The Second Book of the Dun Cow: Lamentations by Walter Wangerin Jr. Page A

herself, under her chin, against her breast.
    “Oh, Benoni, I was so afraid for you.”
    Ice slides from the treetops and smashes the ground like bones and glass. Benoni shivers.
    “Why did you run away? Didn’t you know that this is a lonely world?”
    The child beneath her neck says, “Yes’m. I knew.” Gravely he explains, “It’s why I came.”
    She sees her son in her mind: his face-fur standing out like a soft sunburst, his tail no more than a trigger cocked. But he is a deep Coyote.
    “What? To be hurt?”
    “No’m. To help papa.”
    “Whisht. So you think your papa needs help?”
    She feels his small head nod.
    “You think papa is weak?”
    “No. Not weak. He is…. Mama, he is afraid. I came to help him fight enemies. But I got lost.”
    “Benoni, Benoni.”
    Soon, she thought behind the wash in her eyes. Too soon.

[Twenty] A Legend
[Twenty] A Legend
    There stands at the edge of time the Eschaton-Bull. His head hangs low from a muscled hump. His nostrils blow a red smoke. The horns that curve from his shaggy hair seem to be too small for one so big and so mighty.
    It is the Bull’s slow molting that numbers the years. For every one hair shed, one year passes by. One hundred haiars are a century, one thousand a millennium.
    When one of his legs break, that marks an eon gone.
    At the end of three ages, the Eschaton-Bull must balance on a single leg. This is his last leg.
    And that is the saying the Animal’s know.

[Twenty-One] Chauntecleer's Descent
[Twenty-One] Chauntecleer’s Descent
    The StagBlack-Pale stands at the edge of a rocky defile. The crown in the forest of his antlers is the golden Chauntecleer. Chauntecleer gazes down at the family before him and greets the male with a grave formality.
    “Ferric, I presume?”
    Straightway the rusty Coyote suffers lockjaw.
    Chauntecleer thinks, What ails this red poltroon?
    John Wesley dashes happily to the female.
    “Salue-bretations, Mama! Is a tried-and-blue-true Double-u what’s come back again!”
    John jumps about and spreads food on the ground: a bundle of honey-soaked reeds. “Sweet, sweet, sweet!” For the kids he opens a bag of ice cream.
    “Isn’t only-est a Fox what knows tricks,” John exults. Oh, he is so glad to be with the kids again. “Is a John Double-u, too!” He puts on the face of a serious instructor and instructs. “Is in springtime, cubby-kids. Bark of a cottonwood—rip it off! White of the woodiness inside—scrape and scrape the pretty white sap-foam! Pretty white sap-foam—bag it! Is in wintertime—freeze it! Hoopla! Ice cream!”
    Black-Pale keeps his own counsel. His motive for allowing the Rooster to ride the tines of his antlers has had little to do with the Rooster wishes because that one has been imperious, scarcely acknowledging the Stag’s nobility. No, it was for the sake of the Weasel that he has come. For John Wesley, who brought cheer to the Fawn De La Coeur and who persuaded Black-Pale to carry his daughter south to a healing ward where she was brought back to health again. And isn’t it the better part of nobility to serve good heart without expecting a return?
    The boy-cub—Benoni?—neglects the ice cream and trots to Black-Pale. He says to the golden Cock, “Papa’s tired.” Then the little Coyote bows his little head, and the Stag recognizes honor in the gesture.
    Chauntecleer says, “I have been informed, boy, that you have found, and yourself have half-entered, the tunnels that open the way to the Wickedness that dwells in the earth. Is this true?”
    Benoni nods.
    “A hero, then, of the first waters.”
    Two reactions: the boy-cub grows sober and pulls himself up to full height. The female Coyote whispers, “Don’t believe it, Benoni.”
    John Wesley seconds Chauntecleer. “John,” he tips, “he’s seen a kid’s dauntlessnesses, yes! Yes! And John, he knows . Tough little Benoni! Brave little Benoni!”
    Chauntecleer’s voice grows suddenly strident. “Enough of banter.