The Killers: The Story of a Fighting Cock and a Wild Hawk

by Daniel P Mannix

 

Chapter 1
The Game-Cock

Whitehackle was struggling in the tiny world of the eggshell. He was getting too big for its narrow confines and he felt cramped, yet he had no idea what to do. He peeped desperately and from somewhere came a soft, reassuring cluck that gave the tiny morsel fresh courage. He turned and stretched, tried to kick and struck against the shell with his soft beak. By accident, a tiny horny protuberance on the top of his beak — the egg tooth — hit the shell and cracked it slightly. Encouraged, Whitehackle struck again and again. More bits of shell flaked off until finally by a mighty heave he split the shell. The two halves fell apart and Whitehackle found himself lying on his back, wildly waving his legs. He was soaking wet and exhausted by his struggles, but he was free.

He was conscious of a warm, fluffy shape above him from whence came comforting sounds but he was too weak to move for a long time. Gradually his soft down dried and he was able to struggle to his feet. Other shells were breaking and there were other struggling bits of life around him. Whitehackle fought himself clear and found he was out from the protective feathers of the hen. He tottered about uncertainly on his thin legs and soon began to feel cold. The hen ignored him, brooding the other chicks and unhatched eggs, until Whitehackle started an indignant peeping. Instantly the hen turned to him, called and spread her wings so he could creep back under their warm protection. Whitehackle reeled back to safety, cuddled down with a contented peep and soon was asleep. His first day of life was completed.

The next day, all the chicks hatched out with the exception of three infertile eggs which the hen abandoned. Being both hungry and thirsty, she started out with her brood toddling behind her, the weakest constantly falling down and struggling helplessly, for they had not as yet grown used to their legs. Step by step the hen led them from the nesting box to the water fountain where she drank repeatedly. Water was new to Whitehackle but he was attracted by its brilliant reflecting surface and its motion. Duplicating the actions of the hen, he also plunged his beak into the trough. He got a mouthful but did not know enough to tip his head back to swallow it. He looked up at his mother and tried to peep, whereupon the water ran down his throat. It was cool and pleasant so Whitehackle tried again, and this time voluntarily lifted his head, opening his beak slightly at the same time. He was rewarded by another squirt of cool water and soon he and the other chicks were drinking eagerly and expertly.

Eating was more complicated. The mother hen scratched and gave her food call which the chicks instinctively recognized and came running. They watched her peck and then Whitehackle tried it. He had no idea what he was looking for, but he was attracted by round or oblong objects rather than square or angular. He soon found these oblong objects were seeds and good to eat. Still, even after this discovery he had trouble picking up an individual grain, as he had not learned how to coordinate his eyes. Since they were on both sides of his head, he received two different images and these images had to be brought together when the object was directly in front of him. Still, with a little practice he learned to use only one eye at a time by cocking his head to one side. Later, he found that by bobbing his head up and down he could bring the two images together when looking straight ahead.

At first, the chicks had made comparatively little noise, but they soon found that it was their peeping, not their appearance, that stimulated their mother to take an interest in them. After that, all the chicks peeped almost continuously except when they were being brooded. Cold especially caused them to peep, and the colder they were the louder and more frequently they peeped. Although the hen was a good mother, it was impossible for her to keep track of all her brood and some were constantly getting lost. Usually she could locate them by their peeping but as she could not count, as long as some or the chicks were with her she would go on looking for food quite happily even though some wretched little straggler had taken a wrong turning.

The morning of his second day of life, Whitehackle had his first alarming experience although at the time it affected him far less than one might think. There were voices in the chicken house and Whitehackle became aware of two monsters towering over him. Like all the chicks, he fled screaming to the hen, who first gave a consoling cackle to bring them under her and then a warning cry directed at the monsters. Even so, they came on. The hen's angry threats rose in pitch and frequency, and when she saw one of the monsters leaning over to seize her, she went up in the air at his face, striking with her beak and feet. Even though she had no spurs, she was able to do enough damage to make the man curse before he overpowered her. The other monster wore an apron and she expertly picked up the frantic chicks, one after another, and put them in the apron. Then they were borne off to what fate they did not know, although they all peeped madly for their mother and she answered them while still in the grip of the other monster.

This fearful experience lasted only a minute or so. Then Whitehackle found himself, together with the other chicks, reunited with their mother in a chicken coop set up on a stretch of green lawn. After batting around the inside of the coop until she found that she could not escape, the mother hen settled down, called the chicks under her and brooded them. When one of the monsters returned to install a water fountain and fill the feeding dish, the mother made threatening noises at him but continued brooding the chicks until he went away.

The coop was to be Whitehackle's home for the next two months. There was a small sliding door in the front, large enough for the chicks but too small for the mother. Every morning when the dew was off the grass, a monster went by and lifted the sliding door. At first the chicks ventured only a foot or so out on the green grass, but soon they grew more venturesome and went several yards, looking for seeds and picking at the grass blades. They were also fed several times a day by the monster, who also constantly cleaned and refilled the water fountain, as the mother hen insisted on scratching dirt into it. Although the chicks always ran from him, they gradually grew used to the monster and connected him with food. Water was especially important to them, as they ate only dry food and so had to drink every few minutes.

