Chicken Feathers

by Joy Cowley

  What was she talking about?

  “So—do you want me to tell you the happy thing?”

  He thought for a moment, then nodded.

  “This little baby is putting on weight. She’s a whole eight months grown and the doctor says she’s out of danger.”

  He raised his head to look at her. “You’re coming home?”

  The silence was too long. He put his head down again, wiping his wet cheek on her pillow.

  “Not until she’s born.” Elizabeth hugged him. “We’re going to call her Tori. On paper it’ll be Victoria, like you’re Joshua. Josh and Tori Miller. Does that sound like a happy thing?”

  She wanted him to nod, so he did.

  Tucker cleared his throat. “I’m thinking it’s too early to think sad. That crafty old bird might be on the back porch waiting for us to get home.”

  “Could be,” said Elizabeth. “Could well be.”

  Then Josh felt it. His mother’s round belly suddenly moved like it was trying to push him clean off the bed. He sat up, astonished. “The baby kicked me!” he said.

  That night he opened his bedroom window as wide as it would go. When Grandma came in to say good night, she looked at the window but kept hush about it. As she was going out the door, she turned and shook her head at him. “Animals don’t live as long as us, Josh. That’s a hard, God-given fact.”

  The search resumed in the morning, Annalee and Harrison hollering for Semolina on their cow farm while Josh, sick to his stomach, looked for her in the woods. Everyone called it the woods, but it wasn’t big, no more than five acres of county land between the chicken farm and a loop in the river. The trees were mostly young, oak and sycamore, beech and elder and a few mountain ash already red with berries. The undergrowth was soft and trodden down in paths that wandered without purpose.

  “Semolina!”

  A blue jay flew off a low branch.

  “Semolina? You there?” His voice was thick and wobbly.

  Here there was no answering echo. The green was like a thick sponge that soaked up even his footsteps. He bent over, looking on the ground for animal sign, fox or raccoon, but he didn’t see a thing except some deer prints in the wet nearer the river.

  “Semolina!” This time her name was almost a whisper.

  The worst thing was not knowing. His mind wrapped itself around the emptiness, and he felt a great hurting heaviness in his chest. This was absolutely the worst worry wrinkle of his entire life.

  When he arrived at the house, they were out front, Grandma with her knitting on the porch chair and Tucker standing on the step, one hand holding the pole. They’d been talking but stopped when they saw him.

  He trailed his feet over the near bald lawn. “Nothing in the woods.”

  Grandma put down her knitting. “About your age, I had a cat called Smithy. My father backed the car over him.”

  The suddenness of her words shocked him. “Was he all right?”

  “What do you think?”

  He had to know. “Did he die? Grandma, was he killed?”

  The sun glinted on her glasses, and he couldn’t see what was going on in her eyes. “You’ll get over it.” She stood up, one hand on the middle of her back, and went in the house, walking awkwardly as though her legs had gone to sleep.

  Tucker let go of the pole and took a couple of slow steps toward him. He hooked his thumbs low down in his suspenders and breathed deep through his nose. After a while, he said, “You okay?”

  “I just wish I knew where she was,” Josh said.

  “She’s gone, son.” Tucker bent down. “Sorry. It’s bad news.”

  Josh stared at him.

  Slowly, Tucker unhooked his thumbs and put both hands on Josh’s shoulders. He looked hard into his son’s face and then said, “You better come with me.”

  Tucker led Josh to the straw pile at the back of chicken barn three. Walking sideways, Tucker pushed through to the back of the pile, where the egg nest had been. He beckoned Josh to follow.

  On the ground, below the nailed-up board, lay a puddle of dark blood mixed with reddish brown feathers. In the middle of it, bent out of shape, lay the silver ring.

  Chapter Eight

  TUCKER HELD A PLASTIC BAG open while Josh scooped up the feathers with a trowel. Some of the feathers were small and soft, breast feathers, like Tarkah’s snow except they were brown. He got every one, picking bits of fluff off straw, put it all in the bag. His eyes and nose were running, but he paid no heed to that. He needed to get every part of her, blood too, even if it meant digging up the ground under the little blood spots that led away from the puddle.

