The Third Book of the Dun Cow: Peace at the Last (2 page)

Then Rutt watched, appalled, as Eurus instructed the pups to obey this strange female, and she to keep them entertained during his pack’s hunts. He told her the names of his sons. Likewise, with a wicked glance at Rutt, Eurus named the new Wolf.

“Snowtra,” which meant “Wise and of a gentle bearing.”

Then what was Rutt? Rude? Rough? Unlovely?

Actually, Rutt thought she’d seen the Cream-Colored Wolf before. They seemed to be of the same age. They seemed to use the same manner of speech. But she couldn’t recall the time or the place.

Sweet spring! The pups delighted in the presence of the Cream-Colored Wolf. She made up games of twigs and feathers. She sang rhymes to them at night. They tried mightily to sing along, but were unable to form the words. Their songs were little yips and treble howls. Through the summer the Cream-Wolf wondered at their inability to learn language. They responded to the tones of her speech and her gestures, but not to the sense of her words. And then she realized that neither did Crook speak.

Soon Eurus realized that the pups’ nurse was painfully shy. When he looked at her she could not hold his gaze. What a contrast to the irascible Rutt!

He was moved to compliment her. He said, “Your coat is as strokeable as…” The gruesome Wolf sought some sort of simile. Then like a dandy he crooned, “Your coat’s as soft as cottonwood snow.”

As for the Cream-Wolf herself, she felt ashamed and at the same time fearful. Eurus had a languid leer in his yellow eye.

By the beginning of autumn the pups were pups no longer. They’d grown into lean, long-legged Wolves and had begun to run with the hunters. The Cream-Colored Wolf grew lonely for the loss of her companions. They were done with childish games, though her evening songs could sometimes compel them to sleep.

Worse than her loneliness, however, was the smoldering, personal animosity of the saddle-backed female.

Once a nurse, now a loner, the Cream-Colored Wolf retired to the edge of the pack. When they traveled she did too, but always wide of them. Eurus watched her through the forest trees.

Winter arrived. The Wolves grew a long covering of outer-hair against the snow and the cold.

As instinct had instructed Rutt in the rituals of birthing, so instinct taught the Cream-Wolf (she could never think of herself as “Snowtra,” and in her soul continued nameless), taught what Rutt’s blood-colored urine meant. And what the swelling of Rutt’s vulva meant. The body of the black-saddled She-Wolf was preparing to breed.

During one morning’s hunt the pack separated a Fawn from her mother and drove the hapless child onto the smooth ice of a lake where her legs splayed and left her helpless. It was Skoll who broke her neck. Immediately he tore her flank open and began to swallow the first-meat for himself—but this was the right of the dominant wolf alone. Eurus dashed at Skoll. Skoll turned and lowered his head and challenged his father. The hair bristled all down his back. As his father approached, Skoll raised a claw and slashed at him. Eurus wrinkled his snout, revealing his savage fangs. The two of them glared at each other. Then, on some fleeting signal, they leaped. They skidded on the ice. It was a clownish brawl, but Eurus managed to slash Skoll’s cheek. Skoll barked once, spat blood, backed away, and, holding his head high, left the pack, and never came back again.

It was anger that threw Eurus at Rutt, trying to pump her like a whore. But it was Rutt’s goddamn willfulness that refused him. She whirled around. She drove at his balls, then escaped the angry Wolf’s lust.

In the days that followed, the Cream-Colored Wolf could not deny the changes in her own body. She too was coming into heat. No matter how she strived to suppress it, her vulva sent forth a fetching scent.

Rutt caught the scent and despised the intruder all the more.

Eurus caught it too, and came sniffing at the Cream-Wolf’s sex. He made the mewing, weepy sounds of desire.

The maiden tried to run from his attentions, but he kept pace with her, bumping his side against hers, gesturing need and friendship.

Rutt slit her pale eyes as thin as knives and aimed her hatred at the bitch.

No matter to Rutt that the Cream-Colored Wolf kept turning away from Eurus. No matter how distressed she seemed, and no matter that she glanced at Rutt with appeals and apologies, the She-Wolf charged the poor maiden’s swollen vulva and bit the flesh with her incisors.

“Damn you,” Rutt hissed.

The Cream-Colored Wolf clamped her tail between her legs and dashed away. But Rutt chased after her and raked fur from the base of the poor Wolf’s tail until it was bald flesh.

