Tin.Can.Goat

Hubbard looked at the old man crouched in the grass before her. He had his back to her as he looked out across the pond at the creature he called a “Blood Crab” and every so often, he’d exhale a soft whistle as the Blood Crab looked their way.

“So, pops” she said, and the old man turned, his eyes wide and worried. “Why are you afraid of that Blood Crab when it’s clear across the pond from us? It doesn’t look that mean to me. I mean, it doesn’t even have pinchers, just a shell and eight legs. In fact, if it didn’t have that shell, it would resemble a spider more than a crab. What’s it going to do, come over and lick us to dea—”

“That’s right, keep talking,” he said, his voice was low, difficult to hear. “While you do that, I am going to belly crawl over to that tree and climb out of the Blood Crab’s reach.” He turned and moved towards the elm across the path.

“Wait,” she whispered, but he didn’t stop. She picked up a stone and tossed it at him; it bounced off his head and he turned and mouthed something at her. She motioned for him to return and whispered, “Come back. I’ll shut up.”

He cupped his ear and tilted his head. Hubbard sighed and waved more frantic. He turned and crawled back. “What?” he said, his voice a whisper. “I really don’t want to die because of you.”

“Sorry, I’ll shut up,” she said, also in a whisper.

He patted her shoulder. “Thanks. Now, this is the issue. Those things are nasty, but they only stay that size for a few minutes; five at most.”

“Then what?”

“Then what? Then they shrink, and we step on them. That’s what.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, ‘Oh’,” he said aloud, and came up on his knees.

Hubbard propped herself up on her elbows. “Shh! What are you doing?”

“It’s happening.” He pointed across the pond, and Hubbard looked.

The Blood Crab was indeed shrinking; first its legs lowered it close the ground until they were too small to support the creature and it rested on its belly; its legs flailing in the air. She stood up and watched as its shell shrank first, and then as the belly shrunk and the shell lowered closer to the ground. Hubbard figured that if she continued to watch, the creature would soon be indiscernible by her eyes. She wanted to be close enough to see it, and study it, before the old man crushed it into nothingness.

The old man stood and turned to Hubbard. “C’mon. We’ve got to crush it before it smells the water and starts making its way into the water.” He jogged away from her.

“What happens if it makes it to the water?” Hubbard called out after him. She picked herself up and ran after him.

“Well, if it makes it to the water,” he said over his shoulder, “Then we turn around and run back this way. Climbing the highest tree will be in our favor.”

“But what happens if it makes it to the water?” Hubbard caught up to him, and he turned his head to look at her.

“Well, if it makes it back to the water, it will grow again. Then we’ll be in trouble. C’mon, pick up the pace. My foot’s itching to stomp something.”

He sprinted ahead, and Hubbard smiled and ran after him.

[580]

Balthazar felt as if he was in a dead womb and after only few minutes inside, he wanted to breach the doorway and run away. He stood shivering near a large circular wooden table; polished so many times it was worn down with draws and spurs, giving it a rugged, hilly look. The house was warm, muggy, and had a velvety feel about it that closed in on him with every breath.

He looked around at the stone walls, mudded together, each crack filled to the point that no light passed through. He marveled at the workmanship, obviously done by a master craftsman with a skill lost on the workers of today’s world with their premixed mud dumping out of large centrifugal trucks.

Even with the large bay window and the two flittering candles held in sconces, the one-roomed house was very dark, making the books shelves that lined the walls peek out of the dark at him like book-toothed grins.

A spit turned meat over the fire, browning it evenly on every side. By what mechanical means turned the spit, Balthazar could not tell, but he thought it must be hidden behind the river-rock fireplace or beneath the wooden floor.

The goat walked to the meat and nibbled a piece; she purred in happy satisfaction.

“I’d offer you some, but you’ve probably got something against eating after others,” Shayne said, taking another nibble.

Balthazar winced. “That’d be a fair assumption,” he said, and took a seat at the table. Unlike the table, the chair was rough and splintery, but it held on steady legs and the seat was level, flat.

“Did I offer you the seat?” Shayne asked.

Balthazar shrugged. “No, but it’d be a fair assumption that I don’t care,” he replied. In a chair at the other side of the table Sheila muffled a laugh with her hand.

Shayne walked to Balthazar. “That mouth will get you in trouble,” she said, and he shrugged. She turned and with her hind legs, kicked him in the shin; Balthazar screamed. “Much like it did just now. Do we have an understanding?” she asked.

“That’d be a fair assumption,” he said, his eyes teared from the pain. He stomped and rubbed his leg in an attempt to alleviate the pain, but it hung on painfully, like the morning after a bender.

