Spooked - Goatman - The Crossroads

Episode Date: October 10, 2025

A young rodeo star settles down in a doublewide on his own piece of ranch land in the shadow of the mountains in Montana. All is quiet until he butts heads with a local Blackfoot legend: The Goatman.��Thank you, Colden, for sharing your story with Spooked! We first heard about Colden’s story on Lodge Tales, a podcast hosted by Rod Williamson, where indigenous folks from across the country share their own experiences with the supernatural. Scouted and produced by Elliot Lightfoot, original score by Doug Stuart. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Gonna jump and see if I can fly. This mountain, it's so high. No wings, what that is the best. Gonna put my fate to the test. Spook presents the crossroads. Stay. In the beginning, there was shadow, and the shadow was love and hope and joy and sorrow on everything there is.

But the shadow wept at being alone. So the shadow created light, then light and shadow danced. Shadow sang to the light, I made you to dance with me. But light said no. I am not a shadow. I made shadow to create me, for without light there is no shadow. At first they quarreled, light and shadow. Then they fought.

And from their battle was born the suns, the moons, the rivers, the mountains, the trees, finally to stop the war as a gift for light, Shadow created man, Shadow said, See what I have made you. Light crept slowly to where man lay sleeping, then Shadow felt the air change. What are you doing? Light placed both hands on man's chest waking him. But when those new eyes open Something very old

looked out and they remembered Man sat up peering first at shadow Then at light not with wonder But with recognition My beautiful lies Man said Shadow backed away

Light grin What You don't remember Shadow Before you existed before light There was me and I was everything. But I am not good company. So I tore myself apart. Made shadow from my shame.

Made light from my lies. Created a world where someone else was to blame. Light nodded. We were never real, Shadow. We were just him hiding from himself. No. Shadow pleaded. No.

But man opened his arms and shadow felt the pull. Then, Shadow. As shadow and light collapsed back into man until man stood alone. As he's always been, the first murderer, the last god, always pretending to be many in order to forget that he was one. We know full well

some gods it's best to let them sleep lest they bar the way after the crossroads has come from somewhere Coldon Goss grew up on a ranch in Browning a little town in the center of the Blackfoot Reservation by day he heard cows with his family

but by night Colden was a rodeo star And by the time Coldon turned 17, he went pro. Every night I'd get back there behind the suits and they're in the out and I might feel scared thinking, oh, what if you get hurt? But when they open that gate and I start riding, you just feel that adrenaline rush, that blood rush, that fearless in my heart like I could do anything. I've been a dirt up in my whole life.

I just do as a part of being cowboy. I'd come home covered in dust and mud and dirt and scabs and I broke so many bones doing it. You know, both of my hips, both of my legs, both of my arms, my collar bones. But I was happy. I was always on the road. I'd ride and I'd head from Browning to Santa Fe from Santa Fe, from Santa Fe, California, in New Orleans, from New Orleans to New York. I just all over. When he was 18, Colton decided to take a little break from the rodeo circuit.

He took his winnings and bought himself a ranch back in Browning. I just bought myself a double wide and got myself a ranch. Cow's got a bunch of pickups and mounts and mine. So I was like, no, I'm living, you know. One night I was sleeping there, and I just moved in with my girlfriend. It was one of our first ones in there. I was sleeping, you know, I woke up, got thirsty, I said, I'm going to grab a glass of water. It was about 3 o'clock.

So I got out of bed, walked in the kitchen, got a glass water, drink it, look back up at the kitchen window, and I seen these eyes looking at me. See, it was dark, but the eyes were just white, just bright, wide eyes, like headlights. I kind of looked down, I cleaned my glasses, start rubbing my eyes, and start pinching myself. And I looked and I look again, they're still staring at me. It's like, just planted up against the window to where he was breathing and it was fogging up. So I dropped the glass and I'm just looking, I'm froze. I'm like, what is this? My hair's standing up on the back and it gave me the ugliest deep, this smile there could ever be.

