Chapter Seventeen

JohnScott installed my new window-unit air conditioners one evening while I was at class, leaving a note apologizing for not catching me at home. But he knew my schedule.

Whatever.

My house was remarkably cooler, but the refrigerated air left me feeling like smut because the coach couldn’t bear to be in the same room with me. After dinner I escaped my guilty conscience and settled on a kitchen chair that I pulled to the back porch. The tableland on that side of the house, unlike the front, stretched into the distance, as flat as if God had poured a concrete slab all the way from Trapp to the top of the Panhandle. Squatty cedars and sagebrush grew near the house, but beyond them lay the first of countless cotton fields, where a green John Deere tractor spent the day rumbling in monotonous rotations.

The scent of freshly plowed earth reminded me of my father. Except his tractor was a Kubota, not John Deere, with an enclosed, air-conditioned cab so he could work in a comfortable, isolated cocoon.

My phone chirped in my pocket. A text from Ruthie saying she and Dodd couldn’t take me to get the Chevy at the repair shop on Saturday morning, but JohnScott would pick me up at ten. Oh joy.

A pair of scissortails swooped back and forth above my head, their yellow bellies plump and full of bugs that otherwise would have found their way inside my house. A pain suddenly shot through my right calf, and I flexed my foot, trying to ease the muscle cramp. These were happening more often lately, and my doctor had given me the profound advice “That happens sometimes,” which seemed to be his diagnosis for many of my pregnancy symptoms. I had learned not to take myself too seriously.

When the cramp intensified, I slammed my glass of iced coffee down on the porch rail and pulled my toes toward my shin as I massaged the rock-hard muscles of my calf. After a few moments, the pain eased, but every time I released my foot, my calf would tighten again. Gingerly I put weight on my leg and hobbled down the steps into the backyard to walk it off.

I stopped at the corner of the house, resting my hand on the rough wood of the siding as my muscles cramped again. I bent to knead my calf but tensed when I heard a hollow shaking behind me. It started as a timid chirrup not unlike a cricket but quickly increased to a threatening vibration that sent goose bumps up my spine. I knew that sound.

My leg immediately turned to granite, but I took a slow, painful step away from the diamondback rattlesnake. A sudden movement would be dangerous, but even my slow progress caused another more intense shake of its tail.

The back porch loomed to my left, and in one swift yet lumbering motion, I grasped the railing and stepped up with my good leg, raising myself three feet above the ground. As I awkwardly climbed over the rail, another rattle sounded, less threatening, and then it stopped altogether.

I leaned over the rail to locate the reptile but saw only a rectangular opening on the side of the house. Some sort of access to the open area beneath. The snake must have been resting there to escape the heat of the setting sun. Well, it would have to find another place to cool off. I gently bit my bottom lip, remembering Sophie Snodgrass’s stories.

I had seen snakes on my family’s ranch, but I’d never had to deal with them myself. My father or the foreman usually shot their heads off with a twenty-two, but one time a small rattler ventured into the yard when all the men were at work, and our maid took after it with a garden hoe. She chopped until the animal resembled ground meat.

I considered the hoe option but didn’t want to get that close. Besides, I didn’t have a hoe. I stepped off the porch, took a wide path around the corner, and peered under the house into the darkness.

Sure enough, a midsize rattlesnake lay coiled in a small mound, relaxed and resting. The diamond design on its back alternated its gray, black, and white pattern, and the now-silent tail protruded from the center of the scaly pile, ready to shake again should the snake feel threatened.

I would have to stand there and keep an eye on it while I called someone to come kill it. If it got away, I would never be able to go in and out of the house knowing the thing slinked around the property.

My father was out of the question. He would use the incident as ammunition, firing even more condescending remarks my way.

Tyler would undoubtedly know how to kill a snake, but he lived all the way in Snyder.

And since it was a Thursday, Dodd and Ruthie had classes at Tech. Not that they could help anyway.

Ansel would have come in a heartbeat, but Ruthie had been describing him as more and more feeble lately. I hated to be a bother.

That only left one person in my short list of friends, and I dreaded calling him.

For a few seconds I considered the fiasco at the holding tank, but then I pulled my cell phone from the back pocket of my shorts and knocked my pride down a few notches. JohnScott probably considered me a flirt, but he could shoot the head off a snake from twenty feet, without a hitch.

Fifteen minutes later, his truck sped into the front yard, and my body reacted as if a professor had called my name to stand and recite the Gettysburg Address.

