The Goat, the Hens, and Me

"I only meant to buy fuel and maybe a bag of lollies. Instead, I walked out with a goat and half a poultry uprising."

The transition from the gentle undulations of rolling hills to the vast, monochromatic expanse of the outback was like crossing an invisible threshold. One moment, the land held a kind of quiet generosity—curves softened by grass and shadow—and the next, it was stripped bare, exposed, unapologetic. The horizon widened, stretching so far it seemed to bow slightly under the weight of the sky, and the road cut through it like a ruler’s stroke across a blank page.

The colours, if they could still be called that, existed in variations of dust and ash. Ochre, taupe, muted rust—tones that bled into one another until it became impossible to tell where the ground ended and the air began. It was the kind of dryness that prickled in the nose and made the back of the throat feel tight, a dryness I knew all too well from Hobart’s most merciless summers. Those weeks when the heat took on a personality—predatory, patient—and drank the world dry.

Even now, in the depth of winter, the trees were thin and brittle-looking, scattered sparsely across the land like survivors rather than inhabitants. They stood at odd angles, their limbs bleached and twisted, not in surrender, but in a stubborn refusal to fall. Ochre sentinels in a place where life was reduced to its simplest, hardest terms.

The parallel with home struck me with a quiet inevitability: that same look of endurance, the same silent agreement between the land and those who remained upon it—hold out, hold on, and hope for relief that might never come.

As the outskirts of the next town wavered into view, I eased my foot from the accelerator, the gradual loss of speed feeling like a reluctant bow to civilisation’s jurisdiction. The flat, unwavering horizon fractured into the suggestion of buildings, fuel pumps, and the skeletal outlines of power poles.

The green-and-white sign was the first to greet me—Welcome to Yunta. I said it aloud, to no one but the dashboard.

“Welcome to Yunta,” I announced, the faintest edge of triumph in my voice, as though the car might share my appreciation for the milestone. The name itself was unremarkable, the kind you’d skim past on a road atlas without a second thought, but now it marked my entry into the true heart of the outback.

The moment barely had time to settle before a sharp thought cut across it. “Damn it!” Burra. I’d sailed straight through without registering a Portal. Paul’s advice, so neatly filed away in the mental ‘must-do’ drawer, had stayed there, unopened, while I hummed along to Shake It Off. The realisation gnawed at me—not just a missed convenience, but a crack in the armour of my preparedness.

The road ahead stretched long and unbroken, the tar disappearing into a mirage-shimmer that made it feel like I was driving toward a heat-haze ghost. Hours had already blurred behind me, the scenery melting into an endless palette of muted browns and pale skies. Paul’s voice, irritatingly sensible, replayed in my mind: register multiple Portal locations.

Yes, the solitary expanse had its charms—just me, Taylor Swift’s greatest hits, and the hypnotic thrum of the tyres—but this was not a trip I planned to repeat often. “And I still have two hundred kilometres to go before I get to Broken Hill,” I muttered, watching the fuel gauge as if it too might sigh. Even the music, once buoyant, felt as though it was beginning to acknowledge the sheer practicality that now outweighed the romance of the drive.

As I eased past a dormant semi, its cabin dark and its long trailer dusted with a thin layer of red grit, Yunta’s petrol station came into view—an incongruous island of neon signage and steel canopies against the pale monotony of the outback. In a place where even the wind seemed to ration its visits, the station’s fluorescent glow felt almost garish, a man-made flare in a sea of muted earth tones.

The town itself barely clung to the edges of the road: a scattering of sun-faded houses, their tin roofs holding the dents of past hailstorms, a weatherboard shop or two, and then… this. Not one but two sizeable petrol stations, like rival outposts competing for the passing trade of truckers and travellers foolish—or determined—enough to brave the stretch between here and Broken Hill. My pre-trip research had warned me: Yunta wasn’t a place you stumbled upon; it was a waypoint you planned for, a lifeline in a vast and indifferent expanse.

I had been quietly hoping to bypass it altogether, slipping past without a stop. The fewer public records of my movements—fuel transactions, security camera footage—the better, especially with Gladys’s situation casting its long, unwelcome shadow over my own. But as the low fuel light began its petulant, amber blinking, my options shrank to nothing.

Pulling into the forecourt, the tyres crunched over gravel worn smooth by countless pit stops. The air smelled faintly of diesel and dust, the twin perfumes of the outback road. Sliding the nozzle into the tank, I listened to the steady glug of petrol flowing, each litre a reminder of just how dependent I was on this fragile supply chain. Out here, in this stretch of nowhere, fuel wasn’t just a convenience—it was survival, and survival had a price.

