I have always had a healthy respect (read “fear”) for guns. Growing up in Southern California, the nightly news is full of reasons to be leery. Now that I have spent some time on ranches and in the backcountry, though, I recognize there is another intention for guns – not as weapons to destroy fellow human beings, but rather as a protective tool. A tool that protects a family from starvation, that keeps livestock from disappearing to predators, or keeps a child safe from the jaws of a mountain lion. Still, I would rather not be the one staring down the barrel of a rifle at a coyote that’s on the receiving end.
Nevertheless, one of the first things Dave did when we moved to the ranch was teach me to shoot. He is gone for extended periods, so it was inevitable that at some point he wouldn’t be around when the need for a gunslinger arose.
We practiced with a .22 pistol full of snake shot (imagine a little package of metal bb’s that spray out in a cloud). He set up a cardboard box with a popular logo on it, and, I apologize in advance to all you Disney fans out there, I shot Mickey Mouse.
Lesson over, the gun was hidden away, and a year passed with no need for me to pick it up again.
Until the following summer. I came home from a long day at work that was further complicated by a sinus infection, and all I wanted to do was crawl into bed and sleep. All the animals greeted me with their demands for attention, but I brushed them off and ran for the sanctity and solitude of the house.
Except for the insistent, incessant, meows of Big Max. He sat on the porch mat and cried for a good 15 minutes before I finally had enough and shut the door in his face. Big Max hates to be pet - he just wants to be near you, and I just didn’t have it in me that night to sit on the porch 5 jeet away from him, in a cloud of flies, until he was content.
Well, that apparently pissed him off royally, so he decided he was going to show me who really runs the place, and went off to round up the mother of all trophies. I obliviously went on with my evening chores, got ready for bed, and went to crawl into our magnificently comfortable bed and dream sweet dreams.
Only… Is that a cricket I hear out there? No, too constant… A cicada? No, too loud… O my god, it’s a rattlesnake! And judging by the noise, he’s pinned down and angry at one of my dear, sweet pets.
So I run outside – crap, it’s dark, where’s my headlamp?
Back inside, find the headlamp, back out, and it’s still too dark.
Crap, where’s the big flashlight?
Back inside, there it is!
Back out. Sure enough, there’s Big Max pacing back and forth in front of a very large, very angry, rattlesnake he has cornered in the yard.
Get away, Max, get away!
Back inside. Where’s the gun? Shit, shit, shit, is it loaded? How do I know for sure?
Quick (read “frantic”) call to Dave – “How the HELL do I load this gun?!”
But, of course, straight to his voicemail. Breathe.
Oh wait, I can see it now, it’s already loaded.
Back outside.
So… there I was… pitch-black, moonless night… barefoot… in my nightie…flashlight in one hand….22 pistol in the other…
BUT, I aimed just like Dave taught me, pulled the trigger, and…silence.
No more rattling, no more movement, no anything. TOTAL BLIND LUCK. Literally, because I’m pretty sure that I closed my eyes when I pulled the trigger.
And, of course, I didn’t believe I had hit it.
Aren’t they deaf? Maybe I completely missed, and it didn’t hear the shot, and that’s why it hasn’t moved…
So, I shot again, and nothing changed.
Shit. Maybe one more try?
This time wood splinters from the flower bed went flying, and the percussion made ME deaf.
Oops – that was a real bullet, not just snake shot. We’re done here!
Down went the gun, and now I’m going in with the shovel. I’ve been told rattlesnakes can still inject poison after they are dead, and now ALL the animals are here to see what the commotion is about, so “Off with it’s head!” (Are you starting to see the same underlying Disney theme that I am in all of this?)
So… there I was… hacking away at a dead snake… still in the pitch-black… still in my nightie… and I can just about hear Big Max in the background saying, “Take THAT!”
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