The Turquoise Ledge

by Leslie Marmon Silko

  Linda said the Maya experts, including Maya people themselves, accused Díaz Bolio of using poetic license to construct the geometry and architecture of the Maya around the rattlesnake. But I found his book very appealing because I have been a “Crotalus-centric” believer for years without realizing I belonged to the cult of Ahau Kan.

  Evo, the indoor rattlesnake, was cranky and edgy this year, 2002; was it some negative energy I carried back with me from Mexico, from the town of Puerto Penasco, full of witchcraft? Or was it all the earth-smashing the neighbors did to remodel their house? When I fed him, Evo ignored the white mouse I offered him and half-heartedly sprang at me to show his irritation. I am always careful, but it was a good reminder.

  I bought long tongs so I can reach in and get his water dish safely. When he was slow and docile, a few times I dared to reach in with my bare hands to remove the water dish, but no more, not after the mood he’s been in.

  I watched Evo’s skin. It appeared lighter in color first, still beautiful, but then it looked faded, and the designs of his diamonds lost their clarity. The scales on the surface of his eyes became cloudy—a pale blue—as if he were blind.

  The following day his eyes cleared, those scales molt first; his skin was dull and dusty looking, the outlines of his diamonds blurred. Evo went in the dark corner of his cage and sat in a loose coil. Even when I filled his water bowl he didn’t move to investigate. Only a day before he’d been animated and alert. Three days passed and Evo didn’t move. He was waiting to molt. I watched him more closely than usual because as soon as he molted, he would want to eat. I had to go out of town and I wanted to feed him the rest of the mice before I left.

  Maybe it was the arrival of the humidity with the rain that finally triggered the molt. He began by rubbing his nose on the porcelain water dish until the scales and skin of his nose loosened. The dampness on the inner surface of the skin adhered to the porcelain; the snake’s reaction was to pull his nose away from the porcelain and as he did, the skin peeled back over his face and head inside out, like a sweater coming off, and he crawled away from the water dish and the skin peeled off him to leave behind a delicate translucent tube.

  At Christmas a visitor arrived. He was a friend of a friend. He knocked at the west door and when he came in we greeted one another by the snake cage, which was covered with blankets. But the visitor was anxious and exhausted by the travel. He didn’t come into the living room but instead stayed in the west porch conversing with my companion while I made dinner.

  Before we could warn him or stop him, the visitor sat down on the top of the snake cage which he mistook for a couch. His weight caused the screen top of the cage to collapse. Fortunately Evo was in his winter doze, so the visitor was safe. I covered the damaged cage top with a piece of plywood and forgot about it until the warm weather came and it was time to feed mice to Evo again.

  I never repaired the screen on Evo’s cage after the visitor fell through. The other morning I took off the plywood in preparation to feed the rattlesnake a few white mice. Evo rose up suddenly through the broken screen—he is about twenty-eight inches tall when he does that; oddly my heart didn’t skip a beat because I was standing well back from Evo’s cage. Simple caution or some intuition?

  Still his aggressive behavior left me feeling very cautious. I know he is very hungry. I bought him mice, but how do I get him to settle down enough to safely feed him?

  Evo is so beautiful—a pale beige and pale brown, a kinsman to the near albino rattlesnakes in these black mountains. His big head is potentially lethal if I am not careful. Next time feed me sooner, is what he meant by rearing up in front of me.

  Evo associates the light-colored or white clothes I wear in the summer with the white mice I feed him in the summer. Bright white means food and now when Evo sees me he gets very excited and jumps up like a pet dog. I’ve made a decoy mouse out of cotton balls I sewed together with a length of string to dangle outside the long glass snake cage to catch Evo’s attention and to lure him to the far end from me. I wait until he watches the decoy before I slide open the lid and drop in the live mouse.

  He only eats in the warmest months when the nights are in the eighties and the days over one hundred because heat aids the rattler’s digestion, and helps activate the enzymes in the venom which also aids the snake’s digestion.