The bell above the petrol station door gave a half-hearted jingle as I stepped inside, the sort of sound that could either herald salvation or disappointment. The transition from the sharp, metallic bite of the cold outside to the stagnant warmth within was immediate, like stepping into a room someone had been living in without opening a window for a week. The first breath brought the pungent tang of fuel—thick, oily, and invasive—filling my sinuses before it began to fade, replaced by a far more persuasive aroma.

Hot chips.

The scent hit with the force of a well-aimed punch, saturated with salt and grease, promising the sort of satisfaction that could momentarily trick the body into believing all was right with the world. My stomach made its displeasure known with a low, insistent growl, the kind that felt almost personal—accusing, even—after hours of being ignored. In its mind, I had committed a betrayal; in mine, I had simply been too busy preventing my sister from being arrested and planning the logistics of inter-dimensional car transport. Priorities.

The dim interior flickered under uneven fluorescent light, the failing tubes above sputtering in protest at being asked to illuminate anything at all. I moved quickly, weaving past shelves overstocked with snack foods that somehow managed to look both stale and overly sugared. Rows of garish packaging jostled for my attention, but my eyes locked onto one bright bag of lollies—a childishly sweet bribe to keep my energy up and my mood from dipping too far into the sardonic abyss.

With my prize in hand, I made a straight line for the counter, the floor tiles beneath me scuffed into a mosaic of hurried footsteps over decades. The counter itself was a chaos of impulse buys—cheap sunglasses, sun-faded postcards, and suspiciously dusty chocolate bars—forming a final gauntlet before sustenance could be secured.

A moment of realisation swept over me, the kind that makes your shoulders sag as though gravity has just doubled its grip. I’ve been too heavy-handed on the petrol, I sighed internally, the words forming a private reprimand. My purse—a small, battered veteran of countless similar predicaments—felt lighter than it had any right to be as I fished around in its depths. The metallic clink of coins was conspicuously absent, the folds of fabric giving up nothing but receipts and a lipstick I hadn’t worn in weeks. The truth landed with an unceremonious thud: I didn’t have enough cash to pay for what I’d just pumped.

Reluctantly, my fingers closed around the cold, impersonal rectangle of my bank card—plastic salvation wrapped in mild financial shame. I could almost hear it mocking me in its silent, swipe-ready smugness. I can hardly get petrol back out of the car now, I mused, the thought dryly bitter but tinged with reluctant amusement. The mental image of siphoning it back out into the bowser made me smirk, though the humour was fleeting.

"I don't really have much choice," came a deep, gruff voice from behind me—close enough to feel like it could reach through the thin fabric of my jacket. There was a note in his tone, not quite anger, not quite despair, but something heavier… inevitable.

Nobody wants the damn thing. I think I'm just gonna 'ave to shoot him."

The words dropped into the air between us like a lead weight. My stomach—already a snarling knot of neglect—twisted sharply, abandoning any thoughts of chips or lollies in favour of cold, instinctive unease.

Slowly, as if moving too quickly might invite something I wasn’t prepared to handle, I glanced back. The man was burly, his frame filling the space like a human roadblock. His face bore the map of a hard-lived life—creased skin, wind-chapped cheeks, eyes that spoke of stubborn survival in a place that demanded it daily. Yet it was those eyes that snagged me: unflinching, blunt, carrying the grim weight of a decision he’d already made.

Suddenly, my petty preoccupation with petrol money and sweets felt… small.

The woman behind the counter—a permanent fixture in this little liminal world where travellers paused between nowhere and somewhere—didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow at the man’s casual talk of gunfire. Her expression remained the same bored, weathered neutrality that could have greeted a complaint about stale milk or the price of diesel. It was a studied kind of stillness, the armour of someone long accustomed to hearing more than they wanted to know. Without so much as a glance toward the brewing drama, she slid the card reader toward me, her fingers steady, her eyes unmoved.

"That's a bloody shame, mate. That Vincent was alright, he was," came a second voice—rough around the edges, but softened by a ribbon of genuine regret. I caught the reflection of the speaker in the dusty chip display: another local, shoulders rounded from years of hard work and harder weather.

"Yeah, he was. But me new bitch don't like him much," the first man replied, his tone flat with inevitability. "Carries on like a right pork chop, she does. Barkin' and nippin' at the old fella's legs. Broke through the skin the other day, she did. Even drew a bit of blood."

