The Middle of Somewhere(43)

A loud rattle, the sound of dried beans shaken in a cardboard box.

She yanked her hand away, clutching the bag. A snake. Its body, thick as a child’s arm, lay coiled upon the quilt. Instantly, it whipped its head high, and retracted its neck, tongue flicking at the air, ready to strike. Its tail shook above the coils like an aspen leaf, emitting a constant rattle.

She gasped and jumped back, colliding with Dante and knocking him down in the doorway. Her heart pounded in her throat. Only three feet away, the snake tracked her with its head, swaying and moving toward her, tongue darting.

She screamed, the sound ringing in her ears.

Dante scrambled to his hands and knees and crawled out to the deck. Liz stood frozen to the spot, legs dead, eyes fixed on the snake’s head as it weaved from side to side.

Dante grabbed her arm. The snake lunged, missing her narrowly, and struck the air beside her. Dante pulled her backward. Her trance broken, she stumbled outside. Dante ran down the steps with Liz on his heels. He stopped at the bottom, but she flew past him into the darkness, and thought she heard, over the noise of her pounding feet and panting breath, a laugh that was not a laugh, coming from the woods close behind her.





CHAPTER FOURTEEN





She was trembling when they returned to the dining room, empty except for Paul, Linda and a trio of young men. Liz told them what had happened. Dante ducked into the kitchen to find someone who knew how to deal with snakes.

Linda patted the bench beside her. Liz sat. “Thank God you’re all right. You want some water or tea?”

She shook her head.

“Aren’t you in the elevated cabin?” Paul said.

“Not elevated enough, apparently.”

“I can’t imagine a snake going up there.”

“Neither can I. And Dante was lying on the bed right before we came to dinner, so it couldn’t have been there then.”

“It might have been under the bed or somewhere you couldn’t see it,” Linda said.

Liz shivered at the thought. “True.”

Dante and a man they’d seen earlier with the horses came in from the kitchen. The man’s face was stern. “You sure it was a rattlesnake?” His tone suggested a lot of folks came through who couldn’t tell a snake from a fence lizard.

“Yes. I got a really good look.”

Dante said, “It rattled. Like in those John Wayne films.”

The man peered at him sideways. “Okay, I’ll go have a look-see.”

Liz said, “I don’t think I could sleep in there. Any way you could grab our packs and let us have another cabin?”

“Sure,” he said. “If I don’t find it and kill it, I wouldn’t be sleeping in there myself.”

? ? ?

He came back fifteen minutes later and said he’d come up empty. Liz and Dante followed him to another cabin—one with a real door. The bed was piled high with their gear and damp clothing. “Sorry for the mess,” the man said. “Didn’t know what else to do with it.”

They thanked him and he left. With few words, they organized their belongings, hanging clothes wherever they could, and went to bed. They lay awake a long time. Eventually, Dante’s breathing slowed and he drifted off to sleep. Liz’s thoughts turned away from her near-death experience with the snake to the topic that had occupied most of the evening: infidelity. And that was how she came to think about radishes.

Dante had taken Liz to meet his family a year after they’d started dating. He’d never said so, but the meeting was a hurdle in their relationship, whether for both of them or just her, she wasn’t certain. He’d proposed the trip soon after their first discussion about moving in together, a discussion prompted by Liz receiving notice that her rented apartment was going up for sale.

“Let’s visit them for Christmas,” he said.

“This year?”

“Yes.”

“That’s in nine days.”

“Yes! Spontaneous!” He opened his laptop. “I’ll book the flights.”

His parents lived in Mexico City but were spending the holidays in the city of Oaxaca, known for its clean air, mild climate and spectacular radish festival each year before Christmas. During their flight south, Dante briefed Liz on his mother’s festival fetish. The majority of her travels centered on a festival, either within Mexico or farther afield: festivals of art, music, film and dance, celebrations of Day of the Dead and the feasts of saints, wine and harvest festivals—Felicia Espinoza loved them all. Her husband, Carlos, joined her if he could, but was often called away on business, at times suspiciously close to an upcoming festival. Carlos would then arrange for the company of one of their daughters or friends. Felicia was too high-strung and naive to travel on her own, given to wailing if a train were delayed, leaving her handbag in a hotel lobby or behaving inappropriately when strange men spoke with her, as they readily did, drawn by her expressive face and girlish laugh.