I stepped toward the open space, but Clyde raised a palm. “Why don’t you get on the porch.” As an afterthought, he stepped to the corner of the house and inspected the raised platform, the railing, even the covered ceiling. He turned to me and glided his hand through the air like a used-car salesman. “Please.”
I glanced at JohnScott, who couldn’t seem to take his eyes off the ground, and then I returned Clyde’s smile. “Certainly.” I didn’t like the idea of Clyde taking charge no matter what kind of experience he had. “So how do you know about snakes?”
The coach’s gaze left the ground long enough to roll his eyes at me, but Clyde only sidestepped to the crawl space and squatted slowly, giving the impression of a tall elevator lowering to the bottom floor. He peered inside. “There we go, JohnScott. She only moved back a ways, trying to find a cooler spot. It’s hot as blazes out here.” He got down on one knee, leaning closer to the opening and extending the pole slowly into the shadows. “Watch out now. I’m going to pull her toward me with the J-hook, so I’ll have more control.”
The coach put his weight on his back foot in case he needed to bolt, while Clyde continued to speak smoothly. “I’ve shore enough wondered about that serpent in the garden of Eden. Evil little thing. But this one?” He jerked the pole, then flipped a handle on the end. “This one ain’t evil.” He stepped back from the house, and the rattlesnake writhed on the hook, clamped in her midsection. “This girl’s just a little riled.”
“Whoa,” JohnScott said. “That happened so quick, I barely saw what you did.”
Clyde’s description of this girl being a little riled seemed a gross understatement as the reptile flopped and jerked on the end of his pole, the tail now pulsing angrily and filling the hollow beneath the house with its enraged clamor.
Fingers of unease inched over my scalp, leaving me chilled in the warm afternoon air.
“Nothing to it,” Clyde said. “The main thing is to keep her at the opposite end of the hook. She can’t strike that far, so you’re safe as long as she’s at the other end. Then you simply move her around a bit until you can clasp her in your tongs. But not too close to the head. Don’t want to kill her. Not yet anyway.”
I peered over the porch, realizing I had gripped the railing until I had a splinter in my palm. “Am I missing something? Why do we not want to kill it?”
Clyde motioned for JohnScott to fetch the bag, which looked like an oversize pillowcase. Then he maneuvered the snake into it, released the clamp, and pulled drawstring. The bag jerked once before going motionless. “Aw, Fawn, she’ll probably end up dead, but I’ve got a friend that can milk the venom first. And another that’ll want the hide for belts and such.”
“Milk the venom?”
He hummed a yes. “They use it to make antivenin.”
“To treat bites?” asked JohnScott.
Clyde nodded, continuing to search the area around us. “The good Lord provides.”
I hadn’t expected Clyde Felton to hiss religion at me. I’d been a Christian my entire life, and he only recently found God in a prison cell. I curled a strand of hair around my finger, realizing I didn’t know how long Clyde had been a Christian. “I don’t think God would mind if we killed one snake.”
“It might be more than one, I’m thinking.” The way his neck jutted forward got on my nerves, and he still searched the grass as though Godzilla might jump out any minute. “Yep, there’s her mate.” He gestured to a pile of logs twenty yards to the side of the house. “They often run in pairs. That one’s found a cool spot in the shade of the woodpile.”
Shivers went up my spine as I followed his gaze, and I began searching the yard myself.
JohnScott shook his head. “Good thing you came with me. I never would’ve known to look for a pair.” His I-told-you-so smirk didn’t go unnoticed, but maybe I deserved it.
“And it’s a good thing we didn’t bring a gun. The shot would’ve scared this one away.” Clyde rested a fist on his hip. “You tackle this little boy, JohnScott. Might as well learn.”
The coach looked from the snake to Clyde, then down to the clamp on the end of the pole. “When I shoot them, I don’t have to get that close.”
Clyde laughed. “I know, but as long as you keep him a pole’s length away, you’re all right. It’s not like he can fly.”
