by Dan Darling
“John,” a gruff voice said over the line. It belonged to Dennis, an animal control guy.
“Denny,” I said. “You got a snake?”
“We got a snake,” he rasped. Dennis smoked two packs a day and had a voice like one of those ancient movie stars who sounded like they gargle sandpaper.
“Address.” Every now and then, animal control got a call about an exotic snake―usually an escaped pet. They called me up to identify and capture it. I helped them with normal desert rattlesnakes, too.
Dennis gave me the address. I didn’t care for him and he didn’t like me much either. I didn’t like his cigarette stench. I didn’t like the way he drove all over the city kidnapping animals and euthanizing them. I didn’t like the way he called me John.
“Be there in fifteen minutes,” I said.
He grunted―which I didn’t like―and hung up.
The address wasn’t far from my house in the North Valley. It was in a rich new development in the Candelarias neighborhood called Matthew Meadows. The streets in the development were winding, with adolescent cottonwood trees, subterranean electrical lines, sidewalks flush with the asphalt, and houses with modern construction and fake adobe plaster in tones like lode and tope. I didn’t like Matthew Meadows.
I found the house and pulled in behind Denny’s truck. Denny was an Anglo guy with mussy white hair. He wore blue coveralls, yellow work boots, a lot of loose skin on his face, and burst arteries in his nose. He stood talking to a short Anglo woman with curly dark brown hair. She looked me up and down. Then she did it again, as if the first time wasn’t enough. A skinny boy with her hair, darker skin, and terrified eyes stood nearby.
“Snake’s out back,” Denny said. “Kid here almost hit it with the lawnmower.”
I blinked at Denny.
“Listen to this,” Denny whispered at me before turning to the boy. “What kind of snake did you say it was, son?”
The boy stared at me. I was worried that his eyeballs might fall out of his head.
“Milk rattler,” Denny sneered. Some people would have laughed or ribbed the boy or commented on how cute it was that he’d invented a new kind of snake. Dennis said it as if the boy was an idiot. Thankfully, the kid was too petrified of me to notice.
The boy had probably stumbled on an albino western rattlesnake, an escaped pet. Albinos didn’t last in the wild; they were too visible to predators.
“Let’s go get it,” I said.
The woman led us around the side of the house through a rickety gate. Beyond lay a half-acre of lawn. The mower sat quietly at the spot where shorn grass met long grass.
The boy lingered behind us. His mom stopped at the edge of the lawn and pointed. “It’s in front of the lawnmower.”
Denny and I walked over. The grass was so deep that I didn’t get a glimpse of the snake until we were nearly standing on the thing. Thick as an arm, it sported a wedge-shaped head and a rattle. Gold patches checkered its ivory scales.
The woman was one of those chatty types. “Daniel is never going to want to mow the lawn again,” she hollered across the grass. “Last summer, he hit a toad. It exploded. It took us months to get him out here again, and this is what he finds.”
We ignored her.
Denny threw his hands in the air. “Waste of a trip. Got a call from the West Side about a coyote and here I am looking at a dead snake.”
I toed the albino rattler’s head. Snakes could flail and even strike after death, but this one was far beyond that point. He was as limp as a dishtowel. I stooped and turned the body over. Something had mauled the underside of his neck. Bite wounds riddled his abdomen.
“Damn,” Denny said. “Bit by something.”
“Is it dangerous?” the woman yelled in a voice about twice as loud as it needed to be. “I can’t bear the idea of my Daniel getting bitten by a snake.”
Denny rumpled his calloused hand through his already rumpled hair. “Lotsa bite marks.”
Pink flesh showed through the wounds, but no blood ran from them. I stepped closer, intending to screen the snake from the sun with my body, and leaned into a pungent cloud of ammonia. Viscous yellow dappled a patch of grass beside the body. The scales around the bites had faint pink patterns swirled across them, almost impossible to detect against the pale flesh of the snake, but present on every wound. Tongue marks. Some creature had bitten this snake to death, sucked the blood out of it, licked every drop from the scales, then urinated all over the place.
