Warm weather means the beginning of rattlesnake season in my neck of the woods. It actually means the beginning of snake season generally—all snakes, any snake—but it’s the rattlesnakes that command the most attention.

 

I don’t really mind rattlesnakes. I regard them as one of the most gracious of nature’s creatures, tactfully and politely warning passersby of their presence, asking nothing more than not to be stepped on. The non-venomous and highly useful gopher snake has done my blood pressure far more harm than any rattlesnake. You never see a gopher snake until you’re just about to step on it, and because it looks much like a rattler at a casual glance, when you do finally see it (and think it’s a rattler) you start taking evasive measures that would make an Olympic athlete envious. I was walking down the stairs in front of my house and a gopher snake about the size of Arizona was sunning itself at the base of one of the risers. I didn’t see it until I was in the process of stepping over it, so I only had one foot on the ground, yet I was able to achieve the kind of vertical lift that makes LeBron James famous, coupled with horizontal distance only a few inches shy of a new world record.

 

A rattlesnake would have courteously notified me of his presence and requested that I leave him alone. And out in the valley, or riding up in the mountains, I do leave them alone. Live and let live. That’s my motto.

 

Unfortunately, what with dogs and horses—not to mention a wife who really is scared of rattlesnakes—live and let live is not a practical approach on my little ranch. A rattler can kill a horse quicker than God got the news, and you can rack up veterinary bills for your dogs that make the national debt seem like a bagatelle, mere chump change.

 

Also unfortunately, the man who originally built this house did many things right, but he also did many things wrong (i.e. things I don’t like, though he may have been delighted with his choices). And one of the things I’m not crazy about is that he placed the house at the edge of a hill below some boulders. Rattlesnakes like to den among boulders. Our warm weather is just beginning and already I’ve had to kill two baby rattlers right in the dog yard.

 

And, most unfortunate of all, in our neck of the woods we have Mojave rattlesnakes, sometimes called Mojave Green rattlesnakes.

 

For those of you lucky enough to live in parts of the world without Mojave Green rattlers, I will explain that they are considered the most dangerous snake in the West, and some experts claim all of North America.

 

The other North American candidate is the Eastern Diamondback, which can reach eight feet in length and weigh up to thirty pounds, with fangs approaching an inch in length, and enough venom to kill sixteen people. The venom of the Eastern Diamondback is an extremely potent hemotoxin that attacks red blood cells, but it is unclear to me if it is the potency of the venom or the large amount the snake can inject that makes him so dangerous. Fortunately, we don’t have Easterns out here, but many years ago I was invited to go turkey hunting in southern Mississippi and was advised to bring some snake proof boots. I bought a pair of knee-high Cordura boots and sailed forth feeling very macho. I was tempted to carry a swagger stick. In Mississippi my host welcomed me and gave me a tour of the place. We had just walked into the living room when a phone rang in another room and he excused himself.

 

“Make yourself at home. The bar’s right there; grab a beer.” He walked out and I went behind the bar. Technically, what was coiled in the corner was an Eastern Diamondback snake, but to my feverish senses it looked like something left over from the Jurassic. It was dead, of course, mounted by a first rate taxidermist, with its mouth open to strike, and I am not exaggerating an iota when I tell you I could put my entire fist in that mouth without touching the fangs on top or bottom. A large specimen is supposed to be able to swallow a rabbit whole; this one looked capable of swallowing a young deer. Or a young turkey hunter. They told me later it had measured over eight feet, but all I could think as I looked at it was that if a snake that large chose to make my acquaintance it would stand up and look me in the eye, and that it could strike with enough force to break a man’s leg. My little snake proof boots suddenly seemed pretty ridiculous.

 

But the Eastern Diamondback is relatively shy and retiring. Not so the Mojave Green. What makes the smaller Mojave Green (four feet would be a large specimen) so deadly is a combination of aggression and an exceptionally potent venom that is primarily a neurotoxin, but certain subspecies may also contain hemotoxins as well. They are so toxic that the legend (untrue, of course) is that they were developed by the military to be dropped into enemy tunnels during the Viet Nam war. I have read that the Mojave rattler’s venom is ten times more toxic than the Eastern Diamondback’s. Some sources say thirty times. I don’t know how they determine such things, and I don’t wish to find out. But I have had first hand experience of the aggression.

 

I was driving along a dirt road in an agricultural area, going to train one of my bird dogs, when I saw a snake crossing the road. I was going very slowly and I drove well around it (live and let live!) but as I passed I saw the distinctive olive green color. (I have since learned they can range from olive green to dusty grey-green to brownish-green or even yellowish.) It was the first Mojave Green I had ever seen, so I stopped my truck and looked out the window. By the time I got the window down that damn snake had already coiled and was vigorously attacking my truck, striking repeatedly at the left rear wheel. Thank Heaven for tough all-terrain tires.

 

My other encounter was even more impressive. Darleen and I were going to a party, all dressed up in our glad rags, and at the foot of our driveway we saw a Mojave rattler strolling up the drive with his hands in his pockets just as cool as you please, looking for all the world as if he owned the place and strolling, unfortunately, right toward the yard where the dogs were watching us leave. I stopped the car and told Darleen I would keep the snake from disappearing in the pasture while she went to the barn and got a shovel. I needn’t have worried. That Mojave rattler was as psychopathically combative as all his kind and he had no intention of going anywhere. In fact, he tried his hardest to make me disappear. In the sixty to ninety seconds it took Darleen to get the shovel, I had already retreated an honest thirty or forty feet as that damned snake chased me.

 

I have had other rattlers get on the muscle with me while I was out riding, but never to that extent. If I back up, or veer my horse away, the snake is usually willing to call a truce and retreat. Not the Mojave. “Today the desert. Tomorrow the world!” That’s the Mojave’s motto.

 

An appropriate poem, Eve, by Ralph Hodgson:

 

Eve, with her basket, was

Deep in the bells and grass,

Wading in bells and grass

Up to her knees.

Picking a dish of sweet

Berries and plums to eat,

Down in the bells and grass

Under the trees.

 

Mute as a mouse in a

Corner the cobra lay,

Curled round the bough of the

Cinnamon tall…

Now to get even and

Humble proud Heaven and

Now was the moment or

Never at all.

 

“Eva!” Each syllable

Light as a flower fell,

“Eva!” he whispered the

Wondering maid,

Soft as a bubble sung

Out of a linnet’s lung,

Soft and most silverly

“Eva!” he said.

 

Picture that orchard sprite;

Eve with her body white,

Supple and smooth to her

Slim fingertips;

Wondering, listening,

Listening, wondering,

Eve with a berry

Half-way to her lips.

 

Oh, had our simple Eve

Seen through the make-believe!

Had she but known the

Pretender he was!

Out of the boughs he came,

Whispering still her name,

Tumbling in twenty rings

Into the grass.

 

Here was the strangest pair

In the world anywhere,

Eve in the bells and grass

Kneeling, and he

Telling his story low…

Singing birds saw them go

Down in the path to

The Blasphemous Tree.

 

Oh, what a clatter when

Titmouse and Jenny Wren

Saw him successful and

Taking his leave!

How the birds rated him,

How they all hated him!

How they all pitied

Poor motherless Eve!

 

Picture her crying

Outside in the lane,

Eve, with no dish of sweet

Berries and plums to eat,

Haunting the gate of the

Orchard in vain…

Picture the lewd delight

Under the hill tonight—

“Eva!” the toast goes round,

“Eva!” again.