The Farm

chewing hay with a twist of its bearded jaw.

'I'll be okay,' she said. 'I think he's just worked up because he knows I'm going to geld him.'

'Geld him?'

She pulled a circular iron band from her back pocket. There was a clip at one end of the hinged band that allowed it to be opened and closed. 'You reach under the billy boy and grab that sack and yank down like this'— Lillian gave a demonstration that looked as if she was plucking grapes from an ornery vine—'and snap this little puppy up above the twins. The sack rots off in a few weeks, and that musky odor gets a lot more bearable.'

David blanched at the thought of having that band clamped on his own testicles. He'd been raised in the ways of farm life, but somehow castration seemed far crueler than slaughtering for meat. Back in his youth, there had been few goats in Solom. It seemed the past few years either the goats had been breeding like rabbits or everyone had simultaneously developed an affinity for the stub born creatures.

'Well, I can see why he got a little testy,' David said.

'Odus Hampton told me you can't trust goats this time of year.'

David wondered what else Odus had told her and if he should mention his own encounter on the trail above the Smith place. 'They've been acting strange lately. Tell me, why did you get yours?'

The goats pressed against the sides of the pen, stomping the dirt with their hooves, as if they were trying to bust out. Lillian wiped her hand on her jeans, then inspected the ragged skin. 'Gordon Smith gave them to me. Said I could eat them, milk them, or breed them. Said goats made good pets and that everybody in Solom should have some.'

'I don't guess they carry rabies.'

'Probably could, if they got bit by a bat or bobcat that was in fected.'

The goats retreated to the center of the pen, where Lillian had constructed a makeshift shelter. The billy that Lillian planned to geld lowered its head and ran full-tilt at the fence, denting the wire and jiggling the fence posts. The other goat, the female, which looked pregnant with its swollen belly and dangling teats, bleated frantically. The billy backed up a few steps and hurled itself at the fence again.

'Jesus,' Lillian said. 'He's gone crazy.'

David put an arm around her and pulled her away from the pen. David felt silly fleeing a goat, but something about the mad shine of its eldritch eyes gave him the creeps. Lillian's house was two hundred feet away, so they retreated to David's pickup as the goat continued to batter the fence. They slid into the cab just as the fence gave way and the billy came staggering over the tangled mesh. David expected it to make a direct line to the truck and ram its horns into the sheet metal. Instead, it stopped where Lillian's blood had dripped and began licking at the ground.

'It wanted my blood?' Lillian said, examining the gash on her hand. 'What the hell's going on here, David?'

'I've been wondering that myself.' He looked in the rearview mirror. He could probably grab the pitchfork before the goat reached him. But then what would he do? Stick it in the creature's ribs? The billy lifted its head from the ground and sniffed the air, then looked directly at David.

'David?' Lillian's tone chilled him.

'He's staying where he is.'

'That's not what I mean.' She nudged his elbow and he looked through the front windshield. A dozen goats from the neighboring pasture had come down to the barbed-wire boundary and were watching the encounter. David wondered if they had smelled the blood, too, and thought of sharks in the water being thrown into a frenzy.

But these were goats, for God's sake. Livestock. Food. They were technically herbivores but had a reputation for eating tin cans, wool blankets, newsprint, anything they could squeeze down their gullets. As far as David knew, they had never been carnivorous. Then why was he so afraid that the goats would break through the barbed wire and surround the truck?

'Do you have a gun?' he asked Lillian.

'In the house. A little twenty-two pistol to scare off burglars.'

'I suggest we head for the house, then.'

He turned the ignition key, half expecting the engine to grind over and over without firing, like a scene in a B- grade horror movie. Instead the engine roared to life, he jammed the gearshift into first, and peeled up two strips of mud as he popped out the clutch and spun the rear wheels. David fought an urge to plow over the billy, which stared at him with those oblate pupils boring holes in David's face, as if marking him for later revenge. David brought the truck to a halt beside the porch, and then he and Lillian scram bled inside and slammed the door.

David peeked through the curtains while Lillian retrieved the pistol from her bedroom. The goats in the neighboring pasture had lost interest and scattered across the grass, grazing as before. The billy took a tentative nibble at an apple sapling, then went back to the pen where its mate waited by the shelter. They lay together in the afternoon sunlight, shaking their ears to drive away flies.

'Did what I think happened really happen, or am I going crazy?' Lillian said.

David suddenly felt foolish. Looking out, he found the scene al most pastoral, with the dark green grass, the beds of plants and hi bernating flowers, the far mountains stippled with gray trees. He imagined himself picking up the phone and calling the sheriff's de partment to report a wild animal attack. He could almost hear the dispatcher's voice: 'What kind of animal? Bear? Dog? Treed rac- coottf' Ha would bet his truck that 'goat' wouldn't make the list.

'Let's get your hand patched up,' he said, dropping the curtain on the bizarre world outside, wondering what the book of Revelation had to say about the role of goats in the Apocalypse.

Jett managed to stay straight most of the day. She didn't like stoning at school, especially alone. She wasn't close to any of the other kids, and getting totally roped wasn't as much fun with no body else in class giggling along. But home had gotten so weird, she couldn't imagine trying to get through the evenings without sneak ing a puff or two. Gordon must have had an argument with Mom, because she had slept on the couch. When Mom and Dad were to gether, Dad was always the one who got thrown out of the bed room. That must mean Gordon had some sort of power over Mom.

When Jett got off the bus and walked the quarter mile up the gravel road, neither Mom nor Gordon was home. That was strange, because Mom had been practically glued to the kitchen for the past couple of weeks. But having the house to herself meant she could light up without worrying about getting caught. She went to her room, put her books away, and took a couple of tokes. Then she put on some tunes—Tommy Keene, Songs from the Film, from her mother's eighties collection—and lay back on her bed, grooving to Keene's harmonious and jangling guitar pop. At school, she was all about hard-core Goth glam, but secretly she'd decided songs that basically said 'Let's fuck and die' could only get you so far. In fact, the whole Goth thing was getting a little old, and she would probably have outgrown it already if they were still in Charlotte. Here in Solom, though, the look was still an aberration that drew sidelong glances consigning her to an eternity in hell. Plus, it really rammed sand up Gordon's ass, and that was worth a little extra time applying black eyeliner.

Keene was just reaching one of Jett's favorites, 'My Mother Looked Like Marilyn Monroe,' and her stoned mind adapted it into 'My Mother Looked Like Marilyn Manson.' Maybe Weird Al Yankovich could do that one sometime.

She reached over to turn the CD player up a notch when she saw the man in the black hat through her window, standing by the barn. He motioned to her, his waxy fingers stiff. The hat shaded his face, but the lower part of his chin showed over the collar of his wool jacket. His skin was the color of clabbered milk.

Jett thought the best plan of action was to get in bed and hide her head under the pillows. If Gordon were here, she could point out the man and say, 'See, I told you I wasn't losing it.' Except part of her was afraid mat Gordon, like the kids in her class, wouldn't be able to see him. That would serve as proof to Gordon that Jett needed a good, long stretch in the nutter wing of Faith Hospital in Boone. Lockdown wouldn't keep away the man in the black hat, though; hallucinations had a way of ignoring doors and windows.

Jett was about to turn away when the man tilted his head to look up at the window. More of the face was revealed, a dark line of lips, sunken cheeks. The fingers moved again, beckoning. Jett shook her head.

The man began walking toward the house, moving with brittle steps. The grass wilted where his shadow fell. When he reached the fence, he didn't climb over or slow down. Instead, he seemed to pass