Byrdie wanted to go to church but didn’t have her driver’s license. Her husband, Juice, wouldn’t let her get it. He was sprawled on the bed in the next room, stark naked. Judging by the soft growls of solid sleep, he wasn’t anywhere near waking up.
Every Sunday she got ready to go, then sat on the couch hoping Juice would get up by ten-thirty so he could drive her to town. Usually, she stayed mad all day Sunday because Juice rarely got up in time.
It was especially frustrating because she had been driving since she was thirteen. Her daddy always said he’d rather have Byrdie at the wheel than any of her wild-assed brothers. She drove Juice down to the river to fish all the time. He’d put his boat in up-river and she’d pick him up in the evening downstream. Byrdie couldn’t drive to church because Sheriff Ramsey and his wife, Leona, would be there. Leona was the nosiest person in town. She knew everybody’s business and made sure to tell it. Byrdie knew Leona would not rest until she had hounded the Sheriff into stopping her and maybe even writing her a ticket.
Byrdie had on her church dress. It was green cotton with little leaves zig-zagging on it. She had made it in one day with a Simplicity Easy-to-Sew pattern. Her head was covered with hair coils, each fastened down with a bobby-pin cross. She didn’t see the need to take them out if she stayed home. If, by some miracle, Juice woke up, she would snatch them out in the truck on the way to church.
At ten-thirty, Juice hadn’t even rolled over. Byrdie wanted to go in and hit him. He’d just yell that it was his only day to sleep late and jam the pillow around his ears. On weekdays he got up at daylight to work on his daddy’s farm and every Saturday he went hunting or fishing early in the morning.
The garden needed hoeing but Byrdie was so mad she decided not to do anything. She pulled a quilt off the back of the couch and covered a split across the seat where foam erupted like a big baked potato. On TV, Mahalia Jackson was singing gospel music. Byrdie fell asleep to the tune of “Amazing Grace” with a chorus of soft growling snores.
She woke up when her feet hit the floor. Juice had pushed them off the low-hanging couch and plopped down where they had been. The TV was playing the Sunday afternoon western. Juice loved John Wayne movies. This was the first program in his Sunday schedule. After that, he’d watch “The American Sportsman” (his favorite show), the Tarzan movie, and then he’d demand supper.
“Them’s pretty fancy pajamas,” he said, smiling as he reached over to pat her on the thigh.
Byrdie didn’t move, she stared her just-woke-up stare at Juice. He didn’t notice because the TV was blaring previews from “the NEXT American Sportsman.”
Her chest was still tight from being mad all morning and his friendliness always preceded a request for service. The anger re-grew, like a rock in the middle of her chest.
“How about some breakfast for your hard-working old man, Byrdie?” He reached out and massaged her thigh, smiling like he thought this gave her so much pleasure she wouldn’t be able to resist the request.
Once, she made him cook his own food. The mess he left in the kitchen sat for a week, getting bigger and bigger. It took the better part of a day to clean up. Juice patted her on the fanny as she rolled off the couch, like he was patting a well-behaved bird dog.
It only took twenty minutes to have breakfast ready. Byrdie clunked down the Melmac plate of steaming grits and eggs on the table. She wanted to break it, but she’d just have to clean up the mess herself. The noise brought Juice lumbering into the kitchen. His greasy hair was mashed on one side, so that it stuck straight up, and he hadn’t shaved in two days. He propped his elbows on the table while he shoveled in the food with noisy smacks and watched television through the doorway.
Byrdie washed dishes at the sink behind him while she daydreamed about Juice choking. She pictured herself standing over his blue swollen face, saying sweetly, “I’m sorry I can’t take you to the hospital, Juice, I can’t drive because I don’t have a license.”
“You’ll get that Sunday dress messed up,” said Juice. He was mashing jelly into his grits and didn’t look around.
“Why do I need a Sunday dress when I never go to church?” answered Byrdie sharply. If she didn’t start the argument, he’d just let it go like he didn’t know anything was wrong.
