Free The Book of the Dun Cow by Walter Wangerin Jr. Page A

turned her head. With a ghastly determination the Hen tried to pierce the Rooster’s eyes with her beak. But Chauntecleer put down his head, letting her cut his neck, and he started to cry. Not for any pain he cried, but because he was exhausted; and because the weather had been so damnably careless; and because she was hitting him at all. He held her tightly, and he cried.
    Then, as they churned in the water, Chauntecleer’s cast of mud began to melt and to break up. Chunks of it floated off, or sank; and his wound opened again and began to bleed. His blood colored the water.
    It was the blood which made the Hen gutter in her throat and finally stop her screaming: for in a moment she was staring at her own feathers, where it stained her. Then she searched the Rooster before her, gazed at his chest and stomach, where there was no longer the grey mud but golden feathers and a bleeding wound. She closed her mouth and looked stricken in her soul. “You’re hurt,” she said strangely. “You can be hurt. Oh, look how badly you are hurt.”
    Chauntecleer was able to pull her to shore, still holding her tight, tighter than ever. And the two of them lay down in the rain for a while. Both of them were trembling violently. Both of them were crying.

[NINE] Through autumn Chauntecleer’s Coop is a hospital, though one full of good cheer
[NINE] Through autumn Chauntecleer’s Coop is a hospital, though one full of good cheer
    The rain never stopped.
    Sometimes it was no more than a chill mist sitting on the air; other times it came down suddenly, like an angry fist, and the Coop shuddered against it. The sky stood iron above. And the weird wind was ever out of the east.
    The trees lost their leaves, but there was no beauty in it this year, nor any color but rot. It was as if they had simply given up to the moisture and the cold, and forgotten life. Nor was there any crackling of dry leaves, nor the sharp scent—clean and musty—of falling leaves, nor the blue bite of the year going out. Damp foliage was stripped from the trees by an everlasting rain. The naked trees shivered. That was all.
    But if mud and a bleak season lay all around, then Chauntecleer’s Coop was a warm, blessed island in the middle of it all. This little company of creatures was proof against dreariness, and together they were very happy.
    On account of the strange weather, they lived in an unending twilight; yet the Rooster must have had a rising and setting sun on the inside of him, for lauds and prime he always crowed on time; terce, sext, and none he observed ever on the button; vespers and compline he kept as they should be kept—and his small society was kept very well that way.
    Chattering and motion and light and warmth filled the Coop, as if it were a little furnace in a dark land. Food went into stomachs; gossip attended every ear; and the good cheer of the morning made waking a pleasant thing, while friendship—which filled the evenings—made sleep a good conclusion. The creatures were happy, because they were busy with good and important matters:
    Four adults and seven children needed constant care, for they were convalescing. And thirty Hens, a Weasel occasionally visiting, a contingent of Black Ants, a Fox of Good Sense (Lord Russel by name), and several others were all more than willing to give these sick ones that care.
    Four adults: Chauntecleer himself healed more quickly than anyone else. This was not just because he had so strong a constitution, one well able to knit even the most open wound. But this was also because his spirits were so high. Chauntecleer laughed enormously and often, these days. He talked much; and he would talk on any topic available, to anyone who asked a question. And, given more than two ears listening to his words with earnest attention, the Rooster began to fancy himself a philosopher. He stared at the ceiling and spoke grandly of God and of the ways of the Deity; he