The Solitary Man’s Refuge (34 page)

“That I can’t really say for certain as for what time
frame they have in mind. It’s always been Janice’s and my
thing to supposedly Bug out together but considerations do
change, unfortunately. I hadn’t counted on her sister
joining us though, long term under my roof. She has hinted
that thankfully, her sister would most likely be going back
to Ramer and stay with her mom later on in a few weeks at
her uncle’s house. He has a goat farm so that’s a good
idea and I am going to try to buy a few goats off him in the
coming weeks. As you know there is no more gas for a
while so that most likely will be the last gas powered road
trip I will ever take for some time. I wouldn’t even be
thinking about it if were not for needing to try to start
raising some of our own livestock. You ready to try to
make some goat cheese?” Donald laughed at the
disinterest his mom's features belayed.

“Well, I might help you make it if you got good
instructions on how, like a cook book, but I am not milking
a goat myself, period. I am not too keen on even eating it if
we can make it ourselves. I still remember that nasty
stinking goat of yours, Lucifer. Those are some foul
animals.” Mom said making a face and showing her
disdain for goats in general.

“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.

“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 4
^th
of 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 secretive 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.