Enmity Between

The first day of summer yesterday, and it felt like it. A heavy miasma of humidity hung over these mountains for the past four days, perhaps to be broken up tonight by the rain falling just now. The temperatures are supposed to be milder today, and perhaps the creatures of the land will calm down and be less restive.

I celebrated Father’s Day by being snakebit.

The dogs were at the side of the house, barking at something and giving it Hail Columbia when my wife went to investigate. She returned with the news that a snake was under one of the blueberry bushes. When I reached the scene, I saw that a blacksnake, perhaps two and a half to three feet long, had gotten enmeshed in the bird netting we use to protect the berries from our greedy avian friends. This has happened in the past, so I went to fetch a pair of scissors to cut away the netting and free the snake.

I grasped the snake just behind its head and began snipping the black mesh fabric from its length. The snake began whipsawing its head back and forth, much more violently than I expected, and it managed to slip out of my grasp. Bop! It got me on my left index finger, feeling like needles stabbing into me. I returned to the house and Mrs. Orr helped me clean and disinfect the puncture wounds, which were bleeding with a surprising force. We bandaged it up and I returned to continue trying to free the snake.

After I was finished and lobbed the serpent over the fence into the next pasture, I returned to the back porch to pick up my book where I’d left off. About an hour into my reading, I heard some heavy, leatherlike leaves fall from the Japanese magnolia just at the edge of the porch. Jinx was on his feet in a flash, staring with cocked head in the direction of the tree. I put down my book and followed his gaze, noticing that he was not staring at the ground, but up into the tree’s leaves. There, draped across one of the branches, was a much larger black snake, this one easily six feet. I retrieved a hoe and twined the snake in it while trying to fend off his strikes; this snake was very aggressive and was as determined to bite me as I was determined to avoid being bitten. Once I had him secure, I headed for the fence. I was forced to swing the hoe back and forth in order to use the centrifugal force to keep the snake from crawling up the handle towards me, something he kept attempting. I finally threw him into the cow pasture and vowed that my truce with nonvenomous snakes was going to end if just one more showed up before nightfall.

When I returned to my book, I never really concentrated on it again. I was too busy looking towards every rustle or scritch or thump near me. The day passed in still heat, a day of reading and watching the birds. My wife prepared ribs in a slow-cooker, an exquisite dish that had me daydreaming about it all during the day on Monday.  Sunday wore itself out, as the hours and the seasons do, and when the sun slipped behind the western ridge, we were surprised by the lateness of the hour.

I went down to the basement to check my traps, since we live in a critter-rich environment. There in the smaller Have-A-Hart was a baby possum, about the size of a kitten. I made sure Jinx was inside before I retrieved the cage and toted it down to the meadow, where I released the little thing. Its tail was curled around the bars and it seemed reluctant to run into the open freedom that I provided it. After a few moments of marsupial indecision, he ran out of the trap and into the high weeds at the fence line.

This morning while the curtain of rain is drawn across the acres, Jinx and I went for our walk. I was thinking of the serpents I encounter down in the city, the kind whose fangs I have become very wary of, the kind who reproduce quickly and can swarm a trusting person. One of the drawbacks of living in a place of such natural beauty as this is that one can tend to easily slip into self-pity when one has to leave it, even for a few hours. I shook myself out of the maudlin mood, or at least tried to, and walked and watched Jinx caper in the rain. Coming around a bend, I saw a deer step out from behind a tree, it’s large and lovely ears twitching under the assault of the raindrops. Did I mention last week that I came upon Jinx standing just ten feet from a doe in the road? I was daydreaming and came around a curve in the gravel ribbon and there they were, noses reached one towards the other, a complete lack of enmity between them and a total atmosphere of curiosity and amity. When the deer saw me, it stamped its hoof and lifted in a single liquid motion over the short fence next to where the two animals stood. Jinx watched the deer as it bounded away. I do not think I am exaggerating when I say that he looked wistful.

“Maybe you’ll see him again someday, boy,” I said silently.

And so it is with all the beautiful creatures and beautiful moments of the days and the weeks and the months and the years. We hope that we will see certain ones again, the creatures and the friends and the hours. But we usually do not. We walk on, head sometimes down, and we hope for that next sight that makes us gasp and smile.

And now I must go on down the road and see what awaits me today while the rain bathes these green mountains and valleys. I must go on now.

~ S.K. Orr