Chicken Feathers

by Joy Cowley

  It was Harrison who called out. “Hey, Splosh! Guess what I saw yesterday. In the woods at the back of your place! A great big red fox!”

  Wang-a-dang! Now there was proof! Harrison Binochette had seen the fox with his very own eyes. Josh ran back home, lit up with excitement, tingling to tell his father he’d been right all along. But the only person around was Grandma, and she was not impressed.

  “Fox? That’s nothing. We had wolves in our woods. Big and mean. You could hear them howling from one hilltop to another. Found wolf bones in a cave once. Bear got it. You washed your hands? Go and scrub up and make a job of it. You can set the table.”

  The light inside him went out. He looked at his hands. “Sure, Grandma.”

  “I hope you’re hungry, Joshua. It’s a good one tonight. Those cornmeal hush puppies you like and catfish in beer batter.”

  “Beer batter?” He looked at her. “Made with your brew?”

  “Best batter there is,” she said. “Don’t worry. Cooking drives off the alcohol. No kid gets drunk on my fried fish.”

  Beer batter, he thought. Brew, fox, hole, eggs. He headed for the door. “How long will supper be, Grandma?”

  “About as long as a piece of string. Don’t you forget that table!”

  “Right now, Grandma,” he said, and he went outside to find Semolina.

  Chapter Five

  CAULKING CEMENT HAD DRIED on Josh’s hands, and the only way to get it off was with a file from the tractor tool kit. He sat on the oil drum in the fading light, trying to see the difference between cement and skin. The setting sun shone through the poplars, touched the chicken houses with patches of fire and painted an orange glow on the floor of the tractor shed. “People still go around the world by sail,” he said to Semolina, who was crouched at his feet. “I want to do that one day.”

  “I ain’t going with you, buddy,” she said, wiping her beak on his shoe. With some effort she stood up and tottered over to the old cracked cup without a handle. It sat on the floor, empty. She let out a sound that was as close to a chicken sigh as he’d heard, then she used one of her longer words. “Pathetic!”

  “Sorry. Grandma’s catfish batter took most of the bottle. I only got what was left.” He rubbed his hands together. They sounded like sandpaper. “Folk say when the sun sets over the sea, there’s a green flash on the horizon.”

  “Ain’t so,” said Semolina. “Tarkah never lays her eggs over the sea. You ever see a chicken lay in water?”

  Josh laughed and slid down to the concrete floor. He patted his shirt, and the old hen waddled over and settled against his chest. He could feel her warmth, her heartbeat inches away from his own, and smell the brew on her breath. “I haven’t heard those Tarkah stories in the longest time,” he said. “Tell me again.”

  A veil of skin closed over her eyes, as though she was dreaming. “Tarkah is the first chicken, the mother of all the universe. One by one, she laid every star in the sky.”

  “You’re talking about God,” said Josh.

  “Yeah. You got it, buddy.”

  “But God isn’t a chicken,” Josh argued.

  “She is to chickens.” Semolina turned her head and unveiled a yellow eye. “You want me to tell this story or what?”

  “Go on.”

  “The earth egg was a real goodie. So Tarkah said, ‘This egg will grow all my family.’ So she sat on the earth egg for thousands of years until the mountains cracked and out flew birds of all kinds, eagles, sparrows, owls. But her favorite birds were the chickens.”

  “What about people?” Josh asked.

  “Biggies don’t get into this story.”

  “They should,” said Josh. “The Bible says human beings are the highest creation.”

  “Not to chickens, they ain’t. Look, buddy. You gonna keep your beak shut?”

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “Tarkah still lays her eggs. Her children needed light to fly and hunt and scratch for worms. So every day Tarkah lays an egg of fire and sends it spinning across the sky. The fire goes out. Earth egg sleeps. Next morning Tarkah lays a new fire egg. That’s the story, buddy, and that’s why chickens lay eggs in the morning and sing egg songs. It’s how they say thanks to Tarkah.”

  Josh nudged her. “Now tell me the Tarkah story about snow. You know, Tarkah’s feathers.”

