Snakes and Ladders Read online

  A plan began to form in Millard’s mind.

  28

  Late the next night, Millard bumped down a rutted dirt road, his way lit not only by the headlights, but also by an arch of stars, brilliant in the desert darkness. He had driven south from Sedona, back toward Phoenix, and once out of the nighttime cool of the mountains, the air had become warm and still. A heat wave was coming, and the temperature tomorrow for this part of Arizona was forecast to be in the nineties.

  He was a little concerned that he wouldn’t be able to find the turn-off that had been hard enough to find in daylight earlier that day. Then he recognized the battered mailbox with Wentz painted on it in untidy black letters, and made the turn.

  The ruts in the side road became deeper and the bumps more jolting until the road ended in a yard, little more than an area scraped clear of scrub, in front of a rust-pocked trailer.

  Millard killed the headlights and the engine and retrieved a bottle, wrapped in a brown paper bag, from the passenger seat. As he approached the trailer, the front door opened.

  The figure that stood outlined in the light from the trailer’s interior was small—if Millard hadn’t known it to be that of an adult man, he would have thought it was a child.

  “Miller?” came a querulous voice.

  “Yeah, it’s me,” replied Millard.

  Wentz came unsteadily down the steps, pulling the trailer’s door closed behind him. “Was starting to think you weren’t coming back.”

  “I’m back,” said Millard. He raised the bottle in its paper bag. “And I brought a friend.”

  The only light now was from the trailer windows and the stars, but Millard could see a grin cracking the old man’s face. “What friend’s that?” he asked.

  “Our friend Jack.”

  Wentz cackled. “The best friend.”

  “Thought we could have a drink in the shed. Nice and cool out there.”

  The old man waved his hand in assent. “Let me get some glasses.”

  The glasses retrieved, Wentz led Millard out to the shed they had visited earlier in the day. From the front of his dirty plaid shirt he pulled a key on a string and inserted it unsteadily into the padlock on the door. He popped the lock, pushed the door open, and flicked on the light.

  Millard had been in the old man’s trailer that afternoon to discuss the deal, and it was a mess—unwashed dishes in the sink, the funk of spoiled food in the air. But the shed was pristine—the concrete floors swept clean, tools arranged neatly on a pegboard over a tidy workbench. The air was cool, the whir of the air conditioner creating a soothing background noise.

  “So, you decided what you want?” the old man asked.

  “Yes. The Western Diamondbacks. Both of them.”

  Wentz nodded. “Good-lookin’ snake. Not flashy, but handsome, you know? And brave—they’ll stand their ground when confronted.” He looked at Millard cagily. “A hundred apiece, right?”

  The old man had in fact quoted ninety apiece yesterday, and Millard knew he could get snakes cheaper if he was willing to do it on the books, but he wasn’t in the mood to argue. Plus, it wasn’t his money, and Mortensen wasn’t going to quibble about twenty bucks on his off-the-books expense report.

  “Yup, that’s what I remember—a hundred apiece,” he said. He counted out the bills from his wallet and handed them over.

  Millard followed the old man down one of the aisles created by rows of chicken wire cages containing a variety of snakes and other reptiles. In the last cage on the left—really more a pen than a cage—were two enormous monitor lizards, looking like escaped extras from Jurassic Park.

  The old man set the glasses aside. He got two white plastic buckets from a stack and retrieved two implements from a shelf—both about three feet long, one with a pincer-type contraption on the end, one with a hook. He opened the door of one of the cages containing what appeared to be a sleeping rattler. He gently closed the pincers over the snake’s neck, slipped the hook under the snake’s body about halfway down its length, and lifted it out.

  It was four feet long and undulated slightly at the disturbance. Wentz lowered it carefully into one of the buckets, then quickly snapped the lid, into which air holes had been drilled, onto the top. He repeated the procedure at the next cage.

