Texas’ Wild Horse Desert is home to many things that stick, prick, bite and a few that “slither,” but also a land of “change.” It was here aboriginal tribes were forever changed with the arrival of the shipwrecked Spanish explorer, Cabeza de Vaca and a small handful of mates. Back home years later, he spoke of the newly discovered land. Soon, Spanish immigrants arrived along with domestic horses and cattle. The new equine arrivals were released to feed upon the lush seas of grass and fared quite well. Short years later, the vast grass and mesquite savannah was named “El Desierto de Caballos Salvajes,” because of the huge herds of wild horses.
Horses were not the region’s only inhabitants. Explorers and settlers soon told stories of the region’s “serpiente de monstruo,” monstrous snakes, reputedly twice as long as local human inhabitants were tall. Some were harmless constrictors, black to blue indigo in color. Others were various shades of browns, grays and tans with diamond shapes upon their backs and rattles for tails, “vibra cascabel,” venomous pit vipers to be avoided at all costs.
During my tenure as a wildlife biologist with Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and later as a private consultant, I spent years working with landowners and hunting groups to establish and help maintain quality wildlife management programs on their property throughout essentially the southern third of our great state. I spent much time visiting with vaqueros, those who worked the land, to learn as much as I possibly could about the region and the wild things that lived there.
Most of those who lived on ranches spoke Spanish or the local Tex-Mex dialect. Out of necessity, I learned just enough of their lingo to comprehend their stories. Conversations often turned to tales about huge rattlesnakes and blue indigo snakes.
Locals swore that rattlesnakes living in the Wild Horse Desert were at least three feet in length at birth. Today, many years later, I would be hard pressed to debunk their theory. During the years I spent in that part of Texas I never saw a rattlesnake shorter in length.
Rattlesnakes are ovoviviparous, meaning they carry and hatch eggs internally so their young are born alive rather than externally hatched from eggs like other snakes.
Growing up just above the Texas’ Gulf Coast Prairie in the gravel hills north of the Colorado River in the Zimmerscheidt Community, snakes were common around our rural home. Especially dangerous was the canebrake rattlesnake, which has a color pattern completely different from that of the western or eastern diamondback. Most were upwards of four feet in length, but quite thick around the middle.
My first real encounter with a rattlesnake came when I was riding in a pickup with my Dad checking cattle. One of my cousins was with us. Upon spotting the snake, Daddy pulled alongside it so I could lean out the window and look down on it. My cousin wanted to see it as well. When he slid my way, his foot hit the door latch. The door opened and I slid down out of the pickup. My bare feet landed on each side of the coiled snake. Not good!
I feared I was about to be bitten and probably die, no matter what I did. I stared down at the rattling, obviously agitated snake, too scared to move, knowing if I did, I would surely feel the serpent’s fangs sink deeply into one of my feet, ankles or legs. I tried screaming, but not a sound came out of my mouth.
Just then, my dad grabbed the back of my shirt and with lightning speed, jerked me back into the pickup. As I was being pulled up, things seemed to unfold in slow motion. I watched, scared as a five-year-old boy could be, as the snake struck at my right foot, barely missing it. After making certain the snake had not bitten me, Daddy dispatched it with a Remington Model 33 single-shot .22, the same gun I carried to hunt deer later that fall.
Back home, no adults present, I had a “serious discussion” with my cousin about the “proper etiquette” when someone was looking at a rattlesnake! When questioned that evening about his blackened left eye, I told my parents he had fallen out of a tree, on his head playing Tarzan, jumping from one tree limb to another.
Throughout my growing up years, I was never truly scared of snakes, but always viewed them with great respect. I knew if a venomous snake bit you, it would cause great pain, discomfort and possibly death. Non-venomous snakes, although their bite was not life-threatening, would cause you to hurt yourself just trying to get away from them
Working in the Wildlife Horse Desert, I heard numerous stories about rattlesnakes growing large and long, upwards of eight feet. I knew indigo snakes, constrictors looking not unlike the large cobras I’d seen on the silver screen, could be upwards of 12 to 13 feet in length. I had seen several north of ten feet in length. Interestingly, blue indigo often killed and ate rattlesnakes. They were also considered great “ratters.” Many that were caught in the wild were brought home and released in barns and around ranch homes and outbuildings. As mentioned, I nearly hurt myself several times when they unexpectedly appeared, often in the strangest of places.
