Venom – A Short Story

Venom
A Short Story By
Tony Killinger

Carter Nielson was afraid of snakes. It wasn’t like the healthy respect variety, no sir, Carter was terrorized by the very thought of the coiling, hissing, striking creatures. He had heard the story of Lemuel, his maternal Grandfather’s terrible death too many times. The story had it that old Lemuel, on his way west in a wagon train from Ohio, had stepped off his apron-faced mule to relieve himself and right into the coil of a four foot rattlesnake. The snake bit him three times before they could drag him off and dispatch the unfortunate asp. It seems they had taken the old man’s leg off just above the knee in an attempt to stop the spread of the venom, but it was all in vain. He died screaming.

Now Lemuel’s women-folk, Carter’s mother included, would have you believe it was all the fault of that apron-faced mule. Lemuel was known to beat that mule with a barrel stave from time to time just to keep him pliable. They figured the mule knew that snake was there and stopped at precisely the right spot for Grandfather to step off. The lesson was well learned by Carter and no matter what detractions you might have of him, beating horses and mules was not one of them. He would kick a cat or dog the length of a long cabin if the animal got in his way, but equines suffered no cruelties from Carter’s hand, ever.

When Lemuel died, Grandmother Tipton found herself in dire straits; she had four daughters and no sons. They might be able to keep a small farm going if they concentrated on vegetables and potatoes, just enough grain to provide flour for half a year, but livestock on any grand scale would be out of the question. She decided that instead of heading to California, as originally planned, they would settle in Utah territory. The Mormon’s were good providers and put a high value on women in their multiple-wife culture, and she certainly had an excess of strong, hard-working women.

The plan worked well although Carter’s mother ended up marrying a Methodist cowboy and they built a small cattle spread at the foot of the Tushar Mountains in the south-central section of the territory. Carter was their first-born and only child as his mother suffered some trauma that left her barren after his birth. It was probably for that reason that he grew up spoilt and mostly unmannered. As he progressed towards manhood he didn’t improve much. He was given to drinking whiskey and whoring whenever he had the money for it, and his personal hygiene was never very good. A portion of that could be laid to the fact that he wouldn’t use an outhouse out of his fear of snakes and dimly lit places. Carter preferred to do his business in the open where he could see several yards in all directions. Even then, he would have a sawed off scatter gun within reach and his head never stopped scanning the ground around him.

He married a fifteen year old Navajo girl named Sorella when he was in his early twenties. It seems he got the girl’s father into a crooked poker game and fed him rotgut whiskey until the man had lost near $18, and Carter suggested he take the girl as payment for the debt. He placated the man’s pride by throwing in an old bay mare that was beyond foaling age and a spotted goat. At any rate, the deal was made and they shook hands on it .

Nobody, neither white nor red, spoke any words over them, but it didn’t make much difference to Carter. Sorella was his to do with as he saw fit, an idea that had deep roots in both societies. He took her to his father’s ranch and installed her into near slave conditions. Nevertheless, Sorella bore him four son’s in five years and they were fine, handsome boys.

Sorella, prior to her unfortunate descent into an existence as a poker pot, had set her eye on a Piute youth by the name of Nathan Cortez. Nathan owned a beautiful palomino stallion that he had captured and trained. The horse provided him with an income of sorts as it was highly sought after as a sire. He also served as an unofficial pawn broker; when Native people fell on hard times, which was often, Nathan would give them whatever monies he had in return for holding their silver and turquoise. Later, when fortunes were reversed, they could buy them back allowing Nathan a few points of interest. Nathan never married, but it was said that occasionally you might see that golden palomino stallion and a lone rider standing on the crest of a hill above the Nielson ranch.

If the Tushar Mountains have anything in abundance, it would be cedar trees. If you cut a fence post from an old cedar and put it in the ground it will endure for half a century and show no sign of rot. Pine and pinion are burned in stoves and fireplaces, but they tend to leave a soot deposit on stove pipes that will, almost certainly, turn into a stack fire one day. Cedar, on the other hand, burns so hot that it will consume that residue if you throw a chunk of it in once in a while. The problem with cedar is that it is so dense that it will turn the edge of a sharp axe in about half a dozen chops and it wears the teeth off a good saw in one season’s cutting. Even so, it is a valuable wood and not easy to cut and haul.

Charlie Forsythe owned a big ranch just south of the Nielson place and he needed someone to go up into the foothills and cut him four-score of fence posts. Seeing he was willing to pay $4 a score, Carter took on the job. Extra whiskey and whoring money might come in handy one day. All things considered, it was a wonder Carter would agree to such a venture, but it was early fall, the weather had already started to cool and being in the foothills, up out of the valley, might have seemed safe enough to Carter.

Carter left early on a Monday morning in a wagon stocked with saws, axes and victuals enough to last him five days. On Wednesday evening the team and wagon walked through the gate of the Nielson ranch with no driver and fifteen cedar posts clattering on the bed of the wagon. They found Carter near his camp, dead and stiff but unmarked. It wasn’t until they removed his filthy shirt that they discovered a set of puncture marks nearly dead center of his heart. The marks, so an Indian Shaman said, were the bite of a striped Coral Snake. Now the Coral Snake doesn’t strike like a rattler, it bites and chews and is definitely not a usual resident of the chilly foothills. It comes from further South, the deserts of Arizona and such places.

It was rumored that Nathan Cortez had been in Arizona recently, standing his stallion and taking pawn on a few squash necklaces, but, as I said, that was only a rumor. Some say that the tracks of an unshod horse were found up around Carter’s camp, but that too was never substantiated. What was true and verifiable was that Sorella and her sons walked away from the Nielson ranch a month after Carter had been interred and never went back. They disappeared from the valley about the same time that Nathan Cortez was seen for the last time. Well, you know how these stories come and go? Some you can believe, some you can’t.

End