  Tucker didn’t mention blood. He didn’t need to. Chickens had white flesh and their blood came from deep inside.

  “I think it was quick,” was all Tucker said.

  Josh said nothing. It had happened. Semolina had been eaten by the fox.

  He carried the plastic bag back to the house. The lawn, clothesline, porch all shivered and swam in his tears, but the terrible feeling in him had gone. Now there was no feeling at all. He walked like a robot up the steps and across to the porch swing. In silence, he held the bag out to show Grandma.

  She did a very strange thing. She lifted the bottom of her apron and put it over her head.

  Josh looked for a fitting funeral box, but there was nothing in the house except an empty cereal box that Grandma took from a kitchen cupboard. He didn’t want to put Semolina’s remains in something as ordinary as a breakfast food box, but the pictures on the box had a rightness to them, sunshine on a farm, rows of corn, milk pouring onto a bowl of golden cornflakes. It made him think of all the times Semolina had sat by his bowl, dipping her beak into his breakfast.

  As he took the box, Grandma said, “I hope you’re not fretting over what I said about the fox.”

  He looked at her. “You mean about giving her to him?”

  “That and some.”

  He shrugged.

  “You are,” she said. “I recognize a fret when I see one. I didn’t mean a scrap by it, you know. I worry about things. Your mother will tell you. I give tongue.”

  He looked down at the cereal box, fair busting with happy pictures.

  “Spit it out,” she said.

  “You said to Mom—” He wriggled his feet.

  “What did I say?”

  “You said something about thoughts making things happen. Did you—” He stopped.

  “Did I wish the fox into eating your chicken?” She sat with a thump that skidded the chair. “God save us, boy! Nothing of the kind! I just say things. I get tired. You know how little kids get when they’re tired? Well, it happens when you’re old too. I worry. I worry about mess. I worry about you and the baby. I worry about my daughter’s lack of ambition. I worry about the grass not growing on that godforsaken lawn and I worry about blocked drains. You got it in you. You’re a worrier too, and one day you’ll know what I’m talking about.”

  He knew already, and he vowed sure as eggs, he’d never let his worries make him say mean things to people, no matter how old he got.

  “It’s okay, Grandma,” he said. Then he added, “I’m sorry about your father running over your cat.”

  Annalee and Harrison came over for the funeral. Annalee gave him a card from Bob, a real sympathy card with silver flowers, a poem on the outside and a message on the inside in Bob’s writing.

  “It’s nice considering he never met Semolina,” she said. “I did tell him about her, how smart she was and all that.”

  Josh wondered what else she’d told him. Gee, Bob, it’s so funny. Josh thinks Semolina actually talks to him.

  Not that it mattered now.

  Tucker dug a hole for Semolina in the flower garden outside the kitchen window. He said the ground wasn’t as hard as the rest of the yard, and besides, its meant that durn old bird was close to her favorite feeding place. He’d taken some care with the hole. It was next to a flowering geranium bush, neatly square with dirt in a little pyramid be
side it.

  Josh took the plastic bag out of the cereal box so Annalee and Harrison could have a last look. The blood and dirt had mixed up with the feathers, but the silver ring was plain as day, a bit twisted but still shining. Josh wondered if Annalee wanted it back. She didn’t. He carefully put the plastic bag back in the cereal box, and fitted it into the hole.

  “Wait,” said Annalee. “We need to say something.”

  “Like what?” said Harrison.

  “Maybe a memory or something. I remember how Semolina used to crouch on my feet when I was sorting eggs. She was warm. Her feathers felt like old curtains. I remember when she saw that toe ring, she pecked it. Jeepers, it hurt. She was so intent on having that ring.”

  Josh was silent. It was hard to think about Semolina as a memory.

  “I know a poem,” said Harrison. He stood straight and saluted. “Beg your pardon, Joshua Hardon, there’s a chicken in your garden.” He looked at Josh. “Sorry. Miller doesn’t rhyme with garden.”

