The Book of the Dun Cow (18 page)

But it is entirely possible to win against the enemy, it is possible even to kill the enemy, and still to be defeated by the battle.

Chauntecleer had not lost his life to Cockatrice, but he'd lost something infinitely more dear. He had lost hope. And with it went the Rooster's faith. And without faith he no longer had a sense of the truth.

When the battle with Cockatrice—sore, exhausting battle—turned out
not
to be the final battle after all, then it was Wyrm and not the Rooster who rejoiced in victory. With seven words Wyrm had more than weakened him, for he was already weak. With seven words Wyrm had made the war an endless thing and every victory a joke. With seven words Wyrm had murdered hope and sent the Rooster mumbling through the windless halls of despair. And with seven confident words Wyrm had struck down the leader of the land, so that the land was no longer proof against his escape. Leaderless, loose, the Keepers would lose their strength. The bond was breaking, the patch frayed at the center of it, the prison gate unlocking. And Wyrm saw freedom in front of him!

For Chauntecleer one thing and one thing only held any meaning now: his own feelings. All of the rest was mere shadow—smiling, mocking shadow.

When he swam to awareness again, Chauntecleer discovered that he was in the Coop on a clean bed of straw. He tried to move, but he couldn't. His whole body—the bones within and the flesh without—was stiff, wooden.

All of the sights and the sounds around him washed into one another, so that he thought he was seeing everything through a sheet. Someone, he thought, had put a sheet over his head.

He considered this sheet for a moment. “Muslin,” he thought to himself. “No, not muslin. Something sheer, something thin and light.”

The color of the sheet kept changing, flushing red every time his heart beat and deep crimson when he breathed, almost as if it would blot out all things else. Chauntecleer thought that this was both kind and remarkably beautiful, and for a moment he took pleasure in it.

But only for a moment. Soon the fact that the sheet was over his
head
struck him with a deep and piteous sorrow.

“They think I'm dead!” he thought. “They didn't even wait for me to wake up. They covered me and left me for dead!” All of a sudden Chauntecleer felt profoundly sorry for Chauntecleer.

“Well, they rot!” he decided with monumental dignity. “I can do without them,” he proclaimed to his soul. “Let them go their selfish ways. Chauntecleer the Rooster was ever the noblest bird of them all!” And speaking that way in his heart, Chauntecleer composed himself for an eternity of lonely suffering.

But the colors around him never ceased pulsing. Slowly they began to move as with a purpose, drawing together, wrapping themselves around a shape. They were taking form. And they were blending into each other—swirling, mixing, losing distinction, until all the colors were one color: dun. And the shape was the shape of a Cow.

Chauntecleer's heart leaped! He blinked and looked very hard.

Yes! He saw the rangy, pointed horns of the Dun Cow and her liquid eyes, so soft with sympathy. They were in pain, these eyes, and the Rooster knew them very well.

“You didn't forget!” Chauntecleer cried—without opening his mouth. “You saw my suffering! They left me, but you, my friend—you came back to me!” The cry caused sparks to fly all around his head, and the image of the Dun Cow wavered, like a water reflection.

But this is the sadness of Chauntecleer's hopeless condition, that wild delight can fall quickly into a wild and bitter tantrum. Nothing lasts.

When the image of the Dun Cow stilled again, anger exploded in Chauntecleer's brains. Her eyes were as sympathetic as before, but now he could see that
they were not looking at him
. There was company between the Dun Cow and himself. Mundo Cani Dog was there. And
him
was the Dun Cow gazing at!

“Out! Out! Out!” roared the Rooster, still without the benefit of his mouth. “My place isn't yours anymore, Dog! Get out of the Coop! Out of the camp! Die, you loathsome—”

But no one seemed to mind his bellowing. Neither the Dun Cow, who had now begun to shape her mouth as if talking; nor the Dog, whose bent head and hanging ears were lost in listening; nor the Hen— The Hen!

“Pertelote! You too?”

Chauntecleer was sick.

The two who had been closest to him, whom he had loved most deeply, these had stolen from him the warm attention and the healing gaze of the Dun Cow!
They
were the chief conspirators! Having taken his life—covering and leaving him to die—now they were burying him, cutting him off from the one being who could give him life again. So the Dun Cow would feed a filthy Dog, while a Rooster perished. And a Hen could watch the murder without guilt!

“Now I know, Pertelote! Now I know there's nothing left for me!” Chauntecleer's sorrow on his own behalf was immeasurable.

But the next thing that he saw silenced and confused him.

Obeying some direction from within her, the Dun Cow stepped back from the Dog. As she did, her gaze for him grew more and more anguished. Her very eyes began to melt for grief, and her face contorted in an agony. “Oooo, Mundo Cani,” she groaned in a wonderful voice.

