The Audacity of Goats Read online

  And so, one Wednesday night at Nelsen’s Hall, when a quorum of his regular circle was in attendance, Lars Olafsen announced his retirement. He was immediately surrounded by a jovial, back-slapping throng, and shots were thrust into his hand in rapid succession.

  “Lars,” said Paul Miller, his childhood friend, “you can’t retire. We’re too young.”

  “You’ve been an asset to us, Lars,” said another old friend.

  “You run a tight ship, Lars. Those meetings will take twice as long without you.”

  But the real concern was the one voiced by Jake, who had a reputation for cutting to the heart of every discussion. “You can’t leave. There’s nobody who’ll take your place.”

  This was true, as everyone at Nelsen’s well knew. Being chairman was a thankless job, and few people wanted to be bothered with it. There was a slew of paperwork and arrogant state officials to be dealt with, not to mention the unceasing need to wrangle volunteers for committees and other public work, and the inevitable squabbles—both petty and potentially fatal. No, particularly in these days of escalating state bureaucracy, you’d have to be a fool to want the job. And the Island was remarkably short of fools, unless, of course, you counted that new woman, Fiona Campbell.

  Fiona would have been shocked to know her reputation. Her intelligence, wit, street savvy, and seriousness of purpose were not things shown to good advantage in a small town. Add into the mix her city polish and lack of practical knowledge of rural life—not to mention the evil rumors that Stella DesRosiers had very particularly and intentionally spread—and an average observer might have an impression of a flighty young woman who wore impractical shoes, was oblivious to the first principles of survival and sensible living, and whose morals were, well, not what one would hope.

  Fiona was, in fact, far from being a fool, but this didn’t stop the locals from thinking her one. Many of them—particularly the men—had come to feel a mixture of pity and admiration for her, a circumstance that Stella’s rumors had unwittingly created, and one which frequently worked in Fiona’s favor. In this instance, however, Fiona was exactly as oblivious as her neighbors thought, and it may have been just as well. She went about her business utterly unaware of her many critics, observers, and secret admirers.

  Emily and Jason Martin, the proprietors of Windsome Farm, were joiners. In a short period of time—and despite their frequent declarations that they were terribly, terribly busy—they had become members of just about every group on the Island. Their presence was met with varying degrees of acceptance. At church there was a certain amount of relief to have some new volunteers to take up the slack, and it was always helpful to have one more chaperone at a school event. But behind their backs the talk was decidedly unenthusiastic. The outspokenness of them both did little to endear them to their neighbors, and they quickly became known as “those new people who think they know everything.”

  Without hesitation Emily had informed the drama society that they could benefit from her college training in theater arts, and she offered to direct the next play. She told the Ladies Book Society that their reading list was shockingly old-fashioned and that she would help them to make a more modern one, which she proceeded to do, including a bestseller that sounded like a home decorating guide but turned out to be about something many of the ladies found shocking and secretly titillating, but otherwise hadn’t much of a plot. Her husband notified the Lions Club that their bookkeeping methods were sure to draw the attention of the I.R.S., and took over the planning for next year’s Little League without being asked. At the P.T.O. meetings they were quick to point out that their children’s former school had a much better equipped gymnasium, and was further advanced in first grade mathematics.

  In their brief few months on the Island their reputation for annoying people became so well known that attendance at various committees and club meetings sky-rocketed, as Islanders showed up just for the sheer fun of seeing what they’d say next.

  When Lars Olafsen left Nelsen’s Hall after the announcement of his retirement, he was thoroughly steeped in the warmth of his friends. He was also steeped in a good portion of beer, mixed with a fair portion of bitters, and just as fair a portion of Jaegermeister.

  Lars had inherited the facility of his Swedish ancestors for turning an evening of drinking into a slow, steady glow, and although he had consumed a great deal, it would have been difficult for anyone to tell. His words were unslurred, his mind clear, his gait unfaltering, and his eyes bright, so he did not think it necessary to have anyone drive him home. Since Lars’s friends’ judgment was equally steeped in beer, bitters, and Jaegermeister, neither did anyone else. Island culture generally accepted this state of affairs, primarily because the odds of meeting anyone else on the road were rather small.

