Chapter 9
Soon May the Goatman Come
Even though it was early mornin’, the whole town got wind of what was happenin’ at the exact same time.
It was a sight too early for Christmas, and five months too late for it, neither. So that high tinkle-tonk a-wakin’ up the whole county of Union had to be comin’ from the Goatman. Or rather, from the Goatman’s heavy-wheeled rig.
That old wooden cart was weighted down with iron rims. The Goatman was a tinkerman by trade, loaded down with odds and ends that no soul ever knew they needed, but no soul could live without once they seen ’em. A jingle-bell racket rose up from all his little do-dads a-clinkin’ and a-clatterin’ together as the fourteen harnessed goats pulled his outfit into the town square. A proper rig usually had four spoked wheels; today, this one was a-rollin’ on three.
The new smithy stepped clear of his shop, a-tuggin’ up his suspenders. The sight of him brought the Goatman to a sudden, screechin’ halt.
The old man squinted over the reins. “You ain’t the smithy I know.”
“Indeed not,” the man said, lookin’ down. “I hate to be the one to give you the news, but he passed on near two years back. My name is Zaccheaus.”
From the sudden rattle of the Goatman’s laugh, Zaccheaus could tell his late father’s favorite joke had landed square.
“Aw, you can just call me Smithy like everyone else does,” the young man grinned.
“How’d you come to find these parts, Smithy?”
“By way of Kansas, but I was birthed and raised just down yonder in Atlanta.”
“A crazy, hootin’ town, that be,” the Goatman said, shakin’ his head and makin’ a sour face with his tongue.
“You get by here regular?” Smithy asked.
“Usually once a year, but I reckon it’s been a sight longer than I figured. The old smithy here was the only man I ever allowed near my cart. He was pure quality, that one was.”
“That’s what the folks around here tell me.”
The old man sighed, lookin’ at his busted rig. “I guess I’m a-changin’ my ways now, ain’t I?”
“Looks thataway. What’d you say your name was, traveler?”
“Folks always just call me Goatman. I reckon that’s as good an alias as any.”
“Well, Mr. Goatman, if you’re bound to change your ways, you might as well start by givin’ me a fair try.”
“That’s just how I was sizin’ it up, too,” the old man said, lookin’ back over his shoulder. “I’m not certain these rims would’ve held out for another mile.”
Smithy stepped up to get his first good look at the cart, and he burst right out a-laughin’. He laughed until his face turned red, just a-shakin’ and a-hawin’. The Goatman didn’t mind none; he just sat quiet and let the man have his belly full.
Just then, Junior poked his head out the forge door and laid eyes on those thirty goats. He got so purely excited he ran right out into the dirt without even puttin’ his shirt on. Before long, Smithy was standin’ there watchin’ his boy commandin’ the whole herd. Junior had them goats a-doin’ tricks, a-leavin’ the ground and leapin’ clean over the tops of one another.
The Goatman marveled at the sight, his jaw dropping. “Well, I’ll be… they ain’t never acted thataway for no man before. Is your Junior touched in the head?”
“No,” Smithy answered him straight. “He was kicked powerful hard by a horse once when he was small. You can tell by his…” He tapped his own forehead, indicating the heavy, white scar ridgin’ his son’s brow. “But he’s always held a strange way with critters. Some folks around here call it a gift.”
The Goatman watched, plumb amazed, as the goats started a-climbin’ up to build the second tier of a pyramid.
“Do that thar jumpin’ trick again, boy!” the Goatman hollered, scratchin’ his whiskers. “That is the dangdest thing I ever did see.”
Smithy pointed a finger down at the rough wooden ski lashed to the side of the cart where the fourth wheel ought to be trailin’. “No, that thar is the dangdest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Well, looky what the wind blew in!” Sheila’s voice rang out from a short piece down the road.
“Your Pa know you’re out and about before the sun’s even cracked the ridge, Miss Sheila?” the Goatman called out.
“He knows I went out to the privy,” she laughed, trottin’ closer. “He heard your bells a-tollin’… I reckon he’ll put two and two together soon enough.”
“Now, you can’t go gettin’ him riled up at me, girl. I mean to do some heavy tradin’ with him today.”