I checked on my reptile friend, but he hadn’t moved at all. Not when I slipped into the house to use the restroom. Not when I retrieved my glass from the porch rail. Not when I sneaked a few bites of cake.

I stepped around the side of the house but stopped short when I saw who the coach had with him.

“Clyde and I were eating at the diner when you called.” JohnScott lifted his chin as he walked across the yard. “Hope you don’t mind I brought him with me.”

“Of course not,” I lied.

“He knows about diamondbacks.”

I seriously doubted the middle-aged man knew much about snakes, since he’d been locked up for twenty years. Perhaps JohnScott had brought him along so the two of us wouldn’t find ourselves alone with an awkward topic looming over our heads. If that were the case, I applauded his judgment.

The ex-convict stood by JohnScott’s truck with his back to me, and I tried not to stare at the tattoos running up and down his arms. When he turned, he held a long pole and a burlap bag.

I tapped my foot. “You brought a gun, right?”

JohnScott crossed his arms, but Clyde only looked between us with a humored smile on his face. “How are ya, Fawn?”

My cheeks warmed at my rudeness. “I could be better, but thank you for coming.”

“Aw … that’s okay. I kind of enjoy wrestling rattlers.”

“You do this often?”

He glanced around the front yard. “Before I get into that … where is the critter?”

“Oh, it’s back here under the house. Hasn’t moved since I first found it.” I turned toward the side yard, walking briskly.

“Hold up there, Fawn.” The coach jogged two steps and brushed my elbow with his fingertips. “Let’s take things slow.”

“Fine with me, but the thing’s not going anywhere.”

As we crept toward the back of the house, I said, “So you’re going to shoot it, right?”

Clyde’s gaze roamed back and forth. “No reason to kill the beast flat out when we can snare her.”

“You mean, like, catch it?”

Clyde chuckled as though he knew an inside joke, and he held the pole like a walking stick, only the pole had some sort of pincers on the end. His bent posture, coupled with the shaggy, blond hair shielding his face, reminded me of a lunatic in a horror movie.

I pointed to the open space at the corner of the house. “It’s in there.”

The two men inched toward the crawl space while I sipped coffee and speculated about JohnScott’s impression of me at the holding tank. He didn’t act like he remembered the embarrassing episode at all.

“I didn’t take the time to go out to my house for my gun.” JohnScott spoke without turning around, and I noticed the brand of his jeans. They fit more snugly than Tyler’s. “We were two streets over from Clyde’s trailer, so we picked up his gear. Lucky it worked out this way.”

“Lucky?”

“Yep.” He turned and scanned the ground around me. “Because your rattler took off.”

My scalp prickled. “What? It was there a second ago.”

I stepped toward the open space, but Clyde raised a palm. “Why don’t you get on the porch.” As an afterthought, he stepped to the corner of the house and inspected the raised platform, the railing, even the covered ceiling. He turned to me and glided his hand through the air like a used-car salesman. “Please.”

I glanced at JohnScott, who couldn’t seem to take his eyes off the ground, and then I returned Clyde’s smile. “Certainly.” I didn’t like the idea of Clyde taking charge no matter what kind of experience he had. “So how do you know about snakes?”

The coach’s gaze left the ground long enough to roll his eyes at me, but Clyde only sidestepped to the crawl space and squatted slowly, giving the impression of a tall elevator lowering to the bottom floor. He peered inside. “There we go, JohnScott. She only moved back a ways, trying to find a cooler spot. It’s hot as blazes out here.” He got down on one knee, leaning closer to the opening and extending the pole slowly into the shadows. “Watch out now. I’m going to pull her toward me with the J-hook, so I’ll have more control.”

The coach put his weight on his back foot in case he needed to bolt, while Clyde continued to speak smoothly. “I’ve shore enough wondered about that serpent in the garden of Eden. Evil little thing. But this one?” He jerked the pole, then flipped a handle on the end. “This one ain’t evil.” He stepped back from the house, and the rattlesnake writhed on the hook, clamped in her midsection. “This girl’s just a little riled.”

“Whoa,” JohnScott said. “That happened so quick, I barely saw what you did.”

Clyde’s description of this girl being a little riled seemed a gross understatement as the reptile flopped and jerked on the end of his pole, the tail now pulsing angrily and filling the hollow beneath the house with its enraged clamor.

