Dudley's Story
The Wednesday before Halloween, a northwest wind sprang up.
Rain mixed with hail flew almost horizontally. That night, Smith called to say she had picked
up Stormy. "He didn't look that bad. He reared and attacked
me. Then he ran away. It took a long time to catch him."
What had I had blundered into? I got the picture. I could
imagine her planning out how to get rid of her unwanted livestock
without giving herslef a bad reputation among us goat ladies.
"Oh, my baby bucks all go to good homes. Oh, I loved my
stallion so much. I even boarded him where he could spend the
winter in a nice barn. He died suddenly of a mysterious illness.
Boo-hoo-hoo."
A few minutes later, Marcie called. The head of the local
goat lady club had phoned her. She'd warned Marcie that if we
bothered McCoy by trying to take back Dudley, both McCoy and
Smith would "sue us for slandering them to the authorities."
I replied, "Marcie, we have to act now. Those gals probably
tipped off McCoy. I've been researching this woman. Her next
step will be to move or sell Dudley."
Marcie wasn't so sure about confronting McCoy. Instead, since
I'm foolhardy when it comes to animal rescues, she gave me written
permission to pick up Dudley.
The next morning, John, Debbie, Valerie and I went to get
Dudley. As we arrived, we could see that much of the trash in
McCoy's yard had been rounded up into several 55-gallon barrels.
Smith must have tipped her off, all right.
I knocked on the door. Christine answered. I showed her the
letter from Marcie.
"You're not taking him." She smirked. "That
is, unless you give me $420."
We left without a word. Here's where John's research of the
land records came in. We drove to the home of the owner of the
pasture where Dudley was. A middle-aged woman came to the door.
I said, "We're here to pick up Dudley. Here are pictures
of him, his sale receipt, and a letter from his owner asking
us to haul him for her."
The woman looked over the documentation and nodded OK.
We walked out into her pasture with a bucket of sweet feed.
and called him. Dudley raised his head, heard the rattle of the
feed, and headed for us at a trot.
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