Young John, Ch 1

Chapter 1: THE SNAKE1

It was midday in the far West Texas desert, and it was hot; so hot that even the giant Saguaro cacti seemed to droop, wanting to lay on the ground and rest. Among the lesser cacti, the prickly pear wilted also, wishing for a hard rain to come through and bathe its blooms. The century plants wondered how they were ever going to make it to a hundred years and the barrel cacti felt dry and depleted. The blue agave sat close to its brothers, the century plants, and wished for someone to hurry up and turn their pulp into tequila, thinking that even death would be better than the oppressive desert heat. Only the feared and despised jumping Cholla stood up and seemed ready-for-a-fight; but they had no one to attach their cloying, poisonous barbs to, and so sat there mutely watching. It was hot, so very hot...2

The snake languished in the shade of a flat, round boulder about the size of a wagon wheel, but many times as thick. The boulder's surface was smooth, comfortable, bearing no signs of the sharp edges it flaunted in its youth. Two smaller stones about the size of watermelons supported one side of the boulder; their surface looked the same as that of their larger companion. Most likely, they had fallen here together at the same time, the spawn of some prehistoric cataclysmic event, their surfaces polished smooth be eons of desert winds. The snake, of course, didn't care about any of that; all he cared about was the shade they afforded, it kept his blood from boiling. He lay there loosely, not stressed at the moment. Normally, he might have used this time to sleep, but his stomach was depleted of food; those prairie dog pups he swallowed over two months ago were gone, digested. It was much too hot to venture out and hunt, so he laid there and hoped something would come to him.3

From his vantage point beneath the boulder, the snake now was perniciously watching a here-to-for unknown creature walk back and forth in front of the opening. It was a strange, strange creature indeed that only required two legs to propel himself over the desert floor, his head in the sky and his feet upon the ground. He was heavier than the snake, but not quite as long, and seemed to have adorned his body with fabrics and leathers. The snake did not look upon the creature as food, it was much too big to swallow; but an enemy, yes, it could be an enemy.4

The creature, known in his world as a male-child, or more popularly a "boy", was deep in thought, for he had problems of his own to ponder. Like the snake, he was hungry as well; it had been several days since he had eaten. When his father dropped him off there, saying, "I'll be back, I'll be back," he left him with a bag of hard biscuits, some fatback, and a scoop of dried pinto beans, a canteen of water, and a tin bowl. The boy built a fire the first night and sat closely by it, nibbling off the biscuits and sipping off the canteen. The night passed uneventfully, although the boy thought he saw eyes in the darkness a time or two. "Coyotes, most likely" he thought, without any concern. He knew that as long as he kept the fire going, the little hunter/scavengers would stay away.5

By the afternoon of the second day, the biscuits were gone and the canteen was empty. He often had watched his mother cook beans before, stirring them near constantly in a large, heavy pot suspended over a fire. The boy thought that maybe he could do this as well, though all he had was the small tin bowl, and most importantly, no water. But he remembered how one of his friends back in the town of El Paso, a young Indian boy by the name of Juan, showed him how to dig into the soft ground of places that looked like they once held water. If your grimy little hands were strong enough and managed to claw down deep enough in these spots, you would eventually find water; sandy, sometimes salty, often foul-smelling, but still...water. And if you drank it slowly in small sips, sometimes the tummy-aches weren't too bad either...6

Looking to his left the boy saw that the ground in front of the Mesquite tree was lower than the rest, and if you looked closely enough, you could even see what appeared to be ripples in the sand; ripples that were undoubtedly created by running water. Looking to the North and West, he saw high plateaus where water might run down from during rainstorms; to the South he saw nothing but flat, shimmering desert as far as the eye could see. And the boy knew then; he knew that here in the wash in front of the Mesquite tree, there ought to be water. So he rolled up his sleeves and went out into the wash, and started digging.7