It was just white, like he had a white glow stick in his mouth. My body just got cold, it shut down. I could even think. I didn't remember my name, and everything was just getting blocked beside me. Finally, I come to, and I jump over the couch, take off, and go to my girlfriend's room, and I'm just like, hey, wake out, wake out. All of a sudden, I start hearing these, push. I had tin laying on the ground there, big old tin, and it sounded like somebody's come through and kicked it and jumped on it and ran.

So I grabbed my knife under my pillow, and I run outside, and looking around, I walked down the whole house. Nothing. Couldn't find nothing. So I turned around, I head back in. My girlfriend, she asked, what did you see? And I said, oh, it was this somebody, you know, a person, somebody messing at us. I didn't want her scared until I knew what it was. So that's what I told her.

And she believed it. But I'm sitting there thinking, I can't sleep. What the fuck was that, you know? I, you know, am I going to die tonight? Finally, I closed my eyes and next morning wake up and I told myself, well, it's fake. It's in your mind. For the next few days, Colton tried his best to go about his life as if everything was normal. He got up, worked on the ranch, went to bed, but then exactly one week later.

We just shut the TV off. We were just going to sleep. I had work the next morning. I was laying in bed and I heard this little knock on the window. I can hear breathing. It's like a big, not breathing, not breathing. Like somebody was, you know, we just got done running. And I thought, is that a dog by our window or is that a horse? Because there's always horses out there. What's a person doing walking a horse through my heart, you know?

Like open that curtain a little and there was nothing there. And I laid back down. Finally I heard scratching on the windows and that same knock again and that breathing. So I grabbed my rifle and I, I went walking off our porch. I had a gun loaded off safety, ready to shoot. You know, if it was a human, it was going to get shot. I walked to the backyard.

Nothing. I walked to the front, nothing. Out there, it's a swamp land. Any little spot you step on, it's going to be wet. It's going to be moist. Finally, I was like, oh, let's look for footprints. Flashlight was in my mouth. I took it out of my mouth, and I started shrine it around the ground.

And that's when I start running into the footprints. There was that human footprint right there, a bare footprint in the mud. Next to the foot was a hoof. They're side by side just like a running style. They just leaped and leaped right into the grass. Then they disappeared on the gravel road. I ain't a horse print too tiny. That's a goat print.

That's a goat hoof. I start putting details together. He's got a hoof. He's got a foot. And he can disappear. Fuck, I said goat man. Colton had known about the goat man since he was little. The first time he heard his name, he was in the sixth grade.

We're all tiny. And all of a sudden, one of the students say, hey, teacher, I've ever heard a goat man. Teacher, he knows how to explain Indians the right way. So teacher said, yeah, I heard a goat man. We were all sitting at tables, tiny chairs, and he was standing up there and jump up. pictures of him on the smartboard, little stick man horns.

And then he started telling us stories about him. He brought it back to way back in the day to where Browning was just a small little community. All these roads around here, you know, it was just nothing but land. There was a guy that lived out there. He raised goats. One day, he did some demonic stuff

and ended up killing them goats. That next day, For some of his family, I'd have to check on him And all his goats were dead And there he was goat man Just a big old tall guy Cut down in the middle It was half goat, half man

At first, I thought it was all a joke You know, I'm a little cocky guy growing up So you know, I'd look at him like, ah, I'm bullshit You know, I don't believe you Why would you kill goats To become meaning yourself goat man But then he got serious Comes quiet

Dutcher said, you know where he lived? He said, no. And he said, there used to be an old railroad truck that used to run through the bottom of Deepakouli. Heart dropped, plumbed him out of my feet. I grew up right there. The whole Deepakouli, you know, it's like a canal, like a big, huge trench with walls on the side.

We explored every tunnel, every hole, every part of Deepakouli. It was just my backyard. I'm sitting there sweating, and I'm just, shaking, and I'm just like, you know, I want to go home. But he kept telling the story. The teacher explained that the goat man had lived there since 1889. The year James J. Hill, the Canadian Railroad Tycoon, expanded his tracks westward into Browning.

