“And there is nobody else in the family who wants it?”Jagger asked, sitting up in his seat.
Maverick lifted a shoulder.“Not that I’ve heard.It’s not ahugechunk of land, but it’s flat and if we knocked down a bunch of trees, leveled the house, and got creative, we could potentially make it happen.”
“Do you think they’d sell it to us, after everything that happened?”Tom asked.“After my donkey ate her tulips?”
Jagger barked out a laugh that made a snoring Portia jump.“Yeah, ’cause that’s why they’ve got it out for you.”
“And you two would fund this whole thing yourselves?”I asked them in disbelief.
Maverick pursed his lips and shook his head.“No.I’d find some investors.But I know loads of other hockey players who would be cool to throw money at something worthwhile like this.Roman Woodman is always looking for a good cause to contribute to.”
We fell back into companionable silence for a while, each of us nursing our beer and watching the sun sink below the horizon.
“The injured bird is healing nicely,” Tom said, breaking the quiet.“Sam is taking good care of it.”
“I know Mabel wants to come back over and check on it,” I said.“She really enjoys being here with the animals.”Portia was next to me, so I reached down and scratched her butt.“She’s taken a liking to Miss Piggy here.”
Tom gave a small nod.“She is welcome anytime.Even if we are not here.She knows the house and the gate code now.”
A godawful scream, like a cat being ripped in two by starving hyenas, pierced the frog and cricket lullaby.
Portia jerked to her feet with an abrupt snort and took off in the direction of the small barn where the goats were kept.
Tom, Jagger, and Maverick were all on their feet and chasing after Portia as well.I tossed back the rest of my beer and joined them.
“Do you think it’s Piñata?”Maverick asked, running next to Tom.
“Of course I do,” Tom said.“Like a mother knows the cry of her child, I know the scream of my stupid donkey.”
Maverick glanced back at me with an amused smile before keeping pace with Tom and rounding the first barn.
Jagger fell behind, as he still had a bit of a limp and wasn’t booking it around the property like the rest of us.So I slowed my roll and stayed with him.
“You don’t have to slow down for me,” he said, grimacing a little.“I’ll make it there … eventually.”
“All good.”I dropped my pace to his, which was more of a fast walk, and we took the corner around the goat barn to find Piñata the donkey stuck inside the goat house of their outdoor enclosure.
It was a bit bigger than a doghouse, with a peaked roof, and multiple wood planks and climbing structures surrounding it so the goats could do what goats did best.
Only the goats were all standing under the lean-to part of their outdoor shelter off to the side with the hay, staring at this stupid donkey as he struggled and screamed to get out of their fort.
“Ma porca puttana!” Tom exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air.“Stronzo!”
“How in the hell did he get himself in there in the first place?”Maverick asked, following Tom through the gate into the goat enclosure.
“He is the dumbest magician alive,” Tom said.“That is how.”
Jagger and I entered the enclosure through the gate as well, but stood back with the other two men to assess the situation.My ears hurt from how loudly the donkey screamed as he struggled over and over again to stand up, but couldn’t because the structure he was in was too small.
Tom wandered around the little goat house, shaking his head.
“Do we need to take the thing apart?”Jagger asked.“Seems like the safer thing to do.Otherwise, that ass might kick me in the nuts, and I quite like my nuts.”
Tom stroked his sparkly silver scruff in thought, then finally nodded.“Si.”
“I’ll go grab your tools,” Maverick said, taking off back out of the enclosure.“Need to get away from this sound anyway.”
Portia had already gotten out of Dodge to preserve her hearing and was nowhere to be seen, even though she’d been first on the scene.