“Byrdie, I worked like a mule all week out in that hot sun. I fished a little yesterday. I wish I could have one day to rest without having to get cussed at, too,” he said through cheeks full of food. He spit a few grits across his plate and the table but kept right on shoving it in.
“You’re the only one that does any cussing around here,” said Byrdie. She pushed the big iron frying pan under the water to rinse it and splashed dishwater up the front of her dress. It soaked through to the skin but she was past caring. “I want to get my driver’s license.”
“Dammit!” Juice slammed the fork into the plastic plate. “We’ve fussed about this until I’m sick of it, Byrdie. You know if we get you a license I got to pay for more insurance. Now is that what you want, to give me another bill to pay?” Byrdie knew she had his attention because he quit eating.
“If I had my driver’s license I could get a job,” she answered. “Magdalene Steward got a job sewing T-shirts over at the Stedman plant. I could do that. If we had a little more money, we could buy a new TV, maybe get a new car, and I could pay my own insurance.” Byrdie put in the TV and car reasons because she figured Juice would have to get something out of the deal before he would agree.
“Women out driving by themselves are asking for trouble and you know it, Byrdie,” said Juice. “My mama never needed no driver’s license or no job. Do you want everybody in town to think you are like Magdalene Steward, driving up and down Main Street on Saturday night with that bird’s nest on her head? If you ask me, she’s teasing more’n her hair.” Juice had picked up the fork and was now sliding it flatways across the plate to get all the grease and licking the fork on the bottom. It was one of his argument-finished moves.
Byrdie was so mad she shook. The pin curls were loose from her nap and they quivered all over her head. “Juice, I want to get my license so I can go to church!” She said it through gritted teeth as she jerked the stopper out of the sink, splashing her dress again. “And one way or another, I’m telling you, I AIM to get my driver’s license.” The last sentence she said right into his face as she grabbed a dish towel off the table and bunched it between her hands to dry them. She threw it at him sideways and then stalked out of the room, kicked the screen door open and stomped across the porch.
She grabbed a hoe leaning against the banister on her way down the steps and headed for the field in front of the house. Every time Byrdie got mad at Juice, she’d weed the garden. Beating the hell out of the ground with a hoe helped vent her frustration.
She walked around to the back of the field to start. It made the job a bit less tedious when she started someplace new every time. She started chopping away in the middle row of butterbeans, hitting a few of the underlying leaves in anger. The wilting leaves and weeds flew off the end of the hoe and onto the bushes ahead of her. She didn’t notice. The late afternoon sun still had enough heat to make the sweat run down her face and trickle between her breasts.
She was about halfway down the row when she heard a dry rattle that could only be the warning of a rattlesnake. They were plentiful on the farm. The sound, like crunching dry leaves in a paper sack, made it hard to pinpoint their location. She stopped moving and stood perfectly still, her hoe stretched out in front of her. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she noticed the sweat trickle had become a river. The noise stopped and Byrdie waited a second before she pulled back on the hoe a little. The rattle started again, must be ahead someplace. The plants were nearly up to her hips and shaded the areas between the rows; the tops rippled in a light breeze. Byrdie stood still and scanned the area, moving only her eyes. She was about to start backwards when she saw a rounded loop of snake coil out into the trough. The loop grew fatter until it looked as big as the top of her thigh and then the muscle bunched and pushed, propelling the snake forward.
Byrdie’s throat was so dry when she tried to speak it came out as a croak. She took a couple of deep breaths and yelled, “Juice, there’s a s..s..snake out here!” She glanced up at the house, hoping to see some signs of life, but she kept watching the ground where the loops disappeared. It seemed like days, but it had only been seconds when the loop reappeared and began to swell. Byrdie renewed her efforts and screamed at the top of her lungs, “Juice, there’s a SNAKE out here!”
This time Juice slammed out the screen door. He stopped on the porch to slip his bare feet into the high-top work boots sitting at the front door. They were still damp from fishing down at the creek yesterday. He had left them with the laces loose and tongues lolling to dry.