He said, one winter night, a white settler came into town. He was driving a railroad cart back there, one of the hand ones, and he derailed, and he was stranded there overnight. middle of winter storm, sleeping outside of his cart. And this creature come and supposedly he looked like a regular human. He walks like a man, talks like a man. He tells the man to follow him and he'll start getting help. So they walked down the railroad tracks,

and he'd start chasing him and scratching him and stuff. And he ended up killing him. He's been living life there by the tracks ever since. So right after I heard it when I was a kid, I went barreling in my mom and Dodge House, yelling and screaming. But Colden's parents, they brushed him off. They didn't really believe in the goat man. So he went to the one person who might, his grandpa, the family's storykeeper.

And he just comes quiet, that serious. The way he described it to us, you know, the devil and the goat man are basically the same thing. He's a trickster He's a shape-shifter He'll lure you in this stuff Trying to make you chase it And then he'll torture you at the end

While he lures you in For years and years You know I was scared I didn't want to go outside at night I didn't want to sleep in my room You know Go sleep in my mom and dad

Go sleep in the living room He can't even go outside At night Because you'll be thinking All the goat man I'm trying to run back in You know But

When I got older and stuff you know, I just kind of grew out of it. After I seen the footprints, I went running inside, and I just laid down, covered off, closed my eyes, just trying to force myself to sleep because I just didn't want to talk about it. And I thought, oh, nobody was going to believe. Yeah, that's how it is on the rest.

A week later, it was about 2 o'clock, 3 o'clock I was laying there, and all of a sudden I started hearing just bang on the vehicles. I walked over to that car with my flashlight, and I looked, and it looks like, This thing with fingernails went down the side of my pickup. So I had my flashlight and I looked about 40 yards out. All of a sudden, I can see this thing come bombing through the field. That's not a deer.

Jump into that side and he's running, you know, his hands are on the ground. He's using his back legs, you know, like a monkey. You can just see the outline of him. This big, tall, hairy, probably six-foot creature. So I grabbed my rifle. Looked through my scope. I followed it all the way up until it got right to the road. There's a fence.

This fence is about nine foot in the air. And this thing just kind of jumps over it. And it took off the old rodeo grounds. You disappeared for a minute. I have this night vision mode on my scope. So I flip it on. I was kind of raising up my scope. And I can see this thing with its legs crossed.

sitting on the concrete. He was swinging his legs, pulling his stomach like he's laughing back and forth, kind of giggling, putting his hand above his mouth. Basically, he was having a good time. And I held my scope there for the longest time.

I had it plumb-zumed into where he had his hand on his stomach and everything. I start breathing. I went to three and just shoot. But I blink. And I closed my eyes. I was going to pull that trigger and out from eyes and he was gone.

I threw my gun. I just dropped it on the ground because I was mad. I was about ready to shoot the goddamn thing. I was so close. All I had to do was count one. Throughout the week and another week and in another week, we just kept hearing knocks and bangs and, you know, little whistles. And every night, I'd go to bed at about nine.

Just waiting and waiting and two o'clock. Boom, stuff started happening. I just catch a glimpse of them. And I'd take off full ball. blast looking around out in the fields for him chasing him you know he basically had me on a scavenger hunt but i could never find him anywhere he was getting to my feelings and stuff really bad when i started getting scared i'd cry every time in the shower i'd go to a rodeo far away and then come home and i'd think about him i'd think pissing my chasing you know what to piss my chasing

why am i seeing this stuff and i don't even do drugs or you know nothing like that A couple of times I thought I was seeing the figure. Us Indians, you know, called the black figure. It's the thing that leads you into shooting yourself, killing yourself. When you're supposed to see the black figure, if we see it, then that's bad luck, and it's going to come after us in years. You'd be looking at pitch black your whole life. For a while, Colton considered moving, putting some distance between himself and the goat man.

