Chicken Feathers (6 page)

“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.