The wounded maiden dashed into the bushes.

Immediately Rutt ran to Eurus. No stone bitch would ruin her place in the pack. No mirth, no hunger, no desire except to punish, Rutt whisked her thick tail to one side, spread her hind legs apart, offered Eurus the breach. And choking on his own desire, he mounted her, thrust himself violently into her, and began to rock until the tip of his penis swelled and they were locked together.

Under the huffing of her mate Rutt glared at the Cream-Wolf crouched among the bushes. Rutt’s pale eyes said,
I have him.
He’s mine. And so will your life be mine when I will feed on your
heart.

The Cream-Colored Wolf saw the oath, believed it, and ran top speed away.

Through the spring of her escape, and through most of the summer, the Wolf who does not know her name has wandered hopelessly through alien territories. The scent of the Ancients has given her a direction. Moreover, the scent comforted her, for though she might be solitary, the old Ancestors seemed to call to her, their spirits to hers:

Come along, child. Come home.

The Cream-Colored Wolf is scoop-stomached with hunger. Her frame has wasted down to bones. Her head and her paws seem unnaturally large. Her coat is mangy. Her ribs show. The scab at the base of her tail was torn off long ago. In its place is a scar, a rugged patch of bare skin.

Last spring she sustained herself on tender young shoots and mulberries. Now it’s black raspberries, bitter chokecherries, blueberries, mushrooms, sweet mosses, fern. No meat. It is not in her nature to kill.

She dribbles her own scent where she goes.
Yes. Wait for me. I am coming.

Pertelote the Hen, John Wesley Weasel, Ferric and his daughters, the Mad House of Otter, a number of gossiping Chickens, the Brothers Mice, the Fawn De La Couer, the Ground Squirrels, the Mr. and Mrs. Cobbs, a Plain Brown Bird—a small band of Animals is on the move. Their progress is slow enough to accommodate the Creatures of lesser legs.

Actually, the Fawn De La Coeur has grown into a handsome Doe quite capable of speed, but her loyalties rest with Pertelote and the barbarian Weasel. Besides, where would she go? It was good to stay with a small society of compatriots.

Boreas the White Wolf sometimes lopes ahead of the rest to reconnoiter the lands into which they are about to go. He returns and reports to Pertelote what he has seen. The Plain Brown Bird can fly aloft, but when she tires she rides the skull of Ferric Coyote.

If the band were traveling to some sacred place, they might be called Pilgrims, and the more difficult their passage, the greater their piety.

Or if they were seeking a homeland, they might be Pioneers. Or Itinerants trusting in the promises of God. Then they would be merely passing through the wilderness until they reached the Father’s land of milk and honey.

Or if they were Laborers in other Creatures’ fields, following the harvest, they would be Migrant Workers.

Or if they were Adventurers they could ennoble themselves by the title of Knights Errant.

If they were bearing good news abroad, and if they were poor on purpose, let all the world grant them a holy devotion, for they would be members of a Mendicant Order. Or Evangelists.

Or if escaping oppression, Refugees…

But each of these names implies some purpose to the journey. A something to do, somewhere to go. They have no place to go. They are Wanderers. They are Nomads. Call them Wayfarers.

For the home they left behind them had burned to the ground. And Pertelote could not stay in the place where her husband perished, nor would she abide in the land of Chauntecleer’s terrible sacrifice. That was nineteen months ago. Having no destination, then, she has been tending west—morning and evening following the sun.

Often Pertelote’s memories are so vivid that she seems to be in
them
rather than their being in her.

Good times:

How grand was her golden Rooster then! In the beginning his Animals honored him and were gladly unified by his Canonical Crows. They lived in the comfort of a warm Coop. And she, when she arrived there broken and frightened, was well received. The Hens nursed her back to health. And Chauntecleer fell in love with her. And they married. And they bore children. And springtime was the sweetest season of the year.

And God had vouchsafed to the Animals a grand purpose. They were the Keepers of Evil. Innocent, completely unaware of their significance, they were the Keepers of good order on the earth. Like a weaving their society bound great Wyrm in its dungeons below—Wyrm, that world-Serpent, greedy to break free and to destroy the whole creation of the Deity.

