Today, we were waylaid by a gang of goats. After gaping at the limited remnants of Rocky Springs, we wandered to the Magnus Mound. Well we were headed in that way. We slowed to a stop while twenty unaccompanied goats blocked the road.
We looked at them. They looked at us. We slit our eyes in attempted intimidation. They were goats, so their pupils were already slit. Have you ever really looked into a goat’s eyes? You can’t, can you? If you stair into the goat’s eyes, the goat stares back at you. You won this round goats.
We inched Dodgy closer and, slowly, the goats progressed across the road in a nonchalant saunter that conveyed how little it mattered to them if they were on the road or not. They certainly weren’t moving for us. We had better recognize that they were not moving for us.
When they were done with us, we were not done with them. We stopped next to a dense group of goats. I rolled down the window and swung out my camera.
Now the goats were interested.
First one goat, and then another meandered closer to the truck. They looked warily at the camera lens and took another cautious step. I blithely took pictures as if one could take something for goats without them taking something in return. We moved when I recognized the bobbing of a large billy goats head, preparing to rise to its hind feet and reach me. As its forefeet hit my car door, we took off. Fortunately, the hooves didn’t scratch the paint. The billy goat also didn’t get any of my breakfast.
We would have spent more time at Magnus Mound had not the goats, like classic lumbering zombies of old, followed the possibility of a meal. We read the placard, snapped some pictures, and fled the goats. Who knows, they could have had backup on the way.
