J.A. Bolton StorytellerWhy, as well as I can remember, this here story took place on a Saturday, the first day of squirrel season back in the early ’70s. Just so happened a couple of my hunting buddies and I decided we’d go a squirrel hunting and kill us a mess for supper.
We decided to try our luck just off Big Mountain Creek around the old Baldwin Mill site. Since the mill had long since fallen in, a lot of big hardwood trees had grown up around the site. Also, there were a few old pecan and walnut trees there about. A prime area for squirrels to hang out.
We all rode together in one of my friend’s old 1950 model Chevy pickup. When we arrived at the old mill we got out, loaded our guns, and got ready for a good evening of squirrel hunting. It seemed to me that the place had really grown up since the last time we had hunted there. Vines and bushes seemed to be everywhere. There just happened to be a small one man path winding through the undergrowth. Of course, I happened to be the one in front as we made our way along the path.
We hadn’t gone far, when we stumbled across the mill’s old foundation and chimney. Green vines of Ivy were growing everywhere and it was hard to see where you were placing your foot. Then I heard it, the eerie sound of a rattlesnake singing! Now folks, if’n any of ya’ll have ever heard this here, sound you know it will make the hairs on your neck go straight up. This is just a warning from the snake letting you know that you are in his territory.
I could tell from the sound that the snake was in the path right in front of me but for the life of me I couldn’t spot him. I suddenly came to a halt but them fellows behind me hadn’t heard the snake and walked right into me. Folks I don’t mine telling you, I took the biggest leap of my life, don’t you know. Why them Olympic broad jumpers didn’t have nothing on this ol’ boy. I bet I jumped 12 feet and was hollering rattler the whole time I was in the air. As I looked back from a distance I heard the sound of a shotgun blast and heard the guys saying, “well we got that one.” Them was the prettiest words I’d heard in quite a spell. Folks, that ended the squirrel hunt, but the fun was just beginning.
Why that rattler was so long you could hold him up as far as a man could reach and his tail would still drag the ground. He must have been hanging around that old mill for quite a spell ;cause he had 12 rattlers and a button on the end of his tail.
We cut his head off and decided to have a little fun with that old snake. We raised the hood of the truck and laid the dead snake across the radiator. He was so long we had to tuck both ends down in the fender wells to get him in there. Then we closed the hood and took off toward Ellerbe.
We pulled up to the local filling station and told the attendant, whom we knew, to put us in a dollar’s worth of gas and to check the oil.
Now folks, reckon ya’ll know by now where this here story is going and wondering why we’d pull such a trick on someone. The only thing I can say about that is, “The devil must have made us do it,” plain and simple.
The attendant put us in a dollar’s worth of gas and then proceeded to raise the hood to check the oil; when all of a sudden he spotted that big snake all curled up around that radiator. Now I’m not telling you no lie folks, that attendant slammed that hood down so hard that the side mirrors fell off the truck. Why that there fellow then proceeded to go straight to the bathroom and he wouldn’t speak to none of us for a month after that.
I hope ya’ll have enjoyed this here story, but I wouldn’t advise pulling this trick on anybody today world. It just might cause you to get shot, don’t you know.
J.A. Bolton is author of “Just Passing Time,” co-author of “Just Passing Time Together,” member of Anson County Writer’s Club, Anson and Richmond County Historical Societies and Story Spinners in Laurinburg. Contact him at [email protected]
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