We got Jake's bachelor pad (travel trailer) set up and leveled about twenty yards from the house yesterday. Got it clean and ready to live in. Fred and I were around the back lighting the hot water heater when Squee the cat and Mooch the pup came wandering out of the brush to the rear of the trailer. The cat was walking like he was on stilts, stepping high like he didn't want to put his feet down in the weeds. Mooch was walking like she had done something bad -- slinking -- head hung low, looking like she was in trouble ... or scared. Then we heard it ... a startlingly loud rattle.
At first it didn't register. Fred and I were talking and I just noticed the two animals out of the corner of my eye. Then it happened again ...
"ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch"
"Did you hear that?" I asked Fred.
"Sounded like a rattler." Fred said, craning his neck to look over his shoulder at the brush.
"A big one!" I amended and stood up abruptly, smacking my head on the window canopy, which prompted some seriously dirty words.
"ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch"
"Where is it?" Fred grabbed the shovel and headed toward the brush. "That makes my skin crawl. I have to kill it if I can find it."
We both envisioned Jake walking back and forth from the trailer in the dark, not paying any particular attention to where he was putting his feet.
"ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch"
Our immediate neighbors swore up and down when we first moved in that there were no rattlers out here, even though we saw and heard them. They were some serious beer drinkers, though -- three case a weekend-ers -- every weekend. I'm not sure they would have known if there were dinosaurs out here.
My heart was racing. The sound of the rattle put it about six yards away. Fred was like a thing possessed, whacking at the weeds with that shovel. Jake showed up with an armload of his clothes and we told him what we'd heard.
"Where'd you hear it?" He ditched the clothes and grabbed a four foot length of 2 X 4.
"Just stay away from there Jake. The cat and the dog spooked it I think, it's probably long gone by now. I imagine it was laying there sunning and they came up on it. It probably took off to find a less busy spot." I said.
"I have to kill it if I can." Jake repeated Fred's words almost verbatim. Like father like son.
They never did find it, but we didn't hear any more warnings from the snake so I think he went on to a quieter place. I'm like the guys though, the thought of this big snake anywhere near the house makes my skin crawl too.
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