Where Serpents Lie

Nine

Hypok pulled his van into the last parking area in Caspers Wilderness Park, circled the lot once, then backed the vehicle into a space. He always drove his van rather than his car when he had interesting things to accomplish. There were no other vehicles this deep into the fragrant scrub woods, and there was a nice circle of shade from a big oak tree behind the lot. He turned off the engine and wiped his face with his hand. He pulled the half gallon of generic tequila from under the seat and took a long drink. Then another. The big bottles lasted him two days usually, but the stuff evaporated faster if he was under particular stress. Lots of that lately, he thought. Frankly, this was the last place he imagined he’d be this afternoon, after last week’s failed mission. But now he felt great.

He looked in the back of the van at all his jars and pillowcases and burlap bags, filled with snakes again. They were active because it was warm back there, and he could see the bags and pillowcases moving. He wondered again at how easy this was to do now, compared to how hard it was to do last week. Now it felt right again, overwhelmingly right, now was a time for change, for the shedding of skin, for renewal. After all, it was springtime, wasn’t it? Look at his own new, clean-shaven face. His freshly cut, bleached and swept-back hair. The new white paint job for his van — an impulse, really, not quite a precaution, just an urge to change its color. Now, letting some of his snakes go. It felt right. He felt giddy about it all, but still right.

He reached back and lifted one of the glass jars. Holding it between his legs he opened the lid and pulled out the nice mountain king snake he’d caught up in the San Bernardinos years ago. It was a beautiful thing, he thought: red and white and black, with a curious little face and the sweetest disposition. He let it explore his arm. He thought about what he was doing. There was some sadness in this, for sure. Still, he was committed now, he was consolidating himself, trimming his past, becoming whole. He felt capable. Capable of this act. Capable of rational things like letting his beloved creatures go free, like changing the way he looked again, things like convincing Collette to take her house — his house — off the market, when he had convinced her to sell it in the first place. What a sane, bold stroke the unlisting had been. An example of capability and consolidation, of course correction. He smiled to himself, picturing that listing agent traipsing through his place with her provocative perfume, instructing him on all the things he’d have to do to sell it, I mean what your sister will have to do in order to sell it. He’d been quite drunk at the time. He hadn’t quite foreseen that people would be allowed to just show up and go through his home. And what about the guest house in back? How could he possibly find a better setup than that? He’d called Collette two days later and all but ordered her to take it off the market. Collette could care less, of course, so long as she either made money on a sale or continued to save taxes and build equity in something she didn’t have to pay for.

Solid.

Capable.

Firm.

He had already put the bags and jars in cardboard boxes, and knew it was going to take four trips if he carried one box at a time. They weren’t heavy, really, but they were fairly large and wouldn’t stack well. Besides, who knew how far he’d have to hike in order to find the perfect spot?

He got out and locked the front doors, then slid open the side and brought out one of the boxes. The pillowcases on top were all moving as he set it on the ground, and the rattlesnakes buzzed in their jars, coiled and looking up at him. He shut and locked the side door, then picked up the box and headed down the trail with it.

Past a stand of live oaks, through the toyon, down a gully rimmed by prickly pear and wild cucumber, then into the meadow. The area looked different than when he was last here, dropping off Item #2, but that was three weeks ago and the season hadn’t really turned yet. It was also in another part of the park altogether: no reason to visit it again, really, because the cops, if they’re smart, might expect that. Now the purple lupine and yellow mustard smeared their colors on the hills and even the dour oaks were vibrantly green. Bees. Bees everywhere, buzzing, dizzying, hypnotizing bees.

It was surprisingly hot. He could feel the sweat rolling down his sides and the dampness of the box up against his chest. He climbed a hillside and found a very nice outcropping of rocks just over the crest, the kind of place snakes love. He set down the box and looked around. There was a creek about a hundred yards away. It would be dry by summer, but the soil around it was dark now and that meant moisture. To his left the rocks clung to the hillside in a long band. There were rock roses with nice yellow blossoms growing in the cracks. Past the creek the hillside rose steeply, clotted with cactus and more rocks. Perfect, Hypok thought: the whole place is snake heaven.

