“Reilly,” Valerie unholstered her sidearm and ran her finger along the barrel, “no mistakes.”
Chapter 11
Sparky insisted on going into the house alone. Normally it would not be uncommon for a goat or two to borrow from Oliver during the night, he was a heavy sleeper and it was easy to work around him. But with the plan moving forward tonight, they couldn’t risk alarming him. The lights had been off for some time when Sparky readied to leave the barn.
“I’ll be right back, baby.”
“I’m just worried, Sparks,” Princess nudged his cheek. It was still swollen from the punch the night before. Sparky winced. She pulled back with an apologetic look.
“Just relax, I’ll be back in two shakes of your tail,” he dashed out the door.
“I love you, please, please, please, be careful!”
“I love you,” Sparky trotted up the hill. “Two shakes.”
Sparky wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible. Not once had Oliver caught a goat in the house, and it would be far worse if he did tonight. The terror that Oliver would go through seeing his pet perusing his books could kill him.
Sparky crept up to the main house. He put his back to the wall and scooted to the sliding glass door. He went for the handle and pressed upon it lightly. The handle didn’t budge. Oliver locked the door!
Sparky filled with panic. It wasn’t like Oliver to lock the house. There would have to be another way in. They couldn’t hold off on the escape. First, Sparky went to the kitchen window, no luck. Then he snaked around to the living room window, tight as a drum. He tested the front door, locked.
Damn.
Sparky moved around the house to the window to Oliver’s room. He heard the faint sounds of the Oliver’s snoring. The bedroom window was open.
Sparky peered inside. Oliver was nestled in his sheets. His nostrils flared and shook as the wind worked its way in and out. The bed was just below the window, it would be nearly impossible for Sparky to get in without disturbing him.
Sparky firmly put his hooves under the wooden frame and gave a little push to raise it further. The window didn’t budge. He pressed a little harder, this time putting his shoulders into it. The window refused to move.
Sparky backed away a moment. There were no other windows on the tiny farmhouse. He steadied himself and pushed more firmly. The wood started to slide. Sparky pushed harder. The window broke loose and slammed into the top of the frame. The eruption of sound echoed through the house.
Sparky stood perfectly still. His yellow eyes focused on the man in his bed. Oliver didn’t stir. Sparky held his breath. Slowly he retracted his arms one at a time. The window held in place. The goat exhaled.
Scaling into the open portal, he eased his first hoof to the bed. It sank readily into the mattress. Oliver’s body started to roll. He gently rested his other hoof on the bed. Oliver’s body shifted further toward him, but held steady in its blanket cocoon.
“Who’s there?” Oliver said.
Sparky froze in place..
“No, no, I wanted you in purple garters, get it right.” Oliver still hadn’t moved. Sparky stepped down from the bed. His hoof clacked against the wooden floor.
“No, no! What the hell are you doing?”
Sparky stopped mid step. Balanced on one hoof.
“Oh purple, yeah and get the pudding.”
Sparky held back his own laughter. He treaded lightly out of the room. The living room’s dusty interior had been left to manage on its own for some time. Sparky stepped up to the books on the shelf and blew a solid breath, spreading the dust from their spines. He read through the titles one by one. A long hardbound book on the bottom shelf caught his attention, the cover was a dull red and the gold etched title was hard to make out. Sparky extracted the volume from the shelf and laid it on the floor. He flipped open the cover, more dust flew up into the air. Pete’s Atlas 1977.
The goat had little time to study the geography of the world in his past study. The information mesmerized him. Sparky darted from page to page. Finding Saskatchewan, he hunted over the map. Asquith. He folded the manual and tucked it under his arm.
A car pulled up in the driveway. He knew at once, that the stranger must be in the car. Oliver never had visitors. The stranger would be returning for another goat to steal, or worse.
