I was sleeping soundly. It’s very quiet here, especially at night, and the only sounds that can be heard in the sacred dark hours are crickets and the occasional splash of Beaver’s tail. I am acutely familiar with the sounds of our chickens, as their coop is located directly beneath my window; ranging from quiet, conversational “buck-bucks”, to obstreperous hollers of egg-laying victory- in the night they remain silent until the sun comes up- which is when they start protesting their imprisonment and begging for release into the wide world of free-range foraging. Out of the stillness- jarring me suddenly from my slumber- was a sound from the coop that could not be interpreted as anything other than a scream of mortal-fear and panic, followed by an ominous thud.
Adrenalins pumping in the instinctive response of protection- I shoot out of my bed and emit a rebel yell- my “cat scream” as I call it- one which is truly only reserved for life-or-death instances as it renders me speechless (and worse- songless) for days to follow. I jump as high as I can and come down full force onto the hard wood floor of my rickety cabin, causing a few pictures to tumble from the wall. After grabbing my flashlight I hear the squeal of the front door of the main house and look to see my terrified parents poking their heads out to see what wild creature has woken them from their sleep. It was me.
Dad surfaces gallantly on the porch- strangely attired, shirtless and in dress-pants and thick, furry snow boots, carrying what can only be described as a caveman’s bludgeoning club, fondly termed his “attitude adjuster”, and a wild look in his eyes and mien that make it clear he wouldn’t be afraid to use it. I tell him, heart pounding, that something has gotten into the coop. For a man who seems so tough, he has a very soft spot in his heart for these hens, and is ready to kill anything that might be putting them in distress. He’s also afraid of finding a carcass, which is why I go down with him, since I am braver in the face of death than he.
He shines the light into the darkened coop- “Yep. Something got ‘em. They’re gone.”
I panic and look in. There is still one perched, quivering, and I admonish him briefly for that mistake. “Look- Bindu is still here!” However, there was a menacing pile of fluffy red feathers by the door which, from our past experiences, indicates that one of our friendly little bipeds probably bit the dust.
Dad, mustering his bravery, starts thumping the club on the ground (a thick piece of knobby pine wood which weighs at least fifteen pounds and is around my height), and I follow him shining the flashlight into the swamp which borders our yard. The light hits on something the copper color of our Rhode-Island Reds, and I run over to it. There, roosting in the tall grass and ferns, is the chicken Killer. She is petrified and lets me pick her up immediately. A quick exam assures us that she was not gravely injured, and I put her back in the coop under the watch of Bindu.
That left only one- my favorite chicken, the Alpha of the flock, Queen Hepzibah. She is a grand chicken, large and glossy, but with the unfortunate nervous habit of scratching away all of her neck-feathers, leaving the long skinny bumpy throat exposed for all the world to see. Despite this unattractive attribute, she is the friendliest and most vociferous of our girls. If she was gone, I would be depressed. Horrible! I steady myself for the worst, trying not to show my trepidation in front of my father, who is starting to babble like a bereaved parent guilty of leaving the coop door open, which was true, and I chide him for his forgetfulness as I continue making offensive predatorial noises into the night. No animal wants to get involved with a 110 pound cat with blond hair and twenty claws- at least I hope they don’t. It could have come from the coop, or it could have been out in the swamp- the night was so still and muggy I couldn’t tell- but I thought I heard a familiar noise. I wondered to myself, had that fearful cry which woke me been my dear Hepzibah’s last noodle-throated croak of death? No further luck in our search. Neither of us wants to deal with carnage till the morning. With sick stomachs and pounding hearts, we locked the coop and went back to bed.
I can only fall asleep after an hour of reading. When I wake again after sunrise to hear the familiar clucking and groaning of normal hen communication, my immediate desire is to go down and check on Bindu and Killer, who must certainly be missing their commander, the forsaken Queen Hepzibah. Nothing could have surprised me more than seeing her yellow eye stare up at me, her neck bald and scratched as ever- but not broken or bloody! There she is, my Hepzibah, alive and well, standing guard over her fortress.
My relief is great, and I happily go about breakfast. I call my dad and he tells me he found the balding leader of our pack cowering on the porch in the morning, unscathed but rattled, and commends me saying that it must have been my horrifying mountain cat scream that scared off the predator. I have since installed a pellet gun in my cabin in hopes that the next trickstser is ready for target practice.
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