Though it made him sad, he let the mountain king snake go first. It was a hard one to catch — three years of hiking the mountains in the spring before he’d found one this big and this well marked. He knelt by the rocks and the snake slid off his palm and lay in the brush. Its tongue was working fast and its head was raised just a little: Hypok wondered what it must feel like to spend five years in a cage, then be suddenly released to the vast distances of nature. He watched its sides expand and retract slowly, slightly, as it breathed. The king snake lowered its shiny black head and eased into a crack in the rocks.

“See you, little king snake. Kickie some buttie.”

Hypok felt everything swell up inside him then, the sadness and the courage and the urgency and the excitement all boiling together. He waited for them to pass. That was always the way it was. Something had to give. That is nature. And nature is change. The shed had begun again and he would emerge from it soon, fresh and brilliant. Singular and unique. Composed and purposeful. Not stressed by contradiction and not paralyzed by doubt. He would be, finally, his true and actual self.

So he worked quickly, trying to take his mind off of things, trying to focus on just one feeling at a time. He got the box and carried it a few yards before he felt positive about the location. He knelt again. The two red rattlesnakes buzzed lethargically as he opened their jar and held it upright over a large flat rock. They didn’t want to come out. Hypok noted that snakes almost always want to crawl back into confined space rather than explore an open one, and he couldn’t blame them for that. The world was full of threat. He pulled them bodily from the jar and tossed them, one at a time, into the grass before they could turn and bite him. Like the mountain king, the rattlers lay in the sun for a moment, stunned by their liberty, before gliding under the big rock. Then the Russell’s vipers from Bangladesh; the horned desert vipers from Kuwait; the dwarf adder from Little Namaqualand; the rhombic night adder from Botswana; the yellow eyelash vipers from Costa Rica; the green palm viper from Honduras; the eight-foot bushmaster from Peru; and the ferde-lance from Mexico.

Hypok stood there for a moment and watched all the tails disappear beneath the rocks and brush. He loved the way snakes traveled silently and effortlessly. They were singular and self-contained. And so beautiful, too. For a moment he was happy. They were free. Then he was sad, when he thought that they would all probably die here, in habitat so different from where they had come. But who knew? They might thrive: reptiles were tough. Hypok was happy again. Then he was concerned that he was upsetting the fragile ecology of a bioregion. But he cheered up again, comparing how little a few snakes could hurt the world when mankind had fucked it up so much already. He thought: wait until the hikers and tree huggers and bird watchers and eco-weenies get a load of these things. Wake them up to the real world. He giggled and watched the huge bushmaster slide down into the brush. He felt a tear form in the corner of his right eye.

One down.

He took the next box closer to the creek. There were only four snakes in this one, but it was heavy. Out came the pale olive nine-foot king cobra from the Philippines; the two yellow gold twelve-footers from The People’s Republic of China; and the eighteen-foot dark green one from India — a serpent so big and so deadly that Hypok trembled from twenty yards away as it eased from the burlap bag, reared its head six feet into the air and stared at him, quite literally, eye to eye. Hypok stood still for a full two minutes as the snake stared him down. Finally the majestic thing lowered its shiny, blunt head and slowly nosed its way through the blooming mustard toward the creek. Hypok was smiling while the tears ran down his face.

Then the box of venomous little jewels from across the states, which he carried over the next rise and down into a green swale littered with oak stumps and wild tobacco: the Willard’s rattlers and the bright coral snakes from Arizona; the pygmy rattlers from South Carolina; the sidewinders and Mitchell’s rattlers from California; the copperheads from Florida. Hypok just opened the jars and tossed the creatures into the air, watching them land all around him. Snake rain. Serpent drops. Yes, he felt happy again.

