Chapter Seven
Rick
How had Rick ended up in the back of the Razor while Kaylee got to ride up front, like she wasn’t the one avoiding her civic duty?
The two women chatted about how many times these goats had escaped and caused havoc, while Rick stared out the plastic window of the winterized ATV cover and contemplated his life choices.
So far, he’d been reprimanded, skunked by multiple leads, tased, and booted, all because of one stubborn woman.
The minute he’d thought they had a lead, she would vanish, until now.
The most confounding thing about her was why she’d stayed in this place so long.
Rick studied the small town during their short drive.
While the brick buildings were all older, probably built in the fifties or close to it, many of them had received a new coat of paint within the last twenty years.
It was a cozy, tourist town, much like Lava Hot Springs, one of the places he’d passed through on his way from California.
The businesses were warm and welcoming, with cutesy names and artistically decorated windows.
He’d grown up in a town just like this, only more run-down and poverty-stricken.
He couldn’t wait to get out of there and back to the city.
He found small towns suffocating, filled with judgmental, narrow-minded people.
There’d been a few decent ones, like his eighth-grade teacher and the counselor at the high school, but other than that, he’d been happy to put his hometown in his rear view.
Paulette pulled the Razor along the side of the street, parallel parking it easily between two Crown Vics. The ATV must come in handy for getting around in the winter or in peak tourist season.
“Well, shit,” Paulette muttered, and Rick pressed his face against the plastic, his mouth dropping at the chaos erupting in front of him.
At least twenty goats were scattered throughout the manger on the church’s front lawn.
Several were calmly eating straw, ignoring the melee, as a black-and-white goat with large, curved horns played keep-away with two uniformed officers, a baby doll dangling by an arm from its mouth.
The goat hopped, skipped, and kicked his feet in the air as he dodged every attempt to catch him.
Several more goats were climbing the steps of the manger and railing, jumping off and bleating with joy. A brown goat with stubs for horns reared back and headbutted the Virgin Mary statue, sending her flying backward.
Paulette and Kaylee spilled out, each trying to herd the goats together, while Rick got out slowly, unsure what to do. Goat wrangling wasn’t his expertise.
“Here, Goatee-Goatee,” he tried, earning a few disgruntled frowns from the officers trying to chase the animals.
Rick spotted a baby goat rubbing its head against the side of the manger and crouched down, approaching it with soft, careful steps.
In a flash of stealth, he snatched up the tiny creature, wrinkling his nose against the smell.
The baby thrashed and screamed in his arms.
“Watch out!” someone yelled seconds before something hit the back of his legs. He twisted in time to not crush the goat, his back slamming against the grass, knocking the wind out of him as he kept hold of the baby. A brown, whiskered face hovered over him, letting out an angry “Bahhhh.”
“Let the kid go!”
Kid? He was too dazed to fully understand until they hollered, “The goat! Let the goat go!”
The big goat reared above him, and Rick closed his eyes, waiting for the hooves to slice through his face.
Nothing came, and when he opened one eye, the goat was gone. In its place was Kaylee, wrestling with the irate animal.
“Let the baby go,” she grunted between pants, “and he will follow his mom.”
Rick did what she said, and the goat struggled to his feet before launching himself off Rick’s chest. The sharp kicks exacerbated his shortness of breath as he lay on the ground, wheezing. Kaylee released the mama, who bleated and chased after the baby.
“You good?” she asked, bent over with her hands on her knees, sucking in air.
He flashed her a thumbs-up, and her lips curved into a small smile, which hit him right in the solar plexus.
“I guess neither one of us is taking up goat tail tying,” he said.
“What is that?”
“Like mutton busting, but with goats.”
“Are you concussed?” she asked, leaning in closer. “Because I do not understand anything coming out of your mouth.”
Rick flopped back against the ground, his chest burning from the pain and sucking in the cold air. “Sheep riding, you ninny.”
“Did you just call me a ninny?”
He nodded. “Give me a break. I almost died.”
Kaylee laughed. “Naw, maybe a few hoof print dents in your forehead, but you would have survived.” She held her hand down to him, and he took it, gingerly getting to his feet. “Unfortunately.”
Rick ignored her jab and winced as he straightened up. “Is this a common occurrence here?”
“What?”
Rick waved his hand toward the goats. “Chasing down a murder of goats attacking a churchyard.”
“About once a month. The goat with the baby Jesus is Licorice. He uses his horns to weaken the fence, and they run amok. It’s usually not this many.” Kaylee stroked her chin. “Also, I’m pretty sure it’s a flock, not a murder. Crows come in a murder.”
Suddenly, a flash of black and white flew past them from nowhere, and a high crescendo of rapid barking echoed across the churchyard.
A long-haired dog circled the goats, snapping and snarling at their heels until they clumped together and ran as one unit toward the sidewalk.
The officers stepped into the street, waving on passing cars and giving the herding dog a wide berth as it flitted about, keeping the goats in line.
“Nice job, Chip!” A gravelly voice praised, and a grizzled, stooped man in a cowboy hat waved from a block down the road. “Thanks for all your help. Sorry about the mess.”
The goats ran toward the old man, the dog hot on their heels, a herd of brown and black, bleating and barking, echoing through the churchyard, growing softer the farther away they got.
There was straw everywhere, covering the lawn, and several officers were trying to place the Virgin Mary upright. A man in a flannel shirt held the baby Jesus, cradling the broken doll in one arm and holding the detached leg in his hand. “Baby Jesus needs surgery!”
Officer Paulette rolled her eyes and snatched the leg from him, turning her back to Rick as she worked on fixing it.
While they stood next to each other out of earshot of the others, Rick swiveled toward Kaylee. “Speaking of murder, you know that if you don’t testify, there is no guarantee that they’ll leave you alone.”
Kaylee stared straight ahead, and he thought for a moment she was going to ignore him, until finally, she whispered, “It’s worked so far. And if I do testify, they’ll definitely hunt me down.”
“I’ll never let that happen.”
Kaylee sighed, turning to face him with enormous, glistening eyes. “Please, go away.”
“You know I can’t.”
Paulette joined them, oblivious to the tension in the air. “Sorry about the detour. Let’s get to the station and sort this all out.”
The short ride was so quiet and tense it seemed to last longer than the three turns it took to park along the side of the brick station building. Kaylee and Rick climbed out in synchrony, the two of them trailing behind Paulette.
“I’ll just put in a call to the FBI, and you can be on your way,” she said, holding the door open for them.
“I’m not leaving without Kaylee,” Rick said, glancing back at her. “She’s a material witness to a crime.”
“Unless you have a subpoena saying she has to come, I’m not letting you force her anywhere.
” The steel in the cop’s voice told him she would go to extreme measures to protect her citizens, and he could admire her for that.
But he wasn’t lying when he said he wasn’t leaving without her.
He’d get Kaylee Kringle back to California and on the witness stand if he had to hog-tie and drag her there.