  “Just fed ’em last week—a rat for each of them—so they should be good for another couple of weeks. Don’t give ’em live ones—too likely they’ll get bit—and make sure the frozen ones are all thawed out, otherwise they get indigestion.”

  “Sure. Warm, dead rats,” said Millard. “We should have a toast.”

  The old man nodded, grinning, and motioned him to the back of the shed.

  There was an ancient lawn chair and an upended milk crate on which sat a stack of magazines. The magazine on the top of the pile featured a close-up of a snake, its mouth agape, with the caption Water Snakes: Special Edition! Wentz moved the magazines from the crate to the floor and waved Millard graciously onto it. Another crate served as their table. The old man eased himself onto the lawn chair.

  Millard opened the bottle of Jack Daniels and filled the glasses. He handed one to the old man.

  “Cheers,” said Millard, lifting his glass.

  “Skoal,” said Wentz, and tossed back the liquor. He smacked his lips and sat back in his chair. “Let me tell you about those Westerns.”

  As the story spun out, Millard kept the old man’s glass full. He periodically held the bottle over his own glass, but didn’t pour. Wentz didn’t seem to notice.

  Thirty minutes passed, then forty-five. The old man’s stories began to wander, then his speech to slur. Finally he pinched the bridge of his nose.

  “Had too much,” he mumbled.

  “Nonsense,” said Millard. “Our friend Jack would never do you wrong.” He refilled the glass again.

  Wentz smiled and nodded, but the movement must have set off alarms again.

  “Too much,” he repeated vaguely.

  He was silent for a full minute. His head began to sink forward, then jerked up.

  “The snakes you came for …” he said blearily.

  “No hurry,” said Millard. “I can come back for them tomorrow.”

  “Yeah … tomorrow,” said Wentz, and his head drooped forward again.

  This time it did not jerk up, and in a moment, Millard heard a faint snorting snore. After another minute, he called the old man’s name. There was no response.

  Millard pushed himself off the milk crate and laid his hand on Wentz’s shoulder. He didn’t move. Millard shook him lightly, but the only response was another snort and a lolling of the head.

  Millard poured the contents of his glass into Wentz’s, then pocketed his own glass. After double-checking to make sure the lids on the buckets containing the snakes were secure, he put them in his car, then returned to the shed.

  He snapped on a pair of vinyl gloves and, at a utility sink in the corner of the shed, rinsed and wiped out the bowls of water in the two snakes’ cages and put them in a pile with others next to the sink. He removed the pieces of carpeting from the bottoms of the cages and hosed them off outside, shook them as dry as he could, and put them on top of a stack of others in the corner of the shed.

  He went back to his car and got a pair of rubber-handled pliers out of the trunk. He went around to the back of the shed, where the air conditioning unit hummed softly in the darkness. He removed the cover from the disconnect switch and touched one jaw of the pliers to the red wire terminal and, turning his face away, the other to the white.

  There was a flash and bang, and the AC fan clattered to a stop.

  When he reentered the shed, it already felt warmer, although perhaps that was just his imagination. Perhaps it was also his imagination that the monitor lizards, which in the cool of the conditioned air had been still, seemed to be stirring.

  He went to the old man and shook him again, but this time there was no response—it was like shaking a rag doll. He pressed his fingers to the
man’s neck and felt a pulse, strong and steady. He reached into the man’s pocket and got out his wallet. He removed the two hundred dollars, then returned the wallet to Wentz’s pocket.

  Millard wiped down the Jack Daniels bottle, took the old man’s limp hand and wrapped it around the neck of the bottle, then replaced the bottle on the milk crate table.

  He stepped behind the old man’s chair and gave him a sharp push. The chair tipped forward, and the old man went sprawling onto the ground. He stirred slightly at the disturbance, then settled in on the concrete with a soft snore.

  Millard hoisted him back on the chair, and angled the chair slightly, toward one of the shed’s support beams. He pushed again.