He saved his favorite snakes for the last. He trotted back to the van and got the box. Holding it to him and making his way back through the woods with them he felt all those rampant emotions vying for attention inside himself again. The box was heavy, filled with timber rattlers from the east, his beloved Crotalus horridus horridus, and the thought of setting them free was almost too much for him. But was it too much excitement, or too much sadness, or too much anger? — he couldn’t really say. His brain buzzed and his heart felt heavy but fast and his face was sweating but cold. He told himself this liberation was necessary as a part of who he was becoming.

He’d put most of the horridus into pillowcases because they were too big for jars, all except for a couple of foot-long yearlings that had been born last summer. In a shaded oak glen not far from the creek he set down the box amid the sharp dry leaves and sighed deeply. Within the pillowcases the big horridus were moving, their heads pressed tightly into the corners — Hypok had reinforced those corners himself, by hand, with needle and thread — feeling for a way out I know how you feel, he thought: change, progress, release.

First he let go the females, four five-footers he’d had since they were hardly more than seven inches long. They buzzed vigorously as he stooped and untied the bags. Hypok then gingerly lifted the bags one at a time by a corner and poured the snakes onto the ground. He watched them coil and face him, rattles high and blurring, heads back and lowered for a strike. He just loved the spirit of the horridus.

Strangely, all four of them stopped rattling almost at once, and Hypok could hear the April breeze in the oaks and the dry chatter of the leaves moving against each other at his feet. It was a sad sound and he was smiling.

His heart jumped into the sky when he heard the voice.

“Hello, there! What are you doing?”

He reeled and dropped the two empty cases.

The park ranger was still thirty yards away, but his voice had sounded like he was almost on top of him.

Hypok felt a rapid shudder of nerves down his body and a shortness of breath. The ranger was already making his way across the swale toward him, his arms swinging with certain authority and his head — with that funny Smoky-the-Bear hat — cocked at a stern angle.

Okay, he thought.

Solid.

Capable.

Firm.

Contain yourself. You have rights.

He raised a hand in greeting and smiled.

“Just letting some snakes go, Officer! That’s all.”

Hypok looked down into his box. Two pillowcases containing the four big male horridus and the glass jar with the young ones were all that was left.

The ranger trudged toward him with his head still angled for seriousness. He wore the droop shades you’d see on television cops. He looked heavy and out of place in his stiff tan shirt with the golden badge on it, and green pants. He carried a citation book in his left hand. No gun.

“Good afternoon,” said Hypok. He could smell his breath after he spoke, but he thought his voice sounded masculine.

“Afternoon.”

His badge said Stefanic. His boots were shiny and his forearms thick. He stopped a few feet away, looking at Hypok, then down into the box.

“What are you doing?”

“Releasing some snakes, sir.”

“Those look like rattlesnakes in the jar.”

“They are. I discovered a den near my house in Orange. I live by a field. Some boys were crushing them with rocks, so I interceded and saved the last of the juveniles.”

The ranger looked at Hypok again. “I’d like to see some ID.”

“My wallet’s back in the car. I’d be happy to get it for you.”

Hypok stepped back as if to head toward his van, but Stefanic raised a palm his way, in the manner of a cop directing traffic.

“Not yet.”

For a moment the ranger stared into the box.

“What’s in the pillowcases?”

“Four adult animals.”

“What kind of animals?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Rattlesnakes, also. Western Pacific rattlesnakes I caught out here a few weeks ago.”

The ranger tucked his citation book under one arm, then lifted off his shades. He looked at Hypok as he slid them into the breast pocket of his shirt. He tapped the book against one leg.

“What have you set loose out here, so far?”

“Two rattlesnakes.”

Oh, Hypok thought, what would Stefanic think when he saw the other three boxes and a dozen bags back in his van?

“That’s all?”

“And a small collection of king and gopher snakes.”

“How many is small?”

“Six specimens of each. All adults and quite healthy. I’ve had them for years.”

Hypok was suddenly furious with himself for giving up so much information to this idiot. Why couldn’t he stay light on his feet, remain glib, move laterally?