It was clear that she was suffering, and that for the Dog. But he remained still and bowed, listening, listening.

“Oooo, Mundo Cani,” again in that terrible moan.

Suddenly she swung round to the wall of the Coop, closed her eyes, and cracked her head against the wooden beams, all in one hard motion. Not her head— her
horn
! Again and again she hit the wood with the side of her horn, bunching the muscles in her neck, throwing the entire weight of her body behind each blow, weeping. Again and again the Coop shook under the assault. Then a splitting sound shivered the air, a cry of pain: The horn broke off at the skull, and fell to the ground like lumber.

Neither Mundo Cani nor Pertelote had moved an inch. It was as if the Dun Cow were still speaking quietly at their ears. But she wasn't. From the door of the Coop she was regarding the Dog with an inexpressible sorrow. She had but one horn remaining, for the other she had left behind. The Cow had become a cripple.

Then, just before she turned to walk away, she raised her eyes and looked directly at Chauntecleer.

“Modicae fidei
,” she said in the hidden language, but the Rooster heard her with absolute clarity; her voice was like a waterfall.
“Quare dubitasti
? Chauntecleer, Chauntecleer! Don't you know yet that it is all for you? Ah, no, and you will not know till done is done for good.”

The look and the language pierced him utterly. He woke up.

The colors, the death pall, the self-pity, the vicious conspiracy against him, the Dun Cow and her final glance—all whirled in the Rooster's brains, together with the outrageous pain of his body.

“Who are you?” he said to the air, because the Dun Cow was truly gone. This time he used his mouth for the question, and a pale, stupid voice—but a real one—came out.

“Maybe this, maybe that.” Mundo Cani answered the question as he stood beside Chauntecleer's bed. “Me the Rooster used to know. My back he used to stand on when he crowed the morning in. But a back may change, God knows. And a Dog who was this yesterday may be that today.”

How long had the Dog been pattering this useless speech, word after mumbled, meaningless word? It seemed to Chauntecleer that it had been a very long time.

“After what he has done to Cockatrice, after that victory, should I be surprised if the Rooster doesn't know who I am?”

Painfully Chauntecleer turned his head away from the Coop wall. He perceived a nose—and instantly he hated that nose more than anything else in the whole world. It was the nose on the face of failure. Not the cause, but the symbol of their hopeless predicament. And it was worn by one who could betray!

“Filthy—mongrel,” Chauntecleer groaned in a metal voice. “Deserted—me.”

“The Rooster—” Mundo Cani said, new light flashing in his eyes, his throat swallowing again and again, the whole Dog trying hard not to weep. “My Rooster! You are alive! You're talking!”

“I—disown—you,” Chauntecleer rasped, focusing on the nose and trembling that it should be so close to him. “I never—knew—you.”

“Oh, glory be!” Mundo Cani cried. He backed away a step and broke into a little dance. “Glory be to God! Master of the Universe, he lives!”

“Fool!” Chauntecleer shouted, and the pain of that shout nearly split his being into two. “Get,” he whispered, glaring like Cockatrice himself, “out of my—sight.”

Then Mundo Cani did leave him, and Chauntecleer counted that a tiny victory. With all his heart he desired that Mundo Cani should hurt, should feel a guilt more intense than the Dog had ever felt before. Oh, that nose was a vile thing!

But it was a passing victory. The nose was back in a second, bouncing its jubilation and bringing Pertelote behind.

“Words he spoke to me,” the Dog explained.

The Hen came very close to Chauntecleer and searched him gently for his wounds. Chauntecleer tried to pull back from her and failed. He could not command his broken body anymore. Helpless!

“You,” he leered at the Hen, “and the Dun Cow, what?” He made a ghastly attempt at a nod, an accusing nod. “A Dog and a Hen. So. And the Dun Cow. So. I know. I know. You are against me.”

“Things and stuff, Pertelote,” Mundo Cani said, sympathy and joy stuck together in his throat. “The poor Rooster wanders in his brains. Confused he has a right to be after such a struggle with Cockatrice.”

Chauntecleer blazed with anger. Stars burst in his head, and he nearly passed out again from the pain.

But Pertelote ignored Mundo Cani's explanation and spoke sincerely to Chauntecleer himself. “Who is this Dun Cow?” she asked. “Chauntecleer, what are you trying to tell us? We can't wait much longer to act the final act. The river, Chauntecleer. The river is at the wall of the camp. If you know anything at all, tell us, and help us to understand.”

At this new information the Rooster squeezed his eyes shut. The expression on his face jumped and twisted dreadfully. His sad, ragged body began to shake, and a thin hiss escaped his mouth. Chauntecleer had begun to laugh!

“Then you too—are going—to die,” the ruined Rooster giggled. “Justice.”

“Chauntecleer!” Pertelote stood back, shocked. “Is that what you have to say to us?”

