Mountain Goat
by Glenn Lange

When I first came to Metaline Falls back in the fall of 1972, the locals liked to tell me stories about the country and the people in the far northeast corner of Washington State. They told me about the place where the river turned on its side to get through Z Canyon up north of town, and how a tree going into a big whirlpool there would come out many minutes later and shoot straight up into the air. They also told me about the flying outhouse on the back side of Abercrombie Mountain.

The wildest story they told was about the mountain goat that lived on Washington Rock, just across the river from town. They claimed that this goat would block the bridge and would not let green cars pass. Sometimes he would back up and ram them as they sat there wondering what was happening to them. They even claimed that one person in a green car had his radiator caved in by the raging goat. I smiled and nodded as they recounted this tale. A new guy from the west side was an easy mark and they were eager to practice their tall tales on a newcomer. It sounded like "The Billy Goat Gruff" to me.

After spending the winter there I went west in the spring and bought twenty acres way up on the top of Frosty Creek. It was remote and lacked both power and water, but it was mine and I was ready to settle there and build a home. There were several others like me in the area with the same idea and soon I had made several new friends. There were potlucks and music and trips to Tonasket. Some people were so far off the grid that we'd ride horseback to get there, up over the south face of Mount Anne and into a valley with an old farmhouse and barn.

When it was time to go into town they'd ride over the mountain to Lavada Miracle's place at the end of the Frosty Creek Road. Lavada was a divorcee about 35 years old at the time. Her father had given her a place to stay at the old family homestead after the divorce.

Lavada was gregarious to a fault. She loved company. She opened her doors when folks needed a place to park their cars so they could ride into their property up in the hills, and to park their horses when they went into town. Sometimes on Saturday night we came to visit. We'd play cards and music and talk late into the night. The old two story log house was lit up bright and you could hear the festivities long before you came over the little hill above her house. As summer passed into fall and the temperature began to drop in those high altitude homesteads, there were fewer and fewer people at Lavada's, and by the time it got to -26 degrees the week after Christmas, there was nobody there on Saturday night except me.

That night we were talking about her ex-husband. She said he was a miner and had worked in the Pend Orielle Mine. When I told her that I had worked in that mine just the year before, she asked if I had heard about the goat on the bridge. I laughed and said they had tried to get me with that tall tale, but I hadn't bought into it.

"Wait here a minute," she said and left the room.

When she came back she had a shoebox filled with pictures, and as she rummaged through them she pulled out pictures for me to look at, she told me this story:

"Doug and I were living up the hill above Metaline on the Boundary Dam Road. One day I was on my way to town when a little goat ran out in front of my car and I hit him pretty hard.

"Well, I just felt so bad. I mean, I thought I had killed him but when I got out to look he was standing there on three legs and the other one looked pretty bad. I threw him into the car and took him home. Then I carried him inside and set his leg and made a splint and everything. I wrapped it good and tight so it wouldn't come off and I'll be darned if he didn't get up and start hobbling around the room right away.

"You can't imagine what a nuisance he was and how hungry he was all the time. I had to keep him on the back porch and he made so much noise trying to move around. Doug said he thought we should eat him. Anyway, he healed pretty fast and his leg looked pretty good. He was almost grown now but it was hard to decide to turn him loose. I knew I couldn't keep a goat like that forever, so I took him back to Washington Rock where I found him and put him out and drove away.

"The next day I came back and fed him some carrots and he tried to get into the car. It made me cry to drive away and leave him there but he really needed to be on his own. After about a week I decided not to stop and feed him anymore. Well, of course, the next day there he was waiting in the middle of the road for me and he wouldn't let me past. He kept blocking me and when I didn't give him food he started to ram the door of my car. This went on every day after that. One day he even tried to cave in the radiator."

As she told me her story, she was passing me pictures of the goat in a splint, on the back porch, then on the road in front of her car, and the last, charging into the side of her bright green Studebaker.

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