Jane Wayne, the sole survivor of the Great Chicken Massacre of 2023, did not appear outwardly traumatized. She hung out in the cool darkness under the lilac bushes just as she used to do when her sisters were alive, taking a dust bath and watching the humans dash around cleaning up blood and feathers. She remained in the yard all day, making periodic forays to her usual haunts, scratching in the pile of grass clippings, hiding under the camper. But when night fell and it was time to put Jane in the coop (and make it secure this time!), she suddenly was nowhere to be found.

My son and I wandered all around looking for her: first our yard, then the farm and machine yard, then as far as the bridge over the irrigation canal. Our hearts were sinking. We figured that the predator had probably returned and dragged Jane off as well. We were still raw from the massacre, but had been taking comfort in the fact that we still had one chicken to care for. Now, with heavy hearts and against the background of a brilliant red Idaho sunset, we trudged home.

The next morning, clinging to some faint hope, we wandered to the back to see whether Jane had reappeared. And there she was! Roosting in the upper branches of the lilac bush by the wood pile! Jane had apparently spent the night in the bush. This is normal wild chicken behavior. We are not sure whether Jane found the coop too full of distressing memories, or whether, without the crowd to remind her, she has forgotten that her normal routine is to go into the coop at night and rest on its upper rafters. (Another theory is that she had already been spending the night in the lilac bushes, and this is what enabled her to survive the massacre. This theory is disfavored, because we would usually do a visual check that the Barred Rocks were in the coop, and there were always four black butts faintly visible, perched up in the peak of the structure.)

Since her newly acquired status as Only Chicken, Jane has continued retiring to the lilacs on a nightly basis. Ordinarily, the humans will pluck her down from there, put her in the coop, and close the doors. (The small human is particularly good at this.) We want her to get used to spending the night in the coop, so that she will lay eggs there when she starts laying, and as an example to the next batch of chickens we already plan to buy. Once or twice, she has evaded us of an evening. There was a second vanishing, and a second despairing walk to the bridge and back along the canal. She may have a hiding place that we still haven’t discovered. Jane has unexpected depths. But so far, she can still be counted on to show up when a human emerges from the house bearing something tempting, like yoghurt.