  For a moment they stood looking at the bright top of the cereal box. Josh didn’t speak, so Annalee said, “Okay. At funerals they always have a prayer. Who wants to say it?”

  “You,” said Josh. “Please?”

  Annalee breathed deeply like someone about to swim underwater. “Dear God. Half of Semolina is here and the other half is in a fox. Let this geranium bush always have the most beautiful flowers and let the fox—let it be smart and—and funny like Semolina, and—and—”

  “And never eat chickens again,” said Josh. “Amen.”

  As they scooped the dirt into the hole, Josh imagined the prayer floating upward like a soft white feather. He thought of the Tarkah stories and vowed that never again would he tell anyone that Semolina had talked to him. Her hard cackly voice would be his biggest memory, and he wouldn’t share it with anyone. As he patted the dirt down, he said to Annalee, “Do you suppose that chickens think God is a big chicken?”

  That night, Josh was sick to his stomach. Grandma said he looked pale and maybe it was the day that had done it. Tucker agreed but wondered if Josh was coming down with something. “It could be a virus,” he said. “Just to be on the safe side, no hospital visit tonight.”

  Josh nodded. He didn’t feel like going out. His head was hot, the rest of him cold, and he was so tired that there was no energy in him for sadness. For a while he sat out by the new grave, hoping to feel something. The geranium bush was in deep shadow and the dirt under it looked as it usually did when the garden had been weeded. Tomorrow he would put a stone or a cross on it so his father wouldn’t forget and dig her up. Yes, a memory stone with her name on it would be good. He went back inside and turned on the television.

  Tucker came in, showered and wearing one of his best shirts. “Next month there’s another batch of young chickens coming in. Fourteen weeks old. You want to choose one of them for a pet?”

  Josh shook his head.

  “Think about it,” Tucker said.

  Television was like a landscape rolling past a car window, of no interest to him. He got up, said good night to Grandma, who was sitting in Tucker’s chair, knitting something small and pink. For a while he stood inside the door, looking at the orange light of sunset, another of Tarkah’s eggs falling out of the sky. It was then he realized he had nothing of Semolina in his bedroom. This morning he had been careful to collect all her remains, every little feather, yet he had not kept one feather back for himself. Everything was buried. It was as though she had never been.

  He kicked off his shoes and lay on top of the bed, his hands behind his head, and although he was very tired, he did not sleep. He heard the car come back, heard Tucker coming to his room. “You awake, son?”

  “Yeah.”

  Tucker put on the light and sat on the end of the bed. He had a sheet of white cardboard stuck with photographs of Josh and Semolina and messages from Elizabeth. On top of the card, his mother had written, The Story of the Little Red Hen.

  “She made it for you,” Tucker said.

  Josh’s eyes prickled as though they had sand in them, but he was too worn out for tears. His father must have searched for these photos and taken them up to the hospital. They’d done this together, Mom and Dad. There was a picture of him seven years old and laughing, Semolina dragging the meat out of his burger. In another, a picture he hadn’t seen before, he was asleep, arms flung out, Semolina perched on his chest, her head under her wing. Eight—no, nine photos of Semolina.

  These were better than feathers!

  “Thanks, Dad,” he said. “I’ll put it on the wall.”

  Tucker nodded and scrubbed Josh’s hair with his hand. “You okay, son? Maybe it’s time to brush your teeth and get into your pajamas. Your grandma’s a mite worried about you.”

  Josh swung his legs off the bed. “Grandma’s always worried.”

  Tucker smiled, eyes half shut. “You only just found that out?”

  Although the room was breathless warm, Josh dreamed of snow. Little white feathers were falling from the sky and piling up in the yard, soft as fluff but icy to the touch. They blew across the lawn, lay on the clothesline and covered the red geranium flowers with white. Josh needed to make a tombstone for Semolina in the shape of a big chicken. He knew exactly what to do. He gathered mounds of feathers, shaped and patted, and the white chicken seemed to grow by itself, beautiful, wings outstretched like an angel. Then something happened. The falling feathers were no longer snow but hail. Little white stones rattled on the path and the tombstone chicken slid away in an avalanche of tiny ice pebbles. He couldn’t save it from flattening out over the garden.

