Uh, Oh

While the boys were pulling the canoes up out of the water, I answered the call of nature, or rather, tried to answer. My mission was interrupted when I stepped over a log and felt something whip against my bare leg.

Uh, oh.

When you’re out in the woods you don’t want anything to whip against your leg.

It’s just a vine.

That’s what Brain said to keep Heart from seizing up.

You’ve stepped onto a vine and it’s tangled around Feet.

Feet were immediately poised to run.

They always are when Fear raises its ugly head. Feet would have taken Body completely out of the area, over hill and dale to solid concrete. They would have run in any available direction until Lungs told them they were out of air had I not stopped them all with sheer force of will.

Lungs would have complained, because solid concrete was five miles away.

Swallowing Heart back into place, I looked down. My right wading sandal was buried beyond the sole in soft ground, which was a good thing, because the large tail-end portion of a snake and was whipping back and forth.

Uh, oh.

Fear took hold. The blood drained from my face, and I became short of breath.

It was reminiscent of a high school math test.

The boys were laughing and talking beside the canoes I tried to call for help, but the only sound that came out was a soft puff of air. I bore down a little harder on my right foot and looked at the powerful tubular body.

Yep, it was a snake all right. A water moccasin, lethal, and he was big, at least ten or twelve feet of mad snake; as long as an anaconda. Maybe fifteen feet, but it was hard to tell since my spirit left and was hovering high overhead.

My body usually leaves the ground when I find a snake, but under the circumstances I bore down a little harder.

“Oh, lordy.” To my ear, the words came out a whisper. “Would someone please mosey over here and get me out of this?”

It was if I had screamed at the top of my lungs. The boys stopped what they were doing and stared in my direction.

Doc frowned. “Why are you screaming at the top of your lungs?”

I practiced controlled breathing for a while, hoping my eyes wouldn’t roll back in my head.

“This doesn’t look good.” Doc dug a little starting hole with his foot, in case he had to flee.

“Hoe.” It was a childhood prescription for venomous reptiles.

Doc got it. He’s phobic about snakes. “Oh, lordy. Rev stepped on a SNAKE.”

“You bit?” A crisis manager, Woodrow was ready to spring into action.

“Not yet. Somebody get a hoe.”

“Are you crazy?” Jerry Wayne stepped into his canoe, just in case he needed to escape. “What makes you think we have a hoe around here?”

“What else you gonna kill a SNAKE with?” Wrong Willie argued.

“Napalm, wait, get a gun!!” Doc was suddenly standing in knee deep water. “And a lot of bullets. Get a whole box of bullets. Use them all!!!”

“I have a Snake-Charmer.” Woodrow sprinted for his truck parked a few yards away where he had a little 20-gauge shotgun. In seconds he was on the opposite side of the log.

I looked at the muzzle of the shotgun, evaluated the potential spread of the shot and nearly fainted. “You can’t shoot this thing with me standing on it. You’ll blow my foot off.”

“I can hit what I aim at.”

“That’s not what I saw last dove season.”

“Turn your head, Rev.” Doc offered from his new safe vantage-point halfway out in the river. “You’ll feel better if you don’t actually see the sna…thing.”

“You’re not shooting while I’m on it, and besides, even if you blew off his tail the snake’s head will still be alive and he’ll be pretty well annoyed.”

“Get a stick.” Jerry Wayne called from the waist-deep water beside Doc.

“You guys don’t understand. I’m standing on the biting end of this water moccasin. Come up with something else.”

“It may be a copperhead.” Woodrow scratched his beard, thinking. “That’s a smaller target. How big is that thing?”

I swallowed. “Twenty feet or so.”

Doc called from the far side of the river. “Kill it. I’ll be downstream.”

“Somebody do something so I can get off this thing!”

Wrong Willie studied the shotgun in Woodrow’s hands. “Let’s beat it to death instead of shooting it. That gun looks strong enough.”

“My leg is going to sleep,” I mentioned in passing.

“All right.” Wrong Willie came to a decision. “Here’s what we’re going to do.” He walked up with a hand ax, stood on the SNAKE’s thrashing tail and gave a slight chop, a little too close to my foot if you ask me.

“Jump, Rev”

I did, leaving two pieces of writhing snake behind me.

I watched Doc paddle out of sight, leaving a wake behind his canoe. “Think we can call him back?” I asked.

“Naw.” Woodrow looked at the Take Out Now!!! sign. “We’ll just pick him up on the other side of the waterfall.”

“Uh, oh.

”