speak in “was”?

  “But now Pertelote weeps beside three empty beds. And I have learned that the best of plans can die before they are done. My children are dead.”

  Dead! The entire congregation froze at the word.

  Now Chauntecleer had to speak very fast, but very clearly—before the calm exploded:

  “If the murderer were from among us, I would not tell you of the murder. It wouldn’t concern you. But he’s from another place, another land. And the death of my children is only his first word to us—to us all. This is the day which had to come. The enemy is frightful and full of power and hateful and of a mind to murder all the children, to ruin all the land, to slaughter this place with the next, to leave no soul alive. We’ve got to be one as we have been one! For he is many. We’ve got to prepare! We will have to fight him when he comes. But we can! In the name of God we can—and by God triumph!”

  But it so often happens that first words steal from the last words; and at this particular moment, the animals were stunned rather than encouraged. “Murder,” “enemy” rang in their ears. “Triumph” they hadn’t heard at all. And the explosion which Chauntecleer expected—that never came.

  For so many animals to be in one place, the silence was astonishing. Here, there, and yonder back to the forest, the eyes stared at Chauntecleer as if there were so much more to be said. He had opened them up. Now they wanted filling—and suddenly the Rooster was lost, exhausted. Mouths drooped open, because every creature had forgotten himself. Ears stood up, twitching, reaching for a sound, some other sound besides the lonely note of peril. And Chauntecleer didn’t know what else to put in those ears. Had they heard nothing of his first important message? What did they think—that he was just dithering when he spoke of God’s faithfulness to them? So much preparation for this moment, and their ears had been stone!

  Chauntecleer’s stomach hurt as if he had been kicked there. He had said it all, all the comfort that there was to say, and the animals silently awaited first words of comfort! But he was dry. One part of him wanted to scream: “But the almighty God loves you, will never leave you to be orphans!” while another part of him wanted simply to damn the pack and send it home. As a result, the Rooster said nothing, stared limply at them in disbelief, and became fearfully conscious of his stomachache.

  Then, from down below him, from somewhere near the Coop, a voice began to sing a song.

  The song was beautiful, a new thing in this place and unexpected. The voice was like a single shaft of cool light through so much gloom. It sang “Ah.” It was sure of itself. It wound like a purely silken thread around all the thousand animals in the yard. It rose high and yet higher, singing no more than “Ah.” “Ah” to the hearts of the thousand. “Ah” unto their Lord. “Ah” as clear and beautiful as the limber sky.

  For one wild moment Chauntecleer thought that this was the voice of the Dun Cow, though he had absolutely no reason to think so. He stared out over the assembly to find her. And he did, at the very back, underneath the trees. No, it wasn’t her voice. But once again he saw her eyes with a strange clarity, and he perceived where she was looking. The Dun Cow was gazing directly at the singer. Chauntecleer followed her gaze and saw that it was the Beautiful Pertelote who had begun to sing. The lady had found her voice.

  And all the company of the animals was listening.

  Chauntecleer sat down upon the top beam of the Coop and found that he was bone weary.

  When she had risen to a region of crystal beauty, Pertelote turned her song into “Turalay,” and it became a ballad. What a shining and peaceful ballad! It settled the entire multitude and, listening, they closed their mouths.

  Yet, in the lovely clothing of this ballad, Pertelote told them what she knew of the danger which was approaching. She told them of the serpents which crawled and killed. But because such knowledge came to them in a song, the animals felt equal to this evil, and they did not panic. She told them of the poisonous bite, the dreadful speed with which they flung themselves. Her ballad did not make the serpents lovely. Her ballad hid nothing of their dread. But the music itself spoke of faith and certainty; the melody announced the presence of God. So the evil which the words contained did not panic the animals, and they listened, understanding. She named Cockatrice in her ballad, and she rhymed him with “hiss.” And the animals discovered that she had chosen against this abomination and yet had lived; and the animals did not panic.

  Chauntecleer looked down upon her of the flaming throat, and he loved her. Mother—no mother anymore; yet she sang. Silent once, but silent no longer; and she sang. O God! Where was there a faith in all the land to match the faith of Pertelote?

