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Before I could press for details, we had to stop because of all the snakes

Twenty-one

IF YOU ARE FOND OF TARANTULAS AND RATTLESNAKES, this desert will delight you no less than the Metropolitan Opera enchants lovers of Puccini, Donizetti, and Verdi It is a veritable festival of spiders, a jubilee of snakes with ten tis per square ues than you would find even in the halls of Congress

Mrs Fischer was quicker than I to recognize what surged across the broken-shale track, illuhts, and she braked to a full stop before driving over them I leaned forward, fascinated by the creepy spectacle of at least a double score of six-foot-long rattlesnakes seething through the storround, others with their heads raised, all h they were livestock driven by herdslistened in the rain, wet dark scales reflecting the halogen beah theirbodies

Perhaps their subterranean nests had flooded, forcing them out into the downpour, but that seemed unlikely because their instinct, which was really soram, compelled them to choose their lairs with entrances shaped to direct water safely away Besides, rattlers hunt singly, not in packs, and they don’t pursue prey at speed, but for the most part lie in wait These snakes see from flooded dens nor driven by a need for food, but harried to soht of the rats earlier in the day, of the yellow-eyed coyotes in Magic Beach more than a month previously, and I expected these serpents to turn their flat, wicked-looking heads toward us and reveal, by their interest, that what they sought was us But they glided across the road without see to be aware of the liht like this," Mrs Fischer said

"You mean the rain?"

"No The chill They’re cold-blooded"

Of course Unlike mammals, reptiles don’t maintain an optimal body te to the temperature of their environ banked the heat of the day, pays it out to the night In weather as chilly as this, they should be coiled har the dreams of predators, if they dreamed at all

Had the double score of snakes becoued that such a strange scene er

Instead, the last of theed clu a while back … I think it ood"

She took her foot off the brake pedal, and the liht, at the periphery of vision, a flicker of ht my attention, and as I turned ainst thein the passenger door,hard into a punching bag in a gyht, whiplike, eyes aglitter, fangs bared, drops of lass on i rain A coiled snake can strike at prey exactly as far away as the snake is long,suckers, unusually big, well fed on tortoise eggs, rasshoppers, lizards, tarantulas, and a variety of other treats that you won’t find in your favorite all-you-can-eat buffet

Mrs Fischer said, "Goodness gracious," alerting ainst limo was on my side of the vehicle

Undulant serpents seeh the dense wind-driven rain, and collided with the driver-door , four in quick succession

"Well, I never," Mrs Fischer declared, sounding displeased with Mother Nature for this rude assault

As she tramped on the accelerator, a rattler came over the port fender, snout-first into the windshield, where its hypoder veno, alht before slapping back onto the windshield to resulass," I said

"Yes, it is," she agreed

"One-Ear Bob?"

"Absolutely"

We left the snakes behind

Mrs Fischer eased up on the accelerator

I said, "You ever heard of snakes attacking a car?"

"No, never"

"Me neither I wonder why they would"

"I wonder, too And I don’t believe a snake can spring that far"

"The length of its body, ht so, too"

Bullets of rain broke against the arlass

"Have you ever eaten rattlesnake, dear?"

"No, ht"

"I’m a little bit of a finicky eater"

"I sy"

"Lambs are too cute to eat," I said

"Exactly You can’t eat too-cute anis Cows are nice, but they’re not cute"

"They’re not," she agreed "Neither are chickens"

"Pigs are a little bit cute"

Mrs Fischer disagreed "Only in some s, not real pigs"

Neither of us spoke for aon the liht, and finally I said, "So e finish whatever business we’re doing at Mazie’s, is there another route out or do we have to co this track?"

"There’s just this one But not to worry, child I don’t believe snakes have the capacity to strategize Anyhow, doing what you have to do, always and without complaint--that’s the way"

"That’s the way, huh?"

"That’s the way," she confirmed

A pair of thirty-foot Joshua trees appeared on each side of the road, eerie figures in the storht prowl the floor of an ocean, ceaselessly co scents and tastes and, ultimately, small fish from the deep cold currents They had been naiants appeared to be warriorlike but also to be raising their arly to Heaven, just as Joshua did at the battle of Jericho