It was while Turk and I were fiddling with our tracking
equipment, trying to locate the signal from that fourth radio transmitter, that
I noticed the puma. He crouched at the
edge of the bushes, watching the two males competing for the female’s
attention, as well as the larger male studying his fellows’ antics. My heart threatened to stop beating: that was
the last thing we needed! The California
Condor’s existence might not have been as tenuous as it once was, but the
population didn’t need any thinning.
Then I cursed silently for my hesitation, as we always
came prepared for such a contingency.
Without looking back, I reached for the rifle loaded with tranquilizer
darts. Experience had taught me to read
the animal’s body language. Even from here, without looking through the rifle's scope, I could tell that the puma was readying itself to pounce. I’d have to shoot it, even if my action
interrupted the birds’ interactions, and prompted the female to abandon her
nest. But my fingers couldn’t find the
metal, and as they dug through the dirt, their action produced an annoying
rattling. I looked back, and my
eyes widened. My fingers hadn’t made the rattling sound: a four-foot long snake, with yellow-brown coloring and darker
brown diamond blotches, lay atop the rifle.
From its coloring, I recognized it as a Crotalus Oreganus
Helleri, more popularly known as a Southern Pacific rattlesnake. Its venom was highly toxic, containing
myotoxins and hemotoxins that could easily produce a fatal bite. The snake coiled atop the barrel of our
rifle, which lay parallel to my position.
The snake’s long thin tongue darted toward me, as if warning me to back
off. That I could not do, not easily, as
we only had enough space for Turk and I to kneel side-by-side. With the bushes to our back as well, we would need to stand up before we
clambered backward over the scrub oak.
“Turk,” I whispered between gritted teeth, my facial muscles frozen.
“What?” Then, in a
whisper: “How do you want to handle it?”
Theoretically, I should remain frozen, and wait for the
snake to lose interest in me. But,
perhaps in response to Turk’s question, its head was slowly rising above its
coiled body. Should I make a grab for
the stock, and attempt to fling the rifle, and hence the snake, into the
surrounding bushes? Or would that only
compel the snake to attack me?
That tongue kept flicking at me. Those eyes bored into me. That damned rattle kept rattling. Ever so slowly, I arched my body to the
right, and then extended my right arm toward the barrel, ready to halt the
movement if the snake’s attention left my head to follow my hand.
I heard a strange hiss, not long like I expected, but short and sharp. Then another. Suddenly I was falling forward, the snake’s
face was leaping toward mine, and I knew I had made the wrong choice.
This entry will continue in Men in Black: The Condor Incident
Part 3.
Dragon Dave
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