  Lars reached home without incident, and parked his reliable but elderly SUV on the driveway next to the woods. The Olafsen property was adjacent to Mountain Park, so named for the modest hill that lay, more or less, in the center of the Island. At its crest was a wooden tower that afforded a fine view of the Island to anyone with the stamina to climb. Lars had always thought that it was pleasant to have a park for a neighbor, since it created a buffer zone, almost as if his actual lot lines had been expanded to include the public land.

  Accustomed to being alone in the dark in the remote countryside, Lars pocketed his keys and was headed toward the house when a peculiar sound froze him in his tracks. It was as if someone nearby were coughing. At first he felt a moment of fear, but Lars shook it off, laughing at himself. No one was anywhere near. The SUV was overdue for maintenance if the engine were making that kind of post-ignition noise.

  It occurred to Lars that he had been taking the effects of overconsumption much too lightly. He shook his head at himself ruefully. He should never have driven home. Next time he would call Katherine. He resumed his path to the house. There it was again. That sound. Standing still, Lars was quite clear in his mind that it was not coming from the SUV. It was coming from the woods. A deer, maybe. Lars took a deep relaxing breath. There were many deer, and they made a chuffing sound, similar, a bit, to this. That’s surely what it was.

  There it was again, a coughing sound, and a snort, and a sort of chortle. This was no deer. No. He was quite certain: there was someone in the woods. And he was very close.

  Lars Olafsen, a man whose Scandinavian calm was legendary on the Island, a man who rarely ran, and had rarely had any reason for doing so, made it into the house in record time. In his haste he slammed the side door and woke his sweet and patient wife from a lovely dream.

  It was another thing for Lars to add to his ever-lengthening list of regrets.

  Fall on Washington Island had an idyllic quality. The days were at the temperature where an afternoon nap in the hammock required a light blanket, and the nights required a bonfire. The number of tourists—small, in any season—was low, and many of the summer property owners had returned to their lives in The World, a world, presumably, that afforded them the means to own summer homes on a remote island. The roads were nearly deserted, allowing runners and bikers the blessing of solitude and safety among the rich colors of autumn leaves, deep blue sky, and the crisp, cool Island air.

  During this quiet time, Tom, the manager of the Island hardware and general store, was away for a brief vacation, and he had left the store’s management to one of his teenaged clerks, Gabe. Gabe was a perfectly competent and good-natured young man who took his responsibilities seriously, but occasionally his lack of experience had repercussions.

  When a family of tourists stopped in to rent bicycles for the day, Gabe was pleased to see them. It had been a slow day at the store, and customers relieved the boredom. They were a young family: a pretty, brunette woman, her soft-spoken husband, and two round-cheeked boys aged about 5 and 7. They were from Milwaukee, they told Gabe, and had come to spend the day on the Island. Where did he recommend they go?

  Gabe had the usual suggestions for them: Mountain Pa
rk, the sand dunes, School House Beach, the Stavkirke—a small, hand-built chapel at the end of a wooded path, in the tradition of medieval Nordic stave churches—and, of course, the Albatross. He remembered to fill out the forms correctly, carefully reviewing and checking off the insurance box. He rang up the sale, and he was warm, friendly, and helpful.

  Because of Gabe’s inexperience, however, it did not occur to him to mention a hazard everyone on the Island took for granted, and which had become so commonplace that the Mercantile had come to advise its customers to avoid a particular route. Gabe’s customers, therefore began their ride blissfully unaware of the only peril likely to befall them in this rural paradise: Piggy.