He came striding toward Byrdie like he was mad for having to leave the TV. “I bet it’s some little ol’ pissant garter snake,” he said. “You got a hoe, Byrdie, why don’t you just kill it and be done with it?” He was just getting ready to enter the garden on the same row as Byrdie when she saw the snake loop reappear and disappear—only this time it was coming in her direction.
“Stop, Juice, he’s coming toward me!” she screamed. She raised the hoe as if to strike at the snake but was afraid to move closer. She stepped back a couple of steps, keeping her eye on the area where she saw the coil disappear. She didn’t want to lose him. She didn’t have to worry because the snake began to coil right in the middle of the row she was standing on. The rattles on the tail began the warning again. She could see them standing straight up. It looked like the snake was waving a small corn cob at her. Her head felt light but she resolved not to pass out in a garden with the biggest rattlesnake on earth right in the middle of it. “That big devil like to scared me to death,” she said, her breath ragged. Sweat poured down her face and her body pumped like a big green bellows with every breath.
“That ain’t no HE, Byrdie girl. That’s a big, pretty mama snake,” Juice said. “The real big ones usually are. And she’s gonna give me that dress to make me a belt.” Juice’s eyes gleamed. He loved to stomp snakes to death. He said it made him feel like he had spit right square in the face of Death. Sometimes he’d yell like Tarzan after he killed one. He studied the coil of fluid brown diamonds with a tight smile. “You stand there in the front and I’ll come up behind and stomp right on her head,” he said.
Juice’s fearlessness was legendary. The preacher had once used Juice as the subject of a sermon about crushing the head of the serpent. Byrdie’s brothers loved to watch him do it. Her daddy always said that Juice was meaner than a snake, and if a snake ever did bite him, the snake would die. She had seen him stomp a moccasin to death once and the memory scared her worse than finding the snake.
“You better go get the shotgun,” she said, her voice trembling, “you can’t see under them plants.” Byrdie figured Juice had watched too many Tarzan movies.
Juice ignored her. He walked backwards a few feet, squatted to grab the leather shoelaces, wrapped them around the tops of his boots twice and tied knots in front. He pulled the thick pants down over the tops of the boots, then stood and tucked in his shirt tail.
“Byrdie, bang that hoe on the ground close enough for her to strike at it, keep her attention.” Juice issued the instruction in a low voice like he was afraid the snake would hear him. He re-entered the garden and then started sneaking up the row behind the snake. Slowly and silently, he put each shoe down carefully on its heel, then rolled the rest of his foot forward until it was firmly planted.
As Juice got nearer, the snake welled in anticipation of a fight. The corncob tail was a blur. Byrdie never did bang the hoe like Juice told her, she was too scared. “Hell, that bitch is big enough for a coat!” Juice said under his breath.
The little diamond-shaped head was pulled down so tightly into the quivering coil it was barely visible, but when Juice got within range of the snake it shifted to watch him, still keeping Byrdie in sight at the same time.
“Byrdie, I might need a little help with this one,” he said. “When I say ‘GO,’ I want you to slam that hoe down hard, to make sure she hits it. When she strikes at you, I’m gonna jump on her. We got to do it at the same time, because I have to hit her head before she has time to coil again.” Juice barely moved his lips. He stood like a statue. The sun glinted off his oily, brownish-red hair.
Juice and Byrdie stared at the snake for a few seconds like it was a time bomb about to go off. The only sound was the whir of the snake’s tail like a tree full of cicadas in August.
“Go!” Juice roared.
Byrdie slammed the hoe down into the ground and Juice leaped. It was a good thing Juice had judged the striking distance almost perfectly, because the snake had lunged and speared the tip of his left boot. The fangs looked like two slender needle bones that pierced the outer covering of leather. Juice was so horrified at the sight of a rattlesnake biting his foot that he jumped about two feet up in the air and backwards, stretching the snake out full length.
“Goddamn you, you bitch!” Juice slammed his right foot down on the snake’s neck but the soft sand enveloped it. The snake released the left foot and clamped onto the right, gripping the tip of the boot, where the steel insert protected Juice’s toes.