“Hey!” Denny yelled over my shoulder. “Are you ready to go, I asked.”
I pawed at the grass, careful to steer clear of the urine. I worked out in a circle from the body, rifling clusters of blades until I could see the surface of the ground. The length of the grass made it tough going.
Denny groaned. “What are you looking for?”
“Tracks,” I said.
“Good God, why?”
“Something killed this snake,” I said through gritted teeth. I hated explaining myself to anybody, much less a normal like Denny.
“Who the hell kills a snake?” Denny threw his arms up in the air again, took five steps away, then took another five back. “I’ll tell you who.”
“I was wondering,” the mother yelled at us from where she stood with her arm around the boy’s shoulder, “if the snake is dangerous? Should we do something about dangerous snakes coming into our yard?”
Denny turned on her. “It’s dead!” He turned back to me. “Eagle, that’s who.”
My search through the grass hadn’t revealed anything.
“Eagle―he flies, John. He grabs rattlesnakes. He bites ’em. He flies away. You can’t track eagle.”
I didn’t bother to tell him that I had recently tracked down a suspect mutant tarantula wasp―also a flier. I didn’t tell him that eagles didn’t suck blood. I didn’t remind him that eagles didn’t have tongues, and therefore couldn’t lick wounds. Plus, there was no flying creature in New Mexico―in the world―big enough to kill a fat five-foot long rattlesnake and that also drank blood. “Denny, go to the West Side. Catch your coyote.”
“I will just as soon as you tell me you’re going to dispose of that snake, so I know how to fill out my paperwork.”
I placed my palm in the spot where I was looking to hold my place in the sea of grass. I turned and gave him a malevolent giant glare.
He held up his palms. “Okay! You don’t have to give me that look. Now I know how to fill out my forms. John Stick disposed of a dead snake that we should never have been called about.”
I glared at him until he left, and went back to my search. A few square yards led to the feet of the short brown-haired woman, who’d obviously become tired of waiting for an explanation of what I was doing. Her son lingered at the edge of the grass. She smiled at me. She had a face pleasant enough for me to dislike.
“Can I ask what you’re looking for?” She talked like a normal: instead of asking a question, she asked if she could ask.
“I’m looking for traces of the animal that killed this snake.”
“What animal is that?” she asked.
I didn’t have an answer for her.
“How important is it that you find it?” she asked.
I tried to figure out how to put it. “I have no idea what it could possibly have been. I’m a zookeeper. I know animals.”
“Professional curiosity,” she said. “Could it have been a coyote? There have been sightings.”
“Coyotes are smart. I’m sure one could have dug under your fence. Found a gap. Snuck in and escaped.”
“Do coyotes eat rattlesnakes?”
They did. A roadrunner could also take down a medium-sized rattlesnake. Eagles and hawks ate them. “Could be.” I didn’t mention the loss of blood—no need to scare the kid.
“Well,” the woman said, “I bet that’s it.”
That could have been it. A coyote might lap up blood that spilled out of the wounds of its prey―blood was delicious and nutritious. Then something mig
ht have scared it off before it could eat the flesh. It was a thin theory. A coyote would have left tracks, and I didn’t think one would urinate so close to the kill. I’d know more when I got the snake back to my lab and checked the teeth imprints.
“Mister?” asked the boy. He still wouldn’t step onto the grass. His thin, high voice made me feel pity for him, which I didn’t like at all.
“What?” I asked.
“I heard a sound last night.”
The corners of his mother’s mouth twitched downwards.
“What sound?” I asked.
“I heard it at two in the morning,” the little boy said. “I know because I got a clock radio for my birthday.”
“Shouldn’t you have been asleep?” I asked.
“I don’t sleep at night,” the boy said.
“He has trouble sleeping,” his mother echoed. “He’s been scared a lot.”
Despite my best efforts, I felt sorry for the little guy. His body was tiny and fragile. He looked like he hadn’t smiled in a year. “What sound did you hear?’
“A devil,” he said.
“There are no such things as devils,” his mother said to him.