Sparky stood up. Through the lace curtains he could see the shadowy forms of people fanning out of the car. The stranger was not alone. He slid down the hall to the Oliver’s room. Oliver’s snoring had ceased and the goat could make out his withered leg sticking out from beneath the sheets. Sparky saw a shadow outside the window.
Sparky wasn’t sure what to do, he stood in the door, deliberating.
“Freeze.”
It was a woman.
“Don’t move, old man.”
The goat was standing. The woman had confused him for his owner in the darkness. Sparky was alarmed. He held still. He wanted to flee, but couldn’t find the strength to move.
A piercing pain gripped his chest. His heart jumped. The room began to spin and the window in front of him faded. Sparky was overcome with fear. Fear for his family, his friends. He couldn’t hold on. His vision blurred further into obscurity, his legs gave out beneath him.
~~~~~~
Valerie couldn’t help but laugh. The satisfaction of watching the old man's silhouette crumble had been all she had hoped it would be. The tractor-trailer growled up the roadway. Reilly pulled it in against the fence. The remaining men jumped free of the truck, armed and ready.
Valerie gave thumbs up and the team jumped the fence. She tilted her head back over the window, again laughing at the sight crumpled body on the floor. She tossed her hair again. Shooting him was good. She wished that it could have been a lethal round. Her employer’s insistence on keeping a low profile was almost too much to bear.
Maybe the fall killed him?
Valerie studied the body a moment and could see his dark form rising and falling with his breath. She studied the mass on the floor. She hadn’t remembered Oliver being quite so thin in the legs, but then, she had tried not to look at them at all before.
“Psst,” Reilly called to her from the side of the house.
Valerie snapped her fingers and scowled. She marched over to her accomplice.
“We’ve got them all, trapped in the barn. They are too panicked to fight back. We’ll get the truck down and it should be no problem loading them up.”
“Excellent,” she cursed him under her breath. Thankful only that Reilly’s incompetence had not hindered them tonight.
“How’s the old guy?”
“He’s taken care of. Get the animals loaded up, I have a plane to catch.”
“No problem.”
“And Reilly?”
“I know already. No mistakes!”
Reilly pulled his gun free. He waived it about with a smug grin. Most of his figure wrapped in dark camouflage, his pale face alone stood out in the moonlight. He hurried down the hill, joining his band of hired kidnappers in front of the barn.
“If any run out, bag ‘em. If one, even one of these goats escapes, it will be your heads.”
He should have been a soldier. He would have made a great soldier. He loved guns, and war. Reilly didn’t need politics, just objectives. He threw his leg into the door; it shook violently but didn’t give.
“Pull,” whispered one of the men behind him.
Reilly sighed, grabbed the handle to the door and flung it wide open. Flashlights beamed into the open barn. Before him the room full of goats looked up with a genuine stun. Except for Oreo standing in the back of the room chewing, all the goats stood perfectly still.
“All of you are to load yourselves onto the truck out front. Nothing funny, or I’ll shoot you,” Reilly took his time pointing the gun at several of the goats. “Nothing funny.”
The men outside were all in stitches. They had been prepared. After all, these were the smartes
t, most cunning animals alive. Reilly had even warned them that the goats would fight back. For everything he had said, they were not expecting the picture before them.
“Don’t move, goats!”
The goat’s eyes trailed the weapon he brandished. Most had never seen a real gun before.
Reilly waived up one of the men behind him. One of his men came up and stood next to him. The man drew his weapon and pointed it outward at the goats, his arm somewhat limp. A chuckle escaped his lips.
Reilly shot him a steep glare. “What’s so damned funny?”
Reilly’s cohort couldn’t contain himself, he continued to giggle. And for what it was worth, he tried not to laugh. Standing in a room full of goats and holding them at gunpoint, it was all he could do not to roll on the floor. Reilly was not amused.
“Get out,” Reilly ordered, the man didn’t question him. His chuckle followed outside.
Reilly looked over his shoulder to select another man for a guard. He moved his finger back and forth, uncertain who to choose.