Glass panes rattled in their window cradles as a strong breeze crashed into the house and slalomed over the opposite side of the thatched roof, raising rushes in its wake.

Sheila stared at Balthazar and he averted his gaze.

Either the heat in the room intensified, or he grew too comfortable, but his eyelids crawled down to meet their mates and his head dipped and nodded as he fought to stay awake. He snapped awake and looked at Sheila still staring at him; again he averted his eyes.

Shayne stood at a bookshelf and moved items around with her nose; rattling bottles, her breath raising decades of dust. “Having problems staying awake?” she asked without turning around.

“I’m fine,” Sheila replied.

“I was talking to the boy,” Shayne said, and picked something up in her mouth. She walked around the table behind Balthazar and he lost sight of her behind a high-backed chair.

“I’m fine,” he said. “Just a bit tired because of all the walking today.”

Balthazar screamed. His hand bled from the slice across the top and he slapped his other hand over the wound and stood from the chair. He backed away from Shayne who dropped the bloody knife from her mouth and kicked it beneath the table to her rear.

 “Quickly,” she said, turning to Sheila who stood next to a small wall cabinet, “bring the god’s breath and the corked vial. We’ve only till the end of dusk to finish.”

Balthazar shook in fear and looked out the milky-glassed window. The sun had set and darkness hovered over the painted horizon and he wondered how this could go from bad to worse in the next ten minutes.

[673]

Hubbard remembered swallowing a quarter when she was younger. It burned and scratched her throat as it worked its way down to her stomach. It scared her; she was afraid she was going to die, but her mother comforted her and told her the coin would eventually find itself an exit. At the time she didn’t believe it, but she knew later that her mother was right. To her dismay, her mother’s forecast on the incident belied the real truth behind the entire debacle; that it’d hurt like a bitch. She wondered what the man before her belied now.

“What’s the catch?” she asked, eyeing the man apprehensively as he again counted the pebbles pulled from his shirt pocket. He acted nonchalant about the whole conversation ten minutes before.

“There is not ‘catch’. It is something that has to be done, but only if you wish to succeed. Otherwise, we just close up the show, dismiss the actors, and head home,” he said. “I think you may agree that this is what is best for all of us.” He breathed on a stone and polished it on his shirt sleeve.

“You know, I wouldn’t say you are cryptic, but you sure don’t talk in a way that makes sense to me. What is it you’re not telling me? I mean besides the fact that you think you’re mine and my brother’s father.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Are you serious?”

“Quite.”

“I don’t know, call it women’s intuition.” She stepped around the man and irritated, kicked a pine cone at an intrusively loud and annoying squirrel. “Take for example, that I still don’t know your name.”

“Nor do I know yours,” he said, pocketing the shined stone.

“This is exactly what I am talking about. You’re my father, but you don’t know my name? C’mon! And you answer questions with…with…Oh, never mind!” She walked to the edge of the pond, picked up a stone and threw it out into the water. The stone skipped twice and left two dying ripples in its wake.

“That wasn’t white was it?” he asked, and leaned to the side, coming up on his knees.

“So what if it was?”

“Donni,” he said, touching a hand on her shoulder; she jumped, wondering how he’d crept up on her so quickly and quietly.

“That’s a start,” she replied, and turned. Taking his hand from her shoulder, she placed it in hers and shook. “My name’s Hu—“

“Hubbard,” he interrupted. She looked at him, shock apparent on her face, so he explained. “I know your name is Hubbard. I had lied to you earlier.”

Hubbard stared, blank-eyed and mouth agape. “So, you do know my name. So what? That still doesn’t add any truth that you are my father. My name is easily findable if you know where to look,” she said.

“Well, I could lie again and say that I read it on your name badge—” Instinctively, Hubbard looked at her left breast. “—but as you can see, you’re not wearing it today.”

Hubbard broke the grip and stepped back. “Wait…are you? Have you been…stalking me?” she stammered and stepped back.

“I have not,” he replied, taking a step towards her. “I have looked in on you once or twice, but never—“

“Looked in on me? Like in the shower? Maybe the locker room at school?” she asked, stepping back. “This isn’t real. This isn’t real and I’m not here. I’m not here and I’m not hearing this.”

“I assure you it was neither of those,” he replied; the neither released as a nasally and high-pitched nye-thear. “However, I’ve kept tabs on you over the years, it’s what a parent does.”

“Yeah, my real parents! That’s their job, not yours,” she replied, angered; the tension in her head stressed her mind like water in a pressurized still.