The snake’s tail thrashed behind Juice. Byrdie was trying to chop at it with the hoe but the snake kept coiling at just the right second and never got a scratch. The tail was so heavy it was hitting the back of Juice’s legs, nearly knocking him off balance. Juice was grinding the pliable body under his boot, trying to crush it, but the soft sand allowed the snake to twist around and get a better grip on the boot. Juice tried to use his left foot to scrape off the snake’s teeth, but the tail had found his left leg in its effort to avoid the hoe and now was coiling up the calf, almost to the knee.
Byrdie stopped chopping, heaving for air. She looked at Juice’s legs and ran around to his front for a better look. “Well now, ain’t this a dilly?” she said, breathlessly.
“Goddammit, Byrd! You was supposed to chop her head, not her tail! What are you afraid of—she’ll piss on me? Can’t you see those teeth! THAT part is her head!” Juice bellowed at Byrdie.
Juice’s abuse made her mad all over again. She gulped a couple of breaths and the hoe vibrated in her hands. “It ain’t MY fault the snake don’t follow your orders! It wasn’t MY idea to stomp the snake! Seems like I remember saying, ‘Go get the shotgun.’ But, NOOOO, you had to be Tarzan.” Byrdie’s voice trembled in anger. “Furthermore, if you had got up and took me to church you wouldn’t be standing there with a snake wrapped around your legs.”
Juice and Byrdie glared at each other for a second. Byrdie figured they must be crazy to argue with each other with that snake wrapped around Juice’s legs but she didn’t care anymore.
The snake was working its jaws to get a deeper bite which drew Juice’s attention. He steadily cussed the “beady-eyed bitch” under his breath. Deadly spit was smeared all over the boot. Sweat droplets from Juice’s forehead fell around it. He couldn’t move his spraddled legs, not because he didn’t want to, but because if he did, the snake might get some slack and bunch up for another assault.
“Byrdie, go get the shotgun and load it up with some rat shot. You can shoot her in two between my legs.” Juice said it like it was the greatest idea in history.
“I ain’t shooting that snake like that,” Byrdie said. “When I burn your legs up with rat shot, you’ll be yelling at me for that. Why don’t you just use some common sense? Unwind the snake from your leg, and jump off her before she can bite you.”
Juice looked down and shook his head. “She’s too mad for that. If I give her any room, she’ll bite hell out of me.” It sounded right but Byrdie figured he wasn’t worried nearly as much about being bitten as he was about her brothers hearing how he’d been hog-tied by a snake in the garden. He had to kill the snake to keep up his reputation.
Juice sucked at his teeth and made a decision, “Okay, Byrdie, you get ahold of her head with that hoe and pin her down while I unwind her tail. Then you can hold her tail down while I use both feet to stomp her head.”
Byrdie looked like she was deciding whether or not to slap him for being so stupid. “I can’t hold a snake down with a hoe in that soft dirt,” she said disgustedly. “You must be crazier than you look.” Wisps of hair spewed from pin curls on her head. The dress had a wet, dark green band underneath her arms and heaving breasts.
“You just stay right there,” she said, as she dropped the hoe and left for the barn behind the house without even a glance at Juice or the snake. When she reappeared, she held a long-handled garden rake against her chest like a shotgun. The tines on the end of the rake were iron teeth about two inches long and spaced about an inch apart, just about the right space to pin the snake’s neck.
Juice seemed to shrivel up a little when he saw the rake, “Byrdie, you’ll beat my toes to death trying to pin down that snake,” he said.
“Well, I guess I don’t HAVE to use the rake, I could go get the shotgun.” She put the rake down, and leaned on it with one hand. “Of course, my aim ain’t too good. I MIGHT hit the wrong snake.” She pursed her lips and looked at Juice through lidded eyes.
“Byrdie, you’re crazier than hell.” Juice was spitting, he was so mad. “I can’t believe you’d just stand there and let me get eat up by a rattlesnake.”
“I probably could do this job a lot better without somebody yelling at me,” she said pointedly. “Usually people who need help are a lot nicer. If you want to say you’re sorry,” Byrdie said sweetly, “I’ll get back to work.”