The words settled in the air like the smell of spilt fuel—sharp, clinging, and impossible to ignore. A grim domestic drama laid out in plain, unvarnished detail, told without so much as a whisper of shame. Old loyalty eclipsed by new trouble, a battle between past and present where one side would inevitably lose.

My stomach gave another angry twist, this time less from hunger than from the queasy unease curling through me. I fumbled my purse closed, almost dropping it in my rush to shove it deep into the safety of my handbag. The sooner I was out of here, away from their bleak little theatre of inevitability, the better. The whole exchange was disturbingly… ordinary. People making small talk about ending lives—whether human or otherwise—over the counter like it was just another Monday in Yunta.

I kept my eyes on the card reader, on the digits flickering back at me, as though I could pretend their conversation wasn’t needling its way under my skin.

"Would ya be able to eat him if ya shot him?" The second man’s question sliced through the air with the same abruptness as a slammed door, colliding with my ears just as I turned to leave the counter. The words hit me so hard in their blunt, unfiltered delivery that a sharp gasp escaped before I could swallow it back.

It stopped me mid-step—halfway between flight and escape—rooting me to the scuffed lino as though my shoes had suddenly grown roots. My better judgement told me to keep walking, to abandon this grim fireside chat in favour of the open road. But curiosity, that ever-irritating, nosy little voice, twisted my head around despite myself.

The man—Vincent’s owner, apparently—was exactly as I’d pictured him: a weather-beaten figure in a faded checked flannel shirt, every crease and stain a badge of an uncompromising life. His reply came with the ease of someone discussing nothing more consequential than the weather.

"Nah, I don't reckon he'd taste much good. Too old a goat now, he is. He'd be all tough and stringy I reckon."

I felt an odd ripple of grim relief at that—if you could call it relief. At least he wasn’t about to add culinary experimentation to his list of questionable decisions. Aged goat was apparently a line he wasn’t willing to cross, and in this moment, that was the smallest of mercies.

As he stepped past me to the counter, setting down a bundle of dog food, matches, and a packet of liquorice bullets, the transaction that followed was jarringly normal. The woman behind the counter looked up with a faint, businesslike smile.

"Good to see you, Bill," she greeted warmly, her voice carrying the steady rhythm of routine. It was a sound that could almost convince me the last three minutes hadn’t been a macabre slice of bush pragmatism, casually aired for anyone in earshot.

With the bell’s chime still echoing faintly above me, the petrol station’s fluorescent glow and grim conversation receded into the background. I stepped back into the cold, the air biting at my cheeks and carrying with it the faint tang of diesel. The weight of that exchange clung stubbornly to me, as if the words themselves had left residue—a reminder of how easily the mundane could collide with the morbid, weaving itself into the everyday fabric of life.

My breath came in small, pale puffs, each one momentarily visible before dissolving into the brisk late afternoon. I tilted my head up towards the darkening sky, the transition from day to night creeping in almost imperceptibly, yet dragging my mood with it. Winter’s short days had always unsettled me; their rapid collapse into darkness seemed a little too eager, a little too final. Still, the vast flatness stretching out before me hinted at the gift of a longer twilight—just enough, perhaps, to reach somewhere near Broken Hill before the road surrendered entirely to the night.

Sliding back into the driver’s seat, I eased the car from the pump, my thoughts half on the kilometres ahead, half still mulling over the unsettling casualness of bush pragmatism. And then my gaze snagged—unwillingly but firmly—on a silver Toyota Land Cruiser parked along the fence line. At first, it was as unremarkable as any other dusty workhorse of the outback. Then my eyes traced the outline of several large dog cages bolted to its tray.

Inside one, framed by a lattice of wire, stood a dark-haired goat. Recognition struck with an almost audible snap.

"Vincent!" The name tore from me in a startled gasp before I could stop it, my breath frosting the windscreen as I slowed to look.

The goat stared back with the mild, unconcerned eyes of an animal entirely ignorant of his starring role in someone else’s grim deliberations. His jaw worked methodically at whatever feed had been thrown in, utterly indifferent to the shadow of mortality that hung over him.

My stomach gave a slow, queasy roll, like a small boat caught in a sudden swell. In my mind’s eye, the image of Vincent—still and broken on some patch of red dirt—flashed unbidden, turning my earlier hunger into something tight and sour.

"I can't let this happen," I whispered, the words slipping out like an oath, more to the cold air than to anyone in particular. My hands tightened on the wheel as I braked sharply, gravel crunching beneath the tyres, before shifting into reverse. It was the kind of move that, in another life, I might have talked myself out of—too risky, too impulsive. But this wasn’t another life; this was now, and Vincent’s clock was ticking.