Donni stopped moving and stared over Hubbard’s shoulder; his eyes focused past the pond and he gasped. He looked back at her and put a finger to his lips.

“Give me a damn good reason why I should listen to you now?” she asked.

“Because,” he whispered, “we’re safe for now, since the blood-crabs haven’t heard us yet.”

[699]

Balthazar couldn’t believe what he had heard. After Sheila changed clothes, his small party had continued toward the thatched house and on the way there he’d heard the little brown goat call out. It wasn’t a ‘bleat’ or a ‘baah’, or anything else you’d think a goat would utter, but a very clear English-spoken phrase.

“You’re too close to the house!” she yelled angrily at a woman in the field behind the house. The woman looked back and waved in acknowledgement. She walked a few steps further, turned, and pointed at her feet.

“No you idiot!” the goat called out. “Further, much further! In fact, walk until I bid you to stop!”, but the woman only cupped her ear.

The goat kicked out her feet and shook her head as the party’s approach. “Donni?” She asked seeing Balthazar. Balthazar jerked at the name; only his father had ever called him that.

“No, his son,” said the boy. He walked to the goat—which was nearly as tall as he—and scratched her between the ears. She shook her head to dislodge his fingers, scowled up at him, and with a rattle of her lips, snorted in his face. “Now, now Shayne, show some respect in front of your guest,” he said, wiping his brow. “This is Balth—“

Shayne interrupted him, “I know who he is you dolt. Didn’t I send you out to retrieve him?”

“Still hospitable as ever I see. Hello mother,” Sheila said, and walked to Shayne and kissed her on the nose.

“He does resemble Adonis some,” the boy remarked, staring into Balthazar’s face.

Shayne snorted. “You seem to have an uncanny knack for repeating the obvious Raimi,” she said, then walked to Balthazar and sniffed his legs. “Smell like your father you do. He too could always stand to take a bath more than once in his life as well.”

Balthazar raised an arm and sniffed.

“I didn’t sniff your armpit idiot,” Shayne said, and turned to Raimi. “Your sister wanders out there like she’s looking for a safe place to lay an egg—“ Raimi turned to look at the woman in the field. “—go out there and show her a place to throw the stones. She’s akin to piss me off today, so if you walk far enough, please do me a huge favor and leave her there.”

Balthazar gasped.

“You a soft-heart boy? That’ll change soon,” Shayne said. “Follow me.” She turned and walked through the door to the thatched house.

Balthazar looked at Raimi.

Raimi shrugged and tilted his head towards the door; suggesting that Balthazar should do as he was told. Then he turned and jogged out after his sister in the field, calling her name and waving. She stopped walking and with a smile, waved back.

“Now you’ve officially met my parents,” Sheila said.

Balthazar smiled. “It’s like were dating,” he said.

She stared blank-faced, then turned, and skidding her feet, followed the path her mother trod through the door. Seconds later she peeked her head back through. “Running at this point would be stupid. You wouldn’t get far and I’d get really angry. You don’t want that,” she said.

Balthazar looked over his shoulder at the clear path behind him; he weighed his chances.

“You don’t want that,” Sheila said, and disappeared inside.

He looked once more and with a sigh, followed her inside.

In the field, Raimi took his sister by the arm and turned her away from the house. Together they walked across the grass, back the way the party had came.

[594]

Hubbard sat on the grass with her arms wrapped around her knees watching the man pick up small white pebbles from the grass around him. More often than not—after turning a pebble over in his fingers, inspecting it—he would toss a pebble away, cascading a guttery rainbow of greys, light-browns, slivers and whites over his shoulder. She thought she’d counted six good stones deposited into the safety of his pocket in the past fifteen minutes and an uncountable number of bad ones discarded.

“What about your son?” she asked.

“What about him?” he replied, tossing another pebble away.

“You said you’d tell me about him. A little while ago. Back there on the path.”

“Did I?” He asked, and tossed another pebble.

“Yes.”

“So I did.” He fell to his knees and plucked a handful of grass. Pressing his nose close to the ground, he reached up and dug around at the dark earth and then stood rubbing something in the bottom front of his plaid shirt. He held a white stone up before his eyes, turned it twice and with a sigh drop-kicked it out towards the mossy edge of a nearby pond.

“And?”

“Patience,” he replied, and reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a fistful of the stones. He held them in the palm of his hand and moved them around with a finger, counting them. “Seven,” he said. “That’s a nice number—“ He stopped as a pebble dropped from his palm and bounced off the toe of his boot and into the long grass.

“Well, dammit,” he said, and bent over and retrieved the pebble. He blew grass and soil from the stone and deposited all seven into his shirt pocket and buttoned it secure.

