Immediately I sent our dog, Ranger, out to find the missing chicken. Ethan joined in the search, but we were unable to locate her. Afraid that another fowl had fallen to foul play, we decided to take a walk around the property on Sunday morning, to see if we could spot any "evidence," such as feathers or fox tracks. When predators strike, it is usually more than one time.

     Sunday morning was bright and sunny, a perfect spring morning. Marcy (a.k.a. Sanni) was staying on the property in Honey Lee French’s mobile home, dog-sitting while Honey Lee was out of town. We decided to ask Marcy to come on the walk with us. I told her that we were looking for the remains of the missing chicken.

  "Did you look around the henhouse?" she asked.

Well, of course I had. I explained that we had looked in all the obvious places. Most likely something had dragged her off into the woods and had a meal. Or an eagle might have swooped down and carried her off, leaving no evidence.

     We walked through the woods and after a while Marcy said again, "I think you should look around the henhouse."

     I again explained that it was unlikely the hen was around there, for we had already searched.

     We had walked a while longer when Marcy said, "I really feel like the chicken is around that henhouse. Do you mind if I go look?"

     I sighed and told her to go ahead and look, but Ethan, the dog and I would continue circling the boundaries of the property. Marcy went straight to the henhouse. It wasn’t 10 minutes later when we heard her crying at the top of her lungs, "I FOUND THE CHICKEN!"

     I started running toward home. Marcy continued to cry out, "I FOUND THE CHICKEN!"

     Finally, Ranger and I got there. Marcy pointed to a spot next to Ethan’s tool shed, which wasn’t far from the henhouse and barn. A hen was stuck between a cement block and the side of the shed, trapped and unable to move. By the looks of her, she had probably fallen and gotten wedged there the day before. Marcy had found the chicken.

     "I kept getting that I was to look by a white stone," explained Marcy. "I kept saying, ‘What white stone?’ The voice kept telling me to look for it, and then I saw the cement block, and there was the chicken!"

     Ethan reached down and dislodged the bird from its torture chamber. She was exhausted from trying to escape and quite battered looking. We placed her in back of the horse trailer and gave her water and some food. She remained in there for a couple of hours, and then I set her free. She has been walking cross-legged ever since, and her feathers are still frumpy and stick out. But she is doing just fine. She earned her name that day: Lucky.