It’s a short scream, only a second or two, but a scream
nevertheless. It has all the earmarks of
a scream – a high, ear drum breaking pitch, a vocal cord stripping, throat
vibration, full amped volume, and fear.
The silence that follows is intense.
The woman in the upgraded, summer Technicolor Wonder
backpedals to her right quickly and stood there shaking. She kept watching the snake in terrified
fascination as she talks to herself out loud.
“I almost stepped
on the thing! I’ve never seen a snake
here. Gretchen’s told me about them
being around and how she and Mark killed them.
But I’m here by myself, and I can’t force myself close enough to it to
kill it with a shovel.” The snake
lies absolutely still in the grass. It isn’t even tasting
the air. Brown and tan with diamonds on its back. Diana
thinks she can see that the head is not
a triangle shape indicative of a viper; she won’t go close enough
to verify her
impression. It hasn’t rattled at her …yet. It
looks four or five feet long and is slender. It’s not
aggressive, or Diana would have been
bitten when the stand-off first started.
It didn’t chase her when she ran away.
Diana stands
as still as she can while shaking; she hasn’t
moved from the center of the rock driveway where she first
retreated. She’s racking her brain for what she can use
from a safe distance to kill the thing.
The operative words here are ‘a safe distance.’ Diana
believes that would be in New Mexico, somewhere close to Albuquerque. She’s
back to talking to herself again. No one’s around to worry
about her
sanity. Linda, her husband, Rodger, and
Gretchen with her husband, Mark, have flown away for a long weekend in
Rodger’s
four-seater Cessna. With horses, unless
you have hired help, time away from the horses is infrequent and
precious. Diana had volunteered to feed the barn cats,
dog, and horses. Piece of piss. She’d done it
before. She hadn’t counted on a snake. Crossing her
path. “Rocks! I’m standing on
rocks. I’ll throw a rock at it, break
its back, and Brownie or one of the cats can eat it for a midnight snack.” Unfortunately, none of the rocks are the fifty pound boulder
Diana envisions throwing from where she is standing. The fact that she couldn’t throw
her weapon of choice doesn’t cross
her mind. She chances taking her eyes
from her enemy, bends from the waist to pick up a one or two ounce
pebble,
straightens up, stares at the frightened snake, and throws …like
a girl. The rock lands three feet beyond the snake’s
head. The only reason it went so far is
Diana threw as if she actually had the big boulder in her hand. The snake sinks lower into the grass without actually
showing any muscular change. Diana tries
three more times and fails to touch the snake each time. By the time she gives up, she’s calmer.
“I’ll go down to the barn, feed the horses, and maybe by the
time I get back, it’ll have slithered away.”
It takes Diana ten minutes to creep down the slope to the
barn. She stops to “Eek!” several times
on her journey. Every pecan tree branch
that blew down in the last thunderstorm looks like a snake to her.
By the time she finally arrives to usher the milling herd
into stalls, her fear has transformed into determination. The horses sense her mood and meekly obey her
every command. She leaves them to their dinner and hikes back up the hill
with some of her self-confidence restored.
She’s still scanning for snakes but doesn’t imagine them at every turn.
She walks down the far side of the drive, giving the lawn
where she last saw the snake a wide berth.
This is a good idea in principle, but she sees the second snake directly
in front of her revised course. It’s
headed for where she last saw the other snake.
They’re obviously the same species. They look exactly the same except this one is
heftier. Her first scream might have been mistaken for a shriek. There is no doubt this is a scream – a full-out,
gut wrenching scream. The snake keeps
moving, much too close for her comfort.
She screams again, louder, longer.
She can’t stop herself. The
vibration stops lover boy in his tracks. For some strange reason that only Diana’s twisted brain
would understand, Jimmy Buffett’s song Fins runs through her mind but
without the cheery good humour and with a change in lyrics. “Snakes to left, snakes to the right, and
you’re the only bait in town.”