  The old hen settled closer to his chest. “Another day. I’m tired.”

  “You won’t forget to show me the fox hole in the morning?”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

  “I got you the brew, Semolina.”

  “I told you, buddy, a deal is a deal.”

  “Okay.” Holding her against his shirt, he stood up and walked back to the house. “You can sleep on my bed, but if Grandma comes while I’m in the bathroom, you’d better skedaddle out to the porch mighty quick. She says if she finds you in the house, something terrible is going to happen. You hear me?”

  Semolina didn’t answer. She was tucked in the crook of his arm, her head under her wing, and she was already asleep.

  Tarkah’s new fire egg rose behind the Binochette cows and cast long morning shadows over the grass. On the other side of the fence, Josh turned on the sprinklers over the Miller acres of Swiss chard. Watering was done early before the fierce heat—otherwise the fire egg would suck up the moisture from the leaves and shrivel them like old paper. Josh wiped his hands on his jeans. In the cool air, the sprinklers made a mist that changed to rainbows where the sun caught it. “Can chickens see rainbows?” he asked Semolina, who was following at a distance.

  “Sure! But rainbows ain’t nothing to crow about,” clacked Semolina, who didn’t like rain from clouds or sprinklers. “Chicken with her head in the air misses the worms.”

  Josh smiled. “When my baby sister is born, I’m going to bring her out here and show her the very first rainbow of her life.”

  “Might be a rooster.”

  “A boy? Nope. Mom says it’s a girl, and I guess she knows. You hatch out many chickens, Semolina?”

  She stretched one leg, then the other. “Ain’t it time to go back?”

  Josh would not be put off. “Family, Semolina. Did you ever have any little chickies?”

  “Sure, buddy.” She shook her feathers in a sassy way. “I adopted you, didn’t I?”

  “Me?” He laughed. “Wait a minute. You don’t have me. I have you. You’re supposed to be my pet.”

  “Who says, buddy?”

  “I do.”

  “I say different.” She pecked his shoe tie, pulled it undone and let it drop. “You going to stand here crowing all day? Or you wanna see the fox hole?”

  The hens in number three were still roosting and half asleep when Josh opened the barn. As he and Semolina walked in, there was a stirring of feathers that sounded like a wind, then a shifting of feet and a movement of hundreds of red combs as heads turned, eyes snapping alert. Semolina led Josh the full length of the barn and came to a standstill by the end wall. The rustling behind them stopped. There was such a stillness that Josh imagined every hen to be holding its breath.

  He looked up and down the black boards. He and Tucker had gone over every inch of these walls, and he knew them as well as he knew his own bedroom. “No hole here,” he said.

  For answer, Semolina scratched away some of the ground straw, then pushed her beak against the side of a tarred slat. The length of lumber swung aside, revealing a triangle of darkness about ten inches wide at the bottom and peaking some fifteen inches up.

  Josh sucked in breath and let it out in a low whistle. “So that’s the hole!” He put his hand through and touched something familiar, a piece of eggshell. “The board’s got only one nail in it. It swings. Wow! The chickens push it aside and deliberately lay their eggs out there—for the fox.” He dropped right down on his stomach to see through the hole. It was like a little cave out there, dark and airless. “This must be behind the straw pile!” he said. “Spittin’ bugs! No wonder we didn’t see anything from the
outside.”

  He got up on his hands and knees and looked around the shed. The chickens were so still they could have all been solid blocks of ice. “They’re scared, aren’t they?” he said to Semolina. “Scared what the fox will do.”

  She didn’t answer. Nor would she in front of all her kin. Silently, she led him out of the barn. As soon as he closed the door behind them, the chickens started the biggest racket he’d ever heard. Not egg songs. Not cries for food. It was a yackety-yack noise that reminded him of a bus full of kids on the first day of school.

  Semolina walked fast, her claws scrabbling in the dust. He followed her along the length of laying boxes to the back of the barn, where the straw was piled high. Sure enough, there was a tunnel behind the straw, widening against the wall to nest size. Here the dried grass was smooth, packed down and showing bits of old shell where the fox had eaten his fill of eggs before carrying more away to his lair.

