The Solitary Man’s Refuge

by Ron Foster

  “That particular goat sure was a handful, but most goats are a lot more docile than he was and a lot more intelligent.” Donald laughed, remembering how the troublesome goat got his name. Donald’s stepfather was a Wing Chaplin for the Air Force and he had been the one to stick that name on that four footed smelly demon. That had to be the dumbest and meanest goat in existence when Donald had received him free from a neighbor that lived next to his last farmstead he owned many years back. Donald should have known something was up when that old goat roper neighbor of his offered it to him for free for the taking. Jake was the name of that old farmer that resembled his herd. Jake had quickly wrestled that cantankerous goat to the ground and trussed him up as only an old rodeo cowboy could do with one hand holding and the other whipping a cord around all four feet and he and Donald had thrown the trussed up goat in the back of his pickup so he could carry him to the house. Damn goats have evil eyes but this one was a mixture of reptile green and yellow with a tinge of red that said he was pissed off at both men for man handling him so. Goats have that funky slanted line in their eyes like snakes that normally don’t betray much in the emotion department.

  “I better go with you to untie him. That son of a bitch likes to kick.” Was all Jake said as he got in Donald’s pickup for the ride to the neighbors house.

  “Hold him down from his back while I untie him and don’t let him up until I say so and confirm it.” Jake said as he started to untie some potent looking sharp hooves while Billy the goat sounded like he was telling them he would whip both their asses if he ever got loose.

  “Damn, this thing stinks. Did you just keep him in the barn? You needed to let him out in the rain sometime and get him washed off.” Donald exclaimed.

  “Don’t be a smartass greenhorn. Male goats like this idiot here piss on their beards to attract females or repel other males as a dominance thing. He will probably do it as soon as you let him up. No, don’t let him go yet!” Jake exclaimed as the goat tried to do a half lurch and a kick at the same time before he had got himself out of the way. “Ok, you can release him now but watch him.” Jake said as he backed up quickly.

  Sure enough after the goat regained his feet and had a short staring match with his two abductors he cranked his head around and pissed on his beard. “I see now where ‘smells like a goat’ comes from.” Donald exclaimed never having seen such odd behavior in an animal before.

  “It does kind of get rancid smelling if he doesn’t get some kind of bath.” Jake said pointing a 'don’t go there' finger at Billy as he started to paw the ground like he was a bull or something.

  “By the way, don’t turn your back on that goat. Billy thinks its fun to head butt you if you ain’t watching him. That’s why he don’t have no horns. I polled him awhile back when he decided he might try me when I was looking at him.” Jake said spitting a stream of tobacco in the goat’s direction and forcing him to backup.

  “He doesn’t bite, does he?” Donald said of his not so good now free acquisition that was giving him second thoughts and an uneasy feeling.

  “No, but mind you he kicks and butts if he decides to get riled up. Run me back to the house and I will give you some sweet feed so you can calm him down some and get acquainted together.

  Donald had tied the goat next to his empty old hog parlor in hopes that the beast would eat down some of the honey suckle around it, but it seemed the ignorant animal only wanted to stick its head through one broken part of the fence he could possibly find and bleat bloody murder when it got its head stuck. There was not one damn thing that should have interested that goat so much on the other side of the fence, but it seemed like it only took him an hour or so to stick his head back through the hole and get stuck again. Donald extricated that damn goat from the clutches of that fence at least 10 times over the next three days and his stepfather who would come to help play and work on the farm gave up after three times of trying himself and having to fight the goat all the way.

  That goat had a routine, kick the water over and try to head butt you when you bent over to pick up the bucket to refill it for that mean old bastard. Get its head stuck in the fence and try to kick you when trying to release it and cuss you in goat talk the whole time. Donald finally moved him to an old clothes line pole he had moved to a likely area for grazing but the beast would wind around and around it and then start screaming bloody murder again to be released. It took him and his buddy George, a south Alabama professional wrestling tag team effort to loose him and that damn goat would fight the whole process of humans trying to help him every time like he was a bucking bronco.

  The last straw for Billy the goat “AKA Lucifer” was when Donald was unraveling one end of the rope while George was holding the goats lead and it reared up on its hind legs and planted both front feet cloven hoofs with 95 lbs worth of weight behind it dead in Donald’s chest drawing a little blood and a lot of four letter words from him.

  “That son of a bitch is about to become 4thof July barbecue.” Donald said rubbing his chest and avoiding the temptation to ball up his fist and smack the goat back on his dehorned head.

  “We haven’t had us a goat roast in sometime, Donald, but that old bastard is going to be tough eating most likely. You can’t just give him back?” George asked him.

  “No, me and Mr. Goat need a parting of the ways and I know exactly what to do about this. Bo`s pulp wood crew asked me to sell them that big bastard the other day. If they want him for eating instead of mating I am going to cut a deal and save me a lot of time and trouble. Let’s go see him and get rid of this bastard before he hurts one of us worse. Damn dumbass goat!” Donald said wincing at some sore ribs and pulling off his perforated T shirt.