  This time the old man’s head cracked against the post as he went sprawling onto the floor. He let out a low moan, then was silent. Blood began to flow from his head.

  Millard stepped to the monitor lizards’ cage and opened the door. The lizards stirred and turned their dragon-like heads toward Millard, then began propelling themselves across the floor of their cage toward the open door.

  Millard hurried to the door of the shed. He stepped through, then looked back. The creatures made their ponderous way toward the old man’s body, their tongues flicking toward the growing pool of blood under his head.

  Millard closed the door behind him, went to his car, and headed back to Sedona.

  29

  The sky was a cloudless azure, and a cool breeze blowing up the valley that ran below the Thread-the-Needle Trail counteracted the heat of the brilliant sun. Lizzy sang enthusiastically, if a bit off-key, as she walked—she had read that whistling or singing was a good way to warn wildlife of the approach of a human.

  Uncle Owen had seemed a little tired on their way to the trail and Lizzy decided she’d turn around as soon as she got to the Needle so he didn’t have to wait for her for too long on the rock they had dubbed the Pincushion. In fact, he had seemed tired and distracted for at least the last week, and since Lizzy had accidentally read the text from Andy, she understood at least part of the reason. She knew what it was to worry about a parent, and she could imagine the stress of doing that worrying long distance.

  She also sensed that Uncle Owen was mulling over the conversation he had had with Philip. He had described the visit, concluding with, “I can see why you wanted to keep seeing him—he’s an easy person to talk to.” His comment had made her realize that he was not only worrying over his inability to be with his mother, but also missing the normal interactions with family and friends that she knew were an important part of his life. She and Uncle Owen were supporting each other as best they could, but she knew that there was no substitute she could provide for Owen sitting down with his brother, a six-pack of Yuengling, and a pizza to watch an Eagles game at their parents’ home.

  Even before she had read Andy’s text at the airport restaurant, she had wanted to get back to Philadelphia to help protect Andy and Ruby, and to do whatever she could to resolve the situation with Louise Mortensen and George Millard. Now she had the added incentive of getting Uncle Owen back home.

  As she approached the narrow opening, she heard the sounds of something scraping on the rocks from the far side. She stopped.

  “Hello?” she called.

  Silence.

  She scanned the hillside above the Needle for falling rocks, but all was still. She considered turning around—if there was a rock slide, her special ability wouldn’t do her much good against that—but then reconsidered. She was being melodramatic. She had walked all this way, she wasn’t about to turn around a dozen yards from the Eye.

  She could see the narrow strip of blue sky on the other side of the opening, a passage that always seemed a bit magical—like the wardrobe in the Narnia books or Alice’s rabbit hole. Slipping through the Eye reminded her of the excitement of climbing into the forts she would create with a card table and blankets at the Poconos cabin. She would beg her mom to climb in with her, and her mom always had. Lizzy realized now how difficult it must have been for her mom, debilitated as she was at that point by her strokes.

  She slipped her knapsack off her back and stepped through the Eye.

  She registered an undulating movement on the path ahead of her and felt a clench of fear as she recognized what it was. The snake—a huge snake—was retreating down the path, and she had half a second to feel relief that it was slithering away from her when she felt a bolt of pain drill into her ankle.

  She shrieked, just as she heard the telltale rattle at her feet.

  The aggrieved snake struck again, this time burying its fangs in her hiking boot.

  She tried to kick her leg out, to fling the snake away from her, but her leg felt rooted to the ground. She stumbled backward, hoping to get back through the Eye, but she misjudged and bounced off the rock and fell sideways, hard.

  The snake detached itself from her boot, and she tried to snatch every part of her body out of its reach simultaneously, but the snake had evidently had enough and, turning, followed its partner down the path.

  She gripped her thigh, as if she could hold back the pain that boiled up her leg. She clawed herself upright on the rock and staggered to the Eye.

  “Uncle Owen! A rattlesnake bit me!”