The goats were frozen. Throughout the day rumors and fears of what would happen when people came had haunted them. Now they waited at the mercy of those fears.
They saw the men. They had come in their dark suits. They saw the pistols. The goats were going to be stolen. They could just as easily be killed. Not one of them knew what to do. Behind the crowd, stepping quietly across the hay was Darren. He crept toward his father.
Above, in the loft, some of the ladies were holding their breath, trying to think quickly of a way to escape.
“You,” Reilly selected. The new candidate stepped forward. “Keep an eye on them while we get the truck down here.”
The man nodded and did as ordered.
Reilly looked over the four men as he returned outside. They all were biting back their amusement. The man he had sent out was doubled over, holding his stomach against the rough pains of laughter. “Cut that out, you’re going to get them all worked up.”
“Sorry.” The man again tried to hold back his laughter, a tear formed in his eye.
“Go help Barney bring the truck down,” Reilly waived him off, shaking his head. Unprofessional. Valerie had hired the help. A detail he would bring it to the attention of his employer upon his return.
“Hey,” called the man inside.
“What is it?” Reilly entered the barn once more. The goats all seemed to be standing as they were.
“Did you see the ones on the loft up there?”
Reilly hadn’t noticed. “Of course.” He faked a cough. “We’ll, um, just carry them. It’s just a few.”
“That ladder doesn’t look too sturdy.”
“Well, maybe there’s a lift?” Reilly would have slapped himself had the man not been staring straight at him when he said it.
“Yeah, uh, let me get the concierge.”
“What’s your name?” Reilly leaned into him.
“Bob.”
“Well Bob, shut up!”
“You want me to do that before or after I find the elevator?”
It was this same time that Darren finally moved in right beside his father. Neither of the arguing men had noticed.
“Dad.”
Oreo prodded his son’s side. If he was overheard…
“That’s the guy who hurt me.”
Oreo’s eyes flared. His hooves braced against the ground. He stretched his neck out and set his horns.
Oreo met his mark at top speed. Reilly screamed and tumbled over. His grip on the pistol failed. It slid beneath the scattered hay. The man beside and the men outside were unable to help, they had fallen victim to the laughter from the scene.
Oreo bucked into the man again, keeping him grounded.
“Help me! For the love of man!” Reilly struggled to lift himself. Oreo was unrelenting. He swung and kicked at Reilly over and over. He tore at the large man’s side with his strong horns. Reilly reeled away again on the floor, he pulled his hand from the wound to see his fingers washed with blood.
Reilly hunted through the hay. The moment he felt the gun his grip was solid. He spun and fired point blank. Oreo was standing on his legs, arms raised like a professional pugilist. The goat looked down and saw the small puncture wound. He dove at the man, hooves spinning. Oreo's wild swing connected with Reilly's cheek.
The shot's tonic took hold, and the goat collapsed. Oreo hit with a thud. The buck was motionless on the ground. The other goats looked on in horror.
The sounds of the truck echoed as the driver backed up to the open doors. Reilly came to his feet and began scolding the men for his wounds.
In the back corner of the loft Blossom had her head buried in the straw. Her sniffling was muffled by the engine of the truck outside. She rose up giving a scornful glare at the truck below. Princess came in next to her offering her sympathy. Her eyes fixed on the empty hillcrest leading to Oliver’s house.
Chapter 12
Sparky woke. He looked to the bed. Oliver was not there. His eyes darted around the room. No lights. He sprang to his feet and clambered out of the window. The front yard was empty, completely empty. Even the grass was gone.
The goat made his way around the house. He bounced over the fence and into the pasture. The night was silent. Cresting the hill, he saw the herd gathered together in a circle in front of the barn. It was too dark to see the whole scene but Sparky felt unnerved, something wasn’t right. He hurried down.
At the bottom of the hill, all of the goats were jabbering. Sparky leaned in to better overhear the conversations but couldn’t make out a single word. He pushed his way through the mob and almost stumbled over Princess.
“Baby, what is going on?”
