For a long, long time, while the business of the day went on round about them, Chauntecleer looked at Mundo Cani Dog, saying nothing. And then he laid his head down across the Dog’s great nose. And because he was so passing weary, the Rooster fell asleep that way, and he dreamed no dreams.
So how could Mundo Cani go away then—or even move?
[TWENTY] The night before war—fears
When Chauntecleer woke up again, it was midnight and he was in pitch-blackness. Several times the Rooster opened and closed his eyes, but he couldn’t tell any difference: It was all darkness. On this night not even stray light reached the earth through the clouds; so tight, so heavy were they in heaven, that Chauntecleer felt their weight on his back, and he groaned. The whole earth, and especially this round camp on the face of it, was in a closet—muggy, still, and absolutely dark. And the closet door was shut.
Chauntecleer didn’t want to move. He felt surrounded by the invisible presences of his animals; he didn’t know where nor how to move. From every direction: grunts, coughings, snorts, sighs, rustlings; now and again a dream shout from across the camp sent ripples of worry everywhere; legs, claws, snouts, and jowls nudged the ground nervously; back to back the animals surely lay, and that wakefully—an impossible and dangerous maze. Volatile. Chauntecleer didn’t want to move. . . .
But “want” and “won’t” are two different words.
“. . . run away! Now or later, it don’t make no never mind. Now’s the better.”
Chauntecleer’s ear went sharp. Under the general restlessness of the animals and through the night he heard spoken words. Someone was holding secret conversation in hoarse bursts of whisper.
“. . . seen him? Seen this Cockatrice or his . . . ?”
“Never seen . . . ! Flank nor feather, beak nor claw . . . no knowing what kind of . . .”
“. . . Beryl! Oh, Peck, her I seen!”
Peck! There was a name. So these two were members of the Mad House of Otter. Chauntecleer stretched his ears to hear, but lost most of their words. Yet the tones of their conversation he caught very well, and he didn’t like the sound of it.
“. . . horrid! Nothing natural, not natural-born . . . a broken neck like that! Shoulda seen, Peck; a blow so strong . . .”
“. . . the gash on Ebenezer Rat! What about that? What about that? Scrape, what’re we gonna do about that?”
“Me, I’m . . . place.”
“You what? But Chauntecleer—”
“Hush up, Peck! What do you think? The camp’s got ears!”
Then Peck very earnestly asked a question which Chauntecleer lost altogether, and Scrape gave him a long answer. It was obvious that a plan was hatching, growing out of the grisly fear of the two Otters, and that Peck, though he wasn’t sure of its righteousness, was surely interested in the length of his own neck.
Again and again Chauntecleer heard the name Cockatrice pronounced in dread:
“. . . don’t know, Peck! And you gonna go against that? Die, Peck? For what? A pack of softhearted . . . ?”
One by one Chauntecleer heard other voices join the whispering.
“. . . away? Tonight? . . . can’t see nothing, Scrape!”
“. . . defend . . . own territory.”
“But . . . !”
“Oh, let the Rooster watch out for himself!”
“Cockatrice! Cockatrice! Cockatrice!”
Now even those animals who did not talk were stirring—restless, hopheaded, filled with strange imaginings, scared. A general groan began to spread from the Otters’ muttering; widening circles caught ears, thumping hearts, bristling hair into them. In a moment the animals would begin to stand up, and then what? The night was dreadfully dark. The camp was dangerously crowded. And tomorrow! Every creature needed his rest tonight. More than that, every creature needed desperately every other creature at his side tomorrow—
Chauntecleer broke his silence and stood up. He fought an urge to excoriate these rotten renegades, these traitor Otters: Scrape should be skinned!
Instead, from the place where he was, he began to crow compline, the seventh holy hour of the day. Cool, smooth, restrained, a silken lariat, the Rooster gave his animals, in the darkness, a point of recognition. He covered them with the familiar. He announced his presence. Then he drew them back from the edge. He blessed them right gently, crowing nothing of the battle for tomorrow—but naming every one of them their names. Names, one after the other, with a prayer for the peace of each one: That was compline on this particular night.
Soon the restless animals on every side began to settle down again. Their own names in the Rooster’s mouth had a transfiguring effect:
“Nimbus,” Chauntecleer crowed, “the Lord’s peace is with you.”
And Nimbus the Deer, whose flanks had begun to shiver, who was jerking his head, ready at a crack to leap and flee, Nimbus heard his own name in the mouth of his Lord, and he came to his senses again. Dark was suddenly not so dark anymore. He lay down encouraged—for who had known that he was so well known?
“Pika,” Chauntecleer crowed next, and behold! Nimbus was himself the more encouraged to hear the name; for Hare Pika, whom he could not see, was suddenly with him, a part of his company. Name followed name. Lonely was lost in communion: The company grew as if lights were turning on. And Nimbus the Deer went to sleep.
So it went. All the animals began to believe in sleep again, and the dark camp settled down.
But as he crowed this remarkable compline, Chauntecleer the Rooster was walking slowly through the camp straight for the Mad House of Otter.