Sheila didn’t care about none of that. She ran right up and threw her arms straight around the old man’s neck. She was the one living soul in the whole country who never seemed to notice the man’s total lack of a bath.
“Pa ain’t gonna be upset, Goatman,” Sheila said, pullin’ back. “Why, he was just tellin’ Ma yesterday afternoon that he’s been slap-out of your spices for a whole year now.”
The Goatman scratched at his head, his face fallin’ into a deep, heavy think. “That’s exactly what Smithy here was a-sayin’… I must be gettin’ terrible old and forgetful. I could’ve sworn on the Good Book I stopped off here on my last stretch through.”
Sheila watched Junior work the herd while the Goatman sat down on a nearby oak stump, still a-scratchin’ at his head in confusion. She reached out and patted his weathered shoulder, gentle-like, the way a mama cares for a child, even though she wasn’t but eighteen years old.
“Miss Sheila?” the old man muttered, lookin’ up.
“Yes, Goatman?”
“Thank you. For not backin’ away from an old tramp. You always were a sweet, gentle thing.”
Over in the dirt, Junior clapped his hands loud, and six of the goats shifted perfectly into a high pyramid. He ran straight over to the Goatman, stuck his hand out for a firm, silent shake, and then darted right back to his animals. His dad watched the whole exchange with a quiet nod.
“Best I can figure,” the Goatman said, his voice trailin’ off toward the ridges, “instead of veerin’ east into the high gaps toward Blairsville last year, my mind must’ve just followed the flat. I stayed right on the Federal Road through Ellijay and Dalton. That put me straight north up through the Great Valley toward Chattanooga.”
“We truly missed you,” Sheila said soft.
“It ain’t like me to go forgettin’ you good folks. I reckon old age is catchin’ up to my bones. Or maybe, with me bein’ so close to my kin, my body just wanted to get to the end of the line a little faster. I do love the high hills of Tennessee.”
“Oh, look at him now!” Sheila hollered. “He’s got them goats a-climbin’ each other just like a set of cabin stairs! I know one thing for certain—I ain’t never gonna forget to watch for you again.”
“Junior’s got a deep magic with ’em, sure enough,” the Goatman agreed. “I recall a time there was a goat that fell clear down into this deep sinkhole…”
Just then, the amber glow of a lantern flared up on the porch of the mercantile down the street. I reckon Sheila’s ma could hear her daughter’s mouth a-tellin’ that old story from two blocks away. And I reckon she could smell the Goatman from right thar, too. Between her ma and her pa standin’ on that porch, two and two got put together real quick.
“…and then, he commenced to ringin’ the church bell!” Sheila was a-goon on, throwin’ her hands up. “Like the whole town was about to burn down to the ground!”
The Goatman clapped his calloused hands together and let out a great howl of a laugh. “Miss Sheila, you always did tell the best stories in the ridge!”
“Well, of course I do!” she beamed. “And I reckon you already know the proper endin’ to it.”
“Goats float!” they both shouted out at the exact same time, their voices ringin’ through the frosty morning air.
“Will you tell me a story now, Goatman? A real one?”
Just then, the heavy wooden cart gave a sharp jerk as Junior started unhooking and detaching the lead team from the traces.
“Hang on there, young man!” Smithy hollered out sudden, freezin’ in his tracks. When a mountain man tells a body to hang on there, a fellow never quite knows if he’s about to get a warm handshake or get bit by a copperhead.
“The plunder inside the wagon is secure enough to be moved,” the Goatman called out to the boy, “but I got one special thing I want to fetch out first.”
The old man dove half-farthest into the small side curtain of his cart, rummagin’ through the dark crates.
“Seein’ as how we got ourselves some time before the shop opens, Miss Sheila… I’m gonna share somethin’ with you that only a choice few souls have ever laid eyes on. I always keep it hid close to my chest.”
The Goatman struck a sulfur match against his trousers and touched the flame to a small brass wick.
The flickering light of the little tin lamp caught the dark corners of the blacksmith porch. That shadow-horse started a-chasin’ itself across the rough-hewn log walls. The Goatman leaned back against a sack of seed. His voice sounded low and raspy, like gravel rolling down a dry creek bed.
