The Third Book of the Dun Cow: Peace at the Last (10 page)

The Plain Brown Bird still flies. She has not entered.

Two Wolves fall into the crater, locked together, snarling, bleeding, fangs sunk in each other’s flesh: Boreas and the saddle-backed Rutt roll down over the lifeless bodies, then find footing, rise up and pull back. Rutt has the advantage. Boreas was already wounded. She is empowered by the greater hatred. She has laid his shoulder bare, has gashed it to the grey bone.

The White Wolf can’t catch his breath. His chest heaves. Bloody bubbles pop at his nostrils. The She-Wolf shakes her ruff, steps back, grins in triumph, prepares to slaughter her enemy and to feed on his liver.

Once in her past Least had been seduced into piercing the brain of a monster with her slender bill and killing him.

Now the piercing is necessary and no shame.

She swoops down. She aims her needle beak at the She-Wolf’s eye, stabs it bloody, then stabs the other.

Rutt howls, not for pain, but for rage. Blood runs down her cheeks like tears.

The advantage has shifted.

Boreas takes his time. He breathes deeply. He fills his lungs and gathers his strength and walks slowly to blind Rutt and crushes her skull between his jaws. The limbs of the saddle-backed Wolf kick out in spasms, then merely quiver, and then she lies inert.

The White Wolf crumples beside the corpse of the She-Wolf and passes out.

Least has done what she can. She flies after the rest of the Animals and flits into the rock.

Without their leader, without the tongues that commanded them, the Bestial horde becomes confused. Some wander, lost. Some fall upon others. A babble of nonsense echoes around the crater.

Only Pertelote is left behind. Only Pertelote sees what Boreas has accomplished. And she grieves. She determines to stay by him. When his soul flies upward, she will sit vigil beside him, singing his memorial. Then she will walk the earth, telling the tales of two who once were grand: of Boreas the White Wolf and of Chauntecleer, the golden Rooster.

“Lady?”

Pertelote turns.

The Cream-Wolf has issued from the monument. She speaks with confidence. “Lady, for love you must follow your band into the living stone, and for love I must remain behind to nurse Boreas. I have a thing to tell him.”

Pertelote obeys. She spreads her wings and rises in an unspoken farewell, then flies with a full heart into the living monolith.

Pertelote’s skills at healing were not lost on Wachanga—patience being the healer’s first quality.

As long as he lies unconscious, Wachanga licks the White Wolf’s wounds. She murmurs his name over and over. She mounts the rubble-steps of the crater. She cannot fly for medicinals like the Raven, but she is tireless in the search and brings back frozen leaves and berries and tree bark. She thaws these in her mouth. She chews them into a mash. She collects fat from Bears’ bellies and mixes the vegetation with the fat, creating a Pertelote-poultice which she laves on the White Wolf’s wound. Softly, day and night, she sings the lullaby:

“God grant thee goodness, O my dear,

And laughter.

God grant thee life through all our years

Hereafter.”

Wachanga spurts water through her lips into his mouth. Again (and again) she mounts the crater’s wall and forages for food. She massages the White Wolf’s throat in order to remind him how to swallow. Even so the Cream-Wolf salves his injuries, grants solace to his mind, and cools his inflammations.

Often she murmurs in his ear, “I have such a lovely thing to tell you, Boreas.”

When his white eyes open and he recognizes her, Boreas whispers, “Wachanga.”

His eyes close again and he sleeps while she weeps for the resurrection.

In the morning Boreas wakes again. He manages a smile.

She whispers, “Can you hear me?”

Boreas nods.

Wachanga says, “Oh Boreas, our future is in my womb: when spring comes round again, I will bear you children.”

By means of these two wolves and the four to come, God favors the world. He populates the earth with a love that lasts even down to this present day.

Once the two Wolves have abandoned the place of Borea’s convalescence, Rutt’s daughter arrives at the crater. She descends the putrefying ramp of the dead Beasts’ bodies and walks across the floor to her mother’s corpse. It is her own, this is Freya’s own victory march.