“What’s with the rocks?” Hubbard asked and leaned back on her elbows to stare up at the canopy of trees. The filtered light streaming between the leaves felt good against her cool skin; warm like a million tiny heat lamps.

“You wouldn’t understand,” he replied.

“That’s not a fair statement,” she pouted, sticking out her lower lip.

He responded by picking up a discarded brown pebble and holding it between two fingers. “What do you see here?” he asked.

Hubbard shrugged. “A rock,” she replied, rolling her eyes.

“You see wrong. This is a soul; dark and un-relenting. Though it has uses, it is not for this time or this task.”

“Just when I think you’re coming around, you say something that makes me change my mind.”

He turned from her and threw the pebble into the pond; she twirled a finger around her ear.

“That’s an unfair statement of me,” he said without turning around. “That thing you do with your finger.”

Hubbard winced. How did he see—

“I didn’t see, I felt and heard,” he said, interrupting her thought; she shook her head, bewildered that he had. He turned around and continued, “I said you wouldn’t understand and so far you have proved that true.”

“Sorry,” she said. “It’s…you know.”

“Fortunate for you, I do.”

“I’m curious, why are you looking for stones, when you should be searching for your son? Seems like a waste of time.”

“To put this simply; stones hold souls. Some are dark and therefore the stone is darker, but this doesn’t mean the soul is without hope. White stones are of course a purer soul, but this doesn’t mean the soul is without flaws and the pure souls which are more flawed are often stones of silver. Rarely do you find a black soul stone, but often you find the purest whites; like the seven I hold here.” He patted his shirt pocket.

“Phantasmagoria,” she replied.

“Why?” he asked.

She looked at him, questioned herself of whether she should answer and finally said, “Because this is all so bizarre.”

“If what I’ve described is to you, ‘phantasmagoric’, then you will undoubtedly consider this hallucinogenic: The stones, when swallowed, absorb into the body and empower the person as a weapon.”

“You’re going to eat stones.” It was a statement.

“No,” he replied with a smile and a nod. “You are the one who will consume the stones if you plan on helping me save my son and your brother.”

Hubbard could only gape and stare. Hallucinogenic indeed, she thought.

[716]

Balthazar stroked Kravers’ back, raking his fingers through the dense, coarse hair. The caterpillar arched and dipped, wheezing in asthmatic breaths as Balthazar’s fingers paced over length of her body. Balthazar, ogling Sheila, didn’t notice the hairy-worm crawled over his shoulders to drape his neck like a shawl; he simply continued stroking his arm as if Kravers still lay there.

“She’s supposed to do that,” the boy said. He sat on a rock, peeling a seed with a blade.

“It’s stunning,” Balthazar said. He continued to scratch, wincing at each breath the caterpillar exhaled upon his neck.

“A couple of key items you might want to take away from our palaver here.” The boy held up a finger. “One. Don’t stare at females, they don’t like it. I know this is the same where you were raised, but these women take it a little more to heart than the ones you’re used to. I’d say it’d behoove you if they don’t have a reason to take offense at all.”

He held another finger up. “Two. That’s my daughter whether you believe it or not and I am not taking kind to you eyeing her like fresh-baked pie cooling on a window sill.”

“Last,” he said, and held up another finger. “As gentle and soft as she may appear, she’s not. She’s a warrior and she’s hard. Therefore, you may only use the word ‘stunning’ when admiring her skills or training; never in regards to her person.

“You’re lucky I heard, else she’d have cut out your tongue and fed it to Kravers.”

The caterpillar raised her head at her name and hissed. Balthazar started at the sound and he cautiously eyed the hairy mouth now sporting razor-sharp teeth next to his cheek.

The boy laughed. “Looks like Kravers’ hungry. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.”

Balthazar raised a corner of his mouth and bobbled his head mockingly.

In the distance a mushroom top ruptured, sending a cloud of dark spores into the air. The cloud hung silent in the calm air. Suspended with little wind to carry it away at once, it dissipated from the top down as if a giant hand were slowly erasing it.

Balthazar sighed as Sheila buttoned the front of the green tunic she now wore; it matched the rainbow of colors in her hair perfectly. She stooped and picked up the newly discarded clothing and stuffed the roll into the messenger bag hanging at her hip. Picking up her weapons, she bounded like an angry deer through the grass, scowling at Balthazar.

“Well, looks like she might have caught you watching anyway,” the boy said with a smile. He stepped to the side and leaned on one of his large spiked weapons as she approached.

Sheila poked Balthazar in the chest, hard.

“Listen,” he said, swiping at her hand before she could poke him again. “You’ve got to stop doing that. It’s annoying and it hurts.”

