La Serpiente Gigante de la Sonora

"La Serpiente Gigante de la Sonora "

by

Doug Donnan

[ Circa 1850 // Mexico // Sonora Desert ]

"Now you just tell me again what kinda damn snake coulda left a trail as wide as 'that' Ramirez," Botweiler asked as he stared down

low into the scrub and sand just there betwixt the slightly shuffling hooves of their pair of tired painted ponys. "That there's about as

wide as my damn upper thigh leg!"  

"Well, I can't really say, pero it is muy grande that's for sure," from Ramirez as he removed his weathered, circuitous straw sombrero

and wiped at his forehead with a raggedy blue bandana. "One thing's for sure, if it's a rattler of some kind, it would give off a

shaking, cuidado signal that would probly sound like some muy bien sized fiesta castanets!"

"Yeh... some party it would be with 'that' damn thing slithering all around and about," Botweiler replied with a puckered exhalation.

"The sun is going down fast. We better start thinking about a camping place out here somewhere. There seems to be a bueno amount

of tumbleweed scraps and brush all around here. Perhaps this would be a bien spot. Maybe just beneath that sandstone ledge over there,"

he tried as he pointed off in the distance at a cairn-like pile of massive rocks and boulders.

Botweiler looked off at the jutting yellowstone structure and then down again at the wide and winding snake trail. He shrugged his  

narrow shoulders and spat a dark gob of something at a tiny, skittering sand lizard as it raced by. "I don't know amigo, but I know that

you're right about the sun and the possibilities of success out here are about as inviting as we're gonna' come across, campin' wise,

I mean."

So, at that, the two sadddle tramps tickle-spurred their horses on and over the deep and daunting snake rut road and made off for the

Ramirez rocky overhang. Botweiler managed to sneak one final peak over his right shoulder as they made their sluggish trotting

departure. He shook his head in dismay and wonder.

*   *   *

[ Approximately 1 hour later ]

"Well Mirez I guess we didn't do too awful bad with this here spot of yours," Botweiler declared softly from his de-saddled position

just there by the spit and glow of their warming, tinder box campfire. He took more than just a nip from their little brown jug of

'trail mix'. "I'm as tired as a damn Tombstone gravedigger," he sighed into the flickering flames. "I'm done... I'm gonna call it a night."

"Si amigo me too," from the hand-rolled, pouch and poke tobbacco smoking Ramirez. "I'm going to turn in after I finish my smoke

aqui. Buenos noches Botweiler."

"Okay," from the stretching and yawning Botweiler as he unrolled his multi-hued Mexican trail blanket, "Good night to you too ol'

buddy. Wake me quick if you see or 'hear' anything out there tonight... comprend vu?"

"Muy bien amigo," Ramirez sighed as he squinted a look up at the indifferent, winking silver sickle of midnight moon.

*   *   *

[ Midnight... and beyond ]

Botweiler rolled out of the loose hug and suppleness of his warm leather saddle, then silently erected himself with a deep yawn and

some belly scratches. He tamped off into the night to take a nagging pee. He never returned.

Ramirez tossed and turned, somehow, for some unknown reason, unsettled, awakened now alongside the dying, burnt orange embers of

their thin desert prickly stick and scrub campfire. He bolted up, erect from his smooth leather concave saddle-pillow. His black eyes wide,

owl-like, he crouched low and tried to focus on the rocky shadows all around him. He stared off into the night for his seemingly now

missing in action trail partner Botweiler.

"Oye amigo! Donde esta?" he whisper-shouted across the embers as if he was afraid to disturb someone or some'thing'.

There was no answer.

"Oye Botweiler mi amigo...  lo que esta pasado?"

Nada otra vez... no response or sound, save for the desert breeze as it passed around the shadowed rocks above and past the giant

'you're-under-arrest' angle armed saguaro cactus all around and about them.

Ramirez, with a combination of both impulse and fear, decided to fish around for his pistol inside the tossed and wrinkled folds of his

bedroll. He erected himself, slowly, grabbed a scorching orange tipped stick from the center of the campfire to use as a makeshift

lantern and crouched away, pistol pointing forward, like a man entering some lost forgotten mine or dark forbidden cave.

Only moments later...

As he gingerly paced forward, he passed his glow stick just above the parched sand of the desert floor. There was the deep serpentine

trail, 'again', snaking off into the night, just out ahead of him.  

"Madre de Dios!" Ramirez whispered in shocked, foreboding surprise as he whipped a hurried sign of  the cross just out in front of

shadowed face with the long, blue-black barrel of his Colt revolver.

There in the center of the stretching rut road, overturned and blood-stained, lay Botweiler's tan Stetson hat. Off in the pitch black

distance of the indifferent desert he was certain he could make out the feint sound... spasmodically clicking, vibrating with ravenous

excitement... ... castanets.

___ The End ___