He found his water in the shade of an overhanging boulder close to the Mesquite tree, about ten inches deep. By the time he did so, it was growing near dark, and it was too late to worry about cooking any beans. He re-established the fire, giving it fresh material to burn. Then he filled his canteen with the newly found water and brought it up beside the fire. He took off his shirt and formed a cone shaped filter of it, several layers thick in the "business" end of it, and proceeded to strain the water through it, catching the filtered water in his tin pan. After two canteens, the pan was full, and the boy sat it in the embers of the fire to try to get it to boil a little bit, having heard that such treatment was "good" for the water. He put his wet shirt back on, it felt good in the lingering heat of the day. That night after the water was done; he refilled his canteen with his new water, leaving the remainder in the tin bowl to do some cooking with in the morning. His work done, he fell asleep in a desert now turned cool, gathering his clothes around him and snuggling as close to the fire as he dared. He scooped still warm sand over his freezing hands, and dreamt of eating tomatoes, pulling them one by one off the vine.8

In the morning, he shook off the cold as the sun came up, and rejuvenated the fire once again. He poured some of the beans into the pan with the water, making sure the water "covered the beans good", and set the pan in the fire. He took his trusty "Old Timer" knife from his pocket, cut some chunks off the salt jowl, and put them in the brew as well, all the while wishing he had some onion for more seasoning. The boy hung around his camp, stirring his beans every occasionally [not nearly as often as his mother would do], and spending his other time searching the cacti for the succulent fruit that some of them bore. A short time after the sun reached its zenith, the tasted his beans and declared them "good and done and ready to eat". He removed his shirt once more, this time to serve the function of a "hot pad", and used it to extract his makeshift kettle of beans from the fire and carry it over to the shade of the Mesquite. He sat down then and began his first true meal in the desert; one that he had prepared himself. He used the edge of his knife to "fork" the beans and eat them, while he just picked up the pan to drink the soup as he gnawed on the cactus "fruit" he had found. The beans tasted slightly burnt, and the fruit was covered with downy, hair-like thorns that made his lips burn when he bit into them, but the boy ate heartily and with eager anticipation of each bite. Years later he would think back on that first lonely repast and remember it as "some of the best fixin's" he ever had.9

The meal finished, the boy fought off the urge to take a nap, and busily went into the wash and splashed water onto his utensils and cleaned them as best he could. This time he filled the pan with water, and carried it into his camp. During the morning while the beans were cooking, the boy found a stone with a depression in the center of it that was ideal for holding water, he decided. The stone was balanced atop another slimmer, more cylindrical stone, and could be tipped slightly if need be. It took several pans of water to fill the stone's basin; when at length it was full, he began tipping its new contents into the shirt-filter, filling the pan once again before carrying it over to the fire to boil and purify. He observed this process with pride, feeling a little bit like an "engineer", or whatever that two-dollar word was that grown up people used to describe other people that built things. He just wished his animal traps worked as well...Later on, after his food had settled some, he went out into the desert to see what he could find, and stumbled upon a couple of rabbits with long ears and long hind legs that he tried to catch; but the rabbits were too quick and elusive for him, and the boy quickly gave up on that effort. By now, he knew the rabbits must be tired, but he was unable to take advantage of that situation because he was tired as hell too. As he was walking back to his camp that evening, he kept scanning the horizon, looking for the telltale dust of a rider in the desert, hoping that his daddy might be coming back. But the boy saw nothing and deep down in his heart he knew he never would.10

The boy ate beans the next day, conserving some for the day after that as well. After that third day of eating beans, he had no food left, although he still had his water. So it was that now he paced the ground back and forth in front of the snake, extremely hungry once again. When he had first started on the beans, it had seemed to the boy that they might last forever, but of course, they hadn't. His attempts at animal capture had all proved futile, they were all too little and quick, and with each passing day the pain in the boy's stomach became increasingly severe, as physical as if someone had punched him in the gut. And the boy was scared, real scared right now, he could see the end of his day coming. The last thing he wanted was to perish in this God-forsaken place, picked clean by the ever-present buzzards, which were circling above him as he paced right now, sensing the end. The boy was running short on options, he if fact figured he was down to one right now: the snake.11