Thin, tendril Maggots wriggle in Rutt’s eye-sockets. They crowd her mouth and flow from her guts like an amber waterfall. Her carcass smells of corruption. Shreds of flesh cling to the bones. Rutt’s sinews have popped and her veins are unplugged. What dugs remain on Freya’s mother’s breast have hardened into knobs.

Freya has her own teats now, fresh and unspoiled. And Freya is world-wise. She knows that the scent of her vulva can drive a male Wolf mad.

She has the handsome aspect of her mother, and the willfulness. On the other hand, Freya has the dominating self-assurance of her father. She will get by. But not in the company of other Wolves. No pack for her. She intends to concern herself with no one
but
herself. She might one day decide to spawn daughters in her own image. But if she did, it would be when
she
was ready. Or she may not reproduce at all. Why bear children who might one day challenge her as she had challenged her mother? Or maybe she would simply abandon her pups. Let some other foolhardy female raise them.

All in good time.

For now it is enough to gaze upon her mother defeated, all her days and all her rages come to nothing.

Rutt had not the the cunning of survival. Her malice was all too evident.

Freya will do better. Her end will be no end at all.

A Hen and a Weasel are walking across a greensward field, discussing matters of their past. They nod, remembering. The Hen comments, the Weasel glances at her, and they laugh like old folks playing cards.

No scars on the Weasel now. He has both ears, the ears he was born with. His pelage is brushed, supple, and glossy.

The Hen’s feathers shine as white as the gown of an angel. The feathers on her throat blaze crimson. Her comb is a crown and her wattles are the tags of majesty.

The summer sun washes the field with a translucent light.

All is well.

On the banks of the horizons left and right tower white clouds. Their shapes change in a slow transformation. They are cathedrals. They are Wolves in various postures, sitting, standing, sometimes their heads are thrown back as if to howl, but the clouds are soundless. Perhaps the shifting of their shapes comes of the shadows that change under the sun’s passage.

As the Hen and the Weasel walk, they remember sorrows too. If they didn’t, they would not be whole. They contain everything they’ve ever experienced. They are their past, and the past forms their identities.

But though sorrow must be remembered, the grief is gone.

The friends walk along a crystal river. Ahead of them there grows a single Tree which is rooted on either side of the water, whose trunks join into one above the river. The Tree bears twelve kinds of fruit. Apples fall simply by the asking. Blossoms cover its almond branches like snow. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of every affliction.

The sky is eternal. The earth is steadfast. Green hills establish the farther slope of the field. The sun before them smiles, and the moon behind them reflects his light.

In this place life has become Life.

The Hen says, “We were married in a snowfall, Chauntecleer and I.”

“Critters,” says the Weasel, “what gives pretty presents to Bridie and Bridiegroom..”

“The Coop,” the Hen murmurs. “Oh, John, sweet were the good old days.”

“Cozynesses,” the Weasel agrees.

“And we bore children.”

“Scootery bitty-butts.”

“Chauntecleer named the Chicks. And Tick-Tock the Black Ant with his regiments entertained them. Russel the Fox taught them … Oh, John, let’s not mention what came after.”

“Unmentionables.”

They walk in silence. The wind through the mouths of the clouds murmurs assents and benedictions.

Suddenly the Hen pauses and lays a wing upon her breast. “Oh,” she whispers.

The Weasel says, “Not John. John, he don’t mentions a word of unmentionables, not a Chickie-cheep.”

“No, John,” says the Hen, “Look.”

The Weasel looks toward the green hill.

“Mudslidings,” he says.

“John! It’s an Animal running! Long legged, his ears flapping in the wind.”

The Weasel says, “Boom-feeted!”

The galloping Creature howls a most piteous howl: “Maroooooooned!”

Pertelote can’t believe what she sees and hears. But the evidence is in the howling, and she knows the voice.

“Mundo Cani!” she cries. “It’s Mundo Cani Dog!”

“Woe is me!” the great Dog bellows. “No one should look on such a woe as me!”

Yet he pounds across the field like celebration. His nose is a boot of old leather. His bones are rangy and his paws huge.

