Rats, Mice, & Snakes: The Snake That Came To Dinner

The road snakes down the middle from the cabins way at the top.

I was working on the road to Christine Marie claim. This was a tedious and slow process because of the steepness of the road.  When I finished for the day, I would leave the dozer as close to my work area as possible and walk up to the cabins for the night.  Tonight would be my first and only experience with teleportation.

Gene and Jake enjoy a meal in the hot sun.

I was sitting in my chair next to my propane cooking stove looking out my cabin door, exhausted.  I remember that I was slumped down in the chair with my feet out in front of me trying to find the energy to get up and add something to the potatoes and onions already cooking on the stove. The weather was changing outside and a weird wind was blowing. It would be colder tomorrow. Much to my astonishment a rattle snake slithered in front of the door headed to the west. It moved about half way across the flat area outside the cabin door opening and stopped. It lifted its head about 6 inches and looked inside the cabin. I watched the snake and thought, "Just go on to where ever you are going and leave me alone." The snake, frozen, looked directly at me. I was slumped down so far that my right hand could touch the ground. I picked up a small stone from the gravel floor and tossed it at the snake to encourage it to continue on its way. The snake came right at me – straight into the cabin. The next thing I knew, I was standing outside the cabin looking in through the door. The only sound was my potatoes and onions cooking on the stove.

Gene poses with a wire trap.

Now, I have been interested in the ideas postulated by science fiction writers for some time. The idea of teleportation – disassembling your body molecule by molecule and reassembling it at another place or time – is interesting if not plausible. To this day I have no memory of any thing between those two moments. One moment I was slouched in a chair tossing a pebble at the snake, and the next moment I am standing outside my cabin, my heart pounding furiously, looking in with no snake in sight. Perhaps I teleported to a safer place.

            Slowly my problem came into focus. My supper is cooking on stove in the cabin with the rattle snake. I am outside the cabin and don't know where the snake is. I went to find my gun. Luckily it was in the truck and not in the cabin. Then, another problem came into focus: my explosives were all packed in various containers under my bunk -- a nice place for a snake to hide and a nasty place for bullets to fly.

Jake's tent, the Scout, and Gene's cabin at the Christine Marie mine.

This was a different time -- before the Oklahoma City bombing. Buying and using explosives was no big deal if you knew what you were doing. The major concern for the miner was where to storage them and how to keep them dry. Keeping them under your bunk may sound a little foolish, but a miner always sleeps in the driest place possible, and storing explosives under the bunk was practiced quite often by individual miners.

The road, rebuilt every year, near the Jake's Place Claim.

           Bullets and explosives don't mix, but having a rattle snake in my cabin was unacceptable. I poked my head inside the door and tried to see the snake. The potatoes and onions smelled good but there was no snake visible. When I was certain I could step into the cabin safely, I did. This provided a better view but still no snake. I took one more step into the middle of the cabin and saw him curled up under my cooler in the back corner opposite from my explosive, but. I was still concerned about the possibility of bullets ricocheting into them. I climbed up on my bunk to shoot down at the snake and hopefully leave the bullet in the dirt. The bullet went through him twice. I picked up the snake, took him outside, and nailed his carcass to the outside of the cabin. I was hungry and had not invited any guests.