“Are you a commercial breeder?”

“Strictly a hobbyist. By trade I’m a photographer and filmmaker.”

Stefanic took a step forward, set his citation book over the corner of the box, then lifted out the jar of young timber rattlers. The snakes retracted and looked out at the ranger. One buzzed and coiled to strike.

“These don’t look like our westerns or reds. These look like something else.”

“I believe they’re the common viridis, sir, based on the distribution maps I’ve seen.”

“Hmm. Awfully dark. No bands on the tails.”

“The juveniles morph considerably, according to Klauber.”

“You come here often?”

“Not often. But I love the park. Especially in the spring because all the flowers and reptiles are out. Got to watch for those mountain lions, though.”

Tighten up now, Hypok thought: hold your tongue and cut your losses. Stefanic seemed to be considering his mountain lion statement. A girl had been badly mauled here some years ago and every spring there was controversy about whether to open the park, and to whom. You had to be eighteen to be here without parents now, Hypok thought. Something along those lines. He felt a big runner of sweat drip down his back.

“It’s illegal to keep venomous reptiles in the State of California,” said Stefanic.

“I understand that, sir. It’s the reason I’m letting these go. I didn’t feel like I had a choice but to collect the small ones, with the boys killing them for no reason.

Hypok entertained a brief vision of the eighteen-foot king cobra appearing now, raising its head six feet off the grass and charging forward to sink its fangs into Stefanic’s forehead. That would actually solve a lot of problems.

“Let me see what’s in the bags,” ordered Stefanic.

“Well, all right.”

Hypok knelt down and unknotted one of the pillowcases. He used leather to make the ties. The case had a cream background with little rows of iris across it. One of his mother’s, of course. He grasped the corners at the top and lifted the bag, shaking it so the snake wouldn’t come flying out at him. Stefanic moved closer and looked in. He took off his hat because the brim was cutting off the light.

“That’s a big one.”

“Over five feet.”

“Where’d you get it?”

“Out here, a couple of seasons back.”

“You’ve been keeping it for two years.”

“I have a safe setup and take good care of them. No children or other pets around to cause problems.”

“What’s it eat?”

“Rats.”

Hypok wondered again if anyone in law enforcement would have had the breadth of knowledge to translate his pseudonym into the names of certain animals, then into the names of certain reptiles, then assume that he was a herpetologist, then extrapolate that he must keep a horridus as a pet, then recognize a horridus when they saw one. He didn’t think so when he signed his name to Item #2, and he didn’t think so now. But what if they’d gone that far, and asked around at the pet shops handling reptiles? What if an APB had gone out for anyone suspicious who was dealing with snakes? He couldn’t imagine that anyone could have found the big scale he’d folded so carefully and inserted into Item #2’s shed, although he’d privately wished someone would. But maybe those were some of the subconscious reasons he had for freeing the animals in the first place. Now this Stefanic.

Don’t get scared, he thought. Let those in law enforcement behave stupidly. That’s their job. But it would sure be nice if Stefanic got his face a little too close, wouldn’t it?

“That’s really something. The size of its head. And what, twelve or thirteen rattles? I’ve been working out here for two years and I’ve never seen one this big. Still doesn’t look right, though. It looks like the ones we used to find back in the Carolinas when I was a kid. Timber rattlers.”

“That’s exactly why I kept him,” Hypok ad-libbed. His heart was beating fast and light in his ears and his face was hot Wasn’t it just too fucking much to believe, that a slab like Stefanic would know a timber rattler when he saw one? Hypok suddenly hated himself for his arrogance and recklessness. He hated himself for his attempted coyness with the cops, for his mundane decision to taunt them, to get a little publicity. He had led a life of debilitating shyness and caution — he’d be the first to admit that — and now, now that he was emerging consolidated from three decades of simpering gutlessness, he was going overboard and giving himself away. Wouldn’t anything ever go right? “Because the coloration and pattern were so unique,” he heard himself saying. “Quite a specimen...”

