Surprisingly enough, the road was a swiss cheese of potholes and pits, which made it a challenge to navigate on a bicycle at high speed. Pastures spread out on either side of the road. Not the green rolling fields the word “pasture” brings to mind in most people, but a dry, brown field covered with thousands, thousands of fire ant mounds. The cows stand equidistant between mounds, heads down in the low, dead grass.
Close to the junction of Stephen F. Austin and Peach Point Road there was always a strong stench of decay. This was the area where <name witheld> would throw the corpses of his hunting dogs when they had been killed dragging down a wild boar. This is also where he threw the legs, entrails and heads of the deer those same dogs caught and killed, in season or out. He was one of the most sadistic assholes in our neighborhood, but this story is not about him. More on his exploits later…
Deep ditches that line Stephen F. Austin Road on either side are eternally swampy, filled with cattails, beer bottles, mosquito colonies, and old furniture and household appliances. And snakes. Lots of them. These ditches are home to the Cotton Mouth Water Moccasin, the only snake I have ever personally observed that does not fit the adage “they are as afraid of you as you are of them”. I have seen them leave the far riverbank and go after friends in the water. I have seen them drop from an overhanging branch into a passing canoe just to get at the people inside. The Jones Creek Moccasin just hates people, and one in particular really hated Danny.
During a daily trip to the Diamond Mini-Mart on our bikes we spotted a big one stretched out across the road sunning itself. It must have been a seven footer, as big as a tree trunk and an evil black. It was very common to see snakes that had been mangled by trucks on this road, so we weren’t all that excited right off. As we closed in, it became obvious that this one was laid out ramrod straight, and the dead snakes never maintained this posture. We could hardly believe our luck! Hearts and pedals pounded as we accelerated to attack speed!
Now, there is something that takes hold of a person when they get into a car. Surrounded by steel and glass, hundreds of horsepower under command, isolated from the outside world we become more aggressive. Our id takes on physical life through the car. Well this same thing takes place in a kid’s mind when he is on that bike. “I am on this bike, speeding faster than I could ever run, and my feet do not even touch the ground. I am invulnerable to snakes!”
It was this instinctive mentality that drove us at breakneck speed toward the opening maw of that devil. We assumed a flying wedge formation, Danny at the point aiming for the center of the reptile. I trailed him by a few yards to his left, taking aim for the head. What happened in the next few paragraphs passed in a time no more than three seconds long.
Danny’s front tire ran directly over the center of the snake and my front wheel was right on target, but I never hit the head. In a move that was so fast that it defies description, the head swung around and buried wicked fangs into Danny’s rear tire just as it ran over the snake. The bike was moving so fast that the momentum of the spinning tire wheeled the snake up into the air, stretching it out to full length so that, for a fraction of an instant, it towered seven feet over Danny’s back. Then it fell down.
At the apex of it’s swing, the snake let go of the tire and draped over the back of Danny’s neck and shoulders. As it thrashed and writhed around attempting to get a firm hold on its new mount Danny was attempting to keep the bike upright through a particularly nasty set of potholes while not losing speed. To come to a stop would only make it easier for the snake to strike. To crash would mean that he, the vengeful snake, and the bike would become one twisted heap. Slim chance that he would be able to separate himself before being bitten repeatedly.
As we sped along we tightened up our formation. Artie made a one handed grasp of the tail of the beast to yank it loose. The ophidian eyes locked briefly on my white knuckles on the handlebar, and it leapt for them, fangs extended. Because of Artie’s grip on the tail, it did not have the reach to get me. The combination of its leap toward me with its tail being tugged was enough to dislodge it from Danny, and it tumbled onto Stephen F. Austin. We wheeled our bikes around a safe distance away (about 50 feet) and stopped to assess the capability of our adversary, to determine if another pass was warranted. It eyed us coldly from the center of the street, and we faced each other like old west gunfighters for a time. Eventually we decided that we would continue on to the Diamond Mini-Mart, and if the creature was still there when we returned we would let him have it.
Perhaps we lingered awhile longer at the Mini-Mart than usual. I got the traditional Welch’s Orange soda and a Marathon Bar. You know, you can’t eat a Marathon Bar fast. Took in a couple of games of Dig Dug, talked to Deputy Gobel when he patrolled through the parking lot.
We were all secretly relieved when the snake was gone during our return trip. If he had been there our egos would have demanded another run at him. Even if that were not the case, it would have been unnerving to try and skirt such a large snake on such a narrow road. When we reached the location of the previous battle we all road in the center of the road, equidistant from the ditches on either side. We also passed that point as quickly as possible, not daring to put a foot on the ground until we were far away.