I sought safety on the porch again, glancing at the crawl space as I walked past.
The coach took a deep breath and let it out. “All right, Clyde. I’ll do it.” He reached for the J-hook. “But stay close, so if I mess things up, you can snatch the pole.”
“Aw, you ain’t gonna mess up. Piece of cake.”
The two of them walked toward the woodpile, and I wondered what would happen if they were bitten. I had never heard much about people getting struck by rattlesnakes. Lots of rumors over the years, but nothing ever came of them.
Clyde squeezed the coach’s shoulder. “You’re more likely to get struck by lightning than a snake.”
JohnScott glanced at the sky above his head, sprinkled with cotton-ball clouds. “Not today, I’m not.”
“Use your hook to uncoil him, then reach in and pick him up.”
In five seconds, the second snake squirmed in the clamp, and JohnScott whooped. “I can’t believe I caught a rattlesnake. Fawn, look at this thing.”
I looked at it all right—from the safety of my perch on the railing, which may or may not have been strong enough to support my weight.
“Fawn’s hiding over there on the porch.” Clyde smiled, prompting me to climb down.
Clyde took the J-hook and explained the mechanics of getting the angry snake into the bag.
My teeth grazed my bottom lip. “So Clyde, tell me again how you know about this sort of thing.”
“My grandpappy.” He picked up the weighted bag, and we followed him to the front yard. “He used to compete every year in the rattlesnake round-up over in Sweetwater. Sometimes brought in a couple hundred diamondbacks in one weekend.”
I shivered, but neither of them noticed.
“He said I had snake eyes. Since I’m color-blind, I see the varmints easier than most people. Anyway, at twenty-one, I led a hunt on my own.” He gently laid the snakes in the back of JohnScott’s truck and winked at me. “After that, I took a short break … But this past March, I went back to the round-up again. Turns out hunting’s like riding a bike.”
My pulse slowed as my pride slithered into the grass. “Well … I’m glad you came.”
JohnScott peered at me from behind Clyde’s back. He only met my gaze briefly before looking away with a stifled smile, but I thought he might finally have shown that tiny bit of approval I’d been hunting for.
Chapter Eighteen
JohnScott hadn’t mentioned taking me to Lubbock to pick up the Chevy, and Saturday morning I half hoped he had forgotten. I poured a glass of milk and unwrapped a strawberry Pop-Tart, but then I saw his truck creeping up the drive.
In a peculiar way, I wanted to see him. I was mortified when I thought about the electric current that shot through me when we were swimming, but the way his eyes twinkled as he snared that rattlesnake made me want to sit and talk to him, get to know him better, discover what made him tick.
Ridiculous.
It took me a minute to open the front door—the lock had been acting up lately—and when I finally got it open, he stood at the bottom of the steps with his hands shoved in his pockets. “Brought you something.”
He brought me a gift?
He stepped to his truck and opened the door. “Come on, boy.”
Nothing happened, so I stuffed the last of my toaster pastry into my mouth and followed him. I peeked into the cab and saw the Picketts’ old blue heeler lying on the seat with his head on his paws. The dog’s eyebrows lifted when he saw me.
In the seven months I’d stayed with the Pi
cketts, I’d grown accustomed to the black-and-gray cow dog that habitually lay as a permanent rug on Ansel and Velma’s back porch, tired and slow.
“You brought Rowdy? But we’re going all the way to Lubbock.”
When the coach snapped his fingers, Rowdy raised his head but didn’t move. “It’ll do him good to be off the porch.” He whistled sharply, and Rowdy stood, picked his way across the seat, and lumbered to the ground, where JohnScott patted his head.
I had never been much of an animal person, but Rowdy held a special place in my heart. When I first moved in with the Picketts, I had been a flurry of tears and panic, and the dog had sat next to me, resting his head on my leg and watching me with his friendly silver eyes.
I squatted next to him and scratched behind his ears.
JohnScott shut the truck door with a snap. “I figured he might stay up here for a while. Keep you company.”
