A Girl's Guide to Guns and Monsters - Martin Harry Greenberg [88]
At the moment, Melinda’s least worry was the comfort of the snake.
“Can I keep it? Please?”
“No, honey.” Melinda took out her cell phone, punched in 4-1-1 and asked for the Department of Natural Resources. “This is a poisonous snake. Its bite can make people very sick. See the tail?” She made a mental note to tell Mike to teach their daughter to examine snakes before grabbing them.
Kaylee pressed her face to the plastic. “Are those rattles, Mommy? Is this a rattlesnake?”
“DNR,” said a voice on the other end of the line.
“I found a rattlesnake in my yard.”
“A rattlesnake?” A note of interest entered the man’s voice. “Can you describe it?”
Melinda did so.
“Ma’am, do you happen to live near a swamp?”
Melinda had never thought of her neighbor’s property as a swamp. That brought to mind images of quicksand-like muck and algae hidden deep in uncivilized pockets of Louisiana. “There’s a peat bog across the gravel road. A working business.”
“Yup.” Melinda could almost hear the man nodding knowingly on the other end of the line. “What you have is a Masagua rattler. It’s an endangered species.”
Melinda glanced at Kaylee, still staring into the container. A shiver traversed her at the realization of what might have happened if Kaylee had moved a bit slower or the snake a bit faster. “Do you want to pick it up? Or should I bring it to you?”
The man chuckled. “Ma’am, it’s an endangered species. That means you have to leave it exactly where you found it.” He added quickly, “You haven’t disturbed it, have you?”
“No,” Melinda lied, not wanting any trouble from the DNR. “But it’s in my front yard. With my young daughters.”
The man went silent for a moment, then said matter-of-factly, “You might want to get your daughters inside.”
You think? Melinda found herself speechless. She cleared her throat. “Well, thank you for your help.” She hoped she managed to keep sarcasm from her voice. There was no way in heaven or hell that she was going to loose a live rattlesnake back onto her front lawn. She set the container in the grass.
“Kaylee, don’t touch that.” She pointed at the captured snake.
Kaylee nodded. True to her word, she did not touch it, but she did stare at the creature moving around inside it.
It took Melinda thirty minutes to hoist Paige back into her wheelchair. Paige grew heavier by the day, it seemed, even as her mother aged. The lack of tone in her limbs made it a race to fasten the straps before she slipped out and had to be lifted again. Finally, sweating and tired, Melinda got Paige secured and wheeled her toward the house. “Leave the snake; I’ll take care of it. Time to go inside.”
Reluctantly, Kaylee followed. Melinda knew her younger daughter would have liked to play outside for hours, but she had grown so used to Paige’s schedule that she did not bother to complain. It often took hours to feed the older girl; she drooled, swallowed slowly, and choked often, even on baby food. It took many jars to satisfy the appetite of a ten-year-old girl. Six hour- long meals a day cut deeply into their schedule.
Melinda wheeled Paige to the table and instructed Kaylee to sit in her chair as well. Then, she rushed upstairs and unlocked the gun case. In the days since she had shot the bull snake, she had handled the Mossberg 12-gauge enough to understand loading and unloading, the safety, and the bolt action. She had found the shells her husband had left and loaded three into the magazine. Shifting one into the chamber, she took it downstairs and outside to the container, where the snake hammered its nose against the plastic in obvious frustration and anger.
You have to leave it exactly where you found it, the man had said. Melinda intended to do so. But he had not said what had to happen afterward. Cautiously, Melinda pulled off the lid. Holding it as far away from herself as possible, she dumped the snake onto the imprint left by Paige’s body in the grass. Exactly where we found you. She expected the snake to race away in the opposite