“I saw one on TV,” he said.
I stood. It hurt. My back had taken a lot of punishment during the past week. I walked to the kid and tried not to tower over him. “What show were you watching?”
“He likes nature documentaries,” his mom said.
That was another reason to like the kid. “Are you talking about a Tasmanian devil?” I asked.
The boy nodded up and down the way little kids do.
“And that’s what you heard last night?” his mom asked.
The boy nodded. “It was a screaming, grunting sound. Just like they made on TV.”
The kid seemed legit. “You’re sure you weren’t dreaming?” I asked.
“I don’t sleep at night,” he said.
His mom circled behind him and put her hands on his scrawny shoulders. “We’re thinking about getting him help.”
I stooped down to get closer to the kid’s level, despite the harm it did to my bones. “Do you know what the most dangerous animal on the planet is?”
“The Tasmanian devil?” he asked.
I poked him in the chest. “You.”
He gulped. His dark eyes narrowed just a hair.
“Nobody messes with humans,” I said. “We’re the toughest living things on the planet.” I straightened up. The boy’s mother mouthed thank you.
I collected my snake and drove back to the zoo, to find Marchette waiting for me in my lab.
“Greetings Stick.” He appeared a little yellower around the gills than usual. His bald head boasted a sheen and his eyes hung far back in droopy eye sockets. He wore rubber gloves and wielded a steel probe and scalpel. The opened body of one of the hissing cockroaches lay on a dissection tray. His voice was beaten down―it didn’t annoy me as much as usual.
I nodded at him.
His eyes caught on the burlap sack I carried. “Pray tell, what’s in the bag?”
“Dead snake.”
He followed me into my lab. I upended the bag and dumped the snake on a table. Marchette blinked at it. “Albino rattlesnake. Quite rare.”
“What can I do for you, Doc?”
“Ah yes.” He jammed his glasses up his nose with a thumb. “Business.” He opened his mouth. Then he shut it. Then he opened it, grimaced, and looked at the door. “May I?”
I gave him the mildest of shrugs.
He closed the door and rubbed a palm all over his cranium, as if polishing a light bulb. “This is awkward.”
“Things with you are always a little awkward, Doc.”
He giggled. “I suppose so. Social skills, and so forth.” He cleared his throat. “I’m here about the egg.”
I knew which egg he was talking about. “It seems healthy―”
Marchette held up his hand. “Please don’t tell me. I’m not here to gather information about it. I’m here to tell you.” He lowered his voice. “Keep it a secret.”
Obviously, the doctor didn’t realize how little Melodía or I went yapping around town.
“Has Dr. Hernandez told anyone about it?” he asked.
“I don’t imagine so.”
“Have you?”
I shook my head. I’d told Rex and my father, but Rex would have forgotten as soon as he left my house, and my father was probably asleep when I told him.
“I advise you: do not tell anyone. Give Dr. Hernandez the same warning. That egg has nothing to do with the death of the birds. It’s just the egg of pepsis formosa. It’s a false trail.”
“I thought you told Dr. Hernandez it was more than just a tarantula hawk egg. That it didn’t fit.”
“Did I?” He cocked his head, as if trying to remember an event long past.
“C’mon Doc,” I said. “You remember.”
“I may have been swept up in the enthusiasm of the moment. An event such as that which wiped out so many birds at once will provoke excitement in even the most objective scientific mind, I dare say.”
“So,” I said, “you think the egg is normal.”
He nodded too vigorously.
“Well, I guess we’ll find out soon,” I said.
“The egg is indeed normal,” he said. “You both should let it go the way of the dodo―excuse me? Did you say you’d find out?”
I grinned at him.
“Why would you say that?” he asked.
“I would say that because I implanted the egg in the back of my friend Jones.”
He cocked his head. “Who is Jones?”
“He’s a tarantula I’m acquainted with.”
“You’re hatching it?” Marchette was a sincere guy. It was one of the reasons I liked him more than other normals. In our situation, it meant that he couldn’t keep the panic out of his voice.