Throwing the gearstick into park, I slid out of the car, my breath immediately puffing white in the chill. My gaze flicked in quick, sharp cuts toward the station’s front door, ears straining for any sign that the conversation inside had faltered. I willed them—silently, desperately—to keep on talking.

Each step towards the cages was measured yet swift, my shoes crunching softly on the frosted ground. The air was knife-sharp, bracing, and it seemed to hone my focus down to a single point: the dark figure behind the wire. Vincent. The goat’s calm, blank stare was a strange counterpoint to the thudding urgency in my chest.

The back door of the ute creaked open under my hands, its hinges releasing a rusty groan that seemed too loud, too telling. I froze for half a heartbeat, listening. No voices called out. No footsteps came pounding my way.

Behind the cages, the bales of hay sat stacked and slightly damp, the sweet, dry scent of it tugging me instantly back to half-forgotten childhood farm visits. I tore at it quickly, stuffing my arms full, the coarse strands scratching at my wrists as they poked through my sleeves. Two heaped armfuls later, I dropped the makeshift offering onto the backseat of the car, the pale strands spilling like contraband at a prison break.

The air seemed to still around me, that peculiar moment of suspended time before action tips into consequence. My hastily constructed rescue plan—flimsy as it was—was in motion. Vincent’s story wasn’t going to end here, not if I had anything to do with it.

Approaching the cage, I could hear Vincent’s bleats—short, sharp bursts that cut through the cold air and seemed to reverberate directly inside my skull. Each one carried a strange weight, equal parts plea and protest, and with every sound my resolve hardened.

The metal latch gave under my fingers, and the moment I pulled him from his exposed confinement, the sheer heft of him nearly undid me. Vincent was no dainty barnyard pet—he was solid muscle under wiry hair, his bulk catching me off-guard. My knees dipped under the sudden strain, the awkward angle wrenching my lower back until I slammed painfully against the Land Cruiser’s side. The impact rattled through me, a jolt of pain blooming in my spine like a bruise being painted in real time.

Vincent, clearly far more adept at the mechanics of his own escape, twisted in my grip with the stubborn determination of an animal who’d had enough of cages. His hooves struck the concrete with a weighty clop—not just a sound, but a statement. Freedom.

"Shit!" The hiss tore from me before I could bite it back, my hands shooting out instinctively to stop him from bolting entirely. My palms found the wiry fur at his neck, my fingers tightening in a makeshift halter.

Heart hammering, I guided his head toward the open car door, half-expecting him to resist with a stubborn brace of his legs. For a suspended moment, we stood in a silent standoff, woman versus goat, the cold air biting at my cheeks. Then, as though he’d assessed the situation and decided to humour me, Vincent moved.

With a single, decisive bound, he leapt into the back seat, landing amid the hay I’d scattered in my earlier frenzy. The scent of it puffed up into the air, mingling with the sharp tang of his earthy, goatish musk. His final bleat—deep, resonant, and oddly satisfied—felt like a small victory cry.

With Vincent secured, I eased the car door shut, wincing at the faint click—quieter than a slam, but still loud enough to make my nerves prickle. When I turned back, my so-called victory tableau had expanded.

Half a dozen brown hens now milled around the car like an oddly judgmental welcoming committee, their beady eyes fixed on me with unnerving intensity. Their clucking was fevered, a layered soundtrack of agitation and… was it anticipation? They bobbed and weaved with a strange collective energy, as if word had spread through the yard that one of their own—well, species-adjacent—had been liberated.

The ringleader, a stout hen with feathers mottled the colour of burnt toffee, stepped forward with the kind of swagger you’d expect from a mob boss, her gaze locking onto mine. In that sharp, unblinking stare, I read an entire manifesto: You’ve saved the goat. Now what about us?

For one absurd second, I found myself squaring off with her, the cold wind tugging at my jacket as we sized each other up like duelists. Behind her, the rest shifted and murmured, their bodies twitching with restless impatience.

"Oh, come on then," I sighed, the words spilling out before logic could weigh in. My tone was equal parts resignation and reluctant acceptance of my new role as farmyard freedom fighter.

This wasn’t part of the plan—if there had ever been a plan—but in that moment, it didn’t matter. I’d crossed the threshold from bystander to liberator, and there was no clean exit. The rules were now glaringly simple: in this dusty, indifferent corner of the world, you either acted or you walked away. And walking away had never really been my style.