“He is sick,” Mundo Cani said quietly, himself astonished at the depth of the sickness. “He does not know what he says.”

Oh, God! Chauntecleer thought to himself. The treachery of that nose! Self-righteous nose!

Aloud he whispered furiously: “I am dying. We are all going to die. You are going to die. There is nothing left to do.”

“No!” Mundo Cani cried, suddenly full of authority. “There is still something left to be done.”

And Pertelote, too, as if it ought to make a difference to the Rooster, said, “There
is
, Chauntecleer. There is something yet to do.”

But Chauntecleer fixed them with his haunted eyes: “Wyrm is at the wall. Cockatrice was nothing. Wyrm is everything. You two—you betrayed me. You made a way for him. Wyrm will win. Now, get away from me—and let me die alone.”

Neither Mundo Cani nor Pertelote made an answer to this speech. They stood side by side, in absolute silence, staring at the Rooster; and the Rooster, for his part, met their stare with his own, challenging, threatening, coldly triumphant, gleaming. He had hurt them! He had found the right thing to say. The nose was powerless.

But, whereas they should have bowed their heads and skulked away, leaving him alone, they didn't. A minute. Two. Five, and then ten—they continued to stare at him with an unbroken astonishment. Not as if they were waiting for another word, but rather stunned by the stranger in front of them.

Then tears began to gather in Mundo Cani's eyes, and his gaze grew mortally woeful, grieving. The tears spilled over unnoticed, ran freely down either side of the nose; and Chauntecleer saw that the Dog's eyes were brown, soft, and full of an inexpressible sorrow.

Finally Mundo Cani did bow his head. He said something to Pertelote without looking at her. When she did not move, he used his enormous nose to nudge her gently, push by push, to a far corner in the Coop. Then he walked sadly to the Rooster.

“There is still something left to be done,” he said. He opened his mouth, lowered it over Chauntecleer, and lifted the Rooster bodily from his bed, between jaws hard and wet.

Chauntecleer's mind buzzed at Mundo Cani's strange behavior. For one instant he thought he would struggle against the teeth; Gaff and the Slasher were still bound to his spurs. But he was helpless, dying, and the Dog's bite was simply too strong for him. So he gave up. He didn't care. Dying is dying, however it may happen. And if a Dog was soon to crush him body and bones, then he, Chauntecleer, would make the only choice left to him in a hopeless world: He would say nothing. He would die in silence—tragically, but with a hero's dignity.

You see? You see? He thought to himself. I was right. It had to come to this.

But Mundo Cani did not bite him to death on the spot. Neither did he chew the Rooster slowly. Instead, he turned, glanced at Pertelote, then stepped out of the Coop into the white light of the day. Neither did he stop once he was outside.

He began to walk through the camp with the Rooster in his mouth.

Well, dying is dying, to be sure; but some dying is more decent and respectable and dignified than other dying. And the farther Mundo Cani carried him through the camp, the more Chauntecleer woke up to the indignity of this kind of dying.

Here were his wings and legs all trussed up in this satchel of a mouth, his head upside down, his comb brushing the dust of the earth! Underneath the greater, more tragic feelings contending in his soul, Chauntecleer began to experience a tiny twinge of irritation: A mouth simply cannot compare to a bed for dying in.

What did the Dog think he was doing after all? What could possibly happen outside that might not be done in the Coop, and done better? Murder knows no place. It doesn't need to be public. Chauntecleer's twinge of irritation turned into positive displeasure; and in spite of his pain he did, now, try to squirm, to stitch Mundo Cani's throat with the point of the Slasher; but the effort was useless. Chauntecleer gave it up and looked around.

Behold! His own animals—the animals for whom he had fought Cockatrice to the death, the animals over whom he was Lord and leader—were lining up on either side of Mundo Cani's progress and were staring at this indignity!

So what did this Dog think he was doing?

At first the animals only looked in wonderment, simply bewildered, not one of them offering assistance to their Lord or the least expression of sympathy. They gaped, and Chauntecleer was stung. He put a noble, wounded look upon his face. What was his death? A show for everybody to see?

But then Tick-tock the Black Ant popped. Perhaps the long strain of this war had finally affected his manners, his propriety, his soldierly poise. Or maybe the fact that Wyrm and the river were so impossibly close to them all had unloosed his senses. Whatever the reason, when Tick-tock saw this sight he began to giggle a crazy giggle. He didn't mean to. As soon as the giggle had dribbled out, he stooped over and buried his tiny black head in the dirt. But his little body shook, and the giggle came out anyway.

That giggle started things. As if on command, a thousand Black Ants broke ranks and all of them began giggling, too. And then many animals were giggling. They hid their giggles as best they could. They were ashamed of them. But they couldn't help it, and they giggled nonetheless.

