MPWM 10

The Rattlesnake's Father

The rattler's daddy was tenths of a mile away when lightning hit Bandera and made everything crack real good.

This is old prose, a narrative even if a tiny narrative, more powerful than the poetry of thunder or of the beware-me rattle. Rattlesnakes are small but boy, they can holler.

And that's the way it was for the young rattler all the way from under a rotten log to a cactus two feet away, until he and his daddy were restored and dried off a bit, and then it was nothing more satisfying than a memory.