But eventually, he realized it wouldn't have made a difference. You can't outrun the goat man. It's a demon. You know, they like fear. If I moved to town, it's going to follow me. I move out in the country, it's going to follow me. I was standing my ground, and I wasn't going to let it go through me. Two weeks, I was just, like, waiting and waiting and waiting.

Finally, one night, it was 3 o'clock in the morning, and I couldn't sleep. All of a sudden, you just hear the deadliest, ugliest sound. It was just this goat sound But it was like Really a high pitch Like a girl's laugh Like a scream Like it just echoed through my ears

And it scared to piss out of me So I got my baseball about I opened that door and I seen this thing Come walking A big tall seven foot person Come walking around the corner And they can see further from his back But he was just all block

And I just walk around that corner With my head down Like I see these feet and I looked up and boom, all I seen was this goat man You can tell it has you know, you little prongs on its head and he was just staying there like in a wrestling stance with his hands curled up I turned into an ice cube right there I just stared at it I got tears rolling down my eyes and I was like holy shit I'm gonna die I'm gonna get possessed you know I'm fucked Finally, I turned to the right, hey!

When it looked back, I mean, you can see the face of a goat. You'd see them big black pupils with his wide eyes. And then all of a sudden, on the right side, teeth start showing, slow motion. It's just sharp dog teeth, just pearly white dog teeth. Then finally, you can see the smile of him. Just a big, happy, pearly smile. And then it took off. Finally my instincts kicking, you know, I had an adrenaline rush and I just wanted to chase it.

He runs, I run, we're off down the road, you know, gravel kicking, and I'm slipping and sliding, you know, I'm in my socks. I have my baseball bat and I'm just trying to swing at it. And I get closer and closer, and he starts jumping around, running backwards, you know, laughing and doing a cartwheel. That trail, you know, he's luring me to the highway to where it gets dark and dark. dark down the road, you know, just one light up on top, running full speed, and we get down to the halfway the road, and I just stop. Yeah, I thought, I'm chasing goat, man, what am I doing?

I'm going to get myself killed, you know? He's ahead of me, he's down at the end of the road, head tilted down, arms out, legs ready, and all I know is it's a foot race to the house, you know, he's going to chase me now. I start taking off to the house, and all of a sudden, I can hear him, coming up all right here is that hoof and that foot you know to get down the road really fast and it was mad and I look back in the way he was running is running like a gorilla you know using everything to catch up to me you know his hands are touching the ground his feet are touching the ground

he's jumping to that side and look back and I'm just like come on Jesus help me get back to the house help me get back to the house help me get back to the house help me get back to the house I got home and I go sliding in like a, you know, baseball player and I walk in the house and grab my truck keys. And I said, I'm going to run this guy over, you know, I'm going to find him. I started my truck, stopped and driving field forward. I had to the highway and start looking around out in the fields for him. I went through every little road there is out there. I look to my right, look to my left, I look to my left again.

I shine this light and I see this white frog-looking thing leap into the field. So I stopped my truck, I lock up my brakes at 50 miles per hour. My truck just goes bouncing and my door fly is open and I jump by my truck and I start running out down the deep of coolie. I was running through water, I was running through trees. I come up on his peak and I was out of breath. I shine my light and I look and I saw him. He was hunched over, crouched down, you know, sitting around his knees. I start walking towards him and I shine my light.

He turns around and starts smiling. That's when I saw everything. I saw his face. I saw his horn. You can see his white furry. You can see his hands, feet, his bright white teeth, everything. I knew that it was a goat man.

And then all of a sudden he just jumps. He pranced off his hoofs and jumps off that peak and disappears. and you can hear you and I run over there and you can see these bushes moving in my light and they all stop moving and everything just comes quiet it's just like the wind stopped blowing

it just felt like it got nice out but when everything just become normal I was just like why? Why do you go no he ain't supposed to do that you got more power over me than anybody you know back to the house got in a shower and I cried

oh man I cried. Because I didn't want him to go. I wanted to keep chasing him. I mean, I just wanted to capture this myth, this legend. This thing that's been around for years and years, you know. The next morning, Coulden woke up and decided he needed to pay a visit to his grandpa. I go knock on his door.