At the last instant the Dog leaves the earth and crashes into the Weasel, who somersaults backward, then scrambles to his feet.

“Terpsichore Mutt!” John yells, wiping drool from his face. “Is
ways
to love-smack a Weasel!”

The beautiful Hen smiles and swells with well-being.

“Mundo Cani, Mundo Cani, I never thought I’d see you again.”

“Oh, I am such a mortal woe.” Tears pour from the Dog’s eyes. Snot-drops run from his nose. It is in this way that Mundo Cani rejoices.

“A Dog should never impose his nose,” he sobs. “A Dog should jump in the river before he—”

But Mundo Cani cannot restrain himself. He kisses Pertelote. Which is to say, he slobbers on her. He wipes her whole head wet and with a tongue as wide as a sopping towel. “’Or-’ive!” he weeps without the benefit of a tongue. “’Or-’ive.” Which is to say,
Forgive. Forgive—
because he simply cannot help himself.

Suddenly Pertelote draws back and says, “Did you hear that?”

Mundo Cani grieves: “Oh, let a Dog go where a Dog deserves!”

“John Wesley, did you hear that?”

From the hilltop ahead of them comes a stunning, clarion Crow.

Pertelote holds her breath, fearful that she has only imagined the Crow.

The Dog whips around.

John Wesley hops up and down. “Him what is Lord-and-Master-of-All!”

Cock of the hilltops he is a medallion on the heights! Golden below the sky! He is a Rooster robed in glory and singing a supreme greeting.

Pertelote spreads her wings and strokes the intermediate air.

Come closer, beloved. Come closer.

His legs are azure, his comb as red as coral, his tail a very fountain of feathers, his toenails white and as smooth as pebbles.

Come, my Beautiful Pertelote. Come to me.

She does. She lands directly in front of him. He looks on her and smiles.

“Well met, my young and lovely wife.”

She says, “Chauntecleer,” then loses her words in sobbings.

The Rooster kisses the Hen’s vermillion throat.

“Thou art an archangel, Pertelote. The Animals I have loved—you guided them across treacherous lands to the Lord God. Tenacious, bold, unstinting—how I love you.”

Pertelote says, “This is enough, my husband. You are my reward.”

“Not quite enough. Look behind you.”

At first Pertelote is mystified. And then—

Oh, blessings upon blessings! It is almost more than the poor Hen can bear. For here come her three children, zipping up the back of the hill and peeping with delight.

“One Pin,” the Rooster announces. “And Five Pin—”

The three Chicks scoot to their mother’s breast.

And she laughs the third name: “Ten Pin! All my pretty little Pins!”

The Rooster watches the sweet reunion. He grins. His chest swells. “Rewards,” he says, “and yet more rewards.”

Pertelote raises her face and looks again down the far side of the hill.

“All is finished,” says Chauntecleer. “But all is not yet finished.”

Pertelote hears fine confabulations, chit-chattings, busy gossipings.

Up the hill whence her children came comes a great to-do of Creatures:

Twenty Hens as happy as ice cream, among them that skinny Hen Chalcedony blooming with well-being. A Stag, Black-Pale on a Silver Field, who carries a majestic, sixteen pointed set of antlers on his head. Another Stag named Nimbus, who perished in the battles against Wyrm’s minions. And Benoni! That little Coyote!

Quietly arrives a Marten. He seeks no attention—not because he hides the past hungers of his stomach, but because his
soul
in this green place is no longer hungry.

Suddenly John Wesley Weasel dances and cavorts all out of mind. “Wee Widow Mouse!” he cries. “What cleans in spring! Hoopla! Hoopla! Is a Weasel wants to kiss a Mouse—if a Mouse don’t hates tickly whiskers.”

Now, across the greensward before her, comes Pertelote’s own little band of Animals.

Otters mad-dashing up and over and down the banks of the river. A Doe with a tawny coat, walking on long, graceful legs who, when she recognizes her father on the hill, bounds fifteen and twenty feet until she reaches him, and he murmurs, “How like your mother you have grown.”