There were a number of these coops, shaped like inverted V's, on the lawn, each containing a hen and her brood of chicks. After two days, each hen could recognize her own chicks by their peeps, but the chicks were willing to go to any hen. One evening after a tremendous expedition of at least two rods, Whitehackle and another chick went to the wrong coop. As they were quite independent now and seldom peeped except when they wanted something, the chicks made no noise and the strange hen accepted them without question. Then Whitehackle's brother peeped to be taken under the hen's wing and brooded. Instantly she attacked him, seizing him by the head and beating him against the ground. Whitehackle fled in terror, the dying screams of his brother goading him on. He ran up and down among the coops, peeping hysterically until he heard his mother's anxious clucks and ran to her.

The next morning, a larger door was opened in the front of the coops so the hens could go out with their broods. Now that his mother was out in the sunlight, Whitehackle got his first good look at her. She had a light red head, whitish breast, brown wings and a green tail, but in general she gave the impression of being a wheaten color. Although all the hens were sisters to keep the bloodlines pure, there were several fights among them when they considered that their offspring were imperiled, and here Whitehackle's mother easily came out victor. One hen left these combats minus an eye, and several fled with bloody, skinned heads. Whitehackle's mother was prepared not only to defend her brood against other chickens, but also against dogs, cats or even the great monster himself. She was a man-fighter and would long ago have gotten her neck wrung had she not been so good a mother and always produced a line of dead-game cocks.

As Whitehackle grew, he learned to make full use of his excellent hearing and sight. Nearly all of his mother's calls he knew instinctively: food, warning, anger or the call to brood, but by experience he learned to know just where the food probably was, where the danger was likely to be and how imminent it was. He learned too, that not only his mother, but also all the chickens gave these cries, so by listening for them he greatly increased his chances of finding food or being warned of danger. This was the advantage of living in a flock. His sight did not improve after the first few days but he learned what to look for. At first any object moving overhead made him cringe instinctively, even a falling leaf. Later, he took alarm only at a fairly large flying bird with a short neck. Long-necked birds like ducks or geese did not bother him. Whitehackle was not conscious of the fact that hawks, which were dangerous, had short necks, while the harmless aquatic birds had long ones; simply, he was terrified by the silhouette of a shortnecked bird. He was also upset by a swooping or darting flight, whereas the steady flight of ducks and geese was not alarming. In such matters Whitehackle was guided by overall patterns, not details; he relied on field marks that could be seen at a distance and instantly recognized. When the farm boy flew his kite, Whitehackle paid no attention to it, for the kite was not a sinister shape, but when a sudden current of wind made the kite swoop and dip, he panicked. The chicken's fright at such a harmless object as a kite amused the boy, but, of course, if chickens waited to identify every flying object by particulars, they would have become extinct centuries ago.

In only one faculty was Whitehackle deficient: he had almost no sense of smell. His ancestors had lost that with their ability to fly and so trusted to their wings to save them rather than being able to scent danger. Naturally with a winged predator, a sense of smell would have done him no good anyhow.

By the second month, the chick's pinfeathers began to force their way through the soft down. Before, the chicks had been darling little bits of fluff. Now they were awkward, homely objects, for the quills made them seem prickly. Only when the feathers broke through the sheathing of the quills would they look respectable again. But never would they regain the cute baby look which appealed to adult chickens and to a large extent protected them from being pecked — unless by mistake they tried to usurp the rightful place of other chicks under a protective mother hen. With this change, their own mothers gradually lost interest in them, so the adolescent chicks would soon be on their own and have to establish their individual positions in the flock.

Unaware of the struggles that lay ahead, the youngsters were delighted at escaping from the authority of the hen — although they still rushed to her in time of trouble — and gloried in their new freedom. They lost interest in the insipid chick starter seed and developed a taste for meat. They chased bugs eagerly, and gladly accepted the hamburger the man put out for them. They needed protein to make them grow and were especially fond of any mash with milk in it. They got plenty of that and it became the major part of their diet. The mash was made of oats, barley and the best grades of corn, all obtained from a mill where the grain was still water-ground between millstones to preserve the germ. The owner spared no expense in rearing them, for he knew that someday the cocks would enter the pit with several thousand dollars riding on their feathers, so the chicks were more scientifically fed than his own children.

Now that they were growing more independent, quarrels broke out among the chicks that were half play and half serious. Especially the young cockerels (stags their owner would have called them, as they were young fighting cocks) would square off at each other, striking with their still soft beaks or rocketing up with beating wings, their spurless feet hitting harmlessly. The pullets seldom took part in these playful duels, because they were no match for the aggressive stags, but they had their own disputes as they sought to establish dominance over each other. The mother hen would have fought to the death to protect her offspring from an outsider, but she never interfered in these squabbles, letting the children fight it out among themselves.

Of all the young stags, Whitehackle was the most independent. He usually won his mock duels and wandered farther afield than any of his brothers. His mother was a great ranger, taking her brood not only around the safe confines of the lawn and barnyard, but also into the fields and even up to the woods that grew beyond. Some of the weaker chicks were unable to keep up with her on these long expeditions and these were lost, but Whitehackle loved the trips. He liked exploring and sampling new bugs and berries. While the other chicks were only too glad to return to the coop when called, Whitehackle lingered. Several times he found himself left behind, but by giving a series of shrill peeps, three a second and very shrill, he was always able to attract his mother's attention. She would answer him with a reassuring series of repetitious, short, low-frequency clucks until Whitehackle, straining upward on tiptoe, could see her in the distance and run to her. Once beside her, he would give a happy twittering call, four peeps per second and much softer, to which his mother would answer with a purring note as she offered him her wing.

 

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