  Bo agreed to butcher the goat for free if they shared and gave Donald his half later in the day. He must of used an electric saw on the carcass because it was exactly one half of the goat he got back, split lengthwise from head to tail and ready for the spit.

  Donald’s reminiscing about the animal brought to mind for both of Him and his Mom an era of simpler and better times they had enjoyed.

  Donald spent the remainder of the afternoon loading up the vehicles to the head liners and gave his mom many reassurances in the morning they would be all right and hadn’t forgotten anything before leaving out to his farmstead.

  Donald was very happy to be out of the city and on his way to his bug out location in a most likely permanent move. No traffic on the highway was wonderful and he went well below the speed limit so his mom had no trouble keeping up with him. The old adage any port in the storm sure was holding true. Donald’s place was far from perfect but he was proud of all his efforts to get the place prepped as best he could and provide a safer haven for his mom. Sure, he could have done more assuredly, but he had a life beyond being a prepper and he took time to have a lot of fun as well as take care of day to day business of playing farmer. He wasn’t looking back with regret though; it was time to make do with what he had as best as he could with not too many regrets. Having his mom around all the time was definitely going to be hard and cramp his lifestyle somewhat, but perhaps she could accept that the roles of mother and son needed adjusting to him being the provider and man of the house that made whatever decisions he deemed appropriate without her

  remonstrations. He could see some fights between them about him drinking, she never had understood him seeing the fun in needing to party like that, but he wasn’t going to be doing much of that anymore anyway. A whole lot of dominance roles were going to be changing in the world right now. Bubba and Michael were going to be quite surprised to see him back so soon. Donald wondered what they had decided to do about the community relations. If they had fully engaged the community, he would go along with whatever they decided but he hoped that they were still in watch and wait mode.

  Idealistically the community approach sounded good, realistically though, he felt like that particular course might be courting disastrous outcome. He didn’t see how he could remain secreti
ve about his food preps and be trying to appear the same as his less fortunate neighbors. He barely knew anyone on the road and it wasn’t like they had any advantage he needed or could count on their cooperation to help his own unfettered survival. Time was against the community approach except for hunting. People would be starved before any crops came in and his little garden was not sufficient for much more than his own needs. It was a precarious position he was placed in a leadership role was not something he felt like he wanted to wear the mantle of at this particular time. It was time to get back to nature and the land once again. Not the friend bear and brother snake some Native Americans spoke of. No myths about existence or how we came to be put on earth now for Donald. No, there was universal truths to get back attuned with like don’t beat at a bee and he won’t sting you. Waving your hands around crazily with no direction at a critter with a stinger will get you stung. Talk to nature, tell that honey or bumble bee to go about his bee business and leave you alone. He will leave most times like he understands. That was restraint of actions and interactions of species that agreed to a mutual respect of ways that allowed both keeping the peace without pain and being a coexisting symbiotic existence. Donald smiled as the bees visited his flowers on the vegetables in his garden and had patience with them to a certain extent even if they wanted to investigate something around him while he was busy with it like putting a picnic table together, even if they seemed to not notice he found something else to do if they were on a vegetable plant he had some business with and he was respectful and left them alone. The bee he knew would move on to another flower eventually and that was fine by him. Most of the animal world would allow him to be unmolested as he did his normal routines if they or he were not threatened and many animals like squirrels seemed to enjoy letting humans watch them and interact with each other on different planes.

  Donald could not help but think he was not the only new animal in the neighborhood. About two months ago he spied what could be termed a “what the #%@* is that crossing the road” as some kind of unknown varmint hurried from the left hand of the road to the right and down a short embankment to the woods as he slowed down to a crawl to watch it on the way to Michael’s house on the hill. The damned thing looked kind of weasel like but it was too big to classify as one even if you thought about a 4 lb. mink.

  “Nothing lives in Alabama that looks like this thing, Donald had said to himself and thought about trying to get out of his truck and follow the animal into the wood line to attempt to identify it. Hell, if I was up North Canada I would holler Pine Martin. But that is the weirdest colored thing I have ever seen and I got a good trappers eyeful. It was maybe 3 foot long, maybe a bit longer. What was weird was it had reddish hair on its head and reddish hind quarters and tail but it’s back was a grey black color like a beagle with long hair and the tips of that grey fur were white like a porcupine quill. The face was roundish and had a big nose that was kind of pinkish like a Weimaraner dogs and the ears were short pointed and folded at the tips. It had short legs and ran rodent-like, but had muscular shoulders and hips like a cat running close to the ground getting ready to pounce. No where near wolverines’ strength and girth and not round sleekness of a river otter. Janice had got spooked by one watching her from the opposite side of the garden fence when she was weeding and had hurried back to the house to get a pair of binoculars and Donald with his gun for protection, lol. Donald had caught a glimpse of its hindquarters and tail sneaking off in the woods and told Janice “see I am not crazy you saw the weird animal too” and informed Michael and Amy about another confirmed sighting. It was hard to tell from the brief look Donald got of it this time moving from sunlight to the forest shadows but this one seemed browner and bigger than his first sighting of one of the weird creatures. Janice said it had a cat like face to her, but I think that had something to do with Michael describing the differences between a panther and a cougar etc. to her. Donald told them all the closest thing he could say was it was a Cotimundi that had either migrated over from Texas or somebody had released some exotic pet. Donald had carefully asked other neighbors about it when he bumped into them in the bar up the road and they didn’t seem surprised at all about it. The general answer was it was a “Kings Mountain Critter” and said some odd things lived in our woods that avid outdoorsmen couldn’t even explain.