  Piggy was a small, ugly dog with a big, ugly temper, and his ability to inflict damage to flesh and property was out of all proportion to his size. Like so many small dogs, he had been cosseted, babied, and permitted to have his way, and this had given him his own sense of entitlement to world domination. His owner, Mrs. Shoesmith, was a nice enough woman, but she had a blind spot where he was concerned, and she remained convinced that her canine infant was misunderstood.

  Piggy was legendary on the Island for his attacks on walkers, bikers, other dogs, and even, occasionally, cars. In one particularly memorable incident, he also took the blame for the destruction of the heirloom tablecloth belonging to the Island’s other terror: Fiona’s neighbor, Stella DesRosiers. In this case, at least, he was wholly innocent, but his reputation had made his guilt a foregone conclusion. Since Stella was generally disliked by Island residents, and Piggy, it was felt, deserved whatever he got, the resulting bitterness and recriminations between Stella and Mrs. Shoesmith had made for months of local entertainment, and promised to hold more in store for the future.

  Fiona had been having a delightful day of procrastination. She had a deadline looming for an article on the security of the national energy grid, but the prospect of researching so depressing a topic was not appealing on a crisp, blue-skied autumn day. She had accepted an invitation to lunch with Nika, and they had spent some hours afterward sitting on Adirondack chairs in the autumn sun and talking. Fiona planned to buckle down to her work afterward, but nevertheless drove in the general direction of home in a dawdling fashion, grateful that there was no one else on the road for her to annoy with her slow crawl toward home.

  Humming aimlessly to herself, she was thinking about which portion of her article to tackle as she came around a bend in the road. She had been going so slowly that she didn’t have to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting the people in the road ahead. Two adults stood with their bikes before them and their children behind them, working to fend off an attack by Piggy, who, true to form, had been lying in wait for just such an adventure.

  Fiona knew from experience what had to be done. With a curious sense of déjà-vu, she reenacted her own rescue by Nancy Iverssen almost exactly the year before.

  Pulling her car in along the shoulder of the road behind the family, she rolled down her windows. “Quick! Jump in! Leave the bikes!” and obediently, the parents did as they were told, shoving their children into the car first, and then throwing down the bikes and jumping in themselves, she in the back with the children, and he practically vaulting over the hood of the car to get into the passenger seat.

  Expecting anger, accusations, and possibly some tears from the occupants of the backseat, Fiona turned to the man in the seat beside her. “Are you okay?”

  To her surprise, he immediately began to laugh.

  “I think we are. You okay back there?” he asked gaily, looking around the headrest at his family. The two little boys were beginning to be a bit tremulous, but seeing their father’s good spirits they, too, began to laugh. Their mother, who was shaking her head and smiling at her husband, said, “Well, boys, that was an adventure we will remember!”

  “But what was that? A dog or an alligator?” asked the man, pulling off his baseball cap and running a hand through his hair. He gave the impression of having been invigorated by the experience.

  “Alligator!” shouted the two boys in unison, now thoroughly enjoying themselves.

  He turned to Fiona, who was now laughing, too. “That was some rescue, by the way. Don’t know how to thank you. I’m Mark Hanley.”

  “And I’m Laura,” added the woman from the backseat. “And these are James and Will.”

  “Fiona Campbell. And what you just experienced is an Island rite of passage. Now that you’ve met Piggy, you’re honorary citizens.”

  “What about the bikes?”

  “Oh, don’t worry,” said Fiona breezily. “We’ll stop by the Mercantile and they’ll take care of it.”

  Ver Palsson’s son, Ben, was bored. His father, known by everyone as Pali, was a captain for the Island ferry line, and although the ferry had been properly moored and shut down for the night, Pali spent an extra hour going over the ship to ensure that it would be ready for morning. He was an honest man who took his responsibilities seriously. To Ben it seemed that they would never be finished. He had been sitting around all day, and there were only a few hours of light left. Ben wanted to go for a ramble in the woods before dinner.

  “Dad, can we go?”

  His father looked at him in a way that Ben knew was a substitute for a lecture.

