Doug
Donnan
Executive Editor/OM-GEN+
donnan.doug@yahoo.com
"La
Serpiente Gigante de las 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 probably sound like some
muy grande 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," Ramirez 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 amigo I
guess we didn't do too 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 if you see or hear
anything out there
tonight... comprende?"
"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 upright, 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
cactuses.
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
long 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 that he could make out the feint sound... spasmodically clicking, vibrating
with
ravenous excitement... castanets.
___ The End ___
*This poem is the
compadre to my latest
western/horror
story with the same name:
"La
Serpiente Gigante de las Sonora"
by
Doug Donnan
As if in some cold
scary nightmare or in some really bad ol' dream,
there's a
slithering creature out there, some do say reigns supreme.
Some have sure
seen its slick trail, some its damn ol' sheddin' skin,
it's somewheres
way off in Sonora, ifn' there you ain't never been.
It has been called
el Diablo around many an ol' midnight campfire,
others say ain't
no sucha thing, they'll jist call you a damn fool liar.
Maybe it's jist a
damn ol' trail tale, hell maybe it's all really true,
but if you put all
your hot damn cards on the table, that's simply...
jist up to you.
Cuidado! mi amigos
y vaya con Dios... do you now comprende-vu?
___ Adios! ___
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