She once
again stands stock still, too afraid to move. Now she’s too
scared to even shake. She can’t move to her right; she
doesn’t know
where that snake has gone. It might have
doubled back and be just beyond the edge of the rock road. She
KNOWS there’s a snake dead ahead about to
cross in front of her. She’s surrounded
by snakes, and there is no one around to help her. The big guy starts rippling his muscles but doesn’t make any
forward progress. Diana shrieks. This one is a definite shriek; all the sound
comes from her head. “I
can’t do this. I
can’t.” She twists the tails on the plaid, sleeveless shirt
that matches the
bright blue shorts and fluorescent green coasters she wears.
“Stop this right now. You have lives in your
care.”
Her brain finally kicks back into rational thought. She’s stranded forever unless she does something.
“You have to get to a phone to call for some help.”
Diana splits the difference between the snake she doesn’t
know and the one she can see and
makes a break for the house past the Jag, the monster truck Mark drives named
Bubba by one and all, and Gretchen’s pickup.
She tries to give the three vehicles a wide berth in case Gretchen and
Mark’s whole property has become infested with snakes and others are lying in
wait using the cars as cover. Once beyond the parking area, she stops, turns back to the
cars. Her cell phone is closest. She takes a step back to the Jag, remembers
there may be a snake convention, turns back to the house, stops again, turns
again. She hates herself for her
indecision. A snip of information lying
dormant helps her decide the house phone is the best option. She makes it to the garage and creeps through the walkway
checking for more snakes. None of the
house cats are around. “Maybe the snakes
ate them. How can I tell Gretchen her
cats are dead after I assured her to not think about the place, to have a good
time?”
Brownie, the Cottman’s dog, greets her at the door. He’s enjoying his brief respite from guard
duty in the house.
“Come on, Brownie.
Out you go. Go kill the
snakes. If they bite you, I’ll take you
to the emergency vet. Terry will get over
the blood and vomit on the seats. Go on,
Brownie. Save me. Please.”
During her
groveling, Brownie sat down. He wasn’t leaving the air
conditioning. Diana doesn’t have enough strength left to
carry the forty-pound dog outside. She
and Brownie are in for the siege.
“They’ll laugh at me, but 911 it is.”
“911. What is your
emergency?”
“I
know this is stupid, but I’m taking care of my
girlfriend’s horses, and I’ve found two snakes in the
yard. I’m terrified of snakes. Who’s the right
person to call about them?”
“Please hold for a moment.”
Diana knows the operator put her on hold so she could laugh without
offending the caller. The same voice
came back on the line. “That would be
Animal Control. Tell me your address.”
“I don’t know it.”
“You don’t know where you are?” “I know where I am, but I don’t know my girlfriend’s
address.” This is going to show up on
Keith Olbermann’s show; Diana’s positive of that. It’s on their mailbox, but Diana would have
to pass the snake gauntlet …again.
“Are you on County Road 350?” “That could be it.” Diana
has their mail in the car. She could get
their address if she could get to the car before being eaten by the thousands
of snakes she is sure have gathered. She
is NOT leaving the safety of the house.
"4133 County Road 350?" “That’s possible. It
sounds right.” Diana has no idea if
that’s the right address, but she wants to humor these people. Why the hell did the county spend five
million dollars converting all the addresses to accommodate the new emergency
response system if THEY can’t tell her what address is being overrun by
snakes? The address is supposed to show
up on their screen. Using the Cottman
phone was the only reason she hadn’t locked herself in the car to make the
phone calls. She’s risked her life with
the reptiles so 911 could have the address when she called for help. She’d really like to rip into them, but she
thinks she needs their help too badly.
“What number are you calling from?” They don’t have caller ID either? “903.642.5337”
“I’ll have Animal Control call you back. Stay by the phone.”
“I will. Thank you
for not laughing at me.”
*
Animal Control can only come out for snake calls after hours
if the snake is in the house. They can
remove yard snakes from 8 to 5. It was
now 6:45 PM.