  And while she sang her lovely melody, for just a moment until it was done, the clouds broke; and then the visible sun touched the tops of the trees, for it shone from the edge of the earth. It turned the white Coop golden; and all the heads of those who listened burned a little bit. And all the ears were filled with light and understanding.

  Pertelote finished her song and was still.

  Spontaneously in the sun’s red glow, in the afterglow of Pertelote’s song, the multitude whispered together one massive word: “Amen,” as if it were an exhalation from the earth to the spheres. The moment was peaceful and good. In the days to come, Chauntecleer would remember it often and draw strength from it.

  But it was soon done.

  Suddenly he heard a sound behind him. A gurgling, but more than that: a raging and choking of the waters.

  Chauntecleer stood up, looked around—looked and was horrified. During the afternoon of the Council the river had flooded so far abroad that it was now in sight of the Coop. The Rooster’s eyes rolled left and right, and the sight was all the same. A sea! The waters looked like an endless sea covering half the earth and reaching toward this place. The sea was all afire. For a mist went up from it, and the setting sun had ignited this mist into what seemed an oily flame. It burned with an ungodly color.

  But the horror was not only Chauntecleer’s. That strangling sound had caused a thousand animals to stand up, to bob their heads, and to notice for the first time what was happening to the river.

  They did not cry out. They stood stunned. They stared. This was the world turning inside out, and they didn’t understand. Some would have run away; but in bewilderment they stood still. Some would have burrowed, some flown to the topmost branches. But the lurid sight confused them and they stood stock-still.

  Before Chauntecleer could say anything, a commotion began in the middle of the multitude. Politely gabbling from the bottoms of their throats, excusing themselves with many grunts and burps, and stepping on backs and heads as if they were alone in an empty field, the Wild Turkeys had begun to walk toward the river. They had decided to see this wonder for themselves. And, as their eyesight was spectacularly poor, they had to walk straight up to the shore to do so.

  But their courteous excuses were lost on the other animals, and their motion sent animals into one another. Fits of nervousness began to explode around them. Tails were stepped on. Here and there someone squealed in pain.

  “Where are you going?” Chauntecleer roared from the top of the Coop.

  It happened that the Turkeys heard as poorly as they saw. They didn’t answer him, but pleasantly continued to step over lesser animals, waddling to the river.

  “Where in God’s name do you think you’re going?” Chauntecleer roared.

  One of the Turkeys heard him. “Hada goo-good time, rutabaga Rooster,” he called. “Thank you. Goo-goo-by!” He waddled with the rest into the short plain which now divided the yard from the flooding river.

  Chauntecleer w
as confounded.

  “Fools! Blockheads!” he roared. “Get back from that water!”

  “Thank you, rutabaga Rooster,” another called back happily.

  The multitude behind the Turkeys popped restlessly. Smaller animals began to be afraid: They didn’t know what was happening; they couldn’t see. They only felt the pressure of big bodies against them. The pressure was growing greater. So they wailed, bit, and began to claw. Greater animals leaped and turned about in confused pain, and the little ones thought that soon they wouldn’t be able to breathe. They panicked.

  Chauntecleer looked down upon his animals. He saw the whole mass of them begin to boil. They churned, and there was nowhere for them to go. A huge, mighty pinwheel, the congregation started to turn, crying and caterwauling and carrying the little ones under.

  “Pertelote,” the Rooster cried as if through a storm, “get the Hens inside the Coop!”

  Then he crowed a mighty crow for order, but it did no good.

  “Scarce,” he cried, his voice nearly lost, “tell the animals to look at me! Tell all the animals!”

  And then, at the top of his lungs he thundered: “MUNDO CANI DOG! CUT THOSE FOOLS OFF BEFORE THEY REACH THE WATER!”

  He did not wait to see if he’d been heard. He opened his beak wide and began to crow vespers. Again and again he crowed vespers. Again and again he told the animals, in familiar words, of the night and of the rest which comes with night and of the sleep which follows rest. He crowed as if his heart would break.

