‘There’s a big water moccasin down at the slough.” Cousin based on my grandparents’ deck with a light in his eyes. “Let’s go down and tease it.”
At twelve years of age, teasing a snake isn’t a typical dream.
“Because when they get mad, they stink.”
I needed to mull that a person over.
I spoke gradually, so he might comprehend the gravity of what he was recommending.
“If we go down to the slough and make a poisonous snake mad, it will want to bite us. They’re poison. We’ll curl up like dead cockroaches and turn green.”
“Water moccasins always want to bite something. It’s what makes them what they are.”
It was most likely the very first philosophical conversation I’d ever been drawn into, and I wasn’t sure what to state.
“Not all snakes. I caught a ribbon snake the other day and you know that blue racer up at the barn just likes to chase us.”
It was a routine event for us to discover that familiar four-plus foot snake and rile him up so that he’d chase us to eviction. We constantly understood it wasn’t unsafe and most likely taken pleasure in the workout, however by the time we reached the metal gate, we’d remain in the grips of the Hysterical Giggles and shook for half an hour, boiling down off an adrenaline high.
I glanced through the screen door covered with flies and thought about the safety of the kitchen area therein. We might enter there and consume teacakes and beverage Dr Peppers due to the fact that it was almost two-o’clock and back in the sixties in our minds it was permitted to consume them at 10, 2, and 4 when we ran out school.
I got my air weapon and shook it to ensure there had to do with a thousand BBs all packed up, due to the fact that teasing cottonmouth moccasins would need great deals of ammunition.
“Don’t tell Gramma where we’re going.”
Her voice instantly came through the screen loaded with flies desperate to get in.
“Where’d you say you two were going?”
“Down to the slough.”
“Okay, y’all watch for snakes.”
I felt my eyebrows reach my hairline. That was it? Watch for snakes? Surrounded by a fence of bull nettles, the slough was our variation of an overload, filled with mosquitoes, ticks, snakes of all shapes, sizes and lethality, quicksand (our companied believe) and dark water.
Alligators might come roaring out of there, and all she might state, besides we had approval to go, was to expect the very thing we were searching for.
Sweating and sticky in the high humidity, we lastly reached the edge of the slough. The going was sluggish through a broad thicket of bull nettles, and we needed to see our action, in addition to expect those snakes our grandma cautioned us about.
It was the dark water that was most frightening to me.
Cousin’s head almost rotated off his shoulders and he stopped briefly.
“Maybe this isn’t a good idea. Let’s go back and get a Coke.”
“Nope, I have my mind set on shooting snakes.”
He followed me into the damp shadows and the ground ended up being wet and springy under our high-top U.S. Keds. The more detailed we drew to the almost stagnant water, the much deeper the mud ended up being. Downed limbs and gray, decaying sticks restrained our travel till we discovered a video game path leading through years of particles.
A long, slim water snake cut through the mud and S-curved throughout the scummy water. Cousin sent a volley of BBs after it, however not one came close.
“How’re you gonna hit a cottonmouth if you can’t hit a four-foot-long water snake?”
“Moccasins are fatter, especially when they coil up.”
I needed to stop and think of that a person.
“So he’s gonna get mad and coil up, you think.”
“Of course. Haven’t you seen those rubber snakes at the five and dime? All rolled up like a water hose. A snake can’t bite all stretched out, so we wait until we have a big mess of loops and then shoot him.”
“Then we can smell his stink.”
“That’s right!” Cousin was delighted once again. “And man, it’s something else.”
“Have you ever smelled one?”
“Well, no, but I’ve heard about it and I can’t wait to see for myself.”
Cousin’s eyes broadened in the gloom.
“Hissing. It’s close!”
Out of no place, a fat cottonmouth crawled throughout the puddled water and leaf-covered mud. It was the size of an innertube, and I figured it had to do with 10 feet long.
“Cottonmouth!” Forgetting the air rifle in his hand, Cousin levitated 3 feet, dug with his feet for traction in the air, and lastly boiled down to toss a spray of mud behind him as he ran into the sunlight and through the knee-high bull nettle.
With no factor to appear brave, I was ideal behind him and minutes later on we were on the deck with our grandma who shook her head and ministered to the welts increasing on our legs.
“I told y’all to watch for snakes down there.”
I battled down the Hysterical Giggles.
“We did, and saw one, too.”
Reavis Z. Wortham is an acclaimed author and outside author with family ties to Lamar County. He is the author of “The Texas Job.”