Snake

July was sticky as split sorghum cane. A high pressure
system fell in over North Carolina and spun there for weeks.

Its rotation sent tons of Gulf moisture streaming up from
the
tepid waters. Moist clouds bent in a wide arch from
Gulf shores up past Jackson, Mississippi, through Memphis,
on
to Louisville. West to St. Louis and beyond. The land
labored under the oppressive heat and humidity.

Boots Gadsden sat in his study. He looked west out
through the large window, surveyed the land. The leaves on
the red oaks outside were still like pictures of leaves in
a painting. Beyond the trees, the west pasture. Two
hundred
head of beef cattle gathered around the pond. They drank
and
then rested in the shade. The sun blazed above the western
Tennessee plain. Everything beneath it suffered.

Except Boots. He loved the hot weather. The rest of
the large house was filled with refrigerated air, but not
his
place. Martha couldn't take the heat. She kept the
thermostat set on sixty five. Boots, his shirt perpetually
wet with sweat, suffered like a man taken from a sauna and
thrown into a deep freeze. It's enough to give a body
pneumonia, he told her.

It did not help. Still she turned the dial down. Well,
he told himself, she's going through the change. Hot
flashes, he had heard about them. A woman's thing. A woman

in the change of life was like a wall-eyed cow. No telling
what she might do.

Boots took another drink from the glass sitting on the
cluttered desk. Good whiskey was a salvation. Good whiskey

made the day brighter and the air fresher. It was too early

to drink, but he did anyway. Straight, no mixer, no ice.
The only way to drink good whiskey.

Boots owned about half of Catlow County. He was the
richest man in those parts; on paper at least. There had
been some setbacks, some things that hadn't worked out. A
few unwise investments.

Well, thought Boots, it's nothing to worry about. But I
may have to call in a marker or two. Get some of this mess
straightened out.

He took his old Gibson off its stand and struck an E
chord. A handsome sound flew out of the lush old wood. Good
guitars, good whiskey, good women.

With a few dollars thrown in for good measure, who
needed anything else?

****

The lanky man parked the four-wheeler just off the field
road inside a clump of bushes. With his pocketknife he
trimmed off a couple of branches and covered the rear deck
of
the machine.

He was about five hundred feet from where he was headed
but it was best to walk the rest of the way. Somebody might

be out stirring around in the pasture, as unlikely as the
heat made it. The ATV was muffled good, but it still made
some noise.

He wiped across his eyes with the back of his forearm.
Goddammit, he should have worn a headband. The sweat kept
pouring down, burning and stinging his eyes. He didn't even

have a handkerchief in his pocket. He didn't have anything
but the pocketknife, he had left everything back at the
motel as a precaution.

He followed the path about two hundred feet southwest
before leaving it and cutting down into the brambles, the
rifle swinging in his right hand. He had scouted the area
several times before and knew just where he was headed.
There was a knoll just north of the pond, a small rise on
the
north end of the field. It gave a good view across the
pasture and toward the rear of the house.

It would be a three-hundred yard shot at best, but the .270
would handle
that nicely. He had zeroed the scope at that range two days

before at an old abandoned clay pit. He could hit a gallon
paint can that far ten out of ten times. The can was about
the size of a man's head.

The sudden sound of voices sent him scurrying low into a
small ditch, where he fell on his side. Peering up over the

edge he could see two young boys coming down a path below
him. They were toting fishing canes. They were talking,
but
he couldn't make out what was being said. If they were
headed for the pond, he was screwed.

Fuck it. He would just have to hunker down for a while
and see what happened. There was still plenty of daylight
to
do what he had to do and get back to town and gone. If the
kids would get out of the way he could be finished and split

in short order.

It wasn't until he adjusted his position in the ditch
that he saw the snake. It was coiled, about three feet up
the ditch from his head. He didn't know much about snakes
but it looked dangerous; thick as his forearm, its back
covered with a rusty pattern. Its head was large and
pointed, the beady black eyes locked on him. A black tongue

flicked rapidly in an out of the wide, grinning mouth.

The man froze, his eyes locked on the reptile. He was
almost afraid to move for fear of spooking the snake. He
was
so caught up in the terrible sight that he did not hear the
boys leave the path and almost walk right into his hole.

"Look out Teddy, it's a friggin' copperhead!" the larger
boy cried, throwing out his arm and knocking his smaller
friend backward. "It's got that man cornered!"

The boys looked at the lanky man lying in the ditch, his
black hair hanging down over his eyes. His face was pale
and
dripping with more sweat that even the hot day called for.

"Do something boys," the man whispered, afraid to speak
aloud. "Get this son of a bitch away from me!"

"Whatcha doin' mister?" the smaller of the two asked.

"Did he bite ya'? If he did you'll die for sure 'cause
that's
a damn copperhead!"

"Gimme your rifle and I'll shoot him," the bigger boy
said. "Give it here." He held out his hand.

He was torn. If he gave the kid the gun and he fired,
it would be heard and that would be the end of it. Not only

that, the boys had gotten a good look at him.

"No, if you miss he might bite me," the man said. "Get a
stick and see if you can't distract him until I can move
away!"

"OK, but if we get him stirred up he may nail you," the
boy said.

The kid found a branch about four foot long. He
approached the snake, which merely shifted its attention but

did not retreat.

