The Farley Fiasco

Chelsea Woodright had treated her fair share of injuries as Graven Pointe’s healer, but none were quite as predictable as Frank Holloway’s. The portly man sat on her examination table, taking generous swigs from his ever-present bottle of krum while she wrapped his ankle. His beard, usually unkempt, was now adorned with bits of mud and grass, and his face was red from either exertion or alcohol – probably both.

“Let me guess,” Chelsea said, trying to keep her voice professionally neutral. “This involves a certain mountain goat?”

Frank’s mustache twitched with indignation. “That devil-spawned creature is no ordinary goat,” he declared, jabbing his finger toward the window. “Farley’s got it out for me, I tell you. Been plotting against me since the day he first came down from those mountains.”

“Mm-hmm,” Chelsea hummed, having heard variations of this speech at least once a month since spring. “And how exactly did you sprain your ankle this time?”

“I almost had him!” Frank took another swig. “Was gonna teach that grass-munching menace a lesson, right? So I lined up a perfect kick, but the blasted goat moved at the last second, and I got the signpost instead.” He scowled. “Third time this month.”

“Fifth, actually,” Sarah Thornhill called out as she passed by the open window, carrying a crate of empty krum bottles. “You kicked the one outside my tavern twice last week!”

Frank’s face grew redder. “Nobody asked you, Sarah!”

Chelsea bit her lip to keep from laughing as she finished wrapping the ankle. The ongoing feud between Frank and Farley had become something of a town spectacle over the past year. It had started innocently enough at last year’s harvest festival, when Farley had discovered the joy of headbutting unsuspecting townspeople. Most folks had learned to watch their backs when the goat was around, but Frank… well, Frank had taken it personally.

“Remember when he ate your whole cabbage garden?” Chelsea asked, unable to resist.

“Three months of work!” Frank’s free hand clenched into a fist. “Do you know what that horned demon did? Ate every last head of cabbage, then had the nerve to take a nap in the middle of the ruined garden! A nap!”

“Well, this ankle needs rest,” Chelsea said, handing him a crutch. “Try to stay off it for a few days. And maybe…” she hesitated, “maybe it’s time to consider a truce with Farley?”

Frank’s expression suggested she’d recommended he marry a cactus. He hobbled to his feet, testing the crutch. “That goat started this war, and by the mountains, I’ll finish it.”

Chelsea watched him stumble out the door, already anticipating his next visit. Through her window, she saw Garrett, the millwright, pause in his work to call out, “How many signposts this month, Frank?”

“Shut it, Garrett!”

Frank made his way down the dusty street, muttering about conspiracy theories involving Farley and the entire town being in on it. He was so caught up in his grumbling that he almost missed the subject of his ire peacefully grazing nearby.

Farley stood in a patch of grass beside Sarah’s tavern, methodically chewing and looking for all the world like an ordinary mountain goat. His horns gleamed in the afternoon sun, and his grey-white coat was immaculate despite his frequent ventures into town.

“You!” Frank roared, nearly losing his balance on the crutch. Several townspeople stopped to watch, poorly disguising their interest. Frank grabbed his bottle of krum and hurled it at Farley with surprising accuracy for a man who’d drunk most of its contents.

The bottle sailed through the air in a graceful arc. Farley, displaying the casual athleticism that had tormented Frank for months, simply took two steps to the left. The bottle landed harmlessly in the grass. The goat looked up at Frank, chewed thoughtfully for a moment, then – with deliberate precision – relieved himself right next to the bottle. Smoke snaked through the air as it rose from the fresh, hot pile of dung.

“Why you little…” Frank started forward, but Farley had already trotted around the corner of the tavern and out of sight.

Red-faced and mumbling curses that would make a wasteland raider blush, Frank hobbled over to retrieve his precious bottle of krum. He was bent over, fingers just brushing the glass, when a shadow fell across him.

The goat emerged from behind Frank like an avenging spirit, head lowered, and delivered a perfectly targeted headbutt to Frank’s prominently presented posterior.

What followed was a display of hopping, cursing, and flailing that several witnesses would later declare the most impressive piece of impromptu theater they’d ever seen. Frank’s good leg kicked out wildly as he tried to maintain balance, his crutch swinging like a windmill in a storm. The performance reached its crescendo when his good ankle twisted beneath him, and he collapsed in a heap of curses, face-first into Farley’s fresh poop patty.

“Remarkable form,” Garrett commented to Sarah, who had emerged from the tavern to watch. “I’d give it an eight out of ten.”

“Nine,” Sarah corrected. “Did you see that final spin before he went down? Poetry in motion.”

Chelsea, hearing the commotion, emerged from her infirmary just in time to see Garrett and Thomas Cooper loading a mud-covered, double-sprained Frank into a wheelbarrow. She silently added another page to her mental collection of “Frank vs. Farley” incidents.

“Back so soon?” she asked as they wheeled him toward her door.

Frank’s response was anatomically impossible and probably illegal in most civilized towns.

An hour later, Garrett pushed the wheelbarrow containing a freshly bandaged and slightly sedated Frank toward his home. They passed the town square, where Farley had returned to his grazing. The goat looked up as they passed, issued a single snort that somehow managed to convey both victory and disdain, then returned to his meal.

“You know,” Garrett said philosophically, “I hear mountain goat is actually quite tough and gamey. Probably wouldn’t make a good meal anyway.”

“Just wait,” Frank slurred, the combined effects of krum and Chelsea’s herbal painkillers taking hold. “One of these days… one of these days I’ll catch that goat, and then… then we’ll see who’s laughing.”

From her bench, Old Marion smiled and made another mark in her little notebook where she kept track of the score. “Farley: 17, Frank: 0,” she muttered, then added, “This month.”