  Donald remained curious about them and wished he knew their habits better. Coatis are very curious and intelligent. People that keep them as pets say it’s like having a rambunctious 2 yr. old furry child for a pet. No way to keep them rascals out of his traps then, he had already decided. He could dog proof a trap set but there was no way to rig something that would deter something with more curiosity than a raccoon that sees a piece of shiny tinfoil if it wants to investigate a treasure with them monkey like paw hands they got. He didn’t want to kill such a unique and beautiful creature if he could help it but he had family to feed.

  “I know what! Donald thought excitedly to himself. I will get out my havahart style live traps and teach LowBuck a thing or two about trapping as we go on a Deer hunt. I only got maybe two big enough catch one traps in my stores, but I can set them where I last saw one of those critters and hopefully catch them instead of a possum. Possum wasn’t bad eating, but not on Donald's menu as of yet. With a possum, since they eat such nasty crap as well as have been known to eat each other if their brother or sister ended up as road kill, it had always been the country practice to trap them live and purge them of some of that foul crap they been eating. You would catch a possum and feed it cracked corn and plenty of clean water for several days before you decided to butcher it. Well, folks around here might as well learn to eat one if they were not already doing so, it wouldn’t go to waste if one wandered in instead of that odd animal.

  Now catching a wild Coatimundi would be quite an interesting project to undertake. Folks would want to see the critter and Donald could see him and Michael carrying the cage around to the various neighbors as an ice breaker that would insure a welcome from even the most cantankerous old curmudgeons around here. Who could resist the sight of callers carrying a cage with an unidentifiable animal in it? The curiosity factor would be too overwhelming to be scared of the armed duo coming up a driveway, and with a great intro like that, even if he and Michael looked like they were armed for alien bears it wouldn’t matter. We could get that old wise woman Catherine to go along with us also. Ha! If I catch one of them weird beasties, that’s the first person I am going to go see and find out what she makes of it. My friend, Linda who goes by MorningMayan on YouTube, would sure get a kick out of seeing one of those weird varmits from the neighborhood as well as She would enjoy sharing knowledge with Catherine. Linda had always told Donald and her subscribers that 2012 would be a time of new beginnings and new mental awareness. Linda was sort of what Donald called a “New Age” prepper. Quite an interesting and beautiful lady. She accepted and prepped for all the disasters that normal preppers do, however she was also very well versed in esoteric theories and astronomical possible influences that might just allow us possibly to be able to use more of our brains on some kind of telepathic mystical order which Donald never quite understood, but liked to hear her occasionally expound upon it and give relevant facts to support various theories. Maybe, that was the answer to the neighbor dilemma for us all. Take a page from Linda’s book and look at the earth changes in a different and more humanistic and engaging light. “Transition with knowledge or through knowledge,” I think she was quoted as saying once. I wish I had her around to explain the differences in those concepts to me better, but basically I think we all can arrive at the same transitional point of change, if we just have some kind of understanding about it through a universal awareness of shared knowledge and influence.

  Speaking of sharing, I wonder what Michael and LowBuck have decided to do about the community preparedness situation. I will see what they have to say when I get settled back in, but I sort of got my game plan ready and I am willing to t
ry it if I can see some cooperation versus creating serious dangers by getting too familiar with the folks on this street. I think Me, Michael, and LowBuck wil take the first deer from our hunt over to my biggest threat or convert and do like I did with that damn Billy goat and let them have half the carcass for butchering it. I will have to ask Michael about if they got any deer rifles or a shotgun first though, could be a redundant move. If they don’t have hunting arms, I just might have an ideal situation I can develop upon. An “I kill it, you clean it and cook it” understanding would work for everyone if those boys will go along with the concept and see the method to my madness.

  “I can get Michael to tell them that we are some odd and dangerously moody folks that don’t play well with folks we don’t know and stay away from our house, but also that I am a good hunter and trapper that is willing to make a business deal with them if he brokers it. They pretty much only have to deal with him on the personal neighbor level and in return they will be provided with fresh meat if they agree to the deal proposed and mind their Ps and Qs about not bothering anyone. The deal is, they are now in the meat butchering biz and are going to be working like a deer processing plant for the community as they learn to cut steaks and process meat for part of the catch. No money to be exchanged, just food for labor. The offal piles that come from community Deer hunts and my trap line will be used as dog food and bait for other critters. If they got a gut pile on their property, I am basically willing to lend a few conibear traps to take advantage of that attractant of innards and they can use that meat and fur pelts any old way they want as long as they see to the welfare of the old folks in this community with a part of it. Community service as some might call it, but a fair exchange in Donald’s mind.