The Goatman

Mitchellville, Maryland, wasn’t much to look at in the early ’80s—a sprawl of quiet fields, tangled swamps, and backroads that twisted into nowhere. If you grew up there, like I did, you knew its secrets, and none loomed larger than the legend of the Goatman. Half man, half goat, the locals said, a creature stitched from whispers and dread, haunting the edges of Cry Baby Bridge. That rickety one-lane span on Lottsford Road was still standing back then, a weathered trap waiting to claim the careless. It’s gone now, but its shadow lingers in the stories we told around campfires, the kind that made you shiver even in summer.


Cry Baby Bridge got its name from a tale older than me. A young couple broke down there one stormy night, their newborn screaming in the backseat of their beat-up Chevy. The car sputtered out, stranded on the bridge as the river rose, lapping at the planks. The husband told his wife to wait while he hiked off for help. Hours later, soaked to the bone, he stumbled back to find the car empty—his wife and baby gone, swallowed by the dark. All he heard was the faint wail of an infant drifting from the swamp. He plunged in, searching, but they were never found. After that, folks swore they heard the baby’s cries on still nights, a ghostly lure tempting you to look for it.


Our house sat closest to that cursed bridge, a half-mile off through scrub and woods. On calm evenings, its deadly chorus floated to my bedroom window: the squeal of tires, the crunch of metal, sometimes a horn blaring endlessly as another fool misjudged the floodwaters. People died there too often, lured by the narrow path or too bullheaded to turn back. My parents hammered it into me from the time I could toddle: Stay away from Cry Baby Bridge. It was dangerous, haunted, off-limits.


Naturally, I went there all the time.


I was seven that spring of ’85, sneaking out to explore the forbidden. The bridge creaked under its own weight, warped by years of rain, but the river below buzzed with life. Each April, thousands of baby toads swarmed the mud—tiny, wriggling specks, some albino white like ghosts hopping through the cattails. I’d squat by the water, scooping them into my hands, marveling at their weirdness. Downriver, I’d spot cars half-sunk in the muck, their rusted roofs barely breaking the surface. I wondered about the people inside—did they climb out, or were they still there, silent in the deep? The bridge thrummed with those mysteries, a place where the past wouldn’t let go.


That summer, our family got goats. Two of them: a little female named Daisy and a brute of a male we called Bullwinkle, after the cartoon moose. He was massive—broad-chested, with a scruffy beard and horns that curved like a warning. My sisters and I tried riding him, but he’d toss us off in seconds, snorting like we’d insulted him. I was the stubborn one. After weeks of bruised shins and scraped knees, I figured him out: a drizzle of maple syrup on a stick. I’d sit on his back, dangling the treat just out of reach, and he’d lumber along, grumbling but obedient. I could guide him anywhere—around the yard, down the drive—grinning like I’d broken a wild stallion.


It was late August when the barn party happened, the night Bullwinkle and I stumbled into the legend.


I woke to music blasting through the walls—loud, rowdy, spilling from the old barn across the field. From my window, I saw headlights cutting the dark, cars and pickup trucks parked crooked, their beams aimed inward to light up the party. Voices floated on the breeze—shouts, whoops, the off-key wail of someone butchering a Lynyrd Skynyrd tune over a crackling boombox. Teenagers, I guessed, trespassing for kicks. Our barn was a sagging heap, half-abandoned since the goats moved in, but it must’ve screamed secret hangout to them.


I couldn’t stay put. Slipping on my Keds, I crept downstairs and unhooked Bullwinkle from his rope behind the house. “C’mon, big guy,” I whispered, tempting him with a syrup-dipped twig. We took the long route, skirting the field’s edge where the swamp pressed in, its air thick with frog croaks and the sour stink of wet earth. Bullwinkle dawdled, pausing every few steps to chomp weeds or sniff the ground. It took nearly an hour to reach the barn’s shadowed side, my jeans snagged on briars, his hooves sucking at the mud.


Peering around the corner, I saw the scene unfold. Teens danced inside the barn, shadows jerking against the headlights—some swaying, others staggering, sloshing beer from dented cans. Couples necked in the hay-strewn corners, while a few cars rocked with muffled giggles from inside. The air reeked of cheap brew and sweat, the music a pounding pulse. No one noticed me, perched on Bullwinkle, watching from the gloom.


Then my dad showed up.


He marched from the house, a dark shape against the night, shotgun in one hand, a big Maglite in the other. His boots crunched the dirt as he closed in, and I ducked lower, nudging Bullwinkle to hold still. The flashlight beam swept the barn, catching a dozen wide-eyed faces. “Get the hell off my land!” he roared, voice like a storm breaking. I think the kids took him for a sheriff—shotgun and all—because chaos exploded. They bolted, tripping over each other, abandoning cans and blankets as they ran for their rides.


A pack of them charged straight toward us.


I froze, straddling Bullwinkle, who’d dipped his head to munch a clump of clover. The teens’ footsteps thundered closer, their laughter turning to gasps. Then they saw me—framed against the swamp, a kid on a goat, one arm raised in a half-wave, the other clutching the syrup stick. In the dark, with Bullwinkle’s horns catching the faint light and his bulk shifting, we must’ve looked like something out of a nightmare.


Screams ripped through the night. “Goatman!” one yelled, voice breaking with fear. “It’s the damn Goatman!” They didn’t stop, didn’t think—just ran harder, swerving away from me like I’d lunge out of the shadows. A girl shrieked, clutching her boyfriend’s arm; another guy stumbled into the mud, scrambling up with terror in his eyes. They ignored my dad and his gun, piling into their trucks, engines coughing to life as tires kicked up dust. Headlights flared, and they peeled out, taillights vanishing down Lottsford Road.


I sat there, dumbstruck, as Bullwinkle chewed on, unbothered. Laughter welled up—soft at first, then loud enough to bounce off the trees. Goatman. Me. It was ridiculous, brilliant. I slid off Bullwinkle’s back, grabbed his rope, and hustled home, cutting through the woods to beat Dad. I tied the goat up and slipped inside just as his flashlight beam hit the porch. The door locked behind him, and I held my breath, grinning in the dark.


Epilogue


The story took off like wildfire. By Monday, kids at school were buzzing about the Goatman—how he’d chased off a party with glowing eyes and a guttural bleat. I kept quiet, but the tale grew claws: a horned figure prowling near Cry Baby Bridge, hunting trespassers. No one tied it to the scrawny kid with the pet goat. Bullwinkle and I laid low after that, though I’d catch him staring at me sometimes, like he knew he’d headlined a myth.


Years later, when they tore down the bridge, I wondered if the baby’s cries faded with it—or if they’d tangled up with my own accidental legend. Either way, Mitchellville held onto its Goatman, and I held onto my secret, a sticky-sweet memory of the night I became more than just a shadow in the swamp.