“You look at that thar, Sheila. See him run? He don’t never get tired, and he don’t never reach the ridge. Just gallopin’ on wind and kerosene heat.
I come by that little trick-box nigh on twenty year back. Right when the War was fizzlin’ out and the whole valley down below was a-crawlin’ with bushwhackers and desperate men. I was younger then. My knees didn’t creak like dry pine branches when the frost hits. I had a clever old billy goat named Abraham a-leadin’ the pack. Smartest beast I ever did see.
We was a-makin’ tracks through a wicked deep notch. What folks call a ‘slick’ on account of the laurel bein’ so thick a rabbit couldn’t spit through it. It was blacker than a raven’s wing inside a coal mine. The rain was a-comin’ down in sheets, turnin’ the mountain clay to pure grease.
All of a sudden, Abraham stops dead. He throws his head back and lets out a whistle. I look down into the gorge. I hear a terrible racket—horses bustin’ their hearts, wood a-splinterin’, and a woman a-cryin’ fit to kill.
A fancy, high-toned carriage from down coastal-way had slid clean off the trace. One wheel was busted to flinders. They was hung up on a boulder right above a drop-off that’d kill a bird if it fell. The driver had skipped out, scart of the dark. There sat a fine gentleman and his missus, holdin’ a little boy and prayin’ to the Almighty. They had trunks full of velvet dresses and silver plate. But you can’t eat silver. You sure can’t use it to pull a carriage out of a Georgia mud-hole.
They figured I was a ghost or a highwayman. I come walkin’ out of the brush with a dozen wild-eyed goats. The gentleman, he pulls a little gold pocket-pistol on me. His hands was a-shakin’ like an aspen leaf.
I told him, ‘Mister, you keep that pop-gun pointed at the sky, or I’ll let the mountain have ye.’
I didn’t have no mules, but I had fourteen stout goats harnessed to my own rig. I had another sixteen loose ones that’d push a wall down if I told ’em to. We unhitched my team. We strapped ’em to that busted carriage with buffalo-hide thongs. I took the lead, yellin’ to the herd. Old Abraham dug his hooves into the shale.
Them goats strained until their bellies nigh touched the dirt, bleatin’ and pullin’ together like a team of oxen. With me a-heavin’ on the axle and them goats a-pullin’ for scrap-meat, we yanked that carriage clean out of the draw and onto solid rock.
“That gentleman, he didn’t have a red cent of hard coin on him. Nothin’ but paper Confederate script that weren’t worth the ink to print it. He looked at me, plumb pitiful, and said he couldn’t leave a mountain man unpaid for savin’ his kin. He reaches into a brass-bound trunk, pulls out this very velvet sack, and hands me this tin box. Said his brother brought it all the way from across the big water—some place called Nuremberg. Said it was for his boy, but his boy had his life now, thanks to me and the stock.
I took it because it looked strange. I always did have a soft spot for a curiosity. Many a lonesome night up on Lookout Mountain, when the fog rolls in so thick you can’t see your own hand, I light this little wick. I watch that horse run. It makes me feel like I’m a-movin’ even when my boots are off.”
The Goatman blows out the match he was holding. The smell of sulfur mixes with the hot oil of the lamp. He looks at Sheila. Her eyes are wide as saucers in the amber glow.
“Your pappy over yonder in the shop… he’s a sharp trader, Sheila. He knows I need two sacks of green coffee, a side of salt pork, and enough oil-cloth to patch my wagon before the snow flies. He’ll tell me this tin toy ain’t worth the flour to bake a biscuit.
But you tell him… you tell him he ain’t buyin’ old tin. He’s buyin’ the only horse in Union County that’ll never die, never need feedin’, and can run right through a log wall.”
It didn’t make no never-mind to Sheila if the story was true or not; it was a great story. She couldn’t wait to take that tale back to her ma and pa. By the time she got done a-tellin’ it, that old tinker would be a-pullin’ that carriage right out of the gultch in the pourin’ rain, single-handed, savin’ every last ounce of silver for the family.