And when he came to that place, he didn’t stop crowing or lose a breath for compline, but, as if it were by accident, he stepped up onto Scrape Otter’s back and stood there, crowing and twisting his claws into the Otter’s fur.
Scrape grunted. The Rooster gripped the tighter.
Scrape began to whine. The Rooster made a vise of his feet, then spread his wings, took three enormous flaps through the air, and dropped the Otter bang among the Weasels. Scrape had no doubts about the cause of his punishment, though not a word had been spoken to him. And when Chauntecleer had finally climbed to the top of the circular wall, he crowed, “Scrape! The blessing of the Lord is on you—even on you, Otter!”
An Otter decided to forgo his plan; and, finally, he too went to sleep.
There were thousands of names to be crowed. That was good. The night was very long, and Chauntecleer needed the names, for compline tonight should last the whole night through.
The Rooster walked along the top of the wall, crowing—gently giving ease to the animals’ sleep, but himself gravely worried over the weakness of his army. That’s why he could not stop crowing. The Otters’ plot had made him wary. The quick deterioration of the camp, their readiness to chuck and run, had been a revelation to him. Their fear of the enemy had become his fear of them; and for him, as well, the enemy became the more frightful. So compline was a necessary lie. It was peace spoken to the fearful. But it was also one fearful himself who crowed that peace.
It was a long, long night before the war. It was an exhausting compline.
Only once during the night did something break the rhythm of his crowing the exceptional compline. Toward morning.
It began with a laugh.
High in the invisible sky above him, Chauntecleer suddenly heard malevolent, screaming laughter—so cold, so evil, so powerful a bellowed laugh that he gasped and forgot his crow. His feathers stood on end. All the darkness around him swelled with the hateful sound, and the Rooster stood perfectly still.
“Ha! Ha! Ha!” screamed the sky laughter. It was distant: It came from just underneath the clouds. But it fell with murderous bullet force. It seemed that the mouth of the laugher was aimed directly at him. Then Chauntecleer’s heart stopped.
It knew him! This laughter knew Chauntecleer, knew exactly how he was standing, knew the fear driven into his soul, knew him for a weak commander, knew him lost, dead, and buried.
“Ah, ha! Ha! Ha!” It stroked its victory there in the sky—pleased laughter; strange, insidious, watchful laughter. . . . And suddenly Chauntecleer had no idea where he was. On the wall, to be sure—but where on the wall? The side near the forest? The side—God forbid it!—near the river? He had been walking the wall for hours, heedless, crowing; and a circle is a circle. He was lost! And right now it was vitally important that he know his position. Damn the darkness! How could he give a bold front to the devil above him if he didn’t know where he was?
That one knew, and he didn’t. That made the Rooster naked!
So Chauntecleer spun on his heel and began to race back along the wall. Not outside the wall he ran, for what would he find there? A ditch, and then what? Forest? River? Not down into the camp. The animals would hinder him, trip him up.
On and on around the wall he ran, he rushed, headlong, hearing his own breathing and breaking his lungs for breath; hearing the hard, delighted laughter above him. Through the black night he ran, and he began to whimper: “It’s here! I want to see. I want to see. I want to see. O God, where am I?”
Then, blindly, he ran straight into a soft flank. He yelped, then tumbled off the wall, down into the ditch.
The Dun Cow followed him down, and once there she breathed on him. Immediately poor Chauntecleer drove himself like a child into her neck, curled, and gave himself over to the refuge. He had absolutely no doubt who she was. And, strangely, her presence did not surprise him. Neither did he stop for his own dignity. Simply, he was thankful for the shelter, and he hid himself there, and he waited for the trembling to quit.
When the Rooster’s reason had come back again, he discovered that the laughter was gone and the night silent once again—save that he heard wind in the trees of the forest. Trees! Ah, the Dun Cow had brought him down on the north side of the wall; the camp stood between him and the river, and he was relieved. And he knew where he was.
Chauntecleer lay a long while against the fine fur of her neck. He let his mind free to think of the night; and soon his mouth was free as well. He found that he was talking his thoughts aloud. The Dun Cow listened. Low and long he shed his private fears into her silence—all of them, right up to the final idiocy that he, Chauntecleer, Lord and leader, should be reduced to racing wildly in circles! Long and low he shared every piece of apprehension with the Cow who lay beside him in the ditch, and this, too, relieved him.
But then, even in this special hour, a tiny thing began to nag the Rooster: that the Dun Cow, who had filled Mundo Cani’s ear yesterday with such a steady stream of talk, now was saying nothing at all to him.
“Speak to me,” he said bluntly and loudly in the night. “Have you nothing to say to me? Who are you? Why are you here? Where do you come from?” And then, a question which Chauntecleer never formed on his own, nor ever would have asked, had he thought about it first: “—Why do I love you?”
His own question so shocked him that he shrugged his shoulders as if there were light in the ditch and he could be seen, as if to say, Forget it: I didn’t mean it. And he consciously shut his mouth and said no more.
So the last hour of the night passed by. Once or twice he felt—-just barely—the prick of her horns upon his back. They kept him wide awake. And in that time it seemed to Chauntecleer that the Dun Cow did speak to him, though he could never remember the language she used, nor the timbre of her voice; and she did not offer any answer to any one of his questions.