Juice had never hit Byrdie but he looked like he wanted to now. She had always argued back but never openly defied him. The fact that she looked like she was enjoying it just made matters worse. He looked down at the snake and back at Byrdie. His chest heaved. “If you were any kind of a wife, you wouldn’t do me this way,” he said through a gritted jaw.
“If you were any kind of a husband, you wouldn’t do me the way you do, either,” she answered. “I have to sit around, tied to this house all the time—I’m tied to a house, you’re tied to a snake, what’s the difference?”
He looked down and up and everywhere but at Byrdie. “All right, Byrdie, I’m sorry. NOW will you get this snake off?”
Byrdie stared at him for a second or two. She was chewing on the inside corner of her mouth and studying him through half-closed eyes. “No, I’ve changed my mind. I won’t untie you unless you untie me. If you promise to take me to town tomorrow to get my driver’s license, I’ll get the snake off,” she said.
Juice’s eyes stretched like they were about to pop out of his face. He looked down at his feet and shook his head. “All right, ALL RIGHT, I’ll take you to get your damn license. Now hurry up and get this bitch off me. My leg is about to fall off.”
He had given in too easily and Byrdie knew better than to trust him. He always made promises to shut her up and then forgot them. She had never even gotten the slender gold wedding band he had promised her when they got married. “You swear to God and hope this rattlesnake bites you if you’re lying?” she demanded.
Juice exploded. “Get this snake off me!” he screamed, and started to step forward. When Juice lifted his foot, the snake seized the moment and clamped its fangs higher on the boot. Juice stomped his foot back down on the snake’s neck. The fangs had to be near the edge of the metal plate. Juice’s whole body vibrated. His unbuttoned shirt was so wet it was transparent. It clung to the milk-white pumpkin that was his belly. He straightened up to regain his composure, sniffed, and hitched up his camouflage hunting pants to where his waist used to be. The pants fit snugly for only a second or two, then began to slide down to the normal position around his hips. When he spoke again, it was as if he used every ounce of strength he had left.
“Don’t act so ignorant, Byrdie,” he said softly, almost begging. “Just chop the snake before I get bit.”
Byrdie’s eyes showed a hint of fear but she was committed now and couldn’t go back. “You see? That snake knows you’re lying. And if you lie to me again, her sisters might just come back here and get you when you ain’t looking,” she said.
Juice studied her. “Have you gone plumb crazy, Byrd?”
“I might be crazy,” she answered, “but you’ve killed so many of their kin that they might be planning to get you anyway. I bet that’s why this one is here now.” Byrdie was smiling. “I ain’t chopping no snake until you promise. If you don’t take me to get my driver’s license, you hope to get snake bit—and DIE.” She added, “Tomorrow.”
“TOMORROW,” said Juice, through clenched teeth.
Byrdie searched his face while he glared at her. She stepped back as far as she could and still get a good aim. She was closer to the snake now but there was less danger. The snake was pressed so tightly around the leg it looked like a flat fireman’s hose. She spread her feet apart, took aim with the rake, renewed her grip, and brought it down with a thud.
“Goddammit, you broke my toes!” Juice screamed. The rake had struck the boot top first and rolled off the edge, hooking the snake’s head right at the front of the two needle bones. She scraped the snake away from the boot but didn’t have the neck, so the snake pulled out from under the tines and resumed its grip on the boot. Juice’s toes had taken most of the blow.
“All right, Byrdie, this might work, but I can’t stand still while you beat my foot to sausage. I’m gonna slide my foot back to give you a little more neck to aim for.” Juice’s voice quavered. Giving that snake any slack was asking for a bite up higher.
Slowly, he twisted his foot sideways, working it backwards, keeping all his weight against the body of the snake in the soft dirt. The white scales on the snake’s belly began to appear. There was just about enough room for the rake to hook it when the snake released its hold and sunk its teeth high into the boot, this time hitting above the steel plate. The leather was soft from yesterday’s trek in the creek and deep creases of age crossed the top. The needle bones disappeared and the snake’s head flattened out against the leather. To Juice and Byrdie, it happened in slow motion.