  “You betcha they’re scared,” said Semolina. “Chickens got reason to be scared of most things—hawks, foxes, biggies.” She turned her head. “Most of all biggies.”

  Josh was too excited to argue with her. He picked her up in both hands and kissed her right on top of her wicked old head. She blinked, pulled away, and he put her down again. “My dad is going to be a happy man,” he said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Very happy.”

  “Happy like in giving the chicken a big reward?”

  “Reward?” Josh laughed. “That’s another new word! Semolina, where do you learn all this stuff?”

  She stretched one wing, then the other, and said in a sniffy voice, “Buddy, I ain’t no dumb cluck. Tell him I want more brown water.”

  Tucker nailed that loose board so tight that an elephant couldn’t have pushed it aside. Then to make doubly sure, he nailed another plank across the outside of the barn.

  “Son, you were right on target about that fox. I feel mighty ashamed pushing words back down your mouth like that. Pete Binochette just told me. He said it hangs out in the woods, big red fellow, slippery as custard. Beats me how you knew.”

  Josh handed him another nail. “You know how I knew. Semolina.”

  Tucker smiled and shook his head. “I’m reminded of my aunt Maureen, who lived in Columbus, Ohio. Well, she was a fine woman, mighty fond of talk. When she told us something she’d heard in town, she’d add, ‘And if it’s not true, it’s a good story.’”

  Josh folded his hands across his stomach and stared at the nailed-up wall. Tucker had given him this lecture before.

  “When I was young, I set that in my mind. Truth is truth, and a good story is a good story. We get them mixed up and we’re in trouble, Josh. I seen fine people mess up their brains not knowing which is which.”

  Josh felt his eyes prick with tears. He lowered his head and said in a slow, easy way, “If Semolina doesn’t talk to me, how come I knew about the hole?”

  His father got his sad, soft look. “Don’t get me wrong, son. I know that old chicken’s smart—more cunning than a jungle of monkeys. I believe she could lead you to the hole. But talking human talk?”

  “She does.” Josh swallowed. His throat was getting thick.

  Tucker got to his feet and stepped away from the wall. Putting his long hand on Josh’s shoulder, he bent over until their faces were level. “Josh, sometime you go stand by the mirror and watch the ways your lips move with words. Folks’ mouths are made for folks’ language. It’s the gift God gave us. In the beginning was the word. When you done that, you look again at the shape of a chicken’s beak. Bird talk. That’s all it’s made for. Come on, let’s have ourselves some lunch.” And Tucker was striding away toward the house before Josh had a chance to say, but Dad, what about parrots?

  In the yard, the first thing Josh saw was his patchwork quilt, wet on the clothesline. He guessed why, but Grandma told him anyway. “Chicken poop!” she said. “That filthy bird in your room! On your bed! Haven’t I told you a dozen times? I didn’t come five hours on a train to clean a menagerie. I declare, that scrawny chicken gets in your room one more time and I pack my bags.”

  Josh crawled under the house where Semolina was leaning against the base of the chimney. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Semolina looked weary. “I got chased with a broom.”

  “You had an accident on my bed.”

  “It happens,” she said. “It happens.”

  “It happens with brown water,” Josh told her.

  “Where’s the thanks?” she snapped. “Where’s good Semolina! Well done, Semolina! You saved the eggs from the fox, Semolina!”

  “I’m sorry.” He reached out to stroke some cobwebs off her feathers, but she backed away.

  “Never trust a biggie,” she said.

  “You can trust me, you silly old bird.” He smiled. “I’m your pet, remember? Your little chickie?” He tucked his hands under his arms and wagged his elbows. “Cluck, cluck, cluck!”

  She ignored him.

  “You adopted me!” he insisted.

  She lifted the foot with the silver ring and came one step closer. “What’s for lunch?”

  “I don’t know, but I’ll find out. You want room service?”

  She gave him a sharp-eyed look. “Under-room service, and don’t forget the ketchup.”

