For this story to make sense I need to explain a few things first.

Sound location: We can tell where a sound is coming from due to the time difference between which ear hears it first. But when a sound is constant, like say a steady whistle, it seems to come from everywhere. To locate a sound we need for it to have variations so that our ears can pick up differences.

Rattlesnakes: Rattlesnakes are cold blooded, like all snakes, and regulate their body temperature by alternating between sun and shade. If they stay in the sun too long on a hot day they can die of sunstroke, just like other animals.

When a rattlesnake rattles it is to warn away other animals. Most animals give that warning very high respect and leave, fast! They have two types of rattling sound they make. Most have of you have seen American Western movies and have heard the rising ,falling, whirring sound in the show. That is the common rattle. I have heard it many times. The rising, falling sound allows other animals to know where the rattler is so they know where not to go. It is the rattler's way of saying, "Don't step on me you clumsy dolt!" There is another sound they make with the rattles. It is a sound like an electric buzzer with the finger steady on the button. I have heard it only once. You can't tell where it is coming from. The rattler uses it when he is "angry". It means, "You are looking for a fight, and I'm ready."

I will make reference to an almost psychic "feel" in the presence of a rattler. I don't believe in psychics or any of that type stuff, yet I know that how I felt.

In the 1950's in Texas it was the common ethic that all rattlesnakes were to be killed on sight.

THE STORY

It was another blazing hot day in summer on that south Texas ranch I grew up on. The ranch had oil wells on it and in a shallow valley below our hill one of the wells was being worked on. I stepped out of the house onto the back porch and heard a steady buzz that seemed to come from everywhere. My skin crawled and my guts tightened. Rattler! I quickly went inside, grabbed the shotgun and started out the back door. Dad asked, "What's up?"

"Rattler!", I replied.

He jumped to his feet as he and Mom stepped out on the porch with me. Now I had a problem. I couldn't tell where the sound was coming from. I could see that it wasn't close but about 30 feet (10 meters) from the house the cleared area ended and low brush a few inches high ( about 100mm) began. I stood in indecision, skin tingling, but not knowing where to look. Dad said, "That ain't no rattler. You never heard a rattler sound like that. That's the line on the workover rig at the well." True, I had never hear a rattler make that sound and I had heard workover rigs make similar sounds. And I didn't relish hunting a rattler in the brush (His territory) without a clear idea where he was. But my skin was alive, screaming, "Rattler!" Reluctantly I agreed with Dad, unloaded the shotgun, and went back inside.

About fifteen minutes later I was back on the porch for something and the sound was still there. Although my skin still tingled I had never heard a rattler go far so long. Then, for a few seconds, the sound broke into the familiar rising, falling whir that I knew, and gave me a line of bearing on him. Again the shotgun, and this time I would not be stopped. Dad and Mom came with me. By now he was back to a steady buzz. Slowly I followed the direction I had heard, looking carefully at each small bush before taking the next step. Then I saw him. He was a large one, as thick as my wrist and about five feet (1 1/2 meters) long.

He was surrounded by my cats! Amazed I watched for a few moments. Slowly, four of my cats circled the snake, just out of his strike range. One of them would fake an attack on the snake, drawing a strike from the snake, which would just miss. While the snake was attending to the fake attack and stretched out another would leap in, claw the snake, and be back out of range before he could turn to meet the real attack. And they were keeping him in the sun! In fact, that seemed to be their real objective. Their claws were having no effect on his scales. But if they kept him in the sun long enough it would do their job for them.

Enough! If I didn't stop this that snake might get lucky! This had to be a careful shot. Finding an angle where no cats were directly opposite from me I aimed for a spot just behind the head. At a range of only a few feet (about 3 meters) the blast of a shotgun has not yet begun to spread out much. It would more resemble a solid mass of lead a couple of inches (50mm) across. The blast was dead on. His head came off to land nearby.

Now all four cats ran to the snake and began feasting! They had become tired of a diet of mouse and rat. They wanted variety and rattlesnake was on the menu. Obviously one of them had seen the snake and called the others to team up on him.

Dad said that he had never seen anything like that before. We walked back into the house amazed. That was a tough gang of cats.

Sometimes I look at this lazy bowl-fed furball that likes to perch on my computer and realize what that if he had been born on that ranch he would have fit right in as a full fledged member of that gang of exterminators.

Hope you enjoyed the story. I told it the way it happened.

Copyright © Wayne D. Cowey
June 9, 1998