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It was moving along the bank on the opposite side, down near the water, under the bridge. You couldn’t see it good, because it was outside of the moonlight, in the shadows. Its head was huge and there was something like horns on it and the rest of it was dark as a coal bin. It leaned a little forward, as if trying to get a good look at us, and I could see the whites of its eyes and chalky teeth shining in the moonlight.

“Jesus, Harry,” Tom said. “It’s the Goat Man. What do we do?” I thought about going back. That way we’d be across the river from it, but then again, we’d have all the woods to travel through, and for miles. And if it crossed over somewhere, we’d have it tracking us again, because now I felt certain that’s what had been following us in the brambles.

If we went on across, we’d be above it, on the higher bank, and it wouldn’t be that far to the road. It was said the Goat Man didn’t ever go as far as the road. That was his quitting’ place. He was trapped here in the woods and along the banks of the Sabine, and the route them preachers took kept him away from the road.

“We got to go on,” I said. I took one more look at those white eyes and teeth, and started pushing on across. The bridge swung, but I had more motivation now, and I was moving pretty good, and so was Tom.

When we were near to the other side, I looked down, but I couldn’t see the Goat Man no more. I didn’t know if it was the angle, or if it had gone on. I kept thinking when I got to the other side it would have climbed up and would be waiting.

But when we got to the other side, there was only the trail that split the deep woods standing out in the moonlight. Nothing on it.

We started down the trail. Toby was heavy and I was trying not to jar him too much, but I was so frightened, I wasn’t doing that good of a job. He whimpered some.

After we’d gone on a good distance, the trail turned into shadow where the limbs from trees reached out and hid it from the moonlight and seemed to hold the ground in a kind of dark hug.

“I reckon if it’s gonna jump us,” I said, “that’d be the place.”

“Then let’s don’t go there.”

“You want to go back across the bridge?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then we got to go on. We don’t know he’s even followed.”

“Did you see those horns on his head?”

“I seen somethin’. I think what we oughta do, least till we get through that bend in the trail there, is swap. You carry Toby and let me carry the shotgun.”

“I like the shotgun.”

“Yeah, but I can shoot it without it knocking me down. And I got the shells.”

Tom considered this. “Okay,” she said.

She put the shotgun on the ground and I gave her Toby. I picked up the gun and we started around the dark curve in the trail.

I had been down this trail many times in the daylight. Out to the swinging bridge, but except for that one other time, I had never crossed the bridge until now. I had been in the woods at night before, but not this deep, and usually with Daddy.

When we were deep in the shadow of the trail nothing leaped out on us or bit us, but as we neared the moonlit part of the trail we heard movement in the woods. The same sort of movement we had heard back in the brambles. Calculated. Moving right along with us.

We finally reached the moonlit part of the trail and felt better. But there really wasn’t any reason for it. It was just a way of feeling. Moonlight didn’t change anything. I looked back over my shoulder, into the darkness we had just left, and in the middle of the trail, covered in shadow, I could see it. Standing there. Watching.

I didn’t say anything to Tom about it. Instead I said, “You take the shotgun now, and I’ll take Toby. Then I want you to run with everything you got to where the road is.”

Tom, not being any dummy, and my eyes probably giving me away, turned and looked back in the shadows. She saw it too. It crossed into the woods. She turned and gave me Toby and took the shotgun and took off like a bolt of lightning. I ran after her, bouncing poor Toby, the squirrels slapping against my legs. Toby whined and whimpered and yelped. The trail widened,