Reflections - A Country Gathering

Something Black in the Road

I squinted. 

Whatever lay on the road hadn’t been there when Spence and I left for our health walk to the bridge on Route 173. After windstorms, our walks can be half forward bends and side kicks  to move debris off the road. However, that early spring day, we hadn’t tossed or kicked a single branch.

We’d had a peaceful, no-incident walk. Spring leaves washed the hillside in pastel yellows and greens. The faint fragrance of phlox and seed puffs from cottonwood trees floated in the air. But something long and black lay on the road at the edge of the woods between Hutch’s house and Wells Wood.

“That black thing wasn’t there when we left.” I figured it could be a dark cherry branch except that it lay so straight, exactly in the middle, and perpendicular to the berm. “We would have moved it.” 

“Right.” Spence moved closer and nudged me toward the left. “It wasn’t there earlier.”

The thing had pointy ends. One end lifted a couple inches off the road and looked frayed. “Wait! That isn’t a branch.”

Spence stepped in front of me and walked on the edge of the drainage ditch.

“It’s a black snake.” Following my husband, I kept my eyes glued to the snake with a four and a half feet long, two-inch thick body. “Where’s its head?”

“Over there.” Spence pointed to the far end and kept walking. “That’s why I brought you here.”

At this close view, what had seemed frayed came into focus as a tiny, triangular head. The snake didn’t flex a single scale.

My mind replayed an old memory of a dump truck screeching to a halt in a cloud of dust. Jumping out, neighbor Tom used his bare hands to grab a black snake behind its head and near its tail. Tom swung the snake like a horseshoe and tossed the snake into the woods across the road. “Yinz don’t want a car running over it. Black snakes are good for the garden.”

Technically, the snake is called Eastern Ratsnake or Black Rat Snake. Folks around here call them black snakes.

I stopped a dozen feet from the snake. If it didn’t skedaddle, it might get smooshed. Black snakes move slowly, and this one, basking in the warmth from the sun and the road, showed no intention of leaving. Scanning the berm, I searched for a ten foot or longer branch—none. “Shouldn’t we move it?”

“NO.” Spence motioned for me to follow. “Come on. You’re in the way.”

A cobalt blue pickup approached from the west. We hadn’t met the driver, but his full size pickup had passed us on many walks.

Phlox

Though I didn’t want to touch the black snake, I didn’t want it squashed either. Black snakes aren’t poisonous. They eat rats, mice, and other garden pests.

The pickup drove closer.

I raised my arm and moved my index finger up and down in the direction of the snake.

Spence came back to my side.

The pickup stopped.

The snake didn’t budge.

The pickup inched closer.

The snake didn’t budge.

The pickup crept toward the berm—not enough room to drive around the black snake.

 

The snake didn’t budge.

The truck engine silenced. The cab door opened. Below it one leg appeared followed by a second leg and a wooden cane. Slowly, with head and shoulders bent, a man hobbled past the door. Leaving it wide open, he shuffled around the cab to the black snake.

Its head tilted a fraction of an inch.

Sliding the end of the cane under the snake, the man flicked the snake a few inches toward the berm. He shuffled, lifted, and tossed the snake again. 

On the fourth lift-toss, the black snake curled and snapped at the cane.

As if four and a half foot black snakes attacked his cane daily, the man shuffled, lifted, and tossed again.

A Schwan’s frozen food truck rounded the curve and approached the pickup from behind.

I’d often wondered if the driver lived in our neighborhood or just had a customer somewhere close. As the bright yellow truck came closer, I also wondered if it would—trying to pass on the seventeen foot wide road—hit the open door or slide into the drainage ditch.

The truck did neither. 

Sitting higher than the pickup, the driver observed the drama. He turned off his engine.

A third stranger-neighbor, on a familiar motorized bike, zoomed in from the other direction. The helmet-less rider stopped next to Spence and me. Taking his feet off the pedals and setting them on the dirt road, the skinny, young man asked, “Is it a rattlesnake?”

“No,” Spence said. “A black snake.”

The young man turned a key silencing his bike.

The bent man lifted and tossed the snake.

It curled and snapped.

Spence pointed at the large bike engine between the handlebars and the seat. “Is that new?”

“Yeah. I just put it on.” The young man patted the clean black metal case. “I can go fifty miles an hour with it.” He grimaced. “It’s scary, though. I'm an old man now. I have a kid. I need to get home safely.”

The feeling-old, young man rocked from the toes to the heels of his boots. The bike swayed forward and back.

The only other movements on the dirt road centered around the wood cane. The bent man had neared the berm. He tossed the snake onto the yellow violets and moved weeds. 

It coiled, shook its tail, and slammed the cane harder than before. The snake slithered back onto the road.

The bent man tossed the snake two more times before it coiled and stayed. 

The man hobbled to his truck, climbed inside, and closed the door.

Three engines ground into action and rumbled. 

The young man held a hand up in a wave, lifted his feet, and zoomed away with an ear-splitting roar. Drivers waving, the blue pickup and yellow truck moseyed past. 

Spence and I hadn’t learned the men’s names or even talked with two of the drivers, but the snake changed our stranger-neighbor status. When these vehicles pass us in the future, waves will trigger memories of the day we bonded while saving a black snake.

If only, the snake could learn that sunbathing on the road has drawbacks.

Pastel Hillside at Flickenger's