“No way.” Even though I loved Rowdy, I didn’t want a dog. “Who would take care of him?”
“It crossed my mind you could.”
“I don’t know, JohnScott. I’m not much for taking care of things.”
He stifled a laugh.
“What?”
He studied a red-ant bed four feet away. “Might not hurt to get some practice, ya think?”
“No.” I frowned at the dog. “But thanks anyway.”
“Aw, Fawn.” He removed his cap. “If I take Rowdy home, he’ll just hate it.”
I crossed my arms. He wanted the dog to babysit me.
The coach stepped onto the porch, slapping his hand against his thigh so the dog would follow. “Know what else he hates?”
“I can’t imagine.”
“Snakes.” He said the word subtly, like an afterthought.
I glanced toward the corner of the house, around which lay the exposed crawl space and woodpile. Even though the odds of my finding another rattler were small, a canine snake alarm would give me peace like a monitored home-security system.
JohnScott crouched on the raised porch next to the dog, and when he looked at me, our eyes were level. “All right if he stays?” he asked.
Once again I morphed into my sixteen-year-old self, sitting at a student desk while Coach Pickett explained the importance of studying history. “Okay. Thank you.”
He transferred a bag of dog food from his truck to my kitchen, filled a Cool Whip container with water, and patted Rowdy on the head. “Feed him twice a day.”
And that was that. I had become the proud owner of a four-legged senior citizen.
But as we drove away from the shack, I didn’t know which made me more uncomfortable—leaving a flea-carrying animal in my house or climbing into the truck with the coach.
After thirty minutes, we were halfway to Lubbock, near Slaton, and JohnScott had only spoken once. When I asked about the offensive line during the previous night’s homecoming game, he rambled about strategy for five minutes and then settled back into silence.
The scent of hay mingled with coffee reminded me of his parents’ house, but I didn’t ask about Ansel and Velma. Apparently we needed to clear the air, but if I waited for him to say something about the holding tank, I’d likely be waiting until I was old and gray like Rowdy.
My stomach did a flip. “JohnScott?”
He jumped as though I had woken him from a deep sleep, and then he cleared his throat. “Clyde was helpful the other day, wasn’t he?”
I sighed. Right when I found the courage to broach the subject, he started talking about something else. “Oh … yes, I suppose.”
“You don’t like him.”
He didn’t sound judgmental or condescending, but I suddenly wished my prejudice wasn’t so transparent. “I like him all right.” I rubbed my thumb against the rough upholstery.
A smiled played around JohnScott’s lips. “Why do you do that?”
I pulled my hand away from the seat. “What?”
“Act all snobby. You’re not like that at all, once you let your shield down.”
“My shield?” I wasn’t sure where this conversation was going, but it seemed safer than what I’d been about to bring up.
“I guess it’s a shield,” he said. “You throw something up in front of yourself when you’re around other people. But when you relax, like now, you’re a different person. You smile a lot more.”
His evaluation was dead accurate, except for one thing. I was not relaxed at the moment. “It’s easier that way,” I said with an offhand tone as I resumed thumbing the seat cushion, wondering if I might wear a hole in it that would match all the others.
“Explain,” he said.
I didn’t want to explain. And honestly I never even tried to figure it out. “I’m sort of shy, I guess. Way down deep. And it’s easier to be standoffish than risk talking to people and being rejected. Snobbiness generally scares people away.”
He nodded. “Or repels them.”
He said the words softly and yet they sliced through my pride like a scythe. “Well, yes.”
We fell into silence again, JohnScott rubbing his chin and occasionally removing his ball cap, and me wanting to somehow crawl into the floorboard and hide. I shouldn’t have told him that. This felt worse than bumping into him in a wet T-shirt.
“I’m kind of unsure of myself too,” he blurted. “I probably hide it behind sports talk. If I feel skittish in a group, I bring up football, and then I can pretty much outtalk anyone in the room.”
I smiled, and then the smile turned into a laugh. “JohnScott, you’re the least insecure person I’ve ever met. Seriously.”