Juice looked up at Byrdie with eyes as big as dinner plates, just in time to see the rake flail down and “CLUNK,” two of its teeth locked firmly around the neck of the snake and deep into the soft dirt. Byrdie pulled back on the rake, to pin the head tighter.
The bridge of the rake cut deeply into the flesh and hurt enough for the snake to release the boot and start gnawing the metal prison. Every muscle writhed and contracted. In a fearful panic, it bit every inch of the rake it could reach while its tail tightened on the leg. The white-hot pain of the rake made even the freedom of death seem attractive.
“Juice, you better hurry up and unwind her so we can get you to the hospital,” Byrdie urged.
“She missed.” Juice had already started working on the coils on his leg.
“What did you say?” Byrdie wanted to make sure she’d heard right.
“I said the bitch missed. My toes were scrooched up so tight she missed them.” Juice was frantically unwrapping the tail from his left leg. It kept coiling around his hands and arms but he unwrapped, scraped, and continued to unwind. It was like pumping water with a hole in the bucket and seemed to take hours. Finally, he scraped the last loop off his hand and jumped back from the snake. He had been planning to return for the kill but fell backwards, squashing the whole row of butter beans behind him. His leg was asleep from the lack of circulation.
“For heaven’s sake, Juice, hurry up! I can’t hold it much longer,” Byrdie yelled. The snake had wrapped its body around the rake handle while it ground its jaws against the bridge of the rake. Byrdie could feel the push against her hands as the snake struggled to get free.
Juice tried to stand but his leg gave away like putty. He started crawling on his belly, pulling himself away on his elbows, hands, and one good leg until he reached the steps. He turned around and sat on the bottom step, rubbing and slapping his leg with both hands, his face screwed tight with the pain of a million needles.
Byrdie dropped the rake and ran to the porch, barely touching the top step, and then stood behind the banister. They watched the snake untangle itself.
It was easy for the snake to get free, but in confusion, it headed for the house. Juice jumped up to climb onto the porch. His leg still wouldn’t cooperate, so he scrambled up the steps, dragging it behind him. “That bitch still ain’t had enough. She’s coming right for me. Go get my gun, Byrdie,” he yelled.
Byrdie didn’t move. She leaned against the banister and watched as the snake got its bearings and turned toward the west, where the bright sun was falling toward the tops of the pine trees. Unhurriedly, she slithered into the tall grass and disappeared.
Byrdie turned and looked at Juice with a one-dimple smile. “It sure feels good to be free, don’t it?” She crossed her arms. “If you don’t keep your word, I’m telling everybody how that snake kicked your butt.” She slung the screen door wide and entered, her shoulders shaking with silent laughter.
Juice’s face worked like he was about to cry, “You might get a driver’s license, but you are NOT going to work at Stedman,” he yelled at the yawning door. “And I mean that, Byrd.”
“The Snake Stomper” won First Place in the annual Feminist Writer’s Contest held by the Des Plaines/Park Ridge chapter of the National Organization for Women (1993). It was originally published in their newsletter.
Barbara E. Miner earned an undergraduate degree in Liberal Studies from University of Nevada Las Vegas, where she had the honor of working with Douglas Unger, a Pulitzer nominee for his novel, Leaving the Land. From that project, her short story, “The Snake Stomper,” won first prize in the National Organization for Women fiction writing contest in 1993.
She went on to earn a Master of Science from the University of North Texas in Library Science and worked as a librarian in the Clark County Library District in Las Vegas. Just recently, she began the quest for a Master of Fine Arts degree in fiction from University of Nevada Reno – Tahoe Campus.
She is currently working on a speculative fiction novel set in the United States approximately fifty years in the future. A bio-engineered woman with an extraordinary intellect, Lute Phexan, is stalked by a rogue artificial intelligence system that wants to merge with her, achieving the singularity.
Barbara E Miner was born in North Carolina and grew up on small farm with lots of animals, especially dogs. She is currently a fiction editor with the Sierra Nevada Review.
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