Chauntecleer's head, his comb, and his wattles were hanging like baggage out of one side of Mundo Cani's mouth. Out of the other side there stuck his proud flag of a tail. And Mundo Cani held his own head, with all its ornaments, very high.

Now, a giggle is only the promise of things to come. It is the weakness in a strong defense; and once this weakness has been found, the rest of the attack is sure to follow. The animals were attacked. All in spite of themselves, shaking their heads and full of guilt at what they were doing, they exploded. They burst out laughing.

Chauntecleer wasn't displeased anymore. He was mortified.

“You sack!” he cried; and the pain which stabbed him from that cry assured him that this ridiculous ride was not a dream.

But Mundo Cani took no notice—either of the Rooster's rage or of the insane laughter all around him. He continued to walk steadily toward the wall.

“What the devil is the matter with you?” Chauntecleer roared from his upside-down head. “I told
you
to get away! Not to take
me
away!” Then he coughed.

The more the Rooster cared about his humiliation, the less he cared about his pain. Oh, he would endure the pain, if only he could get three bloody-honest swear words in at this outrageous mongrel!

Animals were falling down all around him, helpless in their laughter. Weasels rolled and pounded the ground. Otters slithered on their backs, kicking the air and holding their sides. Sheep sniggered out of the corners of their mouths. Pigs lowered their eyes and burped offensively. The Ducks and the Geese set up an infuriating beeping, and even the Hens—lo, the Hens! The Hens cackled like stuffed nincompoops!

The whole camp dithered and giggled, shouted, roared, snorted, and
laughed
. And they weren't ashamed of it anymore! At the lip edge of disaster they had all gone mad. And Mundo Cani, his mouth stuffed full of a Rooster, his head high and purposeful, saw nothing of it.

But Chauntecleer—the worse he felt, the better he felt. He prayed earnestly for the chance to kick a certain nose until it swelled as big as a tree. He was ready. By God, he was ready to live again for the sake of revenge!

“Ack! You suitcase! There are
ways
to carry a Lord among his animals!—”

BOOM!

Water surged straight up above the edge of the wall—a wave that hit the sky and then fell back down upon itself.

Chauntecleer's eyes popped open. He was silenced. The animals, too, fell suddenly silent before the enormity of the wave and the nearness of its power.

Only Mundo Cani remained unchanged. Forward toward the wall he walked with the same speed. And when he had reached it, without the least hesitation, he began to climb it.

BOOM!

The belly of the wave was right before Chauntecleer's face. He wanted to lunge backward from the ripping water, but he couldn't. Mundo Cani had laid him on the top of the wall, and then had placed a paw on top of him—was looking into his eyes.

“Mundo Cani!” Chauntecleer cried. “Look at it!”

The Dog didn't, but the Rooster did. From the trench to the horizon was the river, heaving great gouts of water at the sky. Massive waves rushed out of this sea to the camp and broke themselves against its poor wall. Mountainous, furious waves, foaming in their rage, slammed into the wall, leaped straight toward the sky, hissed and sprayed everywhere, then rained back down as from a storm.

The animals huddled in the center of the camp. All at once they seemed to be miserably few. But Pertelote had stepped away from them and now was herself approaching the wall.

“Pertelote!” Chauntecleer cried. “You don't want to be here! Get back! Save yourself!”

BOOM!

But neither the wave nor the Rooster's warning turned her around. She began to climb the wall.

“Forgive this Dog,” Mundo Cani shouted close to Chauntecleer's ear, “but the Rooster was wrong. He is
not
going to die. There is still something to be done.”

Pertelote was with them, now. As if it were her duty, she embraced the Rooster with a strange strength, and the Dog removed his paw.

Chauntecleer's eye rolled back and forth between the sad band within the camp and the spouting black water without. “There is nothing to be done anymore,” he said—to himself, for the roaring waters killed his words.

“Something!” Mundo Cani shouted. There was a yearning in his eyes that he be understood. “One thing left to do. I am going away.”

“What!” Chauntecleer would have stood up to face the Dog, except that Pertelote's hold restrained him.

“This Dog must leave now.”

Chauntecleer's eyes blazed. “This is an answer?”

“It must be done.”

“I
knew
it, you wretch! No dream at all, but the truth I saw—I knew you for a traitor! You wretch! Oh, you wretch! Be gone and be damned, you and your everlasting tumor. It'll do you no good!”

For the second time in a little while, Mundo Cani gazed upon Chauntecleer with a stricken pain. Chauntecleer turned his head away and stared at the heaving sea on the other side of the wall.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The waves hit the wall in running succession. Something, something soon must break under such an almighty bombardment.

When the Rooster looked back again, the Dog had gone. Pertelote and he were alone on top of the wall.

It was then that the earth opened up.