Stories From Under The Sky

The Locks of Medusa

the locks of medusa HUNTING POISONOUS SNAKES - whether for sport, profit, or out of some dim sense of ancestral outrage is a tense affair. When you go into snake country with the sober intent of capturing venomous serpents, there is a tendency to walk with both feet off the ground and to find yourself wishing for galvanized pants. You are drawn to an almost painful tautness, especially if you are bent on taking the snakes alive. You'll never be sharper. Perceptions that have been overlaid by a lifetime of civilized responses are suddenly bared and the human animal is its old, trembling self again, wanting to climb a tree. Other sports are spiced with danger, but it's doubtful that any others have such unique overtones of horror. An Andalusian fighting bull or a Himalayan monsoon can inspire terror, but there is nothing like the dusty goblin's face of a coiled rattlesnake to inspire dread. Most of my limited experience with poisonous reptiles I5i has been with the timber rattlesnake - a heavy-bodied pit viper usually found in wooded situations and especially in limestone country with its countless fissures and deep crevices . This snake winters deep in broken rock, sometimes in startling numbers. Its dens are often old established wintering places that have been used for thousands of generations. During the first warm days of mid-spring when the sun stirs the rattlers' sluggish blood and draws them out into the balmy outer world, they may mass on ledges near these den entrances and sun themselves on the warm rock. This is one of the best times to hunt them, when there may be a dozen rattlers on a ledge no larger than a bathtub. As spring wears on the snakes will disperse to their hunting grounds in nearby woods and uplands, scattering through the thickening vegetation. Most experienced snake hunters employ bent metal rods or "snake hooks" to gently lift the snakes into sacks or collecting cages. I have neither the savvy nor inclination to use such a hook; when I apprehend a rattlesnake I prefer to have it plumb demobilized. To this end, nothing is better than a short pole with a lanyard and a soft buckskin noose that can be slipped over the snake's head and drawn up snugly. The soft noose is necessary to prevent injury to the reptile, for few creatures are more delicate. If the snake is a heavy one, it may even be necessary to support his body while lifting him from the ground in order to prevent spinal damage. Rattlesnake hunting is usually unspectacular, for these vipers are shy animals that seldom exhibit any pyrotechnics. They are dangerous only when badly startled, injured, or subjected to indignities that even snakes cannot be expected to tolerate. They are rarely aggressive in the human sense and even though they hold a whip hand over most wild creatures, they are not bullies. There have been cases where rats placed in rattlesnake cages as food have turned on the rattlers and killed them. Although they are always unpredictable, I have never seen rattlesnakes strike without provocation, and for nasti· ness and sheer cussedness the common water snakes are far uglier to handle. It is not unusual to walk within inches of coiled rattlers that never strike, and such snakes may not even buzz. Two of us were once collecting timber rattlers in an abandoned limestone quarry and stopped to rest on a low outcropping. We discussed our plan of action and argued our next move. When we had finished our smokes we continued down the old narrow-gauge track that we had been following. About fifty yards up the track we abruptly changed our minds and turned back the way we had come, passing the ledge where we had been sitting five minutes before. As we walked by the rocky overhang and viewed it from a slightly different angle, I glimpsed the sooty glow of thick coils beneath it. In the mouth of the crevice was the largest timber rattlesnake either of us had ever seen, and about two feet away from its flat, spade-shaped head was my cigarette butt. My legs had been within easy striking range of the snake, probably for as long as I had sat there, but the reptile had made no move to attack and had not even sounded its nervousness. We tried vainly to...