Several years ago, while spending the night at a bunkhouse on the western edge of the Wild Horse Desert, I was late getting to bed after spending most of the night conducting spotlight deer surveys. By the time I got to the bunkhouse I was worn out and dead tired.
I shucked my clothes and crawled into the bed I’d left unmade. Normally, I would have pulled the covers back to make certain there were no unwelcome visitors, such as scorpions, which were quite common and whose stings hurt like hell, and heaven forbid, the occasional “no-shoulders” that had taken up residence under the covers.
I slid bare feet under the quilt, laid down and then continued pushing my feet toward the foot of the bed. My toes encountered something rather cool, cylindrical and scaly feeling, something
I greatly feared, nay knew, was a snake. I moved my toes ever so slightly; now I was certain it was a snake. But what kind of snake? Was it a “harmless” constrictor or a rattlesnake pit viper?
Cold chills started at my toes, ran up my legs into my back and continued upward to my now much-concerned brain! What to do? Should I lay there quietly and hope whatever snake it was would leave with my having disturbed it. Would it bite me if I so much as moved a muscle? I could “feel” the snake was sizable, but how big I did not know. Again, what snake was it? I thought about the possibility of moving my toes to find the tail to determine if it was pointed or heaven forbid ended in “rattles.” That thought did not last very long for I felt assured if I moved my feet, and if it was a rattlesnake, it would bite me. Actually, those were all immaterial thoughts, I was literally scared stiff!
In the past, we had “removed” several rattlesnakes out of the bunkhouse, three of which were upwards of 6 feet in length. What I “felt” with my toes was likely a snake at least that long. Laying there, I tried to remember if I had pulled the cover away from the mattress the night before, or was it still tucked in under the mattress, forming a “sack” with me it it and snake at the bottom.
What to do, what to do? Should I try to slide out of bed? Should I lay there until the snake decided to move?
What if the covers were indeed tucked under the mattress, truly forming a sack with only one opening? The snake’s only way out would be to slither the length of my body and crawl out past my face. If it was a rattlesnake and did so, it could possibly bite me in my face. That would not be good!
My heart raced like that of a hummingbird… being bitten by a venomous snake under such circumstances would greatly increase how quickly the venom would spread through my body. Again, not good!
What to do? I was the only person in camp. Screams for help would go unheard, except for the snake.
I was at wits’ end. No matter what I did, if indeed it was a rattler, I would most likely get bitten. Where it lay now, if it did bite me, it would likely be my foot or lower leg, far better than getting bitten somewhere farther up my body. It would be rather difficult and impractical to apply a tourniquet to one’s abdomen and chest.
Finally, I could stand it no more. I reached behind my head, grabbed the headboard and jerked my body from under the covers as quickly as possible, drawing my feet up to my chin and jumping out of bed. Actually, falling out of bed! Soon as I had started to move, I fully expected being bitten by whatever snake lay under the covers.
Standing next to my bed, there was just enough moonlight to see movement as the snake uncurled and started slithering to the head of the bed. I had my .44 Mag. Revolver, which I had laid on a nearby table just of reach from where I had been lying in bed, pointed at the movement. Having had it there probably was a good thing. Had it been closer, I would likely have tried to shoot the interloper and may have shot my foot, or simply wounded and infuriated it. The snake slithered toward the head of the bed, under the cover. I tracked its movement with my revolver.
The snake’s head started appearing from under the quilt. It was big, broad . . . and dark! Too dark to be a rattlesnake. I watched totally spooked, scared, then glad, nay, thrilled as the six-foot blue indigo continued making its way out of my bed and onto the bunkhouse floor.
I grabbed a broom from the bathroom and once all the snake was on the floor, I “encouraged” it to slither toward the now fully open bunkhouse door and into the outside world, all the while whispering prayers of thanks that my bed-mate had not been a western diamond back with an attitude.
I spent the rest of the night sleeping on the kitchen table, .44 Mag in one hand and a flashlight in the other.
I wish I could tell you that was my only encounter with a big snake, but that would be an untruth. Allow me to pour four fingers of tequila to freshen my memory . . .
There I was! An eight-foot rattlesnake directly under my short deer stand, stretching from one tripod leg to the other, its ugly head just beyond one leg, its tail just beyond the other. Crap! Now what do I do?