Seven Mice roll in a happy dither—until they too recognize the Wee Mouse on the Hill. “Mother! Mother!”

A Ground Squirrel walks with dignity to the ground beneath the double-trunk tree and begins to dig a hole. Another Ground Squirrel comes and sits like a pepper-shaker beside him, smiling and saying nothing.

Black Ants quick-march hither, their Captain crying, “Whee-ya-hoo!”

A Fox!
Russel
the Fox, talking and talking whether anyone’s listening or not. It doesn’t matter, for talking is how he knows he is alive.

A rust-red Coyote comes strutting as if he were a citizen of the whole wide world, his two daughters trotting beside him, each with a cheerful little Chick riding her ruff.

All at once Ferric Coyote is streaking toward the hill. In a choked howl he cries, “Rachel! Oh, my Rachel!” And when he has achieved the top of the hill, he plain breaks down and boo-hoos. For here is his wife and his buster-pup Benoni. “Papa,” says Benoni, “don’t be sad.”

A Plain Brown Bird drops from the sky and twitters to the brave Benoni, “My name is Least. Call me Least. Can you say Least? It’s my name.”

The cub cries, “Least! Least! But ‘Auntie’ was a good name too.”

“Hey, hey, hey!” As if the sky were an eye, it has a speck in it. “My best bro Weasel!” The speck has a voice like a trashcan. “Hot-To-Trot! Captain of a band, how ya doin’ these days? Fuss-budgeting as always?”

The Weasel growls, “Damn Boogaloo Crow.”

The beautiful Hen suffers a fleeting moment of sadness. “I’m sorry, Kangi Sapa,” she murmurs. “Wachanga isn’t here to meet you.”

The Raven doesn’t so much land as dumps himself on the green grass.

“Hey ho, Mrs. P! I’m chuck
full
of stories now!”

Pertelote’s apology is swallowed up in a wonder. The Hen sees one last Creature walking up the back of the hillside, a Hen groomed and, by her aspect, kindly.

“You too,” the Hen murmurs. “You are coming too.”

The lesser Hen stops before the greater. She bows her head and waits, uncertain how she may be received.

Pertelote with flames at her throat lays a wing on the other Hen’s neck. “Jasper,” she says, “all is well and all things very well.”

Kangi Sapa laughs at so much happiness.

“Shut your boogaloo beak,” the Weasel scolds the Raven. “Is Chantycleer here. Is Chantycleer what’s getting ready to crow Compline-ings.”

“Hey, bro, I don’t know from Chanty … What’s Comp—”

“Shut, shut,
shut
your clacky beak, or John ties a Crow’s tongue in knots.”

And these are the dreams the Dun Cow dreams.

Lord Chauntecleer the Rooster draws a long breath and extends his neck and trumpets a brilliant
Laudamus.
Praise for mercy. Praise for grace.

The congregation of Animals peopling the fields and the hills falls silent. Eyes of every kind. The four leggeds, the two leggeds, and the feathered—all gaze up to the Rooster splendid on the hill.

He surveys them all, the Creatures whom he has loved. Finished now is finished altogether.

Chauntecleer chants:

“This is the gladness that knows no end,

Alleluia!

We are the hosts of Heaven now,

Alleluia!

This is the land whose citizens

Wear pure white gowns.”

The Creatures shiver to hear such holiness.

The Hen beside the Rooster whispers, “O my God, the homecoming.”

Then Pertelote joins Chauntecleer’s choral song, repeating his words with her own sweet, crystalline echo:

“Death shall be no more, nor fears.

Nor fears.

Tears, afflictions, pain, my dears,

My dears,

Are past.

We are one brilliant unity,

One unity,

Robed in glory, clothed in peace

Souls at peace

At last.

At last.

These are the dreams the Dun Cow dreams, she who was born and bred of the breath of God.

She lows, her voice like the wind over a long pipe. And the towering clouds bow down. The greensward land is filled with the Cow’s luminous music, and every Creature is embraced.

And this is the word with which the Dun Cow brings the tale to its end:

“Amen.”