The Snake