Ullie Howe's Goat (F)

My father trudged up from the dock. He paused and glared at me. “Hey, get the damn .22 and find and shoot that damn goat. Or whatever it is.”

I stood up. “Yes, sir.”

That damn goat.

Kid brother Tim came home crying last night. Same story told by others. He was walking the shortcut between the sound and Highway 17 at dusk.

Aunt Grace put down her teacup. “Told y’all not to be in the Quarters after sundown. How many times?”

Old goat, four-inch fangs and red eyes blazing, coming out of the scrub. Tim sobbed, “Bloody head, chewing something.”

Momma said, “Hush. That isn’t Ullie’s goat. And, she’s dead nearly twenty years.”

The shortcut, hard pack sand, runs a mile due west past the Quarters, the Old Belleview Church, the cemetery. The shell mound. Glistens under the full moon overhead, pine stands now twice thinned, long shadows.

I looked at my best friend, Wallace, still sitting on the picnic table. “Wall, you coming?”

“I don’t know.”

“Won’t be dark for two hours.”

“I know.”

“Well, I gotta go. Going?”

He shrugged. “Okay.”

“Okay, then. I’ll get the gun.”

“That goat rises from Ullie’s grave,” Aunt Grace said. “We all seen it.”

Momma stopped kneading a blob of dough. “You never saw it.”

“Did so. It was half moon and Gilbert and I were walking by and first the eyes, bright red, and then we could see it standing on top of Ullie’s grave. Like it came out of nowhere.”

“Hush.”

“Four, five feet tall. Pawed the ground. Oh, those eyes. Devil eyes.”

“Grace, hush!”

“Preacher Frank saw it. Twice. First time, he preached about it the next Sunday. Bride of the Beast. The coming of the Great Fire.”

Tim started sobbing again. “I don’t want to die.”

“Timothy! You aren’t going to die. At least not for a long time.”

When I came back to the yard, Wallace was standing, cap in hand.

“What?”

“Nothing. Just thinking.”

“You not going with me?”

“I’m going.”

Even my father admitted squirrels and birds were never seen around the cemetery, and he had lived in our house his entire life.

“Some places are like that,” he said. We were walking back from Ernie’s Bait Shop one Saturday. “No real reason. Just different somehow.” As we passed the cemetery, he took off his cap. “Folks deserve respect.” I took off my cap.

Uncle Gil when he was alive always walked the other side of the road passing the Quarters. “Haints, for sure, got to be, for the crimes, you know.” Aunt Grace would nod. “Uh-huh, uh-huh. Plenty folks here seen them. Poor souls.”

Wall and I followed the road for about a quarter mile until we got to the shortcut. The winter sun was still above the tall pines. A light sea breeze, enough twitch smaller branches. “What if we don’t see a goat?”

“What goat?” I rested the .22 on my left shoulder.

“Any goat. That goat.”

“Well, I don’t want to shoot someone’s goat that maybe got loose.”

“Maybe there’s no goat.”

“Well, Timmy, seemed pretty sure. He saw something I guess. We’ll just go look around.”

“You believe the stories?”

“I don’t know. Not really. But I can’t say for sure. You coming?”

We could see the church from the junction where we stood. I kept the gun on my shoulder.

Ahead, about a hundred yards in, a darkish lump at the side of the road.

“Possum?”

“Yep, possum.”

“It dead?”

“Probably.” We approached it. I poked it with the end of the barrel. “Roll it over.” No bite marks. Nothing. Just a dead possum.

A few minutes later we stood in front of the abandoned church.

“Nobody here.”

“Now that’s funny.” I held the rifle in front of me. “I’m going to the grave.”

Wall tilted his head. “Really?”

I walked over to the gate—a shadow, something, further down the road scampered from the woods into the Quarters.

“See that?” Wall stepped back.

“I saw it. Not a damn goat.”

“No, not a damn goat. Dog maybe.”

“Not a dog. Keep watch. I’m going in.”

Ullie Howe’s grave was only 40 feet or so from the gate. The marker a simple tablet, the grass sparse, and a small garland of flowers withered.

I looked back at Wall. “Anything?”

“Nope. Anything there?”

“No, just a grave, some old flowers.”

I rejoined him. “Want to walk the Quarters?”

“I need to get home for supper.”

“Okay. Me, too, I guess.”

“What was that, you know, down the road?”

“I’m thinking a coyote, not Ullie’s damn goat.”

“Yep, not that damn goat.”

Lyman 2022