He had eaten snake before [quite good, he thought], and watched people catch them using gunnysacks and various contraptions; sometimes just using their heavily gloved hands. He had also seen people get bitten by the feisty creatures, and becoming ill, in some cases even dying. The boy didn't want to get bitten by the snake; to get ill out here all by your lonesome meant to die, but he figured he only had two choices: death by snakebite or death by starvation, take your pick. But he realized that one choice afforded him at least the chance to go on living, so that's the one he chose.12

Looking around the campsite, he found an old Mesquite branch with a fork in the end of it that might be used to trap the snake's head while the boy killed it with his knife. Unfolding his knife, he very carefully laid it on top of the boulder the snake was under, and then retreated and fetched his stick. The boy then returned to the snake's shady spot, and for the first time, faced his adversary face-to-face. He began by poking the stick at the snake, trying to make it come out into the open. The snake responded by tensing and coiling, ready to strike if need be, even as he deftly dodged the probing stick with his head. Seeing what was happening, the boy tried a new tack, and began striking at the snakes coiled body instead, moving it around. The snake became incensed at this new action, but refused to leave his cover; instead uncoiling and recoiling over and over again. The boy picked up the tempo and so did the snake and they seemed to be doing some sort or eerie dance in the desert heat, first one leading, then the other. The boy felt as if he was stuck in eternal time somewhere, and if the snake had possessed any true emotions, he would have felt that way as well.13

At last, the snake grew tired of the game, and struck from his hiding place, his fangs nearly finding the boy's leg. The snake was out in the open now, and was coiling anew to strike again. The boy was somewhat shocked at this new development, but realizing he was unhurt, he plunged down with the stick, aiming to immobilize the snake's head, but...he missed! The end of his stick clattered against the hard desert ground, and the snake struck again, this time from point-blank range, and the boy closed his eyes and waited for the pain...14

But a second or two crept by, and the boy felt nothing aside from a vigorous wriggling motion in his right hand. He opened his eyes, and much to his surprise he saw that he had nabbed the snake right behind the head, rendering the snake momentarily harmless. Reaching on top of the boulder, he retrieved his knife, and with shaking hand and spasms of pent up breath, he quickly sliced the snake's head off.15

Later that evening, as he sat by the fire and gorged himself on roasted snake and water, he tried to recall what had happened; but, for the life of him, he couldn't. All he knew was that when he opened his eyes, he had the snake, the snake was supper now, much to his pleasure, and the whys and hows were of no consequence.16

The boy felt the first of the thunder rather than heard it; the ground vibrated slightly and the wind increased steadily, blowing things around that hadn't moved for a while. Then he began to hear the ominous rumble and to see white flashes in sky in the North, and the temperature dropped quickly. The boy laid flat on his back on the desert floor, and waited for the storm to get there. Soon, the sky covered with clouds, and jagged bolts of lightning jumped between them. The rain started falling, big wet drops that stung when they hit you, soaking the boy. He opened his mouth and let the rain fill it as well, enjoying the moisture both inside and out. It was a phenomenon that didn't happen very often in the desert; when it did, you'd best enjoy it.17

When the boy awoke the next morning, he was still wet and cold, but he didn't care. The rain [and the snake] had refreshed him, as it had the entire desert. The wash in front of the Mesquite was now a bonafide stream with running water, and the tree and the cacti seemed to stand tall and proud, loving their existence and wanting some more. The rain had extinguished the boy's fire, but he had decided it was time to move on anyway. Living in the desert with no guns and no horse, and no tools or anything else to think of, was by its nature a very limited way of life, and a hard one at that. So the boy packed up what little he had and tied it to his back, and moved on, heading Southeast, following the stream. As he walked off, he looked back over his shoulder at the little campsite that had been his home for quite a few days now, knowing that there would always be a fond place in his heart for that "little spot in hell", as he was to refer to it in the years to come. Home of the first beans he had ever cooked and of the first snake he had ever killed; yes, he would recall it dearly.18

Then he turned back to his new direction, and marched on towards whatever awaited him. His name was Johnny McDivel, he was just over six years of age, and the year was 1850. And Johnny...he was "gettin on" with his life. 19