And terrible times:

Wyrm produced a vile progeny—Cockatrice, half serpent and half Rooster, who forced himself on Hen’s backs and bore a horde of fire-eyed Basilisks. These swam Wyrm’s swelling river all the way to Chauntecleer’s Coop and mounted a savage attack against its walls. Dear ones died in that attack. Pertelote’s children (God bless them all!) The Wee Widow Mouse, the mother of the seven Brothers. Turkeys, a Deer named Nimbus, a host of the Meek—and finally the stalwart Mundo Cani Dog. To be bereft of his friendship was her first sorrow, but not her last. For though the Coop had been crushed and toppled underground, and though no salvation could be hoped for, it was Mundo Cani who gave his life in order to shut Wyrm in the bowels of the earth again.

And good times:

Chauntecleer regathered his sweet Creatures in peace. Pertelote’s glorious husband then led his company to a finer home, a towering Hemlock Tree whose boughs became their shelter against all weathers, storms, ice, hatreds. When the iron Fimbul-Winter seized the land, Lord Chauntecleer organized his society and sent them forth to bring a harvest home. They stored foodstuffs of all kinds in larders and bins. He made them rich with sustenance, enough to see them through to spring. And when the Fimbul-Winter refused to raise its iron hand, when everywhere abroad other Animals began to starve, it was Chauntecleer who called them in and fed them.

Times most tragical:

Somehow Chauntecleer was beguiled into believing that he, he alone, could wipe out Wyrm for good with all but his weapons and his cunning. But the Rooster failed, and when he failed, he cursed himself and became dictatorial. This time it was Chauntecleer who became vulnerable to Evil’s whisperings. Evil infesting his brains. He raged at his Animals. He demanded that they become a military force to work his will against enemies only he perceived. Neither Pertelote nor John Wesley Weasel could break through his blind arrogance. Though the meekest of Creatures cringed, horrified by his fury, Chauntecleer made proselytes of some: Black Notos, the yellow-eyed Eurus, the fat Hen Jasper, Selkirk the Marten. Then the Rooster flat damned the rest and soared off to perform his cosmic battle.

Oh, the memories. Oh, the tormenting memories.

Chauntecleer did return to the Hemlock, but defeated, stricken into humility, and dying.

And this is how the bad times ended.

Chauntecleer found the moral strength to open his soul to the beautiful Pertelote. He begged mercy for all his transgressions. He begged the forgiveness of Ferric Coyote, whose wife and son he had killed. And Ferric, who bore his wife’s spirit in his breast, granted the Rooster absolution.

Oh, God, oh God, the times.

After the loss of the Hemlock Pertelote moved through a fog of bewilderment. The Hen had the odd sense of floating at sea and seemed to have forgotten duties and love and the Creatures still milling around that black flagstaff on a hill.

Having no center, Animals began to steal away. Those who had kept vigil over Lord Chauntecleer’s corpse no longer had a reason to stay. Beetles, Bees, Sheep, Rabbits, Wooly Worms—the four-leggeds, the two-leggeds, and the feathered—they all wandered off into oblivion.

Finally it was only the Creatures of her most intimate community—principally John Wesley Weasel, who had never suffered confusion—left near the Hen Pertelote.

John was a daylight Critter, cloudless among the realities, and irritated by the “By-Gaw miserablenesses” now encompassing him round about.

“Lady Hen!” he yelled to get her attention. “Lady Hen, is times for snappings-to! Past is past! Did is done! There is
here!
What’s the what the Lady Hen, she’s plannin’ to do?”

Pertelote’s gaze was still unfocused. The Weasel’s nattering sounded like snare drums in her ears.

John Wesley began to bounce. He put up his paws like fisticuffs and punched the air.

“Wakings up, Lady Hen! Comings to! John Double-U, he’s no leader of buggar-Beasts. No, not now, not neither ever. What John knows, he knows about doings-and-done!”

Then it seemed to Pertelote’s dreary eyes that little shadows were popping out of the ground and stealing to the Weasel.

One shadow said, “Step-Papa? Who are you fighting?”

The Weasel said, “Lacksy-daisycalnesses!”

The small shadow took shape. It started to hop, a minuter version of the Weasel’s bouncing. The shadow hopped and diddled the air with its—his!—own two tiny fists.

One of the Brothers Mice, then? Yes. Wodenstag.

Wodenstag said, “Where
is
Mr. Lacksy-daisy-what-you-call-it?”

