Lewis

Trouble comes in all sorts of packages. We were headed into the wilderness to fish a mountain creek. Rattlesnakes did not cross my mind.

My daughter, Jennifer, and I had planned this hike and camping trip for a few months. Now we shouldered backpacks and started up the trail. I carried a Model 1873 single action loaded with 158-grain hollowpoints in a holster on my hip, while Jennifer packed her Ruger SR22. Fly rods were strapped to our packs. Our goal was to find a good place to sleep for the night then cast dry flies for wild rainbows in the morning.

After an hour we found a spot where trail and creek diverged and then a nice place to throw down our sleeping bags.

In the morning, we hiked down the creek then worked our way back up, pool by pool. The little rainbows took our dries with wild abandon and when we had both caught close to a dozen, when the only thing on our minds was dead-drifting a Parachute Adams down the next riffle, a quick movement alerted me.

We were on a narrow ledge between a deep hole in the creek and a rock wall.

Leaves shuddered and the twigs moved and a diamond-patterned snake headed straight away toward the base of the cliff.

“Snake,” I warned Jennifer, and then saw its head and tail. “A rattler.”

It ran out of options when it got to the cliff wall and gathered itself, cornered. It turned and headed straight back at me on the narrow trail, its head up eight inches in the air. That’s when I shot it.

Hit, the snake pushed off the bank and tumbled toward me. I shot it again and once more then stepped out of the way as it went by me into the creek. I fished it out, a gorgeous, hideous creature, and counted three bullet holes. The first was a bit off-center, about six inches down from the head, while the second two were less than an inch apart, about three inches below the head. Even after three hits and three minutes in the water, it still was trying to snap at me. I cut its head off and put the dangerous part in the creek where no other creature would step on it.

We were rattled.

Jennifer, who had my camera when the shooting started, captured the action in stills, the first two of which she took with the lens cap on. When we encountered the rattler, Jennifer was only a few feet behind me. When I looked again she was way up on the hill.

“I was scrambling up the cliff,” she said, “shooting with the camera back over my shoulder. I wanted to get a good angle for the pictures.”

That’s my girl.

I try to avoid snakes and, for the most part, they try to avoid me. A week before the rattlesnake incident, we had a brush with a puff adder on a red dirt two-track in South Africa. That snake, when provoked, bit my photographer’s GoPro and venom slid down the lens. But the puff adder was so far from any village it was no threat. We took its picture and shooed it back into the brush.

Usually, when I encounter a rattlesnake it’s with a fishing rod in my hand. I hear a rattle and I jump. One time I jumped over a snake in the tall grass along the river. I leapt so high in my waders, I think I might have caught the eye of an NBA scout if one had been there instead of my loutish companions who got more comedic value out of the incident. I tried to point out to them how much hang time I had at the top of the leap, but they were too busy laughing.

Skirmishes with snakes tend to be brief, adrenalized and punctuated by profanity. Often the snake goes the other way and there is no need to shoot. But if the snake is aggressive, it may take one shot to slow it down and another to finish it.

Often the snake is in a trail and the first rattle goes unheard. Or they don’t rattle at all.

Once we packed into a roadless area on a hunt in Baker County. Bringing up the rear was my friend Ken, who didn’t have a bear tag that year. He brought along a Ruger Single-Six.

“In case we see a snake,” he said.

When we started up the trail, I noticed it was not on his hip, and asked him about it.

“It’s in the backpack. I’ll load it if we see one,” he said.

“If you need it,” I said, “you’ll want to have it loaded, on your hip.”

He laughed.

A day later we were in camp, making dinner. Ken was sitting on a campstool tending to his backpack stove and a can of soup. We spotted the rattler when it was between his feet.

The usual things happened. Leaping. Profanity. Flailing. Which contributed to spilled soup and a small grass fire when the stove tipped over.

By the time the fire was stomped out, the snake had made a quick exit between boulders. Ken unzipped his backpack, unwrapped his revolver and loaded the gun with shaky fingers.