24

 

“NANA’S COME INTO season!” Sparrow announced excitedly over the din, pointing at the Nubian goat with the long floppy ears. The doe was pacing her pen in circles and bleating plaintively, making even more of a racket than usual. The big Toggenburg doe was locked in the shed, standing on her hind legs with her head poking out the window and calling anxiously to her companion.

It was a crisp, sunny Saturday morning. I’d cut through the woods to visit my friend, eager to play outdoors again after three straight days of hard, cold rain. The long walk did me good. Ever since my ill-fated snooping, the secret knowledge of my dead baby brother sat on my shoulders like a fifty-pound rucksack.

“Ah . . . well, congratulations,” I said, pretending to know what Sparrow was all fired up about.

“Grandpa Wind’s gonna bring Olaf this morning,” she added. “Should be here soon. Grandpa Gorski’s taken Ma and Timmy to town for supplies. You wanna hang around and watch the show?” she asked with a smirk.

Then I understood that it was time for the goat to be bred, so she would have kids and fresh milk. This was the chance I’d been waiting for, the moment when the greatest mystery of life would be revealed at last.

“Sure, I’d be happy to help out . . . if you need me,” I added.

Sparrow looked at me cockeyed. “Olaf don’t need no help. Cassy, you really don’t know . . . uh, how they do it?”

“No. But it’s about time I found out.”

“Hmm . . . guess it is. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know.”

“Uh, what exactly does Olaf do?”

“It all happens right there.” She pointed to the swollen pink flesh beneath the doe’s tail. “That’s where the buck’s seeds go in, and it’s where her kids come out.”

“I thought that’s where she went pee.”

“That’s only one little hole.” She pointed. “This whole thing is the vulva. Inside is the birth canal.”

“The baby goats must be really tiny to fit through that,” I remarked.

“They’re ’bout this big.” She held her hand off the ground at the height of a three-month-old retriever puppy. I felt my eyes go wide. “It stretches,” she added.

“Have you ever seen ’em being born?” I asked.

“Lots of times.”

“Think maybe I can see that, too?”

“If you’re around when it happens. It’ll be five months from now if the breeding takes . . . if she gets pregnant. That’s usually not a problem with Olaf,” she said with a snigger.

“Oh. Uh . . . how exactly does Olaf get his seeds in there?”

“Well . . .” she began. Just then the pickup truck rumbled down the dirt driveway and came to a stop. Olaf was tethered in crossties in the back. Grandpa Wind hopped out of the cab, opened the tailgate, and climbed up to turn him loose. I could hear the sound of hooves clambering on metal as Olaf pawed and struggled to get free, wrenching his head from side to side and bawling like a demon from hell. 

“Sparrow! Get behind that gate and open it soon as he comes,” Grandpa Wind ordered gruffly. “Then get yourself outta there and shut it quick. If that doe gets spooked and takes off, he’ll go after her. We’d have one helluva time rounding them up,” he warned. “You,” he shouted at me. “You’d best stand clear.”

“Just go over by the shed, out of his path,” Sparrow explained. “He’s not gonna bother with you—got other things on his mind.”

As soon as the chain came loose, Olaf shook his great horned head and leapt straight over the side of the truck bed like a gazelle, surprisingly graceful for such a stocky animal. I stood well out of the way with my back up against the shed as he galloped the few yards to the pen. Sparrow was inside to keep Nana from rushing out and she swung the gate inward as Olaf charged past, then she scooted around, pulling it shut behind her.

Nana couldn’t seem to make up her mind about Olaf. First, she ran away to the far side of the pen with her long ears stuck out in alarm. Her bleating was high pitched, sounding eerily like a human baby. When Olaf went after her, she stood still a moment, happily wagging her tail as he snuffled her hind end. He was getting pretty interested when she scuttled off again like a shy deer. Olaf decided to let her play hard to get while he spruced himself up for the big date, thoroughly squirting his forelegs and beard with urine. Then he changed tactics and sauntered over to woo her slowly, snorting and curling his tongue to taste her scent in the air. She must’ve found him irresistible, because she let him get close to her rump while she peed. I felt my eyes bug out as he lapped her stream. That’s when I noticed a thin, pinkish-white organ about twelve inches long protruding from beneath Olaf’s massive body. Without further ado, he mounted Nana’s back and sunk it deep inside her.