Stefanic shook his head in admiration. “Spooky critter.”

“I think their reputations are undeserved.”

Stefanic set his hat over one of the other corners of the box, and stood. His hair was dented where the headband rested. “What’s your name?”

Hypok knew he had about one second to give a convincing reply. Anything but the truth, his instincts told him: say anything but the truth. Sounding calm and a little disappointed, he gave Stefanic his Web name: the name of the creature he became when he was in his workroom with his fingers on the mouse, yakking it up with some of the Friendlies, or the Midnight Ramblers or just any lonely child worshipper spending time in a private chat room.

Hypok smiled and looked down into the bag again. His cheeks were burning hot now and there was a distinct ringing in his ears. You’re carrying your Lumsden license now. Why did you give a different name? He half expected his mother to run out of the trees and lock him in the basement.

He took a deep breath but kept looking down into the bag so as not to look at the ranger. He knelt and set the pillowcase back in the box and made a show of tying the leather thong over the end, but he left it loose, just draped over itself.

“I’m not going to cite you,” Stefanic said.

Hypok still couldn’t muster whatever it would take to look at this... this unthinking block of stupidity standing over him. He remained kneeling, looking into the box. He felt a little stream of relief try to form inside him and he tried to hold on to it the best he could.

What? Wait — the ranger wasn’t going to cite him! He felt the tightness disappear from his chest and he wanted to smile warmly and perhaps clasp the shoulder of this man of the great outdoors, this firm but fair enforcer of natural law and order.

“Well, I really don’t feel as if I’ve done anything wrong.”

“Possession of venomous reptiles in the State of—”

“—You can understand the circumstances of those boys stoning young animals, can’t you?”

It came out much sharper than he would have liked. He was just a little out of balance now — his words didn’t match his thoughts and his thoughts didn’t match his feelings.

“I can understand you were keeping five-foot rattlesnakes as pets, too.”

Hypok told himself to just hold on now, just settle down, and everything would be all right. Stefanic would leave, forget his name, forget the encounter. All he was doing was walking in the woods, letting a few snakes go back home. Stefanic was not going to cite him.

“I’ll have to write up an incident report, though. That’s just to have on file. If I find you out here again, in possession of venomous reptiles, then I will have to cite you.”

Hypok nodded noncommittally. He felt his heart plummet to the center of earth and come out the other side, somewhere over in fucking China probably. He wondered if the rage showed on his face. In case it did, he looked away to the trees, then down into the box, then at his feet, then finally at Stefanic’s nameplate, so he wouldn’t have to look the ignorant ball of meat in the face.

“So.”

Stefanic took a knee, as if to be familiar, on his victim’s level, or at least comfortable while he wrote. He took the citation book off the box and flipped up the black lid. He pulled a silver pen from the pocket of his shirt and looked across at Hypok.

Stefanic spelled out Hypok’s Web name letter by letter, looking up at Hypok when he was done.

“Correct?”

“Correct.”

Why in the name of Moloch didn’t I just tell him my name was Lumsden?

He’ll check my license when we’re done and see Lumsden.

He’ll take the van plate numbers and see Lumsden.

Right then, at that moment, it was impossible for Hypok to tell who he hated more — himself or the crisply starched dipshit kneeling not three feet across from him.

Hypok stood up and expected the ranger to do likewise, but he didn’t. The moron was full of surprises.

Stefanic looked up at him. “Age and local address?”

Hypok made them up.

“You know your California driver’s license number?”

Hypok made up that, too. He realized that everything was going to be quite all right. He felt good again. Powerful and good. Then, “You know, I hike the parks in Orange County a lot. This is far and away the best one. You guys do a great job.”

“We try,” said Stefanic, still writing, but not looking up. “We do try.”

He was one of those guys, noted Hypok, who took about five minutes to write one letter or number.

“Do you mind if I set the juveniles free?”

“In a minute. Car make and model, year?”