"He's a bad sumbitch, he ain't afraid of me," the kid
whispered, poking at the snake. The copperhead flashed like

lightning, striking the end of the branch and causing the
boy
to jump backward several feet. The snake then turned its
attention back to the prostrate man, even slithering a few
inches closer.

"He's gonna get you if you don't gimme the rifle!" the
bigger boy cried. "He's gonna bite your ass! I'm a good
shot,
I won't miss him!"

To hell with it, the job wasn't worth dying over. He
slowly began to push the rifle back toward his feet, stock
first. The boy eased over and within moments had the weapon

in his hands.

"Don't try to use the scope, use the fixed sights," the
man told him. "And don't miss."

"I won't miss," the boy said, sighting for what seemed
way too long to the man in the ditch. The .270 cracked
suddenly and the snake virtually disappeared before his
eyes,
obliterated in a spray of flesh and blood as the high-
velocity round tore through it.

The man breathed a long audible sigh of relief. He
wiped at his eyes with the back of his arm, now that he
could
move without fear. The two boys stood and eyed him
curiously, not saying anything.

"I'll take the rifle back now," he said, sitting up and
holding his hand out. The older of the boys, a stocky
redhead, still held it and made no effort to turn it over to

him.

"The rifle," he said again, a little more insistently.
The boy looked a bit sullen then and shook his head
slightly.

"Whatcha doin' out here, mister, huh? There ain't no
huntin' season goin' on. You're trespassin' on Mr. Bootses'

land too, he don't like that. And you don't sound like you
come from these parts."

The man was beginning to get angry. Who the hell was
this grubby little whelp to be questioning him? He arose
and
held his right arm out, motioning angrily.

"The rifle, give me the fucking rifle," he said harshly.
He started to move toward the boy.

"Don't let him have it, Sammy!" said little Teddy,
backing up himself. "He's up to sumpin'!

Sammy jacked a fresh shell into the chamber and changed
his hold on the rifle, pointing it generally in the man's
direction. He looked the man square in the eye.

"I's you I'd hold it 'bout right there mister," he said.
"If you believe I won't shoot you, you full of shit."

"Yeah, shoot the big ugly sumbitch!" said little Teddy,
jumping around excitedly. "He's tryin' to do sumpin' to us
so you got the right to shoot 'im!"

The man stopped dead in his tracks. Sammy, the older boy
with the gun, looked awfully serious to him. He was about
12 or 13 years old, just the right age to pop a cap if he
got
a little too nervous.

"Come on, boys," the man said, trying to laugh. "I was
just out here trying to find a place to target practice. I
don't want to get in trouble about it. Just give me my gun
back and I'll get the hell out of here, nothing is the worse

for it. I'll even give you boys a reward for saving me from

the snake."

Yeah, after I bash both of your fucking skulls in, he
thought. Somebody might have heard the shot and be on the
way
right then to see what was going on.

"Hell with that," said Sammy. "What we're all gonna do
is cut through the woods there over to Mr. Boots Gadsden's
house. You can tell him what you doin' out here in his
woods, and he'll probably call the sheriff on you 'cause he
got posted signs everywheres."

"Yeah, maybe Mr. Boots'll give us a reward," piped in
Teddy. "He's a rich man, he might give us ten dollars or
sumpin'."

"What if I won't go?" the man asked tentatively.

"Up to you, but if you don't the asswiper be totin' you
outta here 'cause I'll shoot your right where you standin'."


As if to emphasize his dedication to go through with his
threat, the kid brought the bore up and leveled it on the
man's chest.

"Shoot him, Sammy, shoot the sumbitch!" the smaller kid
cried, jumping up and down. "Or gimme the gun an' let me
shoot 'em!"

"Dammit, I tole you to stay over there!" said Sammy,
pushing the younger boy off to the side. "You gettin' in my

line of fire and I'm fixin' to shoot this frigger!"

The stranger suddenly began to wave his arms, his face
gone pale. He could see that the boy was on the verge of
pulling the trigger on him.

"Okay, okay, goddammit! Point that damn thing somewhere
else, okay? I'll go with you."

The kid motioned with the barrel of the rifle. "You just
head off right down the bank there. You get behind me,
Teddy,
case this frigger tries somethin'. I don't wanna end up
shootin' you."

"Gimme your pocket knife," said little Teddy. "He might
try sumpin' and I might need to cut the frigger!"

"You don't need no knife, Teddy, just be still and come
on. I gotta keep a eye on this feller. Move it along
there,
mister, 'fore I shoot the piss outta you."

Boots was still sitting in his study nursing his
second glass of whiskey when he saw the trio tromping across

his pasture. A tall man with his hands on top of his head,
followed by two small boys, one of whom had a rifle trained
on the tall stranger.

Well, I'll be damned, said Boots to himself, going out
to see what was going on.

---

     Jim Chandler's work has appeared in numerous literary and college magazines and newspapers during the last 35 years. His latest chapbook, The Word Is All There is from Mt. Aukum Press. Chandler's poetry appears in the Outlaw Bible of American Poetry, a 685-page anthology published by Thunder's Mouth Press in October, 1999. Chandler lives in Mckenzie, Tennessee and works in journalism and web development. He was editor and publisher of  Thunder Sandwich magazine  in the eighties and currently operates an online version of that magazine.

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