  Owen sat on the Pincushion, looking over the valley below. He had agreed to accompany Lizzy on that first hike as a favor to her but, much to his surprise, he had enjoyed it, and was not as bad at it as he had expected to be. An almost-daily trip to Thread-the-Needle had become a regular part of their routine.

  Just the day before, he had climbed with some trepidation onto the scale that he had stowed in the linen closet when they had first settled into the Sedona house. Two ninety-seven. It was the first time he had weighed less than three hundred pounds since … he couldn’t remember when. He celebrated by having a salad for lunch. A few hours later, when it became apparent that the salad wouldn’t tide him over until dinner, he had heated up a frozen pizza. But it was a start.

  Finishing his granola bar and tucking the wrapper into his pocket, he rolled up his sleeves, exposing his pale forearms. During his time in the Keys and in Sedona, he had followed his usual practice of avoiding exposing his pale skin to direct sunlight, but perhaps he could develop a tan to go with his new, svelte frame.

  Then he heard Lizzy scream.

  He was on his feet and hurrying down the trail as the scream still echoed off the canyon walls. He heard her yell, and although he couldn’t hear what she was yelling, it was clear she was in trouble.

  “I’m coming, Pumpkin,” he shouted back.

  Lizzy’s leg felt like it was burning from the inside out. She tried again to get back through the Eye, but the pain was worse when she moved, and she lowered herself to the ground. With trembling fingers she pulled up the leg of her hiking pants and pushed her hiking sock down to the top of her boot. The two puncture marks were just above her boot. Her leg was already swelling.

  She pulled her phone out of her knapsack. No service. Choking back a sob, she pressed 911—what had she got to lose?—but was met with silence.

  She heard Owen’s yell—“Lizzy, I’m coming!”—and leaned back against the rock, trying to slow her breathing and the hammering of her heart. Half a minute later, she heard Owen’s voice coming from the other side of the opening.

  “Lizzy, can you hear me?” he gasped out.

  “Yes,” she said through gritted teeth. “I’m right on the other side of the Eye.”

  “What happened?”

  She tried to shift so she could look through the Eye, triggering another shock of agony. “A rattlesnake bit me,” she sobbed.

  “Where?”

  “On my leg.”

  She heard scuffling sounds, a grunt, and then Owen’s voice again. “Damn it! I’m too fat to fit through. I’m going to see if I can go around.”

  Lizzy could picture the scene—a steep hill of unstable scree on the uphill side of the trail, a precipitous drop on the other.

 
; “No, wait,” she said, “let me try to get through again.”

  The thought of putting weight on her throbbing leg sent a wave of nausea through her, so she dragged herself back over to the Eye. She peered through, at Owen’s big, concerned face on the other side. He reached out his hand—he could almost, but not quite, reach her.

  She tried to heave herself up on one leg but fell back with a cry. “I can’t do it.”

  “I’m coming around.”

  She heard scrabbling and heavy breathing, then the shush of sliding scree, and a thump and grunt.

  “Damn!”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, I’m fine. Just way too big to be useful.” His voice was tight with frustration. “Where on your leg is the bite?”

  “Right above my boot.”

  “Can you get your boot off? It will be better in case your leg swells.”

  She untied and loosened the laces and pulled at the boot, sending a fresh jolt of pain up her leg. Her vision distorted by tears, she removed the lace entirely and used her other foot to lever the boot off.

  “Okay,” she gasped. “It’s off.”

  “I can’t get a signal,” said Owen from the other side of the Eye.

  “Me either.” What she wouldn’t have done for the sight of a privacy fence or the pool house of a rich snowbird, like she might have seen on one of her Sedona walks.

  “Damn!” There was a moment of silence, then he said, “Pumpkin, it’s better if you stay still. I’m going to go back down the trail until I can get a signal and call 911. I may even have to drive a little way back towards town, but I’ll be back with help.”

  “Okay.”

  “Can you sit up on a rock? It’s going to be better if your body is higher than your leg.”