ACCOUNT OF MY DAYS
Sequence: 3
BLACKSNAKES
They get to be four, five, six feet long quite commonly. No poison
in them, but they crush their prey to death in a whole-body embrace.
Like all snakes, they feel subtle vibrations and know we're coming,
and that by our step we must be large. They will freeze laying out
in a straight line with a slight wiggle in it. The wiggle, along
with the faint pattern they carry on their backs, makes them look
like a stick, more or less exactly. If you come too close nonethe-
less, they can shake their tails in the dead leaves to sound like a
rattlesnake. If you are startled but not fooled, they will flee. I
have seen one of them climb a tree, essing up the rough bark, like a
branch returning to the place from which it fell. A sight like the
Old Fellow in Paradise, up a tree because a person was near. Not
to entice humankind, but to escape it.