A Goats Story
by Aodhán C. E. Ridenour
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Table of Contents parts 1, 2, 3 |
Part 1: Bovidae
The story sort of began in June 1779, the year young Benjamin Otis Bills assumed command of the family farm upon receiving a letter from a distant cousin claiming his father had been killed in the Battle of Monmouth, nearly an entire year before.
At age sixteen, preferring to spend his days in search of spent lead musket balls — they were worth a pretty penny, if you could manage to find them — Benjamin discovered himself the steward of a twelve-acre plot, thirty apple trees, and over one hundred goats. He lived there with his mother, Mercy Burgen Bills. Together, they were the nearly lone dwellers of New Rotterdam Hill, just east of the pioneer city of Pittsburgh. Their home, a one room oak lodge, emerged from a mossy hillside where, outside, the goats cavorted, bleating ceaselessly within a pen beside the house.
Benjamin tended to their bloated udders in turn while his mother sat on the family’s singular chair, tanning strips of goat leather, preparing them to be sewn into hats, boots, or chaps. Beneath her oily burlap skirt, a peg leg tapped a hollow rhythm as Ben Otis filled his buckets with frothy yellow milk.
“Lorali looks sick, Ben,” cooed Mercy Bills, leaning from her chair. The tapping paused and Benjamin unhooked his neck from staring at the bucket between his knees. At six-foot three, he was the tallest of his peers, and on most days, except those picking apples, he couldn’t imagine a less enjoyable job than leaning over, squeezing tiny hairy nipples with his massive hands. “Bring me a taste of her milk,” she rasped. “Then I can tell you if’n it’s her time.”
Benjamin hated how his mother named the goats. Each of them deserved an individual relationship this way. Had he the choice, he’d treat them like soldiers pushed across the map; no face, no name, no ideological recompense. Though Lorali did look quite sick, he had to admit. She stumbled, squatted, spun, and shit in spurts.
“Tastes fine to me,” said Ben, swishing the milk around his tin cup. He knew it tasted off. He tossed its contents on the dirt, then filled it up again for his mother to taste.
“She’s sick,” the woman said, spitting. “Tastes like blood.” Mercy pulled her ceramic cup of cyder to her lips and swigged. She released a nasty retch. “Keep her away. Take her to the yard and bring her back dead. We can’t risk an infection of the rest, not especially since your daddy’s not to come home. Soon now, go. A trippe of half-dead goats is no good for cream.” She looked back to her leather. “Egh, refill my cup.”
“It’s nearly empty, the cistern, Ma. You’ve drunk everything!”
Mercy grimaced. “Better gone today than gone tomorrow.” Benjamin threw up his arms. He hardly drank, except for in sickness, and felt scorn to watch his mother swill away his work so easily. “Don’t look at me like that. Take this vest down to the Miller’s farm to see if’n they wouldn’t trade it for a jug of rye.” Nearly in tears, Benjamin wheeled on his mother and guttered, “But first, kill Lorali.”
* * *
Benjamin’s boots expressed a grisly crunch in marching through the blood-stained dirt and fallen leaves. Dried spillage made the flattened rock look black. A cardinal bleeped from his perch, and six white-assed does wheezed and rushed away into the woods.
A gossamer soft as chestnut oil scintillated over Lorali’s clean coat. Her open eyes shone golden yellow, unassuming of her fate. She listened through her flappy graying ears as he huffed and mumbled his complaints.
“Dear God, forgive me, for it is not my fault. I am indeed he who holds the knife, but are you not in my place today?” Benjamin waited for an answer, then continued. “I pray Lorali meet You in a favorable grace. She was a good goat, Lord. Have mercy on her soul. Lord... have mercy.”
Benjamin clutched Lorali beneath the chin, squeezing her jaw shut, and slid his crude blade across her shaggy neck.
* * *
Too upset for conversation with the woman he’d determined was the cause of his despair, Ben Otis hung the corpse above the crimson stone and let the blood spill freely. Then toward the confluence he trudged. The Millers lived two miles west and, in the space, he fell into a state of delusion. Nothing seemed to matter anymore. It was a dream-like state akin to delirium.
Benjamin overcame the gnarled wood fence and fell into a pool of mud. Emotionless, he approached the cabin, not acknowledging the barking dogs, even as they nipped his bloody shirt. Mariam Miller greeted him. Startled by the boy’s ragged appearance, she offered that he cleanse himself. Benjamin did not contest. Although neither did he feel relief in being cleaned.
“And your mother,” asked Missus Miller, stamping from the soil cellar carrying a stoneware jug of whiskey. “How do the leaves fall in her direction?” Always a poet, Missus Miller.
“She’s alive,” said Ben.
“A blessing. The war has stripped so many of us from life. That she remain spirited even with the assistance of this drink is a testament to God’s good grace.” Missus Miller clutched Ben’s cheek, apparently inspecting him, his eyes, for traces of unwelcome entities. “And you, my dear?”
“Something else,” he said. Then he thanked the woman and left.
* * *
Drained of blood, the dead goat’s entrails slipped from her berth with ease. Benjamin decided to gut and clean the animal before returning home. He surprised himself when burying the waste, for he felt little in the line of genuine remorse. He wondered where his heart had disappeared to and, moreover, if it would ever come back.
The goat’s carcass cleaned and wrapped in cloth, Benjamin slung it over his narrow shoulders and retreated home, the stoneware jug of whiskey swinging in his grip: his mother would be hungry, probably expecting roasted goat chop because he’d been gone so long. The Miller’s hound descended before him, weaving through the trees, then, seeing something in the direction of the cabin, darted forward, barking madly.
Lying on the dirt below the cabin’s entry step, Benjamin’s mother was folded in a heap, her skull cracked against a jutting piece of stone. Her head was indented, and half her face expressed a complicated look of fear and bliss. The other half remained submerged in blood.
Copyright © 2024 by Aodhán C. E. Ridenour
