Black Hills Ghost Goat

I once drove cross-country from North Carolina to Yellowstone in a van modified for comfort and class. I slept in the back of this van and bounced from it each morning to leap about the land I was growing to love with each additional destination, each further mile traveled.

The 4WD living room, and haven from four-legged fiends.

Home Sweet Home, 2007, Badlands Natl. Park.

Prior to setting out from the dirty south, my trip research consisted of a short handwritten list of states and places in those states that I knew I must see. On that list was a large mountain sacred to the resident Lakota which someone had carved white men's  visages into. I had to see hubris writ on such a God-Coulee-Dam large scale.

Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman 

There be brains in them thar rocks.

In the miscellaneous section of knowledge acquired in advance of this trip, I knew that the act establishing Mount Rushmore included a provision prohibiting collection of an admission fee from those wishing to visit. The clever bastards had paved a way right around that provision by charging for parking. $8 per vehicle was the fee.

I am a fulcrum upon which only I wait.

I protested. As is true of all my protests, I was the only one inconvenienced or impacted by my strong morals. I refused to visit the site I had driven hundreds of miles for, and instead drove down the road towards the back of the petroglyph of pride. From this acceptable point, I climbed the backside of these great stones and had myself a good look at Washington's whispy granite hairs.

View north, curtained in thick grey rock

Returning the way I had come, my protest complete, I rested in the duff, laying myself down in the accumulated millenia of pine needles, thick upon the forest floor. I cannot tell you how long my repose did last, but I awoke with a start at the realization I was not alone.

It approaches!

At first I beheld what seemed to be a great white dog the size of a small horse. As this creature came close enough to nuzzle my frightened face, I realized it was one of the hundred or so mountain goats introduced to the Black Hills National Forest in 1924.

Ever nearer

Noticing his stump of a tail upright and wagging, I became concerned. What, I asked the goat, does this body language mean to you? A pup-like joy at human companionship? Or a cat-like fury, standing hair on end to appear larger than life?

Nice try, human.

I made my first poor decision. Executing a clever escape, I pivoted and leaped free of the ground onto a nearby rock ledge. You may already realize my error. Did you know mountain goats are fiendishly fantastic rock climbers? This devil was balancing on the granite to my side before I had even steadied myself.

Your feeble attempts are not even worth a direct glance.

My next poor decision mirrored my first. Finding that initial leap unavailing, my next thought was to do an Edison and try, try again. So, up higher I leapt, out farther I slipped. My nemesis the goat stayed closer than a brother, right until the moment I leapt to where no rock existed.

Outstretched fingers of stone, waiting to catch my bones. 

Farewell feckless adversary!

That pine needle duff of earlier saved me from a broken ankle. But no duff could preserve my ego from the gloating stare spilt down upon my silly human visage by that goat, standing up there, proud in his preternatural dominion of the forest and its rocks. I bowed low, or rather stayed crumpled on the ground, in obeisance of my betters. Then high-tailed it out and to the safety of my van, where I was the only beast of danger, and I need no longer seek to divine the intent of a wagging tail.

The author in a state of of calm, albeit lacking in vision for bounty of hair.