The corner of his mouth pulled up, and he looked at me sideways. “Maybe I hide it better than you.”
“Name one thing you’re apprehensive about,” I challenged. “But you have to give supporting documentation. I want proof this weakness exists.”
His arm lolled over the steering wheel, and he sighed. He opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it. “All right,” he finally said. “I’m shaky around women.”
All the giggles that had been building up in my lungs quickly dispersed to my nerve endings, and I clenched my hands tightly in my lap.
“And supporting evidence?” He sounded as though he was smiling, but I couldn’t bear to look at him. “I never date. That should be proof enough.”
I forced a chuckle, but it had way too much air involved. “At least you’re not a snob.” Such a silly thing to say, but my brain addled.
Apparently my statement caught him off guard, because he laughed loudly. “I like you with your shield down, Fawn.”
Silence swelled in the cab.
It seemed we had simultaneously noticed his reference to liking me, and neither of us knew what to say next. Of course, he hadn’t meant he liked me in a romantic way, only that he liked me better than the stuck-up version of me he had taught in high school.
I felt sorry for him then, squirming and gripping the steering wheel, and I figured I should do something to let him know I didn’t think he liked me … like that.
I pinched my bottom lip between my teeth. “I’m sorry about that day at the holding tank.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
I stared out the side window, watching cotton fields blur past the pickup. “I almost bumped into you … trying to get away from Grady.” I straightened the leg of my shorts, smoothing the fabric until it lay flat against my thighs. “I wanted you to know it wasn’t deliberate. I have this thing about dirty water, so I didn’t open my eyes.” My voice tapered off.
He cocked his ear toward his shoulder, staring down the highway. “I didn’t notice anything.”
I felt three inches tall. I spent days worrying about it when he hadn’t even noticed.
“Okay.” He spoke loudly, then corrected his volume. “Maybe I noticed, but I didn’t know if you not
iced, to tell the truth. I hunkered down because of the splashing and didn’t see you coming.”
“I didn’t see you, either.”
“Yep.” He ran the back of his hand across his mouth. “And then when you popped up next to me, you sort of took me by surprise.”
“Me, too.” I remembered the way his eyebrows softened as his gaze roamed to my lips. He had looked like he wanted to kiss me.
I blinked. Hard. I didn’t need to be thinking like that.
“I should be the one apologizing,” he said. “You’d think I’d never been that close to a beautiful girl. And then I just left you there.” His gaze bounced to me, then quickly away. “Please don’t think I’m a cad.”
The cogs in my brain began to spin, frantically processing the fact that he had called me beautiful, and I wasn’t even sure he realized he had done it. I curled a strand of hair around my finger and gently pulled, harder and harder, until my mind came back to reality. “You’re not a cad, Coach Pickett.”
The whiteness around his knuckles disappeared as he eased his grip on the steering wheel. He glanced at me, and his half smile created a series of lines on his right cheek.
No, JohnScott Pickett wasn’t a cad. Not at all.
Chapter Nineteen
As streetlamps flickered on, I walked with Tyler down the middle of Main Street, which had been barricaded for the homecoming street dance. My steps naturally synced to the beat of the country-and-western band, and I recognized the lead singer who had graduated from high school with my mother. I said a silent prayer, thanking the Lord my parents always stayed away from this type of civic gathering.
Since our trip to Lubbock that morning, Coach Pickett’s smile lines had flashed across my memory, but I shoved the image deep into the back corner of my consciousness, where it belonged.
I was such a hypocrite.
I demanded Tyler behave in such a way as to regain my trust, yet I abused his faith by not only noticing another man but entertaining innocent yet persistent thoughts.
It wasn’t as if the coach noticed me back. Not unless I was wet and six inches in front of his nose, which decidedly made him uncomfortable enough to point out that he did not date. And it didn’t take a genius to realize that if he ever overcame his insecurity and asked someone out, he would not choose a woman with this many complications.
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