A Campus Goose Is Killed and Hung from a Tree

A goose is killed and hung from a tree on the West Central Pennsylvania University campus, and its death is quickly made to stand for more than the loss of one animal. Because William Henry Devereaux, Jr. had threatened to kill ducks unless his department received a budget, the discovery becomes a test of his credibility, a focus for protest, and a public spectacle. The account never identifies the killer; instead, it follows the rapid circulation of suspicion and the consequences of linking an actual death to a comic, politically charged threat.

Discovery and Suspicion

William Henry Devereaux, Jr. learns of the killing in a phone call with Teddy Barnes. Teddy reports that someone has killed a goose and hung it from a tree branch on campus, adding that Lou Steinmetz suspects the English professor. The suspicion has traveled through a short chain of campus communication: Randy, working at the security desk, called Lou, who immediately associated the crime with the professor known for his threat. This is hearsay, not evidence establishing who killed the goose, but it gives the accusation a recognizable basis in the university’s recent controversy.

The distinction between the threat and the killing is central. William Henry Devereaux, Jr. had spoken of killing a duck each day until he got a budget; the animal found hanging is a goose. During the later television interview, someone corrects the interviewer when she calls it a duck. That correction matters because the public story compresses a specific death into the language of the professor’s earlier ultimatum, even as the species itself resists the shorthand. The report makes the threat seem newly consequential without proving that William Henry Devereaux, Jr. acted on it.

Protest and Public Spectacle

By the time William Henry Devereaux, Jr. arrives at the faculty parking lot, a television van is again parked near the campus pond and protesters have gathered in greater numbers than before. Their protest concerns the death of a single goose, but its scale and volume make the incident part of a broader campus drama. From inside his car, with the windows closed, he can still hear the chanting. The demonstrators’ signs and repeated slogans turn the accusation into a public performance, while the television presence gives that performance an audience beyond campus.

The scene also places the protest against William Henry Devereaux, Jr.’s memories of demonstrations during the Vietnam War. He considers April especially suited to public moral indignation: spring break has ended, the weather encourages people to gather outdoors, and finals are close enough that protest can offer an alternative to classes and studying. He recalls courting Lily through earlier protests and remembers her as fierce, beautiful, strong, and good while carrying a sign. That recollection complicates his view of the demonstrators: he recognizes the attractions of protest even as he is now its target. The growing steel framework of Technical Careers is visible across the lot, another sign of the institution changing around the dispute, though the account does not connect the construction directly to the killing.

The Accusation on Camera

At the television interview, Missy Blaylock identifies William Henry Devereaux, Jr. as chair of the English department and places his earlier budget threat beside the discovery of the goose. Colleagues who are not teaching have come into the hallway to watch. Placards rise, the protesters repeat their demand that Devereaux be stopped, and the interview turns a campus incident into an immediate public question about his responsibility. He declines to comment. That refusal does not establish guilt, but it leaves the accusation unanswered in front of the crowd.

Missy then reports that Richard Pope, the campus executive officer, considers William Henry Devereaux, Jr. innocent. Rather than treating that assurance as a resolution, the professor responds with a deliberately wild suggestion that Pope himself might be involved. The exchange unsettles the interviewer and shifts the encounter briefly from a straightforward accusation to an absurdly widened field of suspicion. Neither the suspicion directed at Devereaux nor his counter-suggestion supplies evidence about the killer. The interview instead shows how quickly certainty can be performed in public, and how easily an unanswered question can become another part of the spectacle.

The Classroom Aftermath

The killing follows William Henry Devereaux, Jr. into his afternoon composition class. Students feel ill-treated because he had asked them for advice in essay form and, before they had submitted their work, a goose was killed in circumstances that seemed to enact his threat. Some students had also witnessed the morning interview, where he did not deny being responsible, and had heard what they understood as an implied promise of further killing unless he received a budget. Their interpretation is not proof that he committed the act, but it helps explain why the class experiences the incident as a breach of trust rather than as distant campus news.

After collecting the essays, William Henry Devereaux, Jr. divides them into two unequal piles. Most of the students, he finds, have advised him to kill a duck. He reads three essays anonymously, hoping that hearing the arguments aloud will make their authors confront the reasoning behind their advice and perhaps become uncertain of it. The essays defend carrying out a threat on the ground that a threat not followed by action will lose credibility; their writers compare the issue to national military threats and the consequences of failing to pursue them. Thus the goose’s death becomes an occasion for examining how abstract arguments about resolve can license real harm. The episode leaves the central fact unresolved—the killer is not identified—while making the death’s consequences unmistakable: suspicion intensifies, protest expands, and the classroom must reckon with the difference between endorsing violence as an argument and confronting its apparent arrival in the world.