His first thought was to run. He’d landed right on top of the baby rattler, and the smartest thing to do would be escape before it bit him again. Trouble was, the pain in his toes made him mad.
He jumped to the side. Only then did he hear the buzzing rattle. It was a faint sound. The young snake had only one little nub at the tip of its tail instead of a full set of rattles. Still the tail quivered fast as the desert wind in a sandstorm. The snake began to coil.
He and his sister had watched Mama catch a snake before. First she used her wings, one at a time, to distract the thing. When it struck at the moving wing, she dodged and grabbed it by the tail. Then she flung it through the air—over and over against the rocks—until it stopped moving. “We roadrunners are the only birds who are quick enough and brave enough to eat rattlesnakes. Even so, wait until you are fully grown,” she’d warned them. “And never bite off more than you can chew.”
When they’d asked her what “never bite off more than you can chew” meant, Mama explained that if they tried to catch a snake that was too big or too strong, it would bite them. “If a rattlesnake bites you, you’re a goner.”
“Even a baby rattlesnake?” he’d asked.
“The poison from the babies is just as dangerous as the grown-up snake’s. Be quick! Don’t ever let one bite you!”
He was not fully grown. He didn’t even have his name yet. But he had already been bitten. Besides that, he was really mad. So before the thing could coil, he grabbed its tail with the tip of his long, sharp beak and yanked!
The jerk was so hard and quick the rattler popped up as straight as a yucca leaf. When the roadrunner let go, it flew through the air. There was a sudden thud when it slammed against the round rock. Stunned, it lay perfectly still, but for only an instant. Then its head rose from the ground, mean and angry looking. Quickly its body began to coil. It hadn’t even twisted into the second loop before he grabbed the tail again and yanked.
This time the snake spun through the air and landed on a small branch of the Apache plume. The little limb bowed low beneath its weight. Then when the branch could go no farther, it sprang back. The rattler flew high into the air. Straight and stiff, it spun about three times, then landed in the sand so hard that the dust flew.
“I may be a goner,” the roadrunner clattered. “But so are you. In fact, I think I’ll eat you for supper. My last meal.”
The snake had barely raised its head when he grabbed its tail and slung it a third time. This time the thing flew over the round rock and landed on the far side near the cow skull. He chased after it and threw it again, and again, and again. “Yeah! Hurrah! Get him. Tear that mean old rattlesnake up,” the young mice cheered from inside the cow skull.
“Hush, children!” he heard the mother mouse scold. “We live in the desert. It’s a harsh place. The plants are few and far between, and in the desert everything eats everything else. That’s a roadrunner. They are the quickest and best hunters of all the animals. He would just as soon eat us as the rattlesnake. Be quiet. Don’t let him know we’re here.”
The roadrunner ignored the mice, determined to do in the rattlesnake and stay true to his word to eat the thing for supper. Trouble was, when the time came, he didn’t feel like eating. His feet throbbed—clear up his strong legs and into the pit of his stomach. He hadn’t noticed the sick feeling or the pain before. He was too mad. Too busy. But now . . .
Staggering, his head drooping low, he wobbled back across the open toward the creosote bush from where he’d first seen the grasshoppers. There was shade. And even though the sun was low, barely resting on the tips of the mountains to the west, he needed shade. He felt hot. Sick. The pounding in his feet was more than he could stand. He glanced down.
They were beginning to swell. Each foot had four toes—two in the front and two in the back. The snake had bitten him on the right front toe on his left foot and the left hind toe on his right foot. He must have landed with his feet almost together. The rattlesnake bit only once, but each fang sank into a different foot.
He took a few steps, then threw up. A few more steps and he threw up again. By the time he stumbled into the shade of the creosote, there was nothing left in his stomach. Not even the slightest taste of grasshopper, or scorpion, or lizard. Even the sweet flavor of the skink tail no longer lingered in his beak. He was empty. Sick. Weak.
He fell beneath the branches of the creosote bush. Resting his head on the cool sand, he lay there a moment and closed his eyes. In the darkness behind his eyelids, he could almost see his family’s nest. Perched at the top of a young cholla cactus, it was a shallow, saucerlike nest made of sticks. He didn’t remember being in the egg, or being born. He did remember his mother keeping him and his sister cool during the day and his father protecting them at night.
Both Mama and Daddy fed them. He remembered feeling crowded, shoved, pushed. There was always noise when his parents came with food. But when he was old enough to be truly conscious of the nest and things around it, he and his sister were alone. They haggled over food, but there was always plenty for both.
Eighteen times the sun rose, then fell behind the mountains to rest in the Great Water, before his mother and father pushed them from the nest. For the next two weeks they brought them very little food. That was because they had to learn to hunt on their own. They watched. Copied their parents. Learned.
Such a short life! What a waste. I wish they’d given me my name, he thought. Without a name no one will remember me. Without a name, there will be nothing left but dust. Dust to be scattered by the wind and forgotten. I don’t even know if I can get into the Big Desert in the Sky without a name.
He forced his eyes to open so he could look around. Then he realized he couldn’t even lift his head from the sand. This was it. He closed his eyes and waited for the end.