Every so often, the planets have a way of aligning and though you can’t really know it at the time, one U-turn in the middle of nowhere can change lives. In this story, the lives of an abandoned goat and a young school teacher down on her relationship luck, intersected in a random moment. It was kismet. And what started as a terrible, no good, very bad day for both the girl and the goat turned out pretty well. All it took was a U-turn.
Let’s back up a bit. Our little production crew spent a few days running around the San Luis Valley, shooting a new outdoor recreation show for Rocky Mountain PBS. We were filming Colorado athletes climbing up the Sand Dunes, climbing rocks, climbing like mountain goats up and down the sides of mountains. The average age of our production crew is north of 60, and although we are all still pretty spry as we approach the Geritol years, it’s no exaggeration we had been worn ragged by the 15-hour days in the rugged terrain. We three (me, producer/wife Cindy and sound/grip Neil) were looking forward to a leisurely lunch in Salida as we began the trek home.
Lying down, half-asleep in the back seat of the truck, I heard Neil say in his deadpan voice, “There’s a goat running around on the side of the road.” Neil is known for his odd deadpan jokes, but then Cindy chimed in, “Yeah! What is a goat doing out here?”
Let me paint a picture of where we were: In the north part of the San Luis Valley, there is a stretch of U.S. 285 where there is nothing but barbwire fence, sagebrush and cactus. Lots of cactus. We were at mile marker 102, to be exact. Nothing for miles. No ranches, no structures, no signs of life except for a turnoff for a campground far in the distance… and a lone black billy goat, bleating out to the universe.
“I guess we’d better turn around,” I said.
We all hesitated for a moment. Should we press on? Did the goat just get out of his fence? Surely, he’s someone’s, right? After a few seconds of silence, Neil did the most inconvenient thing and turned the truck around. The leisurely riverside lunch in Salida would have to wait.
When we pulled up to the goat, we looked around for signs of a barn or shed, or any herd of animals that he might belong to. Nothing. After a few minutes of head scratching, we called the State Patrol, who called the Saguache County Sheriff. We were assured they were sending help. It was now late morning, and the late summer sun was baking the high desert floor.
A young woman in a Jeep came driving down the long dirt driveway from the campground off in the distance. She pulled over and told us she heard the goat bleating from her campsite a couple of miles away. She also called it into the sheriff and said this kind of thing happens fairly often along this stretch of road … people just dump their animals here. Tragic. Incomprehensible.
At first, the goat came right up to me. I thought it would be easy to scoop him up and push all the camera gear to one side of the covered truck bed and make some room. We’d quickly deposit him at a Salida veterinary office, or nearby animal rescue, and still make lunch. Sweet William, as he would come to be known, had different ideas.
Now approaching 90 degrees, William wasn’t having any of us. Cindy, Neil and I tried to triangulate around him, but he simply slipped right through the barbed wire fence with no effort. It’s amazing how quickly a little goat can run. I foolishly followed, chasing him back and forth through the sharp fencing at least a half dozen times. Cindy had some apples that she and Neil tried feeding him. He was not interested.
This little dance went on for close to 90 minutes.
A sheriff’s deputy arrived. “Did you bring a rope?” one of us asked. “Nope.” A state patrol officer arrived. “Did you bring a rope?” another one of us asked. “Nope.” So we tried the game again, now with five of us surrounding the goat, only for him to quickly sidestep us and run farther and farther away. Eventually, we all just stood in the heat, staring at the animal and hoping to keep him calm. And no, it was not the kind of goat that faints when you stare at it. We tried.
About 30 minutes later, a second sheriff’s deputy, who looked like he walked right out of a Wild West movie set, arrived on the scene with a lasso. Sweet William was caught within a matter of seconds. With a quick, terrifying bleat, he surrendered and allowed me to pick him up and load him into our covered truck bed. Next stop, Salida.
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On the 45-minute drive, Cindy made calls to veterinarians, animal shelters and even a goat-themed bed and breakfast where we stayed a few years ago. No luck. Cindy did text a picture of the goat to the owner of the B & B, who quickly responded that William was half Nubian and half Alpine goat, and was probably only about 5 months old. When we got to Salida, we stopped at a local pet store, picked up a dog leash and collar, wrapped it around William and headed for the park downtown. We wanted to get William some water. It had been a rough morning for him.
As I walked him down to the river, he quickly became the most popular “dog” in the park. “Can I pet your goat?”
William made it down to the riverside, where he promptly kneeled on his little goat legs and took a very long drink out of the Arkansas River. His demeanor changed. He was not nearly as stressed out, and was very curious about all the attention he was getting.
We made our way back up to the city park where William helped himself to Salida’s Kentucky bluegrass. We were each on our separate phones either calling or Googling animal shelters. We were reaching out to family, neighbors… anyone who might want a goat or might know someone who would.
As I was pacing with William on the leash, I noticed a young woman sitting alone underneath a giant cottonwood tree, crying and smoking a cigarette. She looked like she had been having a bad day. It was none of my business.
William was calling the shots by now. He led and I followed, leash in one hand and phone in the other. He seemed to be hovering close by the woman; maybe that’s just where the grass was the greenest. I was on the phone with my daughter, explaining the whole ordeal — “… and your mom and I have been calling shelters and vets and no one will take him, so I don’t know what we’re going to do with him” — when the young woman interrupted my phone conversation and asked, “Are you looking for a home for your goat?”
I took a seat with William under the tree and started talking to her. Kaylea Worm was not having a great day. The proprietor of the Earthworm Forest Preschool in Crestone, where we had just finished filming a day earlier, had a relationship issue not go her way. We’ll leave it at that.
She had just dropped off her kids — not of the goat variety — at camp and was having a moment.
As it turns out, part of Kaylea’s preschool is teaching her students animal husbandry and kindness in nature. The quintessential Crestone preschool. After hearing her story, and hearing our story, we thought Kaylea might need a new man in her life. Someone who would love her unconditionally and who really, really needed her. Enter Sweet William.
Kaylea had been thinking about adding a goat to her preschool animal menagerie. William desperately needed a safe and kind forever home. Talk about right place, right time. I noticed the redness from her tears fade as she embraced Sweet William. She seemed to fall for him instantly. I know he did, for her. Both of their days had turned around.
So, after a few more minutes, we loaded William up into the back of Kaylea’s air-conditioned Dodge minivan, waved goodbye, and she drove him back to the San Luis Valley, this time under much better circumstances. We skipped the leisurely lunch, but still had a great sandwich at none other than Sweeties before we hit the road for home.
Today, Sweet William is the new “kid” in town at the Earthworm Forest Preschool, and according to Kaylea, he is fitting in amazingly.
It just goes to show you, one little U-turn can turn into another.