![]() ![]() ![]() And I have seen a wolf's head that one of the hunters brought back to hang up as a warning in his fold. I have heard stories of how they raid the outlying pastures, and once I think I heard one howling in the snow. The wild boy they speak of lives among wolves, in the ravines to the east, beyond the cultivated farms and villas of our well-watered valley. I have heard the goatherds speak of a wild boy, whether this one or another I do not know and of course I do not admit to them, or to anyone, that I know him. My brother, who is a year older, does not see him, even when he moves close between us. We speak to one another, but in a tongue of our own devising. ![]() A black he-goat is up on his hind legs reaching for vineshoots. There are windblown poppies in the grass. The goatherd is dozing against an olive bole, his head rolled back to show the dark line of his jaw and the sinews of his scraggy nexk, the black mouth gaping. I see myself – I might be three or four years old – playing under the olives at the edge of our farm, just within call of the goatherd, and I am talking to the child, whether for the first time or not I cannot tell at this distance. A NOVEL BY David Malouf WHEN I first saw the child I cannot say. ![]()
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