“Nope,” I said. “Dr. Hernandez is.”
He grabbed the collar of my zoo jacket. He had to reach above his head to do it. “You must tell her not to. It would be a mistake. Tell her to destroy the thing. Tell her to incinerate it.”
I felt like I’d stepped into a movie. People in my world never grabbed each other and tried to plead sense into them. I almost laughed at him. Instead, I gently unlaced his fingers from my jacket and stepped away. “It’s just an egg. An insect will hatch out. It may not even live. If it does, I’ll buy Dr. Hernandez a flyswatter as a safeguard.”
“You don’t understand.”
“So make me.”
Marchette’s shoulders slumped. His sallow face hung limp. “I’m afraid I can’t.”
I clapped the little scientist on the shoulder. “That’s a defeatist attitude, Doc. Don’t worry. I’m looking over her shoulder. She’ll be fine. Tarantula hawks can’t hurt anyone. Their stings are painful as hell, but never fatal.”
He shook his head slowly. “You don’t understand.” His eyes wandered over to the albino rattlesnake. “Another innocent murdered.”
“It’s a dog-eat-dog world,” I said. “This snake was slinking through the backyard of a little boy. The kid almost ran over it with the lawnmower. If something hadn’t gotten to it first, it might have bitten him. With his body mass, he would’ve been a goner.”
“What killed it?” he asked.
“Still have to figure that out.”
“No blood.” He fingered one of the bites. “Sucked out. How queer.” The gears in his head were turning.
I propelled him toward the door with a whack on the spine. “Go get some lunch, Doc. Or better yet, sleep. You look like you need it.”
He sighed, keeping his eyes on the snake. “What is that saying? I shall sleep when I am dead.”
“It’s your zoo day,” I said. “Everything’s in fine order here. I’ve got it under control. Go home and take a nap for twenty hours or so. If anyone asks―they won’t―I’ll tell ’em you were here probing the cockroaches and inoculating the dragonflies.”
H
e smiled up at me. “You’re a kind man, Mr. Stick.”
“Just Stick.”
“Unfortunately, my employer demands detailed reports that cannot be faked. I must do my rounds thoroughly and honestly, and bring the appropriate paperwork back to him.”
It was strange to think about Marchette, a doctor and all, being anyone’s poodle. “Where did you say you worked?”
His smile became bleaker. “I didn’t.”
I flexed my eyebrows and waited for more. I didn’t get it. “Care to elaborate?”
He straightened my jacket for me. “Have a good day, Stick. I shall retire to the other laboratory, as I know you prefer to work in solitude.”
As he walked out, I shrugged off that he wouldn’t tell me who he worked for, and turned to my long, white, dead guest. The holes torn in his belly and neck were deep clean punctures. No chewing or gnawing. The assailant had powerful jaws. It had canines that were, from what I could tell, only slightly longer than the incisors, of which there were two on the top and two on the bottom. The mouth, from canine to canine, measured a little over an inch. That measurement was consistent in the lower and upper jaws. All this led me to one conclusion: I didn’t know much about mammalian taxonomy.
Before putting the snake on ice so I could round up some books, I took a few digital pictures, with a ruler in the frame for scale, and printed them. I put the snapshots in a file, labeled the file with the address and date, and put it away in my filing cabinet, where it would sit for eternity. It was satisfying, filing something. It was comforting to know both that it would always be there and that you’d never look at it again.
The rest of my day transpired without any drama. I ate lunch at some point. I cleaned up my python’s cage, being sure to leave every detail as she’d known it so that when she returned she’d feel no loss. I started thinking about what I would feed her on that day. It powered me through the remainder of my day until I went out into the parking lot a few minutes past dusk and found Tanis Rivera camped out in the bed of my pickup truck.
She sat in one of two fold-up lawn chairs flanking a small plastic table and drinking what looked like a piña colada from a tall, curvy glass. She wore a sun hat, white-rimmed sunglasses, and a winter coat. A grill with the lid down exhaled two spires of smoke, like a hippopotamus venting water vapor.