  One by one the animals began to turn their heads to him.

  Mundo Cani had been on the far side of the assembly, farther out, even, than the ragged north edge of the animals. They didn’t see him take to his heels and fairly fly around at their backs. The Dog with the enormous nose revealed his talent. He came like the wind, streaking ninety degrees around ten thousand animals, then out onto the plain, baying and barking until even the Wild Turkeys began to hear him. His legs swallowed the earth, and he ran.

  But who saw the river vomit bubbles? Who saw the waters roil and rage until they broke? Who saw the river cast up serpents upon the shore? Not the Wild Turkeys. They were half blind, and this was but a pleasant outing. Not the multitude. They had begun to lift their eyes up unto the Rooster, heeding vespers, relaxing. Chauntecleer alone saw them, and he was made sick by the sight; but he never once broke into his crowing to gasp or to plead. Chauntecleer saw the Basilisks—and one other saw them, too. . . .

  Mundo Cani hurtled with a speed he could not stop, dead across the plain. But if he could not stop it, yet he could direct it. He aimed his pounding body straight for the group of waddling Turkeys, and he ran the harder.

  The serpents burned in the last light of the sun. Damply they slithered to the place where the Turkeys were going. They made dimples in their flesh as they moved.

  The first stupid bird reached them, smiling. One serpent bit him briefly in his breast, and the bird died on the spot—a short apology in his throat.

  Before another bird could take another step, Mundo Cani exploded in the midst of them. Feathers and absurdly fat bodies blew up in a golden cloud and came down with many thumps upon the earth—yards closer to the Coop. But before they could gain their feet, Mundo Cani had blasted through them once again. Up in the air they went, spinning and squawking; and down they came on their backs and their stomachs, saying, “Oof!” and “Galoot!” Up again and down again, always landing closer to the Coop and farther from the serpents, thoroughly addled and wondering what had happened to the earth. Boom! Boom! Boom! Mundo Cani laid into them with all of his bones athwart. On the way to the river they had spent most of the time in pleasant conversation upon the ground. On the way back they spent nearly all of their time bouncing through the air and swearing, decorum forgotten. But they did come back to the Coop, and there they lay: bruised, disgraced, fiercely insulted, and alive. All but one, who lay dead near the river.

  The serpents had followed for a space. But then Chauntecleer discovered something vital: When he turned his constant Rooster’s crow in their direction, they shrank from it. They curled in upon themselves and hid their heads. They knotted together like so many fingers in a fist. So Chauntecleer crowed with somewhat more vigor than one should use for vespers, and the Basilisks rolled back into the river.

  But when the serpents were gone, and just as Chauntecleer was about to return attention to the animals, a ghastly word rose up out of the earth. “Wyrm” was the word. Immediately the clouds locked together again in heaven, and darkness fell absolutely.

  All of the animals heard the word; it leaked out of every hole in the ground—sulphur, steam, and stench. The odor of rot seeped upward to their bellies. “Wyrm” was the word. It came like disease and hung foul in the air. “Wyrm: Sum Wyrm sub terra.” And then, very quietly and very clearly and very confidently, these words: “I am Wyrm, Proud Chauntecleer. And I am here.”

  Here ends the second part of the story about the savage war between Wyrm’s Keepers and Wyrm’s minion, Cockatrice.

  PART THREE

  [NINETEEN] The Coop-works: preparations for war, together with the most admirable pout of all

  By the middle of the next morning it had become clear to nearly everyone that the Wild Turkeys had decided, to a man, to pout.

  As blind and as deaf as they were, they didn’t know that one among their number—Thuringer, his name—had died by the bite of a serpent. They merely assumed that Thuringer had somehow escaped the altogether impolite pounding delivered unto the rest of them by a Dog and a vulgar nose. And nobody could tell them otherwise. Therefore they waddled to and fro in the yard holding their ridiculous cornstalk heads high above the animals, limped through the yard, and pouted.

  And oh, what a pout they could produce!