  That evening, Grandma said she was too tired to go to the hospital, and Josh was more pleased than he thought he should have been. He and Tucker would have Elizabeth to themselves, just the three of them as always. He picked some yellow flowers from the garden and imagined his mother’s face when he told her about that rotten old fox and the hole in the shed. She’d be so pleased. Not that she worried about things like foxes and missing eggs, but she sure worried about Tucker being worried.

  The long hospital corridor, smelling of antiseptic and dry linen, was lit with the last light of day. Another of Tarkah’s eggs about to disappear, thought Josh as he strode out ahead of his father. Lights were switched on in some of the rooms, but Elizabeth’s room was almost dark. Josh stopped with a feeling of dread. His mother was lying on her pillow, eyes closed, the tube in her arm.

  Tucker wasn’t prepared for this either. He went to the bed and put his hand on his wife’s forehead. She opened her eyes and smiled at him. Josh heard her say, “Bleeding again.”

  Bleeding? What did that mean? He pushed in beside his father and looked down at the needle in the back of her hand. It was the same as the day she came in here, a tube that went all the way up the bed to a bag of fluid on a metal stand. His throat went dry. “What’s gone wrong?”

  Her free hand went to the back of his head and pulled him down so that she could kiss him. “Nothing’s wrong. This is a way to take medicine that’s too bad to swallow.”

  He knew she was pretending. “Is it the baby?” he asked.

  Elizabeth glanced at Tucker, then she smoothed Josh’s hair away from his forehead. “Honey, the baby’s okay. We had a little scare this afternoon, but now everything’s fine.”

  “You sure?” He put his head down on the pillow against hers. Her hair was as thick as Annalee’s, but it smelled of hospital. “I wish you’d come home, Mom. We’d look after you real good.”

  “I wish too, but this is the best place for me right now. Josh, if I were a chicken, no farmer would ever want me. I’m such a bad layer. Chickens have the sense to hold on to their eggs until they’re ready to be laid. My body doesn’t want to wait. You know what happens to a baby if it’s born too soon?”

  He nodded.

  “This is one busy little baby. I think she’s going to be a ballet dancer. But she’s small. We have to give her as much time as we can, and that’s the reason for the medication.” She eased herself up in the bed and took a deep breath. “All right, my two guys. How are things back at the ranch?”

  She was interested in all of it, the hole in the shed, Semolina, the quilt, Grandma, the big red fox, but her smile disappeared when Tucker said that Pete Binochette and his farmhands had
a hunting party in the woods. “No!” she said. “Why kill it? The fox is just being a fox.”

  “Mom, he’s been stealing our eggs!” said Josh.

  “They’re the chickens’ eggs,” she reminded him. “We steal them too, only we think we have that right. So does Mr. Fox. Tucker, darling, can’t they set a snare trap and catch it alive?”

  “What then?” said Tucker.

  “There must be wilderness sanctuaries for foxes. It’s not a good thing to take a life if you don’t have to. Talk to Pete! Please! Don’t let him shoot it.”

  Tucker nodded and scratched the back of his neck. “Well, yeah, I guess.”

  She folded her hands on her round stomach and turned to Josh. “Tell me about your boat,” she said.

  Chapter Six

  THE DAYS WENT BY AS SLOW AS molasses in January, and still that big red fox wasn’t caught. Farmers talked of sightings. Two of the ducks from the Binochettes’ pond disappeared, and Mrs. Waters lost a loaf of bread she’d left to cool on a window ledge, although that might have been a hungry dog. Still, the fox managed to dodge every trap and snare and hunting party. Tucker wasn’t worried. He’d hammered the board across the hole with four-inch nails. His egg count was way up again and all his chicken houses were as safe as Fort Knox.

  It was Semolina who was fretting. Rumors were running through the chicken barns, and none of them gave the old hen much comfort. “Fox knows I spilled the beans,” she said. “I’m on his hit list.”

  “Don’t worry,” Josh tried to soothe her. “They’ll catch that fox anytime now and ship him clear out of town.”

  “They’ll never catch him!” Semolina shivered. “Tell your father to shoot him deady bones. They got to do that. Or else…!” She closed her eyes.