  The last time I fed Evo, without thinking I spoke aloud to him and said, “Now don’t scare me. I want to feed you and give you fresh water.” Speaking to him seemed to help or maybe he just wasn’t as hungry as he’d been the time before but he remained calm and didn’t move toward me.

  At sundown as I walked toward the old corrals from the road, out of the corner of my eye motion caught my attention. About forty feet away, a rattlesnake three feet long was on the move through the desert—the most graceful of creatures, sinuous as flowing water, the snake gliding smoothly and silently as if it were floating a little above the ground between the jojoba bushes and palo verde by the old corral.

  The biggest rattlesnake I ever saw was on a dirt road in the high grasslands east of Elgin. The grasslands are full of food and water is plentiful so a rattler can grow quite large. This snake was nearly five feet long and as big as my forearm. It crossed the road in front of the car, swift and sinuous, its head held high through the tall grass and sunflowers. As it headed west it seemed almost a golden apparition as the afternoon sunlight glittered off its scales.

  Laurence Klauber the great rattlesnake expert wrote that a seven foot Eastern diamondback would be rare but possible. Any reports of rattlers over ten feet are myths, he writes. The extinct Crotalus giganteus reached twelve feet in length.

  At the time of the coming of the Europeans to the Americas, giant rattlesnakes in excess of ten feet in length with the diameter of a man’s thigh lived near springs and permanent sources of water. The indigenous people believed the springs belonged to the big snakes, and they revered the snakes as divine messengers and bringers of rain. Reports by the Spanish troops and the Catholic priests recount their diligence in hacking up these giant snakes or burning them alive in the name of Christianity.

  But the Americas are vast. Great expanses of mountainous areas are virtually inaccessible even by helicopter. Many rural locations are only visited a few times a year by a handful of people. Rattlesnakes are wise beings, so it seems possible that in remote box canyons in mountains too steep and rough for humans to enter, a number of twelve foot long rattlesnakes have survived after all. Viva Crotalus giganteus!

  CHAPTER 20

  Late June now, and the heat penetrates the highest reaches of the atmosphere, burning away the gases and chemical pollutants above the city. As the heat expands the air molecules they are thinner and less buoyant, no longer able to carry the particles of dust. The heat boils the sky to a deep blue. No traces of clouds, only the deepening blue as the air becomes crystal clear. The angle of the Sun causes the light to have the luminescence of a blue flame. The Sun is seated in the north corner of Time.

  The dry heat of the desert is sensuous. There is a perfect exchange between the dry air and the human body’s moisture so there is no end or beginning of skin or air.

  The wind moves past the screen

  no sound

  the curtain billows back.

  This indeterminate Spring

  is dreaming

  older days outreach the Sun

  higher and beyond

  memory is metaphor

  not the thing itself

  but enough it may fool us

  listening for the green edge along the canyon

  Never certain

  when the next rain may come.

  The endless afternoons of dry heat return—110 in the shade. The last of the yellow blossoms shrivel under the palo verde where the dry petals stir in a swirl of wind.

  The tortoise leans his face against the gravel and mud of the arroyo’s east bank. He is in his niche and he doesn’t want to be seen. He felt the shock waves of
the horses’ hooves long before we arrived.

  Here the seasons are rain and no rain. In a drought the desert is in perpetual autumn when things come to the end of growth and what was once alive turns yellow and then more pale.

  When the temperature exceeds one hundred twelve degrees Fahrenheit, the air smells of wood and bark just before they burst into flame.

  Twice since I came to this place, the ground here has caught fire. Oddly, both times this happened, the weather was cool. The first time it happened, I smelled what I thought were burning weeds. I searched for the source but could see nothing until I reached the old horse corral. There I was amazed to see many small threads of white smoke rising out of the bare, hard packed dry layers of dirt. A fire truck had to come spray the smoldering ground.