  “Sorry,” said Ben, with just the proper amount of contrition in his tone. Without even a small sigh he went back to reading the book he had brought. His restlessness did not prevent him from enjoying it, mostly because he knew his father would not be budged until he was ready to be budged. But Ben had plans of his own, and he knew it was in his own interest to bide his time.

  Ben Palsson was ten years old, and he had lived his entire life on Washington Island. He had attended the tiny school since kindergarten, and, if all went well, he would graduate from high school there. He knew pretty much everyone, and his parents had the anachronistic confidence in their surroundings that permitted him the freedom to wander that would have been both unheard of and unwise for a boy of his age living nearly anyplace else. There were six children in his fifth grade class, including Ben, and only two of them were boys. Ben spent a great deal of time on his own and was content to amuse himself, a skill lacking in many of his generation elsewhere.

  A few minutes later, his father returned to find him engrossed in his book.

  “Come on, Ben, what are you hanging around for? Let’s go.” Pali put his hand on his son’s shoulder and squeezed playfully. “Always keeping me waiting.”

  They walked together to the truck. It had been a sunny afternoon, but as the sun got low, a brisk wind was rising, and the truck’s heater felt good once it got going.

  Pali looked sideways at his son as he drove. Ben’s head was turned, looking out the window. He was blond like both his parents, and he had his mother’s restless energy. In many ways he was still a little boy, but Pali was watching for the first signs of adolescent turmoil that was bound to come. “So far, so good,” he thought.

  Ben turned from the window to look at his father.

  “Dad, would you mind letting me off near the beach? I can walk the rest of the way.”

  Pali had been expecting this request.

  “It will be dark soon,” he said.

  “I know, Dad,” said Ben patiently. “I’ll be home before then. I just want to walk along the trail.”

  His father nodded and when they turned to head east along Jackson Harbor Road, Pali pulled into the drive of School House Beach and stopped.

  Ben already had his hand on the door.

  “Ben,” said Pali. It was a tone that required attention, but a message that Ben had heard many times. He also knew that if he were rude his father would simply not allow him to get out of the truck.

  “Yes, Dad,” said Ben, politely.

  “Stay away from the water when you’re alone. Don’t even go close enough to get your feet wet.”

  “I won’t.”

  “And don’t be late to dinner.”

  “I
won’t.”

  “Pay attention. Keep your mind on what you’re doing.”

  “I will.”

  Pali broke into a grin at the restrained but dutiful tone in his son’s voice. He was like a hunting dog desperate to give chase, but waiting for the command.

  “I know you will. Okay, see you at home.”

  “See you,” said Ben. And even as he said the words he was out of the truck and trotting toward the wooded trails that ran along the low bluffs above the lake shore. Pali watched until the boy disappeared into the woods, and then turned the truck back to the road and home.

  Ben had the kind of boyhood that adults in the cities tend to romanticize, and with good reason. At ten, his solitary ramblings had developed in him knowledge, confidence, judgment, and a self-respect that would support him all his life. His parents gave him responsibilities, and had complete confidence that he would carry them out, probably because they had always invoked consequences if he did not. He had a gun, which his father had mother had taught him to use conscientiously, and a pocketknife, which, in a world far removed from the TSA, he carried everywhere and used frequently. Ben watched TV, used the Internet, and was acquainted with contemporary culture elsewhere in the world, but he had not yet reached the age where he had begun to chafe against this rural life. His parents, having also grown up on the island, watched for the first signs with trepidation. Their own adolescent restlessness had taken them both away from home at early ages. But, of course—and this comforted them—they had come back.

  Pali was reflecting on all this as he pulled the truck into the garage. He was wrestling with a deeply felt problem, and had been distracted lately, and a bit distant from his family.

  Pali spent his days as a ferry captain. It had always been his life’s work, and his means of supporting his family. But Pali was also a poet. His work had been published for the first time only in the last year. This recognition had changed him profoundly, shifting his sense of self and purpose beyond the daily duties that he felt were a reflection of his personal honor.