  Chauntecleer had called all the heads of the families to a special meeting near the Coop. This had taken place about a half hour after lauds. The Turkeys, every one, snubbed this meeting—all part of their pout. Of course, they knew about the meeting; and they made certain that everyone else knew that they knew about the meeting: For what’s a snub if one hasn’t been invited in the first place? They “ga-galooted,” and they “gaw-god-awfuled”; they groaned wonderfully and they limped, all within three feet of the meeting place. And they heard not a word of the proceedings.

  Just before prime the meeting broke up. Every father returned to his own breed and explained the information and the explicit commands which Chauntecleer had given them. And when the families had learned the parts they were to play in the war effort, they went to work. Every animal in the yard learned a duty, and the crow of prime signaled the time for each to start his duty.

  The Wild Turkeys, however, were decided upon a personal duty. Their duty was to pout.

  One of them, Corningware Turkey by name, stumbled and flubbered into the Coop itself. Once inside, he slammed the door with a right proper bang. Then he opened the door and stumbled out again, turned around, and slammed the door again. With his bottom wattles stuck out to the distance of a foot, for that is the expression of a pout, he reentered the Coop and banged the door, came out and banged the door, banged the door and banged the door. If anyone passed by, he casually lifted his stubby wing so that his many bruises would be apparent, then banged the door in that someone’s face.

  It was the duty of the Bees to do something about the loathsome smell which kept seeping out of the earth. Animals had awakened gagging, taking bitter half breaths, retching. As soon as they had learned their duty, the Bees divided into two groups. In force the male drones flew into the forest to search out flowers; they returned each with a sweet-smelling petal. These petals they rained all over the ground before flying back for more. Then the female workers crawled busily among the petals, chewing and chewing them until they made sweet paste, and with that paste they began to stucco the ground over the entire yard. They were
making a floor; they were sealing the putrid stench within the ground; they were doing their duty.

  So were Paprika and Basil doing their duties. Turkeys both, they sat their crippled butts down exactly where the paste had not been spread and would not move for all the angry buzzing and exhortation of the Bees. On the one hand, they could not hear. On the other hand, they chose not to see the fussing Bees, for that is the business of a good pout. And on the third hand, they had absolutely no idea why the Bees had undertaken to sticky the entire ground around the Coop. That being a thoroughly empty-headed project (and-and a damn-damn nuisance to boo-boot!), they had decided to sit down upon the clean spots. Be it known that neither Basil nor Paprika nor any other Turkey had a sense of smell. They had strongly disapproved of the generally public and generally impolite gagging that morning.

  Finally, the Bees worked around these two and pasted them to the ground. But Paprika and Basil held their naked heads high and pretended not to notice, being quite sure that something discourteous had been done to their bottoms.

  Tick-tock the Black Ant was wild with joy; and he said so with extra loud HUPS as he commandeered one division of Ants after another and sent them to their duties. He had never had so grand a host of marching men in all his life. Tick-tock had had his hundred; but he had never had these many thousands, trained and loyal and orderly and polished to a flashing black. For the sheer joy of it, he had them drill for precisely fifteen minutes in the precise middle of the yard before he sent them to their appointed tasks. And then he cried “Dig!” to the diggers and “Tote!” to the toters and “Build!” to the hill builders; then builders, toters, and diggers all went to work, making a thousand ticking noises, as if a thousand bitty clocks were busy on the earth.

  Almost before their eyes the animals saw a rampart rise up in a wide and perfect circle around the yard. The Ants made no complaint over the size of their duty. They worked in perfect contentment, and they built a wall, a bulwark of dirt which surrounded all the animals and finally stood as high as the gracious antlers of the deer. All around the outside of this wall they dug a trench quite as deep as the wall was high. And into the wall they buried here and there a Turkey up to his neck. Ants argue with no one if there is some way to keep schedule and do duty in spite of him. They didn’t mind the Turkeys’ pout. They didn’t mind the Turkeys’ plopping themselves upon the rising wall. And they thought that the naked little heads which finally stuck out of that wall were rather ornamental, if somewhat irregular.