  The second time, I looked out the living room window and saw curls of white smoke rising out of the bare dirt of the embankment on the west side of the house. I thought maybe a pack rat had carried a lit cigarette butt into its nest. But when we dug into the dirt of the embankment to stop the fire we found no rat nests—only smoldering pieces of scrap wood buried in the dirt. Apparently enzymes and organic compounds in the desert soil had a strange intense chemical reaction which caused the soil to ignite and burn the wood.

  For the past two mornings a small rattler was coiled by the potted fig tree. Yesterday the little snake was on the shady side of the fig tree, but today it faced East. Not long after I came indoors I heard angry loud rattling that made the dogs bark. I went to see and there was nothing there to harass the snake, nothing to account for the little snake’s furious rattling except for the Sun—the snake was rattling angrily at the Sun’s heat that only got hotter and hotter as it rattled, until finally the snake fled into the drainpipe that goes underground.

  I saved a small rattlesnake from the pit of the old cistern last year, but this time when I saw a small snake down there, I delayed because the weather wasn’t hot yet, and I thought maybe the snake wanted to be there where little mice also live. Alas, when I went to check on the snake later, it was stretched out dead. In no time the hungry creatures of the desert happily consumed it.

  It’s July 6 and the wildfires in the Catalina Mountains have filled the entire valley with smoke. On the night of July 4, the flames came over the crest of the mountains and spread down toward the city, dwarfing the fireworks displays there. That was the night the rattlesnakes disappeared underground where six inches of dirt over your head will save you from wildfire.

  Here are some of the practical measures people can take to safely live side by side with rattlesnakes in the Sonoran Desert. Look first before you reach into a flowerpot—they hold cool dampness and provide shady spaces for rattlesnakes to rest during the day. Always provide a water bowl far away from the dog’s water bowl, far from the paths humans and pets take, and keep the water bowl full so the snakes never need to come close to your garden path or doorstep for water. Keep your pathways and walks open and well swept so you have a clear view at all times. Keep paths and steps well lit. Watch where you step—look behind yourself before you step backwards.

  I have a sketch for a snake house for the garden made with five rectangular pieces of gray slate from south of Laguna, but any flat stones will do. This gives snakes shady sanctuary so they will feel secure. If you give the snakes a secluded cool area in the summer you will seldom see them elsewhere.

  Over time the rattlesnakes will get to know you and your pets. They learn human and dog behavior and seem to understand the timing of our daily routines; they try to avoid encounters with us at all cost. A few times I’ve been very early or very late with my outdoor chores and I’ve surprised snakes that didn’t expect me at that time of day.

  The rattlesnakes that live in your garden or under your house will prevent unfamiliar rattlesnakes from moving too close until they learn how to get along with humans and dogs. Unfamiliar snakes are usually refugees from the real estate developers’ bulldozers that scrape the desert bare and kill everything in their path. Understandably these uprooted snakes may be edgy, so back off and give them space; they will learn quickly that you mean no harm.

  CHAPTER 21

  A few months ago on a ridge near my house, a bulldozer destroyed the hives of the wild bees to clear a building site. The bees have lost their stores of food in the hive, and now they want me to feed them until their scouts locate a new site for their hive. Swarms of them crowded the hummingbird feeder near my porch so the hummingbirds couldn’t get near. So I tried pouring sugar water into shallow saucers for the bees but a number of them had to be rescued from drowning. Then I tried a clean sponge in the sugar water, but the hummingbird feeder still works best to feed the bees.

  It is mid-July now and the bees come for water and swarm above the bowls. The bees are attracted to sweat or wet clothing or wet hair, so I try to take care not to accidentally squeeze or crush them.

  Bees understand kindness. They never try to sting me while I try to save one of them from drowning. I extend a leaf or twig and leave them to recover in a safe place. My dog Dolly eats the poor bees if I am not careful where I put them.