It was over in a moment. Nana stood looking modestly away while Olaf held his head high and bellowed with pride. He pranced about the pen a bit and paused to take notice of his surroundings, casting a wary yellow eye at me. Then he got back to business, repeating his performance no less than three times, before Grandpa Wind coaxed him out of the pen with a coffee can full of sweet feed. Olaf hopped into the truck and hungrily chomped down the molasses-covered grain; apparently, his sexual appetite was satisfied for the moment.

I was both fascinated and disgusted. I’d seen mounting behavior in neighborhood dogs, although never with such a clear view of the details. When I’d asked my mother what they were doing, she told me they were playing piggyback.

 

“YOU OKAY?” SPARROW asked.

After Nana and her goat friends were settled down with their hay, we walked to the riverbank. The afternoon sun was tolerably warm. I sat in deep thought while she cast a fishing line, but the fish weren’t biting.

“Huh?”

“You’re pretty quiet,” she said. “All that didn’t scare ya, did it?” she asked, not unkindly.

“Oh, that. No . . . that was something else, all right, but I wasn’t thinking about it.” She looked at me expectantly. “I was thinking about the baby. I guess it has something to do with . . . all that back there.” I pointed in the direction of her house. “Now I know where babies come from.” I raised my eyebrows.

“Maybe you should just talk with your folks about him.”

“Can’t do it.” I shook my head adamantly. She fell silent. I changed the subject. “So that’s how people do it,” I declared. “Yuck! I don’t know how the moms can stand it. No wonder my mother only had two babies . . . twice was enough.”

“Uh . . . Cassy, it ain’t like that with people,” she said gently.

“Whada ya mean?”

“Well, for one thing, the men don’t pee on themselves. I asked my ma about that a long time ago,” she explained. “And with people, it’s called intercourse, not breeding. But people don’t do it only to get pregnant. Matter of fact, most of the time they’re trying not to get pregnant,” she elaborated. “They do it because they love each other. Because it feels good.”

“I don’t see how something like that could feel good,” I said incredulously, “not for the ladies, anyway.”

“Oh, the ladies like it too, you betcha, at least if they’re hot for the man. Ma says that men ain’t so picky. They’re ready just about all the time, like old Olaf.” She chuckled.

I recalled the strange moans and groans coming from the Schimschack’s; the satisfied smile on Mr. Wind’s face when he strolled outside. Sparrow’s parents weren’t married to each other and Grandpa Gorski obviously wasn’t happy about the situation. As for my parents, they must be real bashful about it; they were quiet as church mice. I’d have never guessed what was going on behind their bedroom door. 

“I suppose it’s just one of those things that you can’t understand until you grow up,” I said, deciding that I needn’t concern myself with it for a long time yet.

“Yeah, probably,” she agreed, casting her line once more. “I’m hungry!” she exclaimed. “’Bout ready to quit and go eat.”

“Me, too. It’s way past lunch time.”

Suddenly the line went taut. “Holy smokes, it’s a big one. Get the net,” she cried. I helped her haul in a decent-sized bass, a fish she never could’ve held on the flimsy line. “I think it’s enough to make a meal for two,” she said, holding up the struggling fish. “Hey, Owl Woman, whada ya say we get a fire going and cook ’im up?” She smiled. “I’ll go home and see if I can get an onion to roast . . . maybe some bread to go with it. I could bring a couple of split logs too.”

“Sure thing, Wild Cat. I’ll clean it and start gathering the kindling.”

Sparrow reached into the pocket of her overalls and handed me her jackknife and a pack of matches, then headed home at a trot. I opened the fillet blade and began to clean the fish, carefully, respectfully, grateful for the meal that was soon to come.