The dirt road crossed the wide valley for miles, and the boy stopped the truck right in the middle. As he set the brake and opened the door he watched something lying ahead of us in the dirt. He got out and left his cowboy hat where it was on the dashboard. He pulled a shovel from the bed which was littered with ropes, tools and containers all stuffed in the cracks and spaces with hay and dust. Still fixed on something in the road, he walked around to the front of the truck. I don’t know how the kid spotted it, but from the passenger side of the cab I could just make out that there was a rattlesnake stretched out in the middle of road. It was still morning and cool, and the way it was reposed there blocking our path looked to me like it was basking in the sun that only a few minutes before had risen over the mountains that contained the valley.
The boy stood holding the shovel out in front of him with the blade pointing scoop down and looked at the snake. I watched as he waited a second. The snake recoiled from the boy and began to rattle. A burst of wind swept dust across the road, and for a long moment the boy watched, and the snake’s agitation grew. He glanced into the cab for a second at me then back at the snake. His look was hard to read, but I knew how ranchers treat rattlesnakes. This must happen a lot, I thought. Why not just kill it with the truck? Still the boy hesitated.
With one quick movement he swiveled the shovel to digging position, slipped it under the standing body of the snake, lifted it like a load of manure and tossed it off the road into the brush. Then he walked back around to the door and swung the shovel into the bed and hopped back in also in one solid movement that was as much like dance as an action of labor. The snake then was gone; completely. Hidden, as it was, by the way the brush and gravel of the countryside matched so well the odd markings on its back.
-M
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A beautiful little ditty, M.
Cool story. I think we’ve all got a similar one…and this just reminded me of one that I’d forgotten. Thanks!
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