Serpent Circles Page 3

  “Not at first,” commented Solomon as he placed the shield face up in the researcher’s lap. “The venom dulls you. But the burning hits you as the saliva attacks your skin. Look at the shield.”

  Glancing down, Tim noted the many scars on the shield. All of them were in pairs and while some were wider and a few smaller than the scars on the man’s side, they were all recognizable as being from the same type of implement.

  “What made these?” the historian asked.

  “What do you think I’ve been talking about,” Solomon exclaimed. “You’re the first one to ever hear my story. Those are from snake fangs. But if you aren’t interested, by all means, leave.”

  The mountain man picked up the sword and ran his gloved hand along the blade. Not sure if it was a threat or simply an exhibition of the weapon, Tim flipped on the recorder, made a come-on-with-it sign with his hand, and gave back the shield.

  “It’s amazing what you can make from a steel truck spring,” Solomon said. He placed the shield beside his chair and swung the sword over his head. “But all offense and no defense can cost you the game of life.”

  Chapter 5 – Chop, Chop, Mend

  The Crusty Boy machinist thought I was insane or maybe joking with him. That was until I placed cash on his workbench and he realized I was serious. He took the money and strolled to a bin filled with pieces of steel. After selecting a section of truck spring, he pointed the rusty curved metal at me.

  “This should work,” he announced. “But why do you want a sword?”

  “That’s a rusty piece,” I responded while deflecting his question. He might not understand if I told him the sword was for hunting enormous snakes. “and it’s bent. How can that be a sword?”

  “You want a sword but don’t know how one is made,” the machinist laughed. “You’re going to heat and hammer it. Then heat and hammer it a thousand times before it even comes close to being recognizable as a sword. Are you sure you want this?”

  I thought of the snakes with girths the size of my waist, and the tough skin and scales. Unless I could get my hands on a machine gun and the means to drag it and thousands of rounds of ammo up the mountain, it would have to be a sword.

  “Yes. I want a sword,” I stated. “How do I start?”

  “We move my anvil to the back corner of the shop and brick in a furnace,” he described. Then he tossed the heavy steel spring at me. I caught it and the weight almost pulled it out of my hands. “I’ll show you how to forge a blade but it’s hard work. Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” I replied.

  It proved to be an excellent decision for an inexperienced nadreddet slayer.

  ***

  The creation of the sword was beneficial in more ways than one. I learned to shape and respect steel. And, doing the forging with the hammer filled me out. By the time the leaves turned and the wind blew cold, I had the muscles required to brandish the deadly sword.

  The day I finished wrapping the hilt, the machinist presented me with a sheath to protect the sharp blade and a leather shoulder harness so I could carry it on my back. A waist belt would cause the blade to swing against my leg and catch on branches. With it on my back, it wouldn’t impede my climbing in the mountains.

  In addition to being armed with the sword and a bowie knife, I purchased a pistol, extra magazines, and boxes of 45 caliber ammo. The pistol didn’t have the range or the accuracy of a rifle but those limitations didn’t matter. My hunts required me to get up close and personal with snakes.

  ***

  On an overcast day with a light rain falling, I strapped on my weapons, supplies, and marched to the edge of Crusty Boy. Footing was treacherous on the lower slopes but I managed to reach a game trail at a higher elevation with just a few slips and falls. The rain intensified and I was thankful for the animals that used the most energy efficient trails for their migration. If I had to cut my own trail, it would have taken me over a day to reach altitude and I would have been exhausted.

  I camped that night with hail pounding on my tent. In the morning, I awoke to a bejeweled world. Ice coated the branches of the trees and even individual stalks of weeds in the clearing around me. Ecstatic at the frozen scene because, as I learned in my studies, snakes were lethargic when cold and went underground. I happily packed up my camp.

  With the crunch of ice under my boots, I hiked all morning searching for a mountain meadow. My recent history pointed me toward that type of area as the best place to begin my search. When the trail broke through the trees, I came out on the lower end of a snow-covered pasture. One corner of the grassland ended at the base of a beaver dam. On the other side of the meadow, a granite formation rose to join steep hills. If there were nadreddets in the area, they would be wintering in the rocks. I could spend days crawling into crevices looking for snakes that weren’t there or I could check the lake shore for signs.