  He woke, heart beating fast.

  Outside, the sky was dark as pitch and brilliant with stars. He rolled over, his back to the window, and closed his eyes. Then it came again, the hail noise. Pebbles. No. Not pebbles! Something else!

  He rolled to his knees on the bed and pushed up the window.

  “You there, buddy?” rasped a familiar voice.

  Chapter Nine

  SEMOLINA LOOKED TERRIBLE. Half her feathers had gone, her eyes were shut and she was shivering sick.

  “I thought you were dead!” he cried.

  “Lift me up, buddy. I can’t fly.”

  Josh was out that window like an arrow, scooping her up and holding her against his chest. “Semolina! Oh, wow! It’s really you!”

  She kicked against him and squawked with pain. “Fox!”

  Instantly his touch became gentle. He reached through the window, placed her on the foot of the bed and then climbed back into the room. “What happened? We found your feathers. We had a funeral.”

  She was shivering. “Fox got me outside egg shed. I thought I was a goner. Rooty-tooty big fight. I shoved my beak in his front foot. He let go. I hid in straw. Stayed till morning. Then under the boat.”

  Josh put on his bedside light and looked at her. There were teeth marks on her bare, mottled back and a cut on her wing but no serious damage that he could see. He snatched his T-shirt from the floor and wrapped her in it. “We thought you had to be dead. There was so much blood.”

  Her eyes opened. “Told you, buddy. I got his paw.”

  A smile broke open inside Josh. He wanted to hold her and dance around the room. He sprawled across the bed, his face close. “We scooped up that blood, every drop. We buried it with your feathers.”

  “Excuse me! You buried my feathers with fox blood?” She struggled and freed herself from his shirt. “Me and fox?” Then she thrust her beak against his nose. “Whatcha done with my ring?” she squawked.

  He laughed. “Oh, Semolina, I love you! I love you so much!”

  Josh thought of waking his father that instant, but the idea simmered down. Morning would do. Semolina was hurting and thirsty. He went into the bathroom to get her water in his mug, and as he turned off the tap, he had the sudden thought that her return might be just a dream. He spilled water on the floor running back to his room.

  It was no dream. She was real
and there, crouched under his T-shirt, her eyes half closed.

  Twice during the night, he offered to look in the fridge. She wasn’t hungry, she said, which told him surely she was in pain. The most comfortable place for her was on his chest, and that suited him real fine. He could feel her heart ticking against his and the rhythm of her breathing, the warmth of her on his skin, the occasional pricking of her claws. The old dusty Semolina smell was right there under his nose.

  Something in him felt downright foolish for all the grief he’d spent thinking she was dead, but that didn’t matter. This was the happy thing his mother talked about, only Mom had been wrong about the size of it. The happy thing was much, much bigger than the sad.

  Semolina slept some of the time and so did he. When they were both awake, she told him what had happened. The fox had come after her in broad daylight and taken her by surprise. The girl biggie was sorting eggs in the shed and Semolina was pecking at the door to get in. Sudden smell of fox! Too late! Fox grabbed her from behind and carried her, head hanging down, to the back of chicken house three. She knew what was coming. Revenge. Old fox was going to eat her by the nailed-up door. She struggled. Lost feathers. No good. He held her. So she gave it to him. Rooty-tooty fight. Beak into his front foot. Yelped, he did. Let go. Backed off, bleeding. She pushed into the straw, dug deep in where he couldn’t reach her. He tried scratching with one paw. Then he gave up.

  Josh sniffed her warm smell. “We were calling you. All over, we called you. For hours.”

  “Ain’t no sound plum in the middle of a straw heap,” she said.

  First light, she nosed out of the straw. Fox had gone, but she was terrified he’d come back. She made it up to the tractor shed, found the door open. She’d lost wing feathers. Couldn’t fly up to her usual roosting place. The only safe place was under the upturned skiff.