“Guilty – at least my mom was…” she paused and took a fortifying breath. “Dad wasn’t ever really in the picture.”
“Oh, sorry to hear that.” My dad sounded guilty to my ears, and I sat placidly. Didn’t comment. Didn’t have to. Our family dynamic was complicated on a good day. At least, it’d been a string of them lately. Good days, that is.
“Sorry, um, what’s your name?” she asked.
“Oh, they call me Vyking.”
“They?” she asked curiously.
“People. The club.” My dad shrugged. He took a deep breath and sighed and changed subjects. “I cooked breakfast, why don’t you go on out and feed the goats before you take Aspen home.”
Before I could say anything, Aspen perked up, “Goats?” she asked, and it was the cutest damn thing.
My dad grunted with a secret smile. “Yeah. You’re on a goat farm,” he said. “Don’t get too attached to any of ‘em, though.”
“Oh…” her excitement diminished some.
“Well, not exactly true,” I said with a sigh, wanting that sparkle to come back to her green eyes for some reason. “There are a few you can get attached to. I’ll show you which ones.”
She finished the last few bites on her plate and my dad reached out and took it away from in front of her.
“You two kids have fun,” he said.
“This way,” I said and jerked my head toward the mudroom off the kitchen.
She’d donned her nice riding boots from the night before and I took down my newer farm jacket, a rusty brown Carhartt I’d bought recently to replace the dingy gray one I took down for myself, the elbow of the sleeve ripped out spectacularly, the padded ticking leaking out of it.
I held it open for her and said, “It’s cold out there, better put this on.”
“Thank you,” she murmured, donning it. “How’d you do that?” she asked with wide eyes at the mangled sleeve of the coat I put on for myself.
“Barbed-wire fencing,” I said, pulling down the old leather American outback crusher hat I used to keep the rain out of my eyes. I donned it and held open the back door, motioning for her to go on ahead.
The chill damp of the fall air rushed in to greet us and she ducked out into the fine misty crap sifting down out of a leaden gray sky to keep the damp and the cold from getting into the house.
I slipped out after her with a sigh. It was gonna be muddy as fuck and I hadn’t bothered switching out my riding boots for my farm boots with the better tread. Too late now.
“Watch yourself,” I cautioned. “Bound to be muddy as hell. I don’t want you to slip.”
“I’ll be careful,” she promised, perking up at the bleating of the goats out in their pasture.
“They act like they never been fed a day in their life,” I groused.
“Poor creatures,” she said lightly with a smile, an edge of teasing to her sweet voice. “They look absolutely starved.”
I chuckled and looked across the yard to the split log fence of the first pasture and the small herd beyond the wire fencing lining we had just behind those logs. Sure enough, the goats were lined up begging at the fence line, waiting for my big ass to get in the barn and get their grain.
“They look it,” I agreed, deadpan. “Just look at those ribs poking out.”
Aspen smiled and I think it was the first genuine one I’d seen thus far, timid as it was.
She huddled in my oversized jacket and shirt and picked her way carefully in my wake through the muddy grass that squished beneath our feet as we made our way to the barn.
“You’re in serious need of some stepping stones,” she said mildly with a laugh and then finished up with, “The flat flagstone kind with the irregular edges would look fantastic with the aesthetic of the house.” She turned back and looked at the weathered brown of my home. It was half log cabin, half weathered cedar shake tiles, and all rustic and as organic as the land around us.
“You might be onto something there,” I said and thought about it. As much of a bitch as it would be to get them in place, it would beat wearing a muddy track in the grass. I’d see what my dad thought about it, but might just do it on my own anyway. He wasn’t getting any younger and had a bad hip – anything to save the stubborn old bastard from a fall and breaking the damn thing. He was getting up there – had just turned seventy-three.
“Do they all have names?” she asked lightly when we ducked into the deep, permanent twilight of the barn. I liked it in here – the smell of fresh, dry straw and alfalfa.
“Breakfast, lunch, and dinner,” I said. “The only named ones are Gunnar and Olaf, our two bucks and the girls who are the baby factories.”
“How many mammas?” she asked.
“Seven,” I answered.
“Oh, wow.”
“It gets pretty hairy,” I agreed. “Especially when they go dropping twins quite a bit.”
“I can imagine,” she said, moving a stray damp curl behind one ear.
“Wanna give me a hand? They’ll be your best friend.” I held a metal pail full of grain out to her and she really smiled then and it lit up her whole face with delight.
“Thank you,” she said. “I’d love to.”
I chuckled. “Famous last words,” I said, and she laughed softly. I loaded up another pail for myself, then loaded up two big five-gallon buckets, and a third smaller pail for some of the goats that needed a little extra. I’d let her take care of the permanent stock while I took care of what my pops and I liked to refer to as our disposable little darlings.
Sometimes, it was tough. Once or twice, we had a goat come along that just had the right personality and sweet temperament that we couldn’t do it. Those either got sold, or kept depending on the farm’s needs.
Gunnar and Olaf bleated at us insistently and I stopped her at the gate, setting down my two five gallons and picking up the third pail off the top of one.
“Better let me get in there with the food. These two are around two hundred pounds of stank and attitude where a meal of grain is concerned.”
“Okay,” she agreed and handed one of the buckets over.
“Goats are assholes,” I said with a shrug. “These two would bully you. They know they can’t get one over on me – still hurts when they knock into you a little overenthusiastically, so watch yourself, okay?”
“Got it,” she agreed with a nod.
She ghosted in after me, hanging back with the third bucket, and I smiled and called out, “C’mere, you two ungrateful fucks.”
I hung one bucket on an exposed nail on the outside of their shelter and tipped the other one, emptying it half way while the moms and still-nursing babies trotted up from the lower end of the pasture. When I was sure the boys were engaged with their grain, I handed back the empty pail to Aspen while I took the full one from her and the third off the nail.
“Watch your footing,” I warned, and we went over to the other, bigger shelter to pour grain into the troughs for the ladies.
“Oh my God, they’re so cute!” she cried at the sight of the little babies, and I nodded.
“Yeah, they are. Think we’re gonna keep that one,” I said, pointing a black and white spotted little girl out.