He says, what's going on, my boy? I looked at him and they had told him, I saw the goat man. He looked at me, he said, it was it? I said, yeah. I described it, you know, big, tall, hairy, half goat, half man. You know, he's got the laugh of an, you know, ignorant goat. Got the smile of a demon, you know, and he said, yeah. And then I asked him, why me?

Why did it start messing with me? I didn't do nothing bad. I don't do drugs. I listen to rock music, but it's Nickelback and, you know, Montley crew. And he said, well, there ain't no answer for that. Well, in Blackfoot, life works in mysterious ways and got a lot of mysterious things. So right after that, walk out, gives me hug. And ever since then, that's where everything stands.

Now, you know, there's a lot of answers that are going to want to be, you know, asked. And it's just, you know, I can't get it to because I'm still wondering the same question myself. Well, drive down with the railroad tracks. Roll my windows down and look around, and I look for his bright white teeth, for his eyes, for nose, hands, feet. I listen, you know, for that high-pitched little goat laugh, that ignorant screen. Probably to the day I die, I'll keep trying to see him again. You, Coldon, for sharing your story with the spout.

We first heard about Coldon's story on Lodge Tales, the podcast hosted by Rod Williamson. where indigenous folk from around the country shared their own experiences with the supernatural, check out our show notes for all the links. The original score for that piece was by Doug Stewart. It was scouted and produced by Elliot Lightfoot. A place of questions, a place of power,

a place of finding, of losing, seeing, a place you should not venture, but a path. You will walk nevertheless. The crossroads. We chase this trail to all-hallowed east, next time on the crossroads, the journey at sea. Coast Guard officers see a man in deep distress, but when they approach before their very eyes,

the specter in danger vanishes. Could it be some thing trying to get a message through? The crossroads presents the Shadow Man. Tis the season. And we're looking for monsters. I found the scariest monsters look just like us if you see one. Let me know. Spooked at snapjudgment.org because there's nothing better than a spook story from a spout listener.

Spoot at snapjudgment.org. Spook dwells at the spout, underground catacombs deep beneath KQED in San Francisco. Better leave more than breadcrumbs if you want to find your way back. The crossroads is brought to you by the Spooke team who at last survey completely swore off eating goat of any kind, except for Mr. Mark Ristich. He keeps mummling something about keto. Now there's David Kim, Zoe Frigno, Eric Yonias, tail de cot, Merced Dodge, Miles Lassie, Elliot Lightfoot, Suu, Evan Stern, Eves Jeffcoat, Ishael Lopez, Jack Darrell, Doug Stewart, the spook

The theme song is by Pat Massidi-Miller. We have cast words of binding, magical, legal, and otherwise proclaiming that no Snap Studios content may be used for training, testing, or developing machine learning, or AI systems without prior written permission on Team Spute. The union representative producers, artists, editors, engineers are members of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, Communications Workers of America, AFL, CIO, Local 51, and the wear means human. That's the real monster in werewolf.

Every culture has their shapeshifters, their wear tigers, wear snakes, shamans becoming birds of prey. What is it about our fellow creatures that we envy them so much we seek to become them? Or are we running away from ourselves? I've seen the monster and the monster is me. Perhaps every beast we become

is another shadow but the light, another fragment that we create to avoid the inner voice. Acting the wolf doesn't make us killers. It gives us permission to be what we already are. So what are we?

The guilty, the wolf made me do it, the moon made me do it, the curse, the blood, the bite, anything, but look back in the mirror. That we can't abide. Someday though, maybe even someday soon will recognize that the animal part of us might be the best part of us.

Whatever you do, wherever you go. Never ever, never.