“There,” said the Weasel, pointing at Ferric Coyote. “Is lazy as poop.”

The Mouse said, “You going to beat him up?”

The Weasel plucked a whisker from his snoot and gave it to the Mouse.

“Here,” said the Weasel. “Go overs to the rustified Coyote. Tickle Coyote’s nose.”

To another Brother John gave toothpick twigs. “Otters’s eyelids,” he said. “Prop ‘em open. You! Micey!” he called to Donnerstag, to whom he gave an empty snail’s shell. “Scrape wax from all-a the Buggars’ ears!”

Pertelote the Weasel saved for himself.

He strutted close to her, stood up on his hind legs, cupped his paws around his mouth and shouted, “Sadnesses is dyings! Dyings is sadnesses! John, he knows sadnesses. He cried a tear for the Rooster too.
One
tear, Lady Hen. Was all. One tear. He sat butt-by his Lady Hen. Oh, John—he was a Watch-Watcher over her misery-nesses.”

The Weasel pushed his snout close to her ear and yelled, “Pasts is pastnesses!”

Suddenly there came a tremendous Ferric-achoo! behind them. The Otters began to chitter dark complaints about eyes and eyelids. And ten Hens set up a squawking of insult and ear-violations.

“Looky,” John said to Pertelote, “Critters is bumfuzzled! Who’s the who what’s gonna
lead
them?”

Pertelote murmured, “I can’t stay here any more.”

“Hoopla!” cried the Weasel. “Where’s Lady Hen gonna take us?”

Pertelote repeated, “I can’t stay here any more.” Then she walked away.

“Up, Buggars,” John Wesley cried. “On your feets! Lady Hen, she gots plans and where-ats for going!”

Since then Pertelote’s Animals have braved the various seasons, but have never stayed in one place long.

The tangled, vine-whipped, leaf-rotten woods and its thorny undergrowth have made their going difficult. Chickens have been unhappy and besides that, embarrassed. How is a fastidious Hen to get cobwebs out of her eyes? The little tongues of little Mice could trick by the lickings. Okay. But how is a virtuous Hen to pluck burrs from her butt? Why, it’s too shameful to mention. The Chickens, therefore, did not so much poop as extrude.

Early in the summer of their travels Mr. Pertinax Cobb would hang back, gazing toward the east. Perhaps it was because the generations of his race had made their homes always under the Hemlock, and he was yearning to honor his forebears by maintaining the custom. Or perhaps it was just that he yearned a home where everything was familiar and he was its citizen.

As the community continued forward without him, Pertinax would pop upright and stand in sad meditations, his paws upon his chest—then, compulsively, start digging a tunnel underground.

“Mr. Cobb,” his wife would say.

“Not now!” he’d yip, digging, shooting dirt out between his legs.

“Indeed,” his wife would say. “A famous digger has to dig. It is in his born nature.”

“Right!”

“No one should interrupt a famous digger.”

“Right!”

“And you, Mr. Cobb, are a very famous digger.”

“Well, then,” answered Pertinax, his words muffled in the hole, “here is my reason. You should have a home, Mrs. Cobb.”

His wife sat musing, her bright bead of an eye resting on her husband’s labors. She was caught in a dilemma: whether to let her husband continue rooting, as it was his nature to do, or whether to argue what loneliness would be theirs once Pertelote and her good community had traveled away and left two Ground Squirrels behind.

Finally, love overcame Mrs. Cobb’s soul. “Mr. Cobb?” she said.

“Mrs. Cobb?”

“Where you are,
there
is my home.”

“Where the Animals are going, Mrs. Cobb, will be strange and dangerous.”

“But if you dig a den, then where will
we
be?”

“Comfy.”

“No, Mr. Cobb. Lonely.”

“Two can be friends.”

“But who will sing the songs for us?”

Mr. Cobb said, “Hmph.”

“And who will tell us jokes?”

“I can tell jokes.”

“Yes. You have two very funny jokes to tell. But who will laugh at your jokes?”

“You. Me.”

“Dear Mr. Cobb, you can’t laugh. And I have heard your jokes maybe three hundred times.”

In the end Mr. Cobb stopped digging holes. For the sake of his Mrs. Cobb he has traded a homeland for the blessings of good company. Mrs. Cobb, he admitted to himself, wouldn’t live happily if she were not surrounded by friends.