Read Online The Third Book of the Dun Cow: Peace at the Last by Walter Wangerin Jr. - Free Book Online Page A

say!
    The Raven says, “I eat Mice for dessert.”
    Well, that’s even funnier. And funniest of all is his next word: “Quork!”
    Straightaway, Freitag Mouse practices his talent for mimicry. He throws himself into a Bird-strut. He fiddle-flaps his forearms and squeaks, “Querk!” And all his brothers fall down laughing.
    Next Freitag pounds his paws together like a double beak clacking.
    “It’s him to a T!” cry his brothers. “Freitag! That’s the ruffly Cinder-Bird to a T!”
    Kangi Sapa cocks an eye.
    The Brothers Mice jump up and form a circle around the Raven. “You’re a pretty good joke for a Cinder-Bird,” they say.
    Kangi Sapa says, “Quork!’ and the Mice cry, “Hooray!”
    “Not a Cinder-Bird, my cute little sirs. A Raven. Kangi Sapa, please you, brothers, is a right glorious Raven.”
    “Hip hip hooray! Hip hip for Mr. Raven, and hooray!”
    Kangi Sapa makes a dump of a bow and presents his credentials. “I’m the guy that flies the skyways north and south faster than you can say, ‘East!’ You can count on me. I’ve seen the place where the sun gets up and the place where he goes to bed at night. I’m your oceangoer, and a teller of tales to boot.”
    “Three cheers for Mr. Cinder-Bird Raven!”
    It is a good day after all.
    Kangi Sapa flies abroad, then drops branches of frozen berries, stores to take the edge off the Animals’ hunger. He loads the snow with vines of grapes that have dried to raisins. He is a cargo of good things.
    After dinner Twill and Hopsacking dash to and fro, yipping with pleasure.
    Least collects fallen fur and barbs of feathers and knits booties for the Mice, which booties they accept with many gestures of thanksgiving and, knowing not what to do with booties, stick them on their ears.
    The Otters, of course, tumble and run. They wind themselves into knots, then bust apart and go skimming across the snow like tears on mirrors.
    Pertelote smiles.
    Wachanga dozes after her long night of traveling.
    John Wesley sits close by her, watching.
    He tries to quiet his otherwise cacophonous voice. He tries to croon like Lady Pertelote.
    “Is a prettysome name, is Wachanga,” he croons. “Might-be a Wachanga wants little sips of water? John, he goes gets it for her, okay?”
    Suddenly someone nips the tip of his tail.
    The Weasel whirls around. Damn! It’s Boogaloo Crow!
    “Double-U’s hates buggar-bites!”
    (Besides, he’s been caught in an act of tenderness!)
    He lowers his head and bullets the Raven. But the Raven rises on a flap of wings, and John shoots under him.
    “Oops!” caws Kangi Sapa. “I’m a trickster, buddy! Quick with my wit.”
    “Buddy? John, he ain’t no Rat-Bird’s ‘buddy!’”
    “But you are my buddy, Double-U. I heard you offer Wachanga a drink. Friends of my friend are my friends too, get it?”
    Mrs. Cobb is sweeping snow from a small space using a broom made of the brambles she found at the bottom of the cutbank. In the center of that space is a very neat hole.
    “Mr. Cobb?” Mrs. Cobb calls down the hole. “Mr. Cobb, why not come out and sit with me and tell me a joke or two.”
    “I can’t tell jokes.”
    “You said you could , Mr. Cobb. And I’m a pretty good laugher.”
    Behold! Ferric Coyote has cracked his face into a genuine grin!
    Boreas stands on an outcropping rock. The Watch-Wolf switches his tail, surveying the wide white plain all around. Snow twinkles under the sun. Sometimes he bends his eyebeams down upon the Cream-Colored Wolf.
    In the evening Boreas descends the rock and walks through the nesting Animals until he arrives by Wachanga, and there lies down. He begins to lick the scar at the base of her tail.
    Even so have Pertelote’s spirits fallen and risen through her long, purposeless wanderings. Weeks of confidence, months of desolations. Her life too long, her life lived more wholly in the present.
    But after sunrise the following day, Pertelote is as heartened as anyone else in her community. For