The Rooster

The chicken coupe in our backyard was at least a 10' by 12' enclosure. Framed with old two by fours and covered in one inch chicken wire, it was always full of yellow hay, red hens, and.....a rooster.
The rooster routinely chased me from my favorite play areas around the barn. It was a helpless feeling to find myself playing quietly near a fence or behind the shed, and have his cocky legs strut around the corner, looking for a fight.
Instinctualy I was afraid of the rooster, but my experience with him left me even more terrified. Several times he had strutted around apparently uninterested in me, only to take me by surprise when he turned my way and increased his pace in an all out rooster charge, flapping his wings and occasionally catching me with a spur. To a four year old, there is nothing quite so intimidating as a charging rooster.
One quiet afternoon I was near the hen house. Maybe mom had sent me after eggs, but I can't really remember. Earlier I had been admiring my ears in the mirror and felt very proud that they were not large cumbersome ears, but small dignified ears. The kind of ears of a serious and important person. I couldn't help but notice that the chicken wire holes were nearly the same size as said ears, and for some reason, I had the urge to see if my ear would fit through the hole.
I scrunched up my ear and felt with my fingers, felt for the hole, and..pop. It fit. With my curiosity satisfied, I pulled away gently, only to find that a small barb of wire had caught the tender skin on the back of my ear. That's when I saw it. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the cocky legs of the rooster, purposely pacing towards me. Before I could free my captured ear, the rooster was on me pecking and spurring me like a cowardly bully picking on a defenseless child. It was a blur of feathers, noise, and pain. Noise both from the merciless clucking, but also from my screams.
Somehow free from the wire, I ran into the house.

Sometime later, my Father, somehow sensing my defeat helped my kill and cook that rooster. I watched Dad cut the heads off several chickens with a quick strike of the axe against the stump of an old cottonwood tree. When it was the roosters turn, Dad held him still and gave me the axe. Sadly, I was too weak as a four year old to swing the axe. I managed to lift it clumsily ten or so inches above the beasts' neck, but didn't have the strength to swing it and managed only to allow gravity to pull the axe down. It didn't cut at all, and rather bounced off the neck of the now pitiful creature. I struggled to lift the axe twice more to strike the neck before Dad had mercy on him and cut off his head with one swing. Even in death it seamed the still flapping body flapped my way as if to make one final charge.