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Snake Failure (November 20, 2009.  Issue 11.)

We never started out to catch snakes. It was the lure of alfalfa. We didn't need to worry about knocking it over like wheat, or trampling it like young corn or soybeans. Alfalfa spread like a green invitation all the way down to the creek.

We spotted field mice and groundhogs, and less often, snakes. There were water moccasins around, but what we found in the field were harmless garter snakes. When we did, the hunter instinct kicked in.

It was my fault we got caught. "Quick! Get the pot!" Johnny sent me for the pan and I went, not understanding the connection. We’d caught snakes before, but we'd never tried to keep one.

The pan had been ours since Mom burned popcorn in it. Flames pushed against the cupboard overhead, smoke filled the kitchen, and Mom threw the pan out the back door where it clattered against the patio, metal-on-stone ringing in the November night. Always the scavenger, I'd squirreled it out of the trash and into the back of the workbench in the garage. It came in handy for hauling mud and scooping up tadpoles. I wore it Johnny Apple seed-style through the woods with a foxtail to chew on and felt almost completely male.

"Here! Quick, quick, quick, I got one!" Johnny danced from foot to foot as I raced back through the alfalfa in the pale dusk. He held a wriggling slick garter snake stiff-elbowed away from himself. I reached out the pan but he grimaced in an agony of impatience--"No, you'll never keep it in there! It'll crawl right out! On the ground! Turn it over!"

Its tail looped serene below his fingers. Johnny squeezed behind the head and its mouth opened wide, tongue tasting the air.

"Don't hurt it!"

"I'm not hurting it! Look, when I put it down, you slap the pan over it--fast." He leaned toward the ground.

"What if I miss it?" I backed away.

"You won't miss it--slam it down fast--Come on!" The snake's tail wound up, missing his fingers by an inch. He shook it down. "Come on!" He stepped toward me and leaned down again.

"What if I hit it?" I stepped away. "What if I cut it in two?"

Brian yelled from under the boxelder tree. He'd spotted another snake. Johnny looked imposing as steel. "You get that pan over this snake and then sit on it hard." He stretched out his whole body like he was lighting a fuse and as soon as his fingers dropped the snake I smashed the aluminum pan squarely onto the alfalfa and dirt and squatted onto it.

I often missed snake-catchings--too late or too scared or, like this, otherwise occupied. I asked the guys how they actually caught a snake, but they just looked at me like it was something you knew or you didn't, like being able to rumble air through your throat so it comes out sounding like a gravel truck or a road-grader instead of a motorcycle.

The two of them were beating around under the boxelder when I got nervous about the snake. What if I had cut off its head? What if it was bleeding? I checked on the left, but there was nothing. The stale scent of cooking oil and scorched corn rose from the pan.

On the right, next to the heel of my Red Ball Jet, came the head of the garter, slithering, nosing, curling up against the battered aluminum. Thoughts tumbled like clothes in a dryer as I filled my lungs with air: Can't get up, it'll panic and crawl right up my jeans leg. Can't sit here, it's coming up the pan. Can't crush it: sit still. Can't let it get away.

The boys stopped short on their way back to me with the second snake when my scream filled the field. I had the presence of mind even as I yelled to be amazed: they thought I'd get up and let them put another snake under me like a brood hen sitting on eggs. Dad bolted out of the gloom past them, growing bigger at an alarming rate. I couldn't stop screaming until he grabbed me up and I was away from the snake.

"What are you kids up to?" I breathed in the smell of Brylcreem and motor oil from his collar, tightened my arms around his neck, and listened to the tone of his voice.

Johnny dropped the snake. "Nothing."

"You leave the snakes alone. They're right where they belong. Leave em alone now." Over his shoulder I saw Johnny tip up the pan and shake his head. The snake was long gone. We never talked about why I couldn't have just kept my mouth shut, and we never hunted snakes again, not even when we were alone in the woods and no one would ever have known. I felt high and safe and protected being carried home, big girl of six years, but awfully separate from the two boys trudging home on foot under the fresh stars.