Fingers of unease inched over my scalp, leaving me chilled in the warm afternoon air.

“Nothing to it,” Clyde said. “The main thing is to keep her at the opposite end of the hook. She can’t strike that far, so you’re safe as long as she’s at the other end. Then you simply move her around a bit until you can clasp her in your tongs. But not too close to the head. Don’t want to kill her. Not yet anyway.”

I peered over the porch, realizing I had gripped the railing until I had a splinter in my palm. “Am I missing something? Why do we not want to kill it?”

Clyde motioned for JohnScott to fetch the bag, which looked like an oversize pillowcase. Then he maneuvered the snake into it, released the clamp, and pulled drawstring. The bag jerked once before going motionless. “Aw, Fawn, she’ll probably end up dead, but I’ve got a friend that can milk the venom first. And another that’ll want the hide for belts and such.”

“Milk the venom?”

He hummed a yes. “They use it to make antivenin.”

“To treat bites?” asked JohnScott.

Clyde nodded, continuing to search the area around us. “The good Lord provides.”

I hadn’t expected Clyde Felton to hiss religion at me. I’d been a Christian my entire life, and he only recently found God in a prison cell. I curled a strand of hair around my finger, realizing I didn’t know how long Clyde had been a Christian. “I don’t think God would mind if we killed one snake.”

“It might be more than one, I’m thinking.” The way his neck jutted forward got on my nerves, and he still searched the grass as though Godzilla might jump out any minute. “Yep, there’s her mate.” He gestured to a pile of logs twenty yards to the side of the house. “They often run in pairs. That one’s found a cool spot in the shade of the woodpile.”

Shivers went up my spine as I followed his gaze, and I began searching the yard myself.

JohnScott shook his head. “Good thing you came with me. I never would’ve known to look for a pair.” His I-told-you-so smirk didn’t go unnoticed, but maybe I deserved it.

“And it’s a good thing we didn’t bring a gun. The shot would’ve scared this one away.” Clyde rested a fist on his hip. “You tackle this little boy, JohnScott. Might as well learn.”

The coach looked from the snake to Clyde, then down to the clamp on the end of the pole. “When I shoot them, I don’t have to get that close.”

Clyde laughed. “I know, but as long as you keep him a pole’s length away, you’re all right. It’s not like he can fly.”

I sought safety on the porch again, glancing at the crawl space as I walked past.

The coach took a deep breath and let it out. “All right, Clyde. I’ll do it.” He reached for the J-hook. “But stay close, so if I mess things up, you can snatch the pole.”

“Aw, you ain’t gonna mess up. Piece of cake.”

The two of them walked toward the woodpile, and I wondered what would happen if they were bitten. I had never heard much about people getting struck by rattlesnakes. Lots of rumors over the years, but nothing ever came of them.

Clyde squeezed the coach’s shoulder. “You’re more likely to get struck by lightning than a snake.”

JohnScott glanced at the sky above his head, sprinkled with cotton-ball clouds. “Not today, I’m not.”

“Use your hook to uncoil him, then reach in and pick him up.”

In five seconds, the second snake squirmed in the clamp, and JohnScott whooped. “I can’t believe I caught a rattlesnake. Fawn, look at this thing.”

I looked at it all right—from the safety of my perch on the railing, which may or may not have been strong enough to support my weight.

“Fawn’s hiding over there on the porch.” Clyde smiled, prompting me to climb down.

Clyde took the J-hook and explained the mechanics of getting the angry snake into the bag.

My teeth grazed my bottom lip. “So Clyde, tell me again how you know about this sort of thing.”

“My grandpappy.” He picked up the weighted bag, and we followed him to the front yard. “He used to compete every year in the rattlesnake round-up over in Sweetwater. Sometimes brought in a couple hundred diamondbacks in one weekend.”

I shivered, but neither of them noticed.

“He said I had snake eyes. Since I’m color-blind, I see the varmints easier than most people. Anyway, at twenty-one, I led a hunt on my own.” He gently laid the snakes in the back of JohnScott’s truck and winked at me. “After that, I took a short break … But this past March, I went back to the round-up again. Turns out hunting’s like riding a bike.”

My pulse slowed as my pride slithered into the grass. “Well … I’m glad you came.”

JohnScott peered at me from behind Clyde’s back. He only met my gaze briefly before looking away with a stifled smile, but I thought he might finally have shown that tiny bit of approval I’d been hunting for.