Game of Bones: Part 2

For several days after the meeting with the goats, the three turkeys who were there said nothing to the rest of the flock. 
Farmer Brown fed them every day and a hired man raked out the turkey poop and the weather was clear and the air smelled sweet.
Every day, Farmer Brown hopped up on a hay bale and took a deep breath and spoke boldly to the turkeys.
"You are so lucky to be on my farm!" he told them. "On other farms you would be penned into a coop where you could barely breathe and barely move. And the stench in those coops could knock a cat off a fish cart. Those turkeys are living in squalor. Here, you have freedom. You can roam all over this yard."

The turkeys had heard from the crows they were much better off on Farmer Brown's farm than other turkeys. 
"There is a farm just three miles from here, as the crow flies," said one of the crows "Where all the turkeys are kept inside a long, low building and they cannot move, they are packed in so tightly."
"It's clean here," the turkeys said. They could see the pig sty across the road and they knew they had it better than the pigs.

"We are very lucky to live on Farmer Brown's farm," the turkeys told each other. 
The farmer came every day with feed and filled the six pots set out in the fence in turkey yard. 
"You are free range turkeys," Farm Brown told them every day. "You are the most free turkeys there are. You are free to roam around this vast yard freely."

As the turkeys clustered around the pots and ate, the farmer spoke to them.
"I started this farm ten years ago and everybody said I was crazy. They said I couldn't succeed. They said I'd go belly up in a year. But all those 'experts' were wrong. This was a good farm back in the day, but then the newspaper, the 'Hampshire Crier' said farming was doomed and everyone should sell their farms and go to town and work as clerks in stores. The newspaper people are so dishonest. You can never believe a word they say.  But I bought this farm and I proved them all totally wrong. And now I'm going to make this farm great again. The 'Crier' prints lies every day about how this farm is failing. But it's going to be a winner! You turkeys will make this farm a winner, because you are all winners!"

The turkeys listened and swelled up their oversized breasts and said, "We will make this farm great again."

But then one night a piercing shrieking such as the turkeys had never heard  split the night darkness and every bird awoke, terrified. The screeching went on for only a few minutes, but it seemed like hours and then nothing. The birds' eyes, huge with alarm, found each other in the darkness, but presently, everyone settled back down to sleep.

The next morning, they found the blood and the feathers. It was hard to imagine a turkey could have so much blood inside, and the feathers, white and pure, but some drenched in blood were scattered near the fence. Then they found the head. It was so mangled and distorted, the turkeys could not recognize who it was. The neck had been sliced off, as if with a knife. Some very sharp teeth would have been required for that.  

And under the fence a tunnel, and the drag marks and feathers showed clearly where the unfortunate turkey had been dragged under and dragged out into the field. 

Turkeys ran to and fro, calling out names of friends and eventually one turkey was determined to be missing: Chrissie, that big breasted, snow white bird who some turkeys remembered, but some had not ever really known her; some remembered her, walking around the enclosure sticking out her breast. Now her head lay on the bloody dirt, her feathers bloodied, scattered about.

Farmer Brown arrived that morning, with two hired men and they looked at the blood and the feathers and the hired men looked at the hole under the fence and the farmer told them they would have to dig a trench  and fill it with planks to prevent another incursion.

Then he turned to the turkeys and spoke in a loud voice from deep in his chest:
"The wild turkeys have done this. The wild turkeys are determined to get into this enclosure. First, they'll go for the females, and you know what they want with the females. Then, they'll go after the males. 
First they do beheadings. 
Then they rape.
Then they murder.
And wild turkeys carry disease and the death of those left behind will be slow and ugly. The wild turkeys will infest this flock, unless we resist. 
But my men will dig a trench. And I'll make this fence high enough so they cannot fly over it and when it is complete, you will be safe. You are my beautiful, white turkeys. I'll keep you safe."

The birds clustered together in smaller groups, and they agreed, most of them,  they were lucky to have the farmer to protect them.

A few turkeys remained quiet. The three who had met with the goats were particularly silent.Brooks said he would arrange another meeting with the goats. 

That night the three turkeys met with the goats: "Farmer said the wild turkeys took Chrissie," Brooks told the goats.

Again, the old goat said nothing, but the young goat, Delphi, asked, "Do you believe the farmer? Do you think the wild turkeys got under the fence and got Chrissie?"

"I cannot understand how a turkey could slice through a neck and decapitate another turkey. Pecking eyes out, yes.  But that?"

"More likely," said Delphi. "A fox. Or a fisher cat."

"But the farmer is digging a trench to protect us,"  Brooks said hopefully. "And he'll build the fence so high the turkeys cannot fly over it."

For the first time, the old goat spoke: "He is protecting his investment."

"I don't understand," said Brooks, who was as startled to hear the old goat speak as he was confused by what he said. 

The old goat's voice sounded as if it bubbled up from some deep well. 
"Without you," said the old goat. "He loses his farm."
"But why?"
"You," said the old goat. "Are his cash crop. He can sell off a few pigs now and then. He can sell the milk from the cows and the chickens' eggs, but you are what keeps his cash flow going. He grows no crops. All he has for cash is you."

"But he is building the fence so high..." the turkey Chamberlain expostulated. 
"Have you ever seen a wild turkey fly?" asked the old goat.
"No," the white turkeys admitted.
"I've seen them at the tops of those trees," said the old goat. "No fence can contain them."

Back among the flock the three turkeys thought about what the old goat had said.
"What does he know?" asked Chamberlain "He's just an old goat."
"Those wild turkeys are the real problem," said Will. "They are not like us. If it weren't for the fence, they would be in here ravishing our females and pecking our eyes out."

Just then, the hedgehog popped out of the ground and expostulated, "He is going to kill you and take the money." 
Then he disappeared under ground again.

"That hedgehog is getting on my nerves," said Chamberlain.
"He might work for the newspaper," Will said. 
"The hedgehog," said Brooks, "is not clever."
"The farmer is very smart." Chamberlain observed. "Very clever."
 "The hedgehog knows only one thing."  Brooks said.

And then he added, "But he knows it very well."