But what he learned from her made his spirit bold and his body ready. Three things she gave him: weapons against the enemy. And two he understood immediately. But the third remained a mystery.
Rue, she said, protection.
Rooster’s crow, confusion.
One thing else to end the deed—
A Dog with no illusion.
Shortly the Dun Cow was gone again, and the Rooster alone in his ditch. And then, with a faint light to make shadows of every solid thing, the night was done and the dire day had begun.
[TWENTY-ONE] Morning: rue and the Rooster’s crow
The sky was a stone—hollowed underneath, hard, pure white, hot, a lid locked over the whole earth. Never before had the sky been so white. Never before had it turned the heat back onto the earth with such ferocity. Neither blue nor pink, neither soft nor kindly, but white, hard, and hot, this sky, and angry.
A hissing sound seemed to come from all around the horizon, where the stone lid trembled and heat escaped like steam.
There was no sun. The sky was a sun. And this day did not dawn. It hit the earth with a fury. It struck every animal in the face. It woke each one with pain and with the sound of hissing.
Children stumbled and could not stand. Mothers and fathers found that their legs were sluggish. When they reached to help their children, it was with a maddening, slow motion that they reached. Everyone’s thoughts turned unto himself, and he wished for one cool drop of water to loosen his thick, sticky tongue.
The animals began to moan, and would have moaned forever like the sick, except that a thought crept into their minds:
They said, “Where is Chauntecleer?”
Now their eyes began to peel open in spite of the white light. They looked up on the wall which went all the way around them.
They said, “Where is Chauntecleer? Have you seen Chauntecleer? Did he crow the morning lauds? We haven’t heard him crow!”
They stood up on their shaky legs to look around. The children, who did not open their eyes, felt their parents’ bodies move and depart, and they began to whimper. But the parents looked closely at the wall, and they did not see Chauntecleer on the top of it.
Some thought that they could remember Chauntecleer’s crowing in the night; but they were not sure. And no one had heard him crow since the morning began.
Close to panic, they said, “Where is Chauntecleer?”
And then someone said, “He left us!”
Again the animals stared wildly at the wall. It was true. Chauntecleer was not on the wall. The Deer shuddered and stamped their feet. The Rabbits sat up straight and froze at the thought. The heat was heavy on them all. They trembled.
Someone else said, “He left us! He escaped in the night! He saved himself and left us to die!”
The animals began to walk around aimlessly, sweating. They shook their heads against the dismal, universal hissing. Oh, God, the livid sky!
Then someone lost all patience. “Traitor!” he cried.
Immediately John Wesley Weasel screamed, “No!” He was running, dodging through the crowd, trying to force his way up to the wall. He would say something, if he could get somewhere to say it.
“He betrayed us! He locked us in! He called it a fortress! But it’s a prison!”
“No! Is no!” John Wesley cried, darting, scrambling, driving for every snatch of open space he could see in the crowd. Who said these things about the Rooster? Was an ass! John Double-u would find him, would bite the tendon in his heel, would bring him down and shut him up. Was an ass! If only John Wesley could get near to him to see.
All of the sweating animals moaned, “A prison!”
They began to surge toward the wall. John Wesley was lost.
Why did the Wild Turkeys go first up the wall? Had panic pierced their ears? Did they run on their own? Or were they driven, helpless foam before a groaning sea?
The Wild Turkeys fumbled up the inside of the wall, falling and rolling and rising again. When they reached the very top of the wall, they suddenly began to shriek in mortal terror. They turned around, tried to fight against the coming crowd. But it was useless. The animals no longer knew them. The Wild Turkeys wanted desperately
to be back inside the camp again, but who would let them?
Then the Turkeys went mad. They whirled around, jittering hideously and screaming.
This the animals did see—for the Turkeys were wrapped in serpents. Glistening, deadly vipers entangled their legs and gripped them at the throats, coiled their bodies and waited a teasing moment before the bite.
The entire camp of animals fell into a ghastly silence, watching the sad dance on the top of the wall.
And then the Turkeys threw back their heads, and they died, making a gargling sound in their throats before absolute silence.
There was no sound but the hissing. Basilisks hissing.
The dead bodies fell out of sight over the wall. But two of the Turkeys happened to fall inward. They tumbled into the camp. The serpents with burning, lurid eyes slithered off the dead; and the animals, with wild, staring eyes, made room for them, backed and backed away.
These serpents put their heads up, so that as much of their slick bodies stood up off the ground as crawled on it, and they drew away from the two dead Turkeys. They fanned out in several directions, approached the staring animals, crawled slowly, their damp bodies dimpled with light and making wrinkles, their eyes burning a mordant fire, their heads high and proud like little kings, their mouths grinning and hissing.
But the animals stood mute and could not move. Neither could they tear their eyes from the Basilisks.
Suddenly Chauntecleer crowed from the top of the Coop.
The serpents stopped and twisted their heads, looking.
Chauntecleer crowed again—mightily, dangerously, purely.
The animals found their legs, rushed, and stampeded away from this place, some crying out for the first time.
The Book of the Dun Cow Page 16