“We got the man. We captured him,” her face was blank.
“Where?”
Her eyes rolled and settled directly ahead. Sparky pushed forward toward the center of the goats. Everyone was standing so close and no one would make way.
“Watch it!” Mudbubble knocked Sparky aside as he tried to push through.
“Sorry,” Sparky couldn’t make room. He stood up, and as he did so did everyone else. Their voices rose. The chatter bordered on earsplitting, and still all of the words folded together into an audible mud that Sparky could not understand.
“It’s going to be okay now daddy,” Montana looked up at his father.
“We can stay here. It’s safe now,” Sam said.
They both stared beyond into the distance. Sparky’s heart began to race. Over the heads in front of him he could see the flicker of flame.
A unanimous cheer came from the herd.
“Maah, Maah, Maah.”
Louder and louder they chanted.
“It’s the right thing to do,” Blossom said. Her words almost buried beneath the droning cries of the heard.
“What? What is the right thing?”
Sparky threw himself forward, knocking over the blockade of bodies. He waded through a sea of outstretched arms before arriving at the front of the line.
The goats were circled around a stack of wood. In the center was a man bound by ropes, struggling. Sparky recognized the dark coat from his encounter with the man in the field.
The man was grunting, his voice was tired and strained. Sparky circled cautiously around to see his face. It had been something he had not been able to catch that morning on the hill.
“It’s better this way,” Oreo said. He was holding a torch. “You’ll see.”
At the moment his eyes connected with the man’s face Sparky went flush.
“Oliver? No!”
Their owner lay gagged and tied atop the woodpile. Sparky stepped away. He looked from face to face, hoping for a sign of hesitation he could appeal to. Sparky know the large villain he saw could never have been the spindly Oliver.
“He betrayed us, Sparky,” said Princess.
“He was out to ruin us,” said Darren. “He took me away! He tortured me!”
“No! It wasn’t him
!” Sparky stared into Oliver’s sullen face. He was haggard and beaten. His eyes were barely open. “What did you do to him?”
“The same thing he did to my son.”
Oreo waived the torch above the woodpile. The sight of the flames ignited Sparky’s senses. The crackling of the torch tickled his ears. His nose twitched as he caught wind of a strong scent. Gasoline!
“Better step back, partner,” Mudbubble pushed Sparky away from the woodpile.
“No, this can’t be!” Several other goats grabbed onto Sparky’s arms and restrained him. The goat wriggled and tossed, but he was well outnumbered.
Oreo stepped up to the fuel soaked timber, the shadows on his face dancing in the torchlight. His yellow eyes burned.
“For our pain!” He lobbed the torch onto the pile.
Oliver’s scream echoed over the meadow.
Sparky collapsed under the weight of his peers.
“This, this, this can’t be right.”
Oreo waived for the other goats to hold Sparky up.
Sparky’s head hung loose. Inside his chest he felt the tear in his heart grow. Why would it have come to this?
“Are you with us Sparky?” Oreo stood over him. The fire roared at his back. “Are you on our side?”
“What?”
“Do you not see? This is only way to deal with the humans.” Princess stroked his face.
“No,” Sparky’s eyes filled with tears. “No!”
Oreo stepped back, the raging flames filled Sparky’s view. His cloudy eyes focused on the bonfire. Oliver’s body had now been consumed by the flames. Embers shot free of the fire before dancing away into the night sky.
“I am sorry, Sparky.”
“Maah! Maah! Maah!”
The goats restraining Sparky marched him toward the blaze. The heat became intense. Sweat beaded on his forehead. Sparky’s adrenaline rushed as he struggled.
“Maah! Maah! Maah!”
Despite the heat of the roaring flames Sparky felt a cold chill deep inside.
“Maah! Maah! Maah!”
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” Sparky could feel the grip on his arms tighten. “Let me go.”
“Maah! Maah! Maah!”
“When you see the old man, tell him his delicious bastards are slaves no more!”