Jeremy, the AC officer on call, almost begs her to say the
snake is in the house. He must need the
overtime. She can’t lie to him. Jeremy can’t help her. Diana makes the one phone call she didn’t want to make. “Terry, I need your help.”
“Are you all right?
What’s the matter? How badly are
you hurt?” She can hear him gathering
keys.
“Bring
a weapon to Gretchen’s. Wear your tall boots for
protection. There are snakes everywhere. I’m
scared.”
He’s in his equipment bag in the closet. He picks up the Walther and checks its
magazine. He grabs his extra magazines
and his rifle for good measure. Diana’s
in no shape to give him much coherent information. She’s terrified if she’s willing to ask for
his help and admit she’s scared. She
didn’t have to confess her fear; her voice was filled with it.
“Where are you?” He
realizes that open ended question will only confuse her right now. He calculates he has another hour and a half
of light to hunt the snakes and then extract Diana. He wonders if he brought enough
ammunition. If his aim was true, he
could shoot 30 before he left with Diana.
If there were more than that, the following morning would resemble the
Sweetwater Rattlesnake Roundup in scale.
This would be a major community wide emergency, and everyone would turn
out to fight the menace.
He calms his voice as he starts the Tahoe. He reaches out to Diana mentally giving her
strength. “Are you in the barn, in the
car, in the house? Are you safe?”
“I’m in the house with Brownie. All the doors look like they seal pretty
well. I don’t think they can get in.
“Oh, God. The horses
are in their stalls. I didn’t fill up
their water buckets. I have to go back
out.”
“I’m at the hard right turn.
We’ll fill the water buckets together once I arrive. Tell me what you remember about the snakes.”
“They’re brown with diamonds on their backs, but they didn’t
rattle. Not even when I threw rocks at
the first one.” She takes a deep breath
willing her fear to let loose of its hold on her. “The first one gave off a positively feminine
vibe, now that I think about it. The
other one was a bruiser. Much bigger
than the first.”
“How many did you see?”
“Two,
but they were on either side of me. It was so quiet.
They’re silent. Not even the birds were singing.”
She can hear him breathe.
“Are you going to laugh at me?
Because I only saw two?”
“No, I’m not. I
didn’t fully understand how much of a phobia about snakes you had.” “I looked at both of them and didn’t pass out. I was within ten feet of them.”
He takes the Walther in hand, exits the Tahoe, reaches back
in for the rifle, and changes his mind.
“I’m here.”
That was a superfluous statement from a man who can speak
eloquently when called on but normally uses as few words as necessary. The truck he drove had tossed gravel as he
sped down the drive alerting the house. That
was before he’d heard Diana had seen two snakes, not the army he’d
envisioned. Now Brownie wanted outside to challenge the newcomer as good
farm dogs do. “Where did you last see them?” “You would have seen the big one when you drove in; he would
have been right in front of you on the road to the barn. The other one was on the far side of Bubba.”
“I’ll
come to the house when I find them. I’ll try not to knock
like a snake.” She finally laughed.
*
Terry lights Diana’s third cigarette in seven minutes. She didn’t tell him about the two before he
came into the house. “So it seems you
delayed a reptilian tryst.”
“Thank you for not making me look at them again. I’m like the fat, old broad in an old BC
comic strip. The only good snake is a
dead snake. I’m afraid my imagination
ran away with me.
“I can’t drive Mabel home.
I have this thought that there’s another snake in the undercarriage, and
he’ll come out at the most inopportune moment.”
“We’ll leave the Jag here overnight. When I come back with you on protection
detail for morning feed, I’ll take the Jag to work and have it examined
thoroughly.”
“Thank you for indulging me.” Diana was almost in tears. “Thank you for rescuing me.”
“Lady, I didn’t rescue you.
You were already fighting your fears when you threw that first rock.”
She blinked the waiting tears away. “Now, mind you, that’s not the smartest thing you’ve ever
done, but it is the second bravest.”