“Oh, it’s a Dodge van. Ninety-six. In fact, I waited until last to set these babies loose, because they’re such cool, good-looking little animals.”

“Trouble, if you step on one.”

“That’s sure true.”

Hypok knelt down again and took up the jar to look at it. “You wonder how many will make it another year. You know, because of how small they are. Have you ever seen one of these eat — I mean, in nature out here?”

Stefanic stopped writing and looked at Hypok. “No. What’s your local phone, Ian?”

Hypok stood with the jar in his hands and held it up to the sky. He looked at the little snakes sliding around inside.

“Six-eight-one...”

Stefanic lowered his face to write, fifteen minutes to write three numbers, then looked back up at Hypok.

“Four-seven-seven-eight.”

Stefanic looked down at his citation page again and Hypok hit him over the head with the jar as hard as he possibly could. It broke into big shards because it was the heavy kind of half-gallon jar made for bulk condiments. Stefanic grunted and his face lowered. The right side of the jar came off in Hypok’s right hand so he held fast to the lid and set a big triangle of glass under the ranger’s throat and drew up fast and hard with it. He bent his knees for torque. There was this sudden intake on Stefanic’s part and a red stream looping in the air. Hypok did it again. The ranger lifted his head to look up and the stream gushed bigger so Stefanic kind of rolled with it, rocking back on his knees and half upright, with both hands at his throat and a bubbling wheeze issuing through his fingers. With his head cocked at an unnatural angle he stared up at Hypok in disbelief. Hypok jumped back and dropped the lid. He reached into the box and felt outside the bag for the big head of the male horridus and found it easily because it was nosing its way in the corner of the bag like they usually do, pressing the seams for a way out. He grabbed it firmly through the cotton with one hand and reached in with the other so they almost met and got the head good and firm and dragged the thing out. The other snake he didn’t even think about. The big horridus was just as strong and heavy as he knew it would be. The rattles hissed like a tire leaking air, but much, much louder. The mouth was open wide from the pressure of Hypok’s grip and the fangs stood out when Hypok hit the snake’s nose against the box. Three-quarters of an inch of hollow bone, dripping venom. Stefanic had gotten up. He still had both hands up to his neck and there was blood all over him, but he was up and backpedaling with his head still cranked to one side. He tripped and fell and rolled over. Hypok hustled to his side and pressed the open mouth of the horridus against the ranger’s calf. The snake bit down like a dog. Stefanic kicked his leg free and seemed to be trying to scream — Hypok was pretty sure — but the sound was a wet hiss that sounded like water against the pebbles of a streambed. Hypok jammed the snake’s mouth against the ranger’s ass. Stefanic rolled over and struggled upright, but Hypok was beside him and the ranger couldn’t see much because his eyes were smeared with blood and he couldn’t straighten his head without his neck gaping apart so Hypok drilled the big, white, open mouth of the viper straight into Stefanic’s face, right below the cheekbone, pressed it so hard the ranger lost his footing and fell over again. Hypok let go of the snake, but the horridus was stuck fast, anchored by those fangs, its upper jaw up by Stefanic’s eye and its lower one spread all the way down to the bottom of his chin.

Hypok stood there and looked down.

He’d never seen action like this, not even when he fed his mother to Moloch. If she hadn’t been feeble it would have been better. But this was another thing completely. He couldn’t stand it He felt himself excited down there and didn’t know what to do. It surprised him to feel that way now. That’s what the Items were for, and all the work he went through to collect them. It absolutely shocked him to feel stimulated, and he had the terrifying idea that this might mean he was homosexual. Because of Stefanic.

The ranger was still hissing wetly. But he wasn’t strong enough to get up and his chest was heaving, unbelievably fast. It was amazing that much blood could keep coming out. Hypok took a knee and watched, checking the time. It was the oddest thing, but he felt like he had all the time in the world. Compared to Ranger Rick here, he thought, I do. The snake let go and crawled away.

Now what?