Covered Bridge by Brian Doyle

Sucked Up By Sponge!
    N EWS THAT the coroner was coming up from Wakefield spread fast, and when he arrived there was quite a crowd waiting for him in the church to hear what he had to say about Father Foley’s death. Just about everybody was there. Even Oscar.
    And beside him, the policeman with the wart.
    Mrs. O’Driscoll slid in beside us in the pew we were in.
    â€œOscar’s goat’s gone!” I whispered to her.
    â€œWhat do you mean?” she said.
    â€œI think I know what happened,” I said.
    â€œShh,” she said.
    â€œLadies and gentlemen. The autopsy showed that Father Foley did not die of a blow to the head. That wound was superficial and probably was caused by his fall. Nor did he die of a heart attack or of a brain tumoror a blood clot or any other such normal causes of sudden death. No, the cause of death in this case is much more rare.”
    The coroner waited. He thought that everybody standing around would look at each other and say words like “rare” and “normal” and go “oooh” and “ahhh.” But they didn’t. They just sat there.
    Then the coroner said some more.
    â€œFather Foley died of a mysterious and sinister condition sometimes called Neurogenic Shock or Vasovagal Collapse. Vasovagal Collapse is due to a loss of peripheral arteriolar resistance resulting from reflex dilation in areas of skeletal muscle. The pooling of blood in peripheral vascular beds with loss of vascular tone results in inadequate venous return, a fall in cardiac output and subsequent reduction in arterial blood pressure. The heart has not sufficient fluid on which to contract. The lost blood of Father Foley did not pour out of him. It disappeared into his vastly dilated capillary bed and into his tissues.
    â€œSomething paralysed the vast capillary bed of Father Foley’s body, causing extreme dilation. His blood then disappeared into it as if sucked up by a sponge!” He waited again. He was waiting for people to start asking questions. They didn’t. They just sat there.
    â€œWhat could have paralysed Father Foley’s capillary bed, you ask? All he was doing was passing through the covered bridge.” The coroner seemed mad. The audience was not cooperating.
    â€œThere is only one answer to that,” said the coroner slowly. “And that answer is FEAR!
    â€œFEAR!” he repeated. Nobody moved.
    â€œYes, my friends. I have to conclude that Father Foley dropped dead because someone, or someTHING, SCARED him to DEATH!”
    Now the audience co-operated.
    This made sense! Now everybody started talking at once.
    Of course Father Foley could have been scared to death!
    Didn’t he almost scare himself to death just about every Sunday during his sermon about Hell?
    What about when he just about jumped out of his skin the time the goat came into the church that time?
    â€œHe certainly was the
jumpiest
priest we’ve had around here for a while,” said Old Mickey Malarkey.
    They were all talking now.
    â€œI knew it!” I said to myself.
    I knew it.

Goat Possessed by Satan!
    W HEN THE CORONER was finished his report, the policeman and his wart took over and a discussion started.
    I slipped out the small north door that Oscar always used. Nobody saw me.
    I ran down the road, through the covered bridge, up our side road, under the red chandeliers of our rowan-wood trees, around the house, past the woodpile and the summer kitchen, past the log stable and around by the manure pile and the pig pen, up through the pine bush and turned onto the old logging road towards the Gatineau River.
    Beyond the corduroy there was a section of road where a purplish brown mat of dead pine needles stretched back as far as you could see into the bush.
    This part of the road was damp clay and would show tracks.
    I found what I thought I’d find.
    Small cloven hoofprints!
    I looked down the road. The evening light was slanting and