  The wild bees know me after all these years. I remind them that I am a friend each year when they return. In the hardest part of the summer, the wild Sonora honeybees eat the green algae that grow around and on top of desert ponds. Years ago when I kept water hyacinths in the rainwater cistern pool, the wild bees ate the outer layer of the plants during the hottest and driest part of that summer. If you are lost and need water, follow the honeybees and they will take you to water or at least to damp earth.

  For years the pack rats chewed on the 2×4 and 2×6 lumber in the kitchen floor and walls of this old ranch house. The pack rats found holes left by inept, careless remodelers and gnawed their way up through the floor into the kitchen cabinets, next to the electric range.

  I patched the holes with squares of wood but the rats made short work of that; I even tried metal roof flashing but they chewed it like aluminum kitchen foil. Hardware cloth worked, so I was vigilant where I saw incursions by the rats. What I could not see, behind the electric range, was the wall with the opening down to the crawl space under my old ranch house.

  Charlie was away a great deal of the time, and while he was gone, the pack rats gnawed through the old floor under the cabinets. Charlie offered to pay for the kitchen remodeling. No, I told him, I didn’t want the disruption while I was working on the novel. I bought a stainless steel bread box to keep fresh fruit and other goodies safe from the rats.

  The following winter the reddish-colored rattlesnake that lived under the house found its way through the holes and came hunting for rats in my kitchen. No one was home at the time so the snake went into the dining room and crawled under the red chaise longue. The snake waited until the house was dark and quiet and in the middle of the night it roamed around though it was always careful to return to its place under the chaise longue before daylight.

  I sat on the chaise a time or two and thought I heard a faint rustle of sorts, but I wouldn’t call it a “rattle.”

  I left the mastiffs alone indoors in the middle of the day and the rattlesnake came out from the red chaise longue and got into an altercation with them. When I got back from town, the mastiffs were nursing minor snakebites, and the red rattlesnake was hiding under a shelf on the kitchen floor. I put the dogs outside and the red rattler came out from its hiding place, ready to return to its place under the red chaise longue, but I opened the side door and encouraged it to go outside where it could get under the ranch house for the winter, not under the chaise longue.

  A couple of pack rats soon took over the front room too—they were able to get indoors because the pit bull needed the front door left open. The dog was a great rat killer back then and she became so excited and obsessed with reaching the rat hiding behind it that she nearly chewed off one entire corner of a big wooden bookcase. Finally to save the other bookcases and furnishings in the front room from the frenzy of the pit
bull, my son Robert shot the rat with a .22 target pistol.

  The pack rats nested in the big copier machine I used to print my Flood Plain Press books in the front room. They chewed off all the plastic coating on the electrical wiring. Later Charlie dismantled the dead copier and chopped it into six inch pieces for easy disposal.

  The pack rats are intelligent beings and are held in great esteem by the Tohono O’Odom and other desert tribes who depended on the creatures in times of drought and famine. The people used to loot the rats’ nests for seeds and dried fruit and roots and for the baby rats as well. I once trapped a large female pack rat that had great presence as if she were the Great Mother Pack Rat. Charlie wanted to kill her but I set her free.

  I carried her down the hill to release her in the hikers’ parking lot; she scampered away to a shady bush. A few moments later, as I walked back to the house, right at my gate I looked down and saw a perfect arrowhead of gray basalt, elegant and refined, made by the ancient ones. I knew it was a gift for sparing old Pack Rat’s life.

  The pack rats in the attic know how to spring the traps we set for them by using scraps of wood. The sprung traps gave me an appreciation for their cleverness.

  I call the big female pack rat that lives in my front yard “Ratty” after the character in The Wind in the Willows. I never bother her big rat complex in the middle of the front yard because it would disturb the rattlesnakes that live under the aloes and greasewood with Ratty.

  In late August I returned from a visit to my sister in Wyoming to find the large rattlesnake that lived under the feed shed had been killed earlier that day. A roadrunner or owl tore her into three pieces, but then was interrupted and abandoned the big snake’s remains.