John Barth - Giles Goat-Boy

With his light burden and stronger legs Croaker's pace was better than mine. Every hundred meters or so he'd gain a dozen and wait with a grin for me to catch up. We went in this manner for about a kilometer, and then at one of his pauses I saw him turn abruptly off the pavement toward a ditch that ran beside us. I called and hurried after, afraid he was bolting; Max held tightly to keep from falling but seemed otherwise indifferent, and made no effort to stop him. However, it was something in the ditch had caught his eye. He sprang down in, grunting like a boar, and as I overtook him fetched his prize up onto the roadside: a black motorcycle, which he hauled out lightly as a toy. It was the kind used by Stoker's men, and perhaps for this reason Croaker hammered at it earnestly with his fists until I bade him stop. "One of your friends had an accident," Max observed. Indeed, the sidecar was partly crushed, the windscreen broken, and the front tire burst, as if the vehicle had plunged into the ditch with some force. I suggested that the driver, nowhere in sight, must have been the sharp-faced officer sent to find Max, but then observed that the original position of the motorcycle in the ditch, as well as its tire-marks on the shoulder of the road, indicated that it had been traveling towards the Powerhouse at the time of the accident.

"So," Max said without interest. "There's lots of roads, and Stoker's got more bullies than one."

"What happened to the driver, do you think?" Max shrugged. As he was so plainly indifferent, I ordered Croaker to wait while I searched and called through the underbrush on both sides of the road, in case someone lay injured. There was no reply.

"He must have gone for help," I decided. "Or someone came after him already."

Max turned his head contemptuously and would not even look at the damaged machine, which I however examined curiously.

"How far it is to Great Mall, Max?"

"Farther than yesterday," he said dryly. Among the other misfortunes of encountering Stoker, it seemed, was that previously we'd been moving west, from the College Farms towards Great Mall, but the route from the Gorge to the Powerhouse had fetched us many kilometers to the north, out of our way.

I decided then to attempt to use the motorcycle: if it proved possible to manage it, at a low speed, Croaker could either sit in the sidecar or trot alongside, with Max on his shoulders, and we might reach Great Mall before dark; otherwise we'd spend another night in the open or have to beg lodging. So at least I imagined, ignorant as I was of the campus and of such matters as the medium of exchange and Max's wherewithal; I assumed that, once officially matriculated, one was housed and fed at the College's expense — but I knew nothing of these matters, and Max, who ordinarily might have advised me, was grown so morose I had difficulty getting out of him that he knew nothing of motorcycle-operation himself or the legal aspects of borrowing the vehicle. This I could scarcely credit; privately I was becoming persuaded that besides his distress over G. Herrold and his objection to Stoker, what was really upsetting him was my independence of his authority, and Anastasia's declaration that he was her natural father — which for all I knew might be true despite his denying it. In any case he was too lost in his broodings to care much what I did, and so I set about examining the machine's controls and recalling what I could of Stoker's operation of them.

After some experiment I managed, partly by accident, to get the ignition on, the throttle half-opened, the carburetor choked, and the clutch disengaged all at the same time, and was rewarded by a sputter from the engine when I kicked the starter. Presidently I contrived a sustained idle, having by chance let off the choke, and was able to sit on the trembling three-wheeler and vary the engine speed most satisfyingly — without however moving from the spot. Next came a series of jerks and stalls as I fiddled with the shift-lever and learned its association with the clutch-pedal; finally, by a happy combination of chance and deduction, I released my grip on the hand-brake, shifted out of neutral into low gear (not suspecting there were other ratios still), and throttled the engine sufficiently in time to keep from stalling. The jerk nearly took me off the seat; luckily my hand slipped from the throttle before I could reduce speed and stop again out of terror; but I hung on and even mustered presence enough of mind to steer away from the ditch, onto the pavement. To negotiate a straight course was more difficult than I'd imagined, owing (as I was to learn presently) to the flat front tire and the pull of the sidecar, which had been wrenched out of line by the crash. But I was exhilarated — two monsters brought to heel in as many days! — and hobbled along delightedly in low gear, with the engine roaring. Croaker skipped alongside, grinning and grunting, and bid fair to bounce my advisor from his shoulders; he seemed as pleased as I by my achievement, and I perfected his bliss by giving him my stick to chew, since Max showed no interest in using it to direct him. We did after all move a little faster in this clumsy wise than we had before, though perhaps not enough to redeem the time lost in my self-instruction. Happily there was no traffic to deal with. More happily yet, as it turned out, we came in a quarter-hour to a crossroads, where a young man with orange hair and a satchel was.

He wore a trim gray woolen suit and a cap of raccoon-fur and did push-ups in the road; his flowered necktie, loose at the throat, folded itself upon the asphalt when he sank and unfolded when he rose. Mid-dip he paused at the sound of us, face gleaming like his hair, then stood and waved his cap as we approached. An uncommonly tall chap: his trouser-cuffs hung shy of his great yellow shoes, his sleeves of his great red hands. Now we were nearer I saw he meant us to stop, and wondered whether, despite the freckled cheer of his countenance, he mightn't be some sort of threat. It seemed odd, too, that he showed no alarm at sight of Croaker, whom however he regarded with a look of merry amazement. There was no time for Max to advise me, even had he wished to; in any case I'd have had trouble hearing him over the engine. It was a choice between stopping, running the man down, and turning to right or left: I chose to stop. Indeed, the choice was made for me by my ignorance and indecision: I braked without either declutching or closing the throttle, and the motor stalled.

"Mercy sakes a'mighty Pete!" The fellow drew out his exclamation in an accent not unlike G. Herrold's, scratching his head the while. His grin quite laid my apprehension, as did the good-natured wonder in his eyes — in his eye, rather, for though the pair were of an equal blue and glint, it was only the right that moved from me to the flat-tired cycle to Max and Croaker, while the left (if anything more wide than its companion) stared always straight ahead.

I returned his smile, addressing it to the bridge of his nose. "How do you do. Is this your motorcycle?"

He grinned farther yet. "You mean she ain't yourn? Might of guessed, way you handled 'er."

As there was no criticism in his tone, just frank amusement, I described the circumstances of my discovery and appropriation of the cycle. I had no mind to keep it, I explained: inasmuch as Mr. Maurice Stoker was an acquaintance of mine and his wife by way of being a particular friend, I was certain they'd not object to my borrowing their machine to reach Great Mall and — the pleasant notion occurred to me as I spoke — returning it to Mrs. Stoker at the Psych Clinic when I had done registering.

"I always did hear there was big goings-on at the Powerhouse this time of year," the tall man said. "Don't know Mr. Stoker my own self, but I bet half what they say about him isn't so." I recognized that he was being agreeable. He was, now I saw him close, less young than I'd supposed: more probably forty than twenty for all his boyishness of look and manner.