Sheila grabbed his hand in both of hers, twisted it so that his thumb pointed to the ground and bent his wrist back towards his shoulder; Balthazar dropped to his knees with a cry.

“I had only one thing to say to you before,” she said. Balthazar cried out as she put pressure on his wrist. “Now I’ve got three.”

She added pressure. “One. Never swipe at my hands. I’m better than you.” More pressure.

“Two,” she said. “Your filthy eyes are not allowed to study my flesh.”

“Three,” she said, and added enough pressure to cause Balthazar to rip at the black soil with his free hand. “Never will the words ‘stunning’ pass your lips in regards to me. Do you understand?”

Balthazar squeezed the soil in his palm, small stones cut into his skin. “Yes,” he stammered, forcing the words.

“Good,” she said, releasing his hand. “Get up and let’s go. We’re nearly there.”

Balthazar stood and brushed his hand against his pants. He frowned at the boy, the smile that crept across his young face irritated Balthazar and he wished nothing more than to remove it, preferably with a sharp object.

“What?” the boy asked, shrugging innocently. “I told you this would happen. I just didn’t realize it would happen now.”

The boy laughed and picking up his weapon, pushed against Balthazar’s back. “She gets a little touchy before meeting her mother; that’s how I know we’re close,” he said and shrugged. “I guess I would too if my mother we’re as raunchy. Look there she is now.”

Balthazar looked to where he pointed and saw nothing but a small goat grazing on a patch of flowers next to a dirty thatched-roof house. “Did she go back inside?” he asked.

The boy laughed, shaking his head. “Oh no,” he said. “That’s her right there; the atrocious little brown goat gorging herself on dandelions.”

[808]

Hubbard watched the man scout the path as he walked side-to-side in front of her. He was folded at the waist, nose close to the ground, a blood hound searching a scent.

“If you tell me what you’re looking for, I might be able to help,” she said, stepping out of his way as he doubled back behind her.

“My son,” he replied, without raising his head. He paused a moment next to a fallen branch, his breath rattled the dying leaves.

“Are you smelling for him?” she asked. “I really do not understand this. We could move faster if maybe we split up. Tell me what he looks like and I’ll run ahead looking for him.”

The man leaned back in a squat and looked up at her. “Well,” he said. “He looks like me, but about this tall.” He held his pinched fingers in front of his eye.

Hubbard laughed. “Oh he’s about the size of a matchstick, is he? And how did he get to be such a big boy?”

“Pixies. As I’ve told you before, they’re a mischievous little bunch. This, well, this is just another one of their mischievous ways.” He turned his nose back to the path, flicking a couple of pebbles with his finger.

Hubbard twirled a finger around her ear. “So, these pixies can shrink people to the size of matches, light their legs on fire, and staple them to stumps with miniature rail-road spikes?” This image still troubled her. “And they do all of this in the same day? Is there no limit to their powers?”

The man stopped again and turned to her. “You shouldn’t mock what you don’t know. You weren’t so cocky when you helped me with the branch. A bit afraid, was my opinion.”

“I am still afraid, but not of magical fairies. If I had…”

“Pixies,” he corrected.

“Whatever,” she replied, irritated by the interruption. “If I had to guess what I was afraid of, that’d be you.”

“Rightfully so,” he said, spitting out the words as if they burned his mouth.

She squinched at his ferocity and recoiled at his stare. His abrasive look was hard like whiskey on a dry throat and forced her apologetic words to pour out as drunken misgivings.

She broke away first.

“I appreciate your help from before, but I don’t need you now,” he said, dismissing her with a wave.

“No, I want to help. I just…I find this all a bit fantastical,” she said, rubbing her hands beneath her arms.

The man stood and walked to her. She flinched as he placed a hand upon her shoulder.

“The significance of our paths crossing is not yet clear, but someone deemed it so,” he said. “I ask you don’t follow because you feel compelled, but if you must, then compel yourself to follow. My son was stolen and I am getting him back.”

Hubbard stood with her head hung low. She thought about the man before her and the crazy stories he’d spun. True, he’d spoke of pixies and fairie-fire burning his legs. He’d spoke of shrunken people and other things she couldn’t see, but then there were the things she did see. She’d seen the tiny spikes stuck in his feet and the real blood that flowed from those wounds. She’d watched him heal the wounds with his own spittle and remove the burn upon his legs with Lilac flowers, so not all he spun were fantastical tales created out of golden straw.

“I’ll do it,” she said at last.

He squeezed her shoulder and smiled.

“Good,” he said. “Now let me tell you about my son.”