John Barth - Giles Goat-Boy

I found voice to suffer with. Most painfully I came through the scuffling does and leaned on my herdsman's crook quite before the lovers' eyes. I had as well been invisible. Tom's nostrils flared; Hedda's little forelegs were braced wide against the weight on her withers, and her head — slack with passion! — hung nearly between them. Now all swam in tears — the last I ever shed. Tottering for balance I brought the crook down between my friend's horns. The does leaped back, all save Hedda, who went to her knees when Tom collapsed. He gave a wild kick in the flanks as he tumbled off, and died with a jerk. The force of my blow had sat me down. I was out of wind, out of rage, one enormous hurt, as oblivious now to the does that ran a-frenzy as they had been to me. Hedda, loosed of her lover, bolted with them; in a moment they had chanced upon the open gate and were gone.

Good Tom and I — once more we had the pen to ourselves. His eyes were open; his head was crushed. I had chipped no horn and drawn no blood as a jealous buck might have: merely I had killed him. And with my whole heart I wished what no goat ever could — that it were I who lay thus battered past more hurt.

Already the does were calming. Brickett Ranunculus neither gloated nor grieved that the entire herd was his now to stud; indeed he forgot what two minutes past had set him frantic, and turned away from us to nibble hay. Hedda still wandered about the pound, shaking her neck and trying to lick herself; yet she had no notion what fretted her, any more than she could know how suddenly dear a charge she bore. The rest had gone about their business.

What I had done, what I now felt, apart from the great pain in my legs — ah, Creamhair, I cursed with you the hour I had ever been brought to light! Was I not a troll after all, the get of some foul mismating, or maggotlike engendered in dank turd under a bridge? And none, there was none even to gore and trample me — no hope!

I crawled on all fours out from the pen, across the pound, through the barn. I thought I might die of the hurt, and wished life only to hear Max add his curse to Lady Creamhair's. Why had I ever feared the Road, which could kill only goats? I dragged across safe as the grave-worms would through Tommy and made my way to the first building, a small stone box which I knew to be the Livestock Branch of the Library. I expected — half I hoped — to be set upon by dogs, such as I had seen round up the sheep in a neighboring pasture, or at the least to be whipped by human guards; but the place seemed empty. The first door I came to was a small one, stopped open against the hot noonday. Beyond it, like a cave, a dark hall stretched, which when my eyes accommodated I saw to be lined with bookshelves. What terrors waited in that place I couldn't care; I heaved myself over the sill onto the cold flags.

"Max!" My voice bleated like a new kid's. Somewhere near in the cool dark had been a whining hum, which at my cry clicked off and unwound. The one sound then was a truckle of water, as from a tap or fountain.

A voice, not Max's, called from behind the wall of books. "Who that holler in my stacks?"

It was the query put by trolls. For all my anguish I trembled.

"Ain't no students belong in George's stacks. Who there?"

Footsteps came from where the hum had been, that I must think was the monster's snore. "It's only I," I answered. "Please, it's — the Goat-Boy."

I saw come round behind, to the aisle I lay in, great baleful eyes; then a man, by the form of him, or troll in man's disguise — but black as his lair. More dread, he held by the neck a silver-headed serpent, mouth agape; its body, twelve times the size of any rattler's in the pasture, trailed out of sight around the corner. They stood outlined now between me and the doorway.

I shouted again for Max.

"What you squalling, Goat-Boy?" The creature set down his serpent, which drew back half a foot and lay still. I made to flee deeper into the passageway.

"Whoa down, chile!" In a moment he overtook me and squatted at my head, so that both ends of the aisle were closed to me.

"Don't eat me up," I pleaded, and resorted to the one stratagem I knew. "Wait till Dr. Spielman comes along, and eat him ."

"Eat, boy? Who gone eat? Nobody gone eat."

His voice I had to own did not threaten, and for all the tearfulness of those eyes, his grip was gentle on my shoulder. I looked to see whether the serpent was creeping near.

"How about that snake?" I pointed urgently, and he glanced there as if frightened himself. "Is it dead?"

When he caught my meaning his teeth flashed white as his eyes. "Ol' sweeper? I be dead 'fore now if ol' sweeper could bite!" His voice turned confidential. "Can't nobody eat me up, boy. I done been et ."

His answer set him to chuckling; then after a moment he said, "Here's you a riddle: Which mother got the most children, and eats 'em every one when they grown up?"

"Please, sir," I said wretchedly. "I'm not a student, I'm just the Goat-Boy, and I've got to find Dr. Spielman. I've hurt my legs."

I held one aching thigh as I spoke. The black man inspected my bruises, frowning concern. The pain was not nearly so severe as it had been at first, but my sweat raised gooseflesh in the chilly air.

"Hurt his legs," my examiner murmured. "Flunk if he didn't. And not a stitch of clothes on. Who stuck you in the booklift, chile?" He did not seem to be addressing me. I sat up as best I could; with a fierce shrug he put his arm around my shoulders to brace me and looked closely at my chest. He spoke as if reading something from the watch that hung there. " Pass All … Pass All …"

" Pass All Fail All! " I exclaimed. For all his behavior perplexed me, I was not so frightened now. "What does that mean, anyhow?"

He drew back. "Land sakes, sir, I wasn't messin' with no tapes! I just come by with ol' sweeper and hears this squallin' — what I gone do, let the poor child get his brains et?"

His complaint — to whom, I could not imagine — turned into a senseless mumble, thence to a mournful snatch of song about a certain Shore where (not unlike the brothers Gruff) he looked to find his heart's desire, could he but cross to it. Then he broke off singing with a scoff.

"Pass All Fail All! Ain't no child gone die in these here stacks!" He thrust his other arm under my legs, picked me up, and started down the aisle. I protested until I heard him say — still more to himself than to me — "I gone fetch you out of here, fore we both gets et. Dr. Spielman know what's what."

Just then a voice I knew called, "George?" and my heart sprang up, for Max himself crossed the end of our aisle. He peered in, not recognizing me for an instant, and then hurried to us.

"Yi Billy, what's this now!"

"He legs bunged up in that ol' booklift!" George said indignantly. "A poor naked chile!"

"Oh, Max!" Borne still by the great black George I clung to my dear keeper's neck. "I killed Redfearn's Tommy!"

"Nah, you what!" Max pulled distressfully at his beard. "Put him there, George. What's this with the legs hurt?"

"Sure I got no business touchin' no tapes," George declared. "Ain't nobody's business stuffin' no chile in the booklift, neither!" They laid me on a nearby wooden table; my eyes burned that no one understood my deed.

"I hit Tommy with a crook!" I cried. "He's dead!"

Max clasped me to him then while I choked out my grievous tale. " Ach, Bill!" he groaned at each new disclosure: my resolve to be a human man, the attack on Lady Creamhair, and her curse… " Ach, Bill!" My resolve thereafter to be a goat-buck, the rape of Hedda, and Tom's murder at my hands… " Ach , Bill!"