John Barth - Giles Goat-Boy

" I'm a-coming ," he sang out, " Founder knows! " I started after, but real pursuit was out of the question: my walking-stick found no purchase on the mossy stones, and I slipped at once hard down in the numbing shallows.

"Go back!" I heard the lady warn. Founder pass us, still she stood there, and though with one hand she waved G. Herrold away, with the other she yet clutched up her shift beneath her bosoms. Worse, she commenced to thrust her hips like a rutsome doe and call her call again. I feared now for his life, he was that bound to reach her; already the torrent was hip-high on him, and driving him off his balance. I scrambled up and looked to Max for counsel — whereat I beheld what he already was beholding: the next amazement.

From somewhere upshore, or the cliff-road behind us, or the pure March air, had appeared a party of nine men such as I'd never seen before. Their heads were shaved, their skin was of a darker tone than mine but lighter than G. Herrold's, and all wore long yellow robes. Eight of them, lean as scarecrows, bore on their shoulders a two-poled platform whereon sat the well-fleshed ninth. His legs were folded tight before him, his hands pressed palm to palm above his belly; his eyes were closed (but not as in sleep), his lips smiled ever so slightly, his whole expression was of a serenity unbefitting the occasion. They crossed the beach — without so much as a glance at the broken bridge, the bare-snatched maid, or our floundering friend — and entered the river themselves. The cold current (which alas had pressed G. Herrold down until he clung now to a boulder for his life) had as well been a sheep-dip tank for all they paused or faltered; already they were waist-high and about to pass two meters upstream from the boulder.

"So save G. Herrold!" Max shouted. And I too: "Snatch him! Snatch him!"

Surely they could have, either by returning their burden to our shore or by excusing for only a moment one of the bearers; they each had a free arm to help with, had they deigned to pass just downstream of him; without even that aid G. Herrold might at least have clung to their yellow wrappers and got his footing. But they would not, they would not, nor so much as share our horror when, at the bridge-girl's next cry croaker, G. Herrold with a wail went under. We saw him roll to the surface some yards down; the lady dropped her shift at last to clutch her hair and shriek. The current fetched G. Herrold against another rock; he scrambled for balance, his white fleece cap tumbled off and away, almost it seemed he might get to his knees again — but the rapids overcame him. Down he went, and under, shophar flopping: once only I thought I glimpsed his wrapper in the foaming rush, then lost sight of it, and he was gone.

We stood shocked for some moments, Max and I, then hastened down the beach. It was slow enough going, what with his age, my gimp, and the stones and slick clay underfoot, but we searched a kilometer at least downstream for some sign of G. Herrold. In vain. A sharp shale promontory blocked our way at the gorge's mouth, where the river had been dammed. There we caught our breath and wept, half-expecting to see our friend's body sweep with the river down that spillway into the lake.

"He might have washed ashore where we couldn't see him," I insisted. "He could be resting on the other side somewhere."

Max shook his head.

"Why didn't they help him?" I demanded angrily. "What was that girl doing those things on the bridge for?"

Max groaned, clutching his beard. "You're asking me? I never saw such a thing!"

Dusk was upon us, there was no point in waiting longer. At Max's suggestion we headed bridgewards: surely officials from the Department of Civil Engineering would arrive in the morning, if not that same evening, to inspect the wash-out, which could not go long unrepaired. The most we could do, when they fetched us across, was report the sad news so that the river could be searched for G. Herrold's body.

"And the woods," I insisted again, "in case he got out and he's just lying hurt somewhere."

" Ja, well," Max agreed, "the woods too, then." And for my sake he pretended there was some sense in our calling G. Herrold's name all the way upshore. My burden wanted no explaining to him, who had been my tutor in Responsibility: it was not simply the river that had drowned G. Herrold, but the ruin of his mind, whereof WESCAC and my living self were cause.

Approaching the bridgehead in the last light, we could see the men in yellow on the far shore. Safe over, they had set down their passenger and were themselves positioned around him on the sand, as if to rest. Their legs were folded and their palms pressed together in his manner; I supposed their eyes were shut too, like his, as their ears had been and their hearts. The lady girl we saw still at the bridge-end, but on her knees now in what could be taken for grief: at least her hands hid her face, and her long dark hair her hands.

Yet even as I regarded her, uncertain how to feel, she lifted her head, espied us, and once more sent her flunkèd slender cry over the stream.

"Croa-ker!"

I clenched my fists: What madness was it? And before our unbelieving eyes, could it be the shift went up again? Almost unseparable it was from the white of her skin now, as distinction faded with the day — but yes, by dint of squinting I discerned her shame, that patch as it were on her else-pure-whiteness, or fallen fleck of night-sky in her lap! No drowning comrade to divert me, I couldn't turn my gaze, for all Max warned me to. He understood her now, he declared, and spoke bitterly of those fair dread singers Laertides met, who, had he not stopped his colleagues' ears and lashed himself to the mast, had lured his research vessel onto the rocks. Every hero sooner or later met their like, Max cautioned (a bit more severely, as I gazed on), and nothing could be more perilous than to attend them. True, the call of this bridge-girl was nowise fetching, but her temptation was quite as dangerous as the Sirens'. What was more (he clutched at my fleece when I stepped toward the water for a clearer view) it would be a grave error to suppose her an idle whore or exhibitionist, and her presence on the bridge a mere coincidence: nothing could be more likely than that sinister elements in West Campus — the same that had sought my death at the first — had watched my growth carefully all those years, fearing the day I should understand my mission, and having by some means got word of my departure, were resolved to put every obstacle between me and their ruin.

I listened with considerable interest, though without turning my head, and agreed from the side of my mouth that Grand Tutors in general, and particularly one bent on ending forever the Quiet Riot and bringing peace of mind to the whole student body, must inevitably make powerful enemies, if only because riot-defense had become so important a feature in the life and budget of the colleges. And it was perfectly possible, I conceded further, that the girl with her shift up had been sent to intercept me, whether by the Nikolayans or by misguided professor-generals in New Tammany itself, who had a vested interest in the Quiet Riot: was it not on a bridge, after all, that my childhood exemplar W. W. Gruff had come near to being eaten?

"Shut your eyes already!" Max pleaded, coming round front now to push against me, with his toes dug into the sand.

But I would not take them from the thing that held them, which (my grief for G. Herrold notwithstanding) roused me as I'd not been roused since Chickie-in-the-buckwheat. Unmindful of my keeper's distress — how he butted his head into my stomach, how leaped and waved to interrupt my view — I stared until that little patch of darkness seemed to grow, becoming one with the larger that presently enveloped all, as if the gorge itself had closed over our heads.