  ***

  A lake offered water for wildlife and created a hunting ground for predators. However, I reached the dam without seeing animal tracks of any kind. It struck me as unusual as the lake had to be the largest body of water in the area. It also meant something was keeping the animals away. Following the shoreline, I studied the ground looking for prints.

  On the upper reaches where a stream flowed into the lake, I sighted tracks of large animals. As if there was an invisible barrier, they stopped before reaching the side facing the granite formation. I reversed direction and as I started across the meadow toward the rocks the freezing rain returned.

  Any nadreddet ruts in the ground were covered by the snow and ice but I felt confident. With the rain falling steadily, I dropped my backpack between a pair of ice encrusted evergreen trees at the edge of the meadow. If the sleet continued, I didn’t want the pack to be frozen to the ground. Then I walked deeper into the woods in the direction of the crop of rocks looking for signs of serpents. I should have looked closer at where I left my pack.

  ***

  The trees ended abruptly and I stared at a wall of boulders. Up, left, or right I couldn’t decide where to begin my search. Then I noticed a fist sized gold and red scale on a rock higher up. With that clue pointing the way, I climbed on the lower stones while ignoring the implication of the scale’s dimensions.

  A mud slide long ago had washed down and buried the back side of the granite hill. Subsequently, rain and wind had eroded the surface soil. What was left lay in depressions and in deep crannies. It was in one of them, I found the snakes’ den.

  They were knotted up in a pile, intertwined, and laying still. It was cold and the textbooks described this lazing and sleeping as brumation. Cold blooded, the five nadreddets rested under an overhanging rock in a fifteen-foot depression attempting to stay warm. I thought it odd they didn’t seek deeper ground to escape the frigid weather. With my sword in one hand and my bowie knife in the other, I slid down the loose dirt into the hollow.

  So entwined were the nadreddets, it was impossible to identify individual bodies. At the bottom, I crept forward and realized two of the snakes were stouter and presumably longer than the other three. Yet they were all identical.

  If I could have located their heads, I would have and behead each of them. But the heads were tucked into the thick coils, leaving me with no choice but to blindly hack at the bodies. Planting my feet and bracing my back, I raised the sword over my head.

  Brumation was the extreme slowing down of a snake’s metabolism making them very lethargic. Very lethargic the textbooks said. If that was the case, I should get in several chops before they responded. My blade descended and cut deep into one body. Then three heads emerged, rose high over me, and jerked from side to side. Three tongues extended and began sampling the air searching for me. No enemy would enter a den occupied by snakes with bodies fifteen-inches in diameter. Their natural confidence saved me as the snakes searched the rim of the hollow for an enemy.

  Based on their self-assurance and brumation, their confusion was understandable. Embolden by the situation, I r
aised my sword and finished the job of dividing the body. When one of the heads swayed downward in my direction, I wound up as if my sword was a baseball bat and I swung. The sharp blade cut through the flesh just behind the head. But the swing carried the blade above shoulder level. I was off balanced and overextended. That’s when the fifth serpent made its appearance.

  Pain ripped down my side but subsided when a thick and wet substance spread out to the sides of my aching ribs. While the liquid dulled the sharp pain, it began to burn the skin surrounding the wound. Swinging my bowie across my body, I drove it up and through the fifth nadreddet’s head. I twisted the blade to be sure I scrambled the reptile’s brain and killed it. With a shove, I lifted the snake’s head and disentangled the fangs from where they hung in my ripped clothing. By then, the severed nadreddet’s sections were squirming, the brain-dead snake thrashed in its death throes as did the wounded one, and the two surviving nadreddets drew back preparing to strike. That’s when I learned an important lesson. Bigger snakes were slower.

  Normal size serpents could strike at one tenth of a second. No human was fast enough to dodge the fangs and venom in that fraction of a second. I shouldn’t have been able to but, I did.

  The snake, with its bared fangs extended, shot forward. My sword was moving in the other direction as I attempted to recover my stance. Without room to chop or stab and with little time to dodge, I slammed the side of the blade into the nadreddet’s head and used it to push my body out of the way of the fangs. It wasn’t until I was scrambling up the dirt slope that it occurred to me. I had been able to avoid the strike.

  At the top, I dared to look back. To my surprise, the two healthy snakes were tracking back and forth on the same slope I’d just charged up. A satisfying reality came to me as I waited at the top to kill one more.

  The reality was the huge snakes moved slower probably due to their own mass. And, their usual means of traveling by slithering was negated by the soft dirt that couldn’t support their weight. I wanted both dead but the muscles on my ribs were convulsing and I didn’t know how long I could stay in the fight. Breathing hard and trying not to focus on my injury, I waited for the nadreddet to cross in front of me. As it passed, I leaned forward and cleaved into it doing little damage because of my injury and the angle. In another couple of passes, the snakes would top the rise. I didn’t have the will to face them.

  Brumation my butt, I thought as I turned away from the hollow. Those snakes were anything but sluggish once they awakened.

  I needed to treat my wound and wasn’t sure how fast the oversized snakes were on firmer ground. With the sword in its sheath and an arm against my ribs, I scrambled over the rocks until I reached the edge overlooking the forest. I started down hurrying out of fear that one or both of the snakes would come down the rocks on top of me. I paid a price for rushing while glancing up. My foot slipped and wobbled for a moment, before I fell off the granite formation.

  ***

  With my eyes studying the top of the formation, I tested my arms and legs checking for injuries. My back was stiff and I couldn’t tell if I’d hurt my ribs because of the burning. As I rolled over to push off the ground, I came face to face with a sharp-edged stone. If my landing had been more to the right, I wouldn’t be worrying about evading huge nadreddets. In fact, I’d have been food for one of them.

  I stumbled through the forest and missed my pack by a few yards when I emerged for the trees. Frantically, I hobbled along the meadow looking for the tall iced coated conifers. All the trees looked alike and a new fear gripped me. How would I survive without my equipment? Then I tripped and landed painfully on my face. As I pushed back and knelt, I saw my footprints in the snow leading from the lake. Exhausted, I climbed to my feet and followed them to the trees and my pack.

  Although I needed to treat the wound, I settled for flushing rather than stripping down and applying first aid. With an uncapped canteen in one hand, I peeled back the ripped coat and shirt. Two lines of parted flesh with red and bubbled skin on either side were visible. My skin, coat, and shirt were wet with venom. If that much poison had entered my body, I would already be digesting in a snake’s belly. I emptied the canteen and clinched my teeth against the stinging of the fang marks and the acid burned flesh. There was clean clothing in my pack and I took deep breaths preparing to collect myself enough to retrieve them.

  My head swam and my vision blurred. I lost balance and stumbled into one of the evergreen trees. My upper body crushed the branches and a shower of ice rained down. The cold and light shower of thin ice on my head refreshed me. Feeling better, I reached for my backpack. There were still two snakes awake and moving and I didn’t want to be here if they crossed the forest looking for me.

  The shower of ice created by my body didn’t stop. As the branches at my level stilled, a ripple ran up the tree. Ice and frozen branches fell on and around me. Confused by the additional downfall, I glanced back at the evergreen. Against the trunk and hidden in the foliage, I saw gold and red scales. I dropped the pack and pulled my sword.

  From high up in the tree, a giant tongue flicked out from the branches. Then a head the size of my torso floated across the sky. Before the giant snake could locate me, I charged into the branches. I reacted so quickly, I wasn’t sure if I was seeking a target or sanctuary from the enormous fangs.

  Scaly coils, thicker than my waist, bulged as they wrapped around the lower section of the tree trunk. I looked up but the rest of the monstrous nadreddet’s body was hidden in branches as it twisted high into the tree. Although I couldn’t see the entire length, I judged the distance from where I stood to where the head surveyed the surrounding area. The snake had to be twenty-five to thirty feet long.

  Then the nose smacked the branches from outside and the tree limbs around me bent and some broke. If the tree had been an oak or poplar, the branches would have separated. But the thick outer cover of the conifer remained together creating a screen. Despite the size of the nadreddet, the evergreen boughs crushed flat rather than allowing the nose and head to reach me. Only the fangs entered and I dodged them. While the delay wouldn’t last, it did give me time to attack.

  There wasn’t room in the tight branches to swing so I stabbed. With legs bent to collect my power, I drove the tip of my sword between scales, through the meat and bones, and out the other side. Then I twisted and pulled the sword sideways. Slicing from inside, the sharp blade cut until it ripped a gash in the snake’s side. Without pausing, I stabbed again and repeated the interior cutting. A gush of yellow-brown blood swept me off my feet. There was only a flap of skin left holding the tail on when the fangs poked through the boughs again. Quickly, I crawled out of the snake blood shower and made my way to the other side of the tree trunk.

  It took a moment to get a grip on the wet hilt and gain my footing. Then with another thrust, I cut the snake in a different place. It must have been too much punishment for the nadreddet. The severed coils began to climb the tree and the head stopped slamming into the boughs of the evergreen tree. After the snake’s body climbed higher leaving the tail still wrapped around the tree, I scrambled to the edge of the tree’s skirt and I peered between the branches. The nadreddet stretched out in the air before falling into the other tree. Its weight crushed the other conifer’s branches which broke the fall and lowered the giant snake to the ground. Then while spewing yellow-brown blood, it slithered away into the forest.

  The tail began to vibrate and untangle itself from the tree trunk. To avoid the postmortem spasms of the big slab of muscle and scales, I scrambled out from under the evergreen. My energy deserted me and I couldn’t catch my breath. It was time to leave the mountain and get to the clinic at Crusty Boy.

  ***

  Tim Constance dropped his head between his legs, and while shaking it, reached out and switched off the recorder.

  “A thirty-foot-long, cold resistant, tree climbing snake?” he mumbled. “Really? You want me to believe that?”

  “If you ha
ve trouble with that, wait until you hear the rest,” teased Solomon. “But stay with me. You’ll get your answer about Crusty Boy. I’m hungry. Lunch?”

  “I could eat,” Tom replied.

  “Good. Let me get somethings out of the cooler,” the mountain man suggested. He walked to the kitchen area. “Meat and salad?”

  “That sounds good,” the researcher said.

  Then Tim began scribbling notes in a diary as Solomon pulled items out of cabinets. Minutes later the sound and smell of grilling meat reached Tim and he looked up from his notes.

  “That smells delicious,” he exclaimed. “It’s not lamb or pork. Is it catfish? It’s not pungent enough to be mountain trout.”

  “You seem to know your proteins,” Solomon acknowledged. “Hold on, I’m just tossing the salad.”

  The coffee table was set with a pitcher of home-made wine and two carved wooden mugs. Next to the beverages, Solomon placed a big bowl of salad with two dishes. For silverware, the settings received forks and sharp, bone-handled knives.

  “That’s the biggest steak knife I’ve ever seen,” Tim commented after picking one up and examining the blade.

  “Made them myself,” Solomon reported from where he stood with his back to Tim. Then he turned from the stove holding two platters. Both held one-inch thick steaks that hung over the edges of the dishes. “I forged them to break the monotony while creating a hundred spear points. Those were shorter blades so I put handles on them.”

  “Those are beauties,” Tim stated as the mountain man placed one platter in front of him. The researcher used the steak knife to slice off a piece. “Although it’s not well marbled.”

  “I hope I didn’t go too heavy on the garlic,” Solomon warned. “It helps bring out the flavor.”

  “It’s delicious,” Tim assured Solomon as he chewed. Then he took the knife and fork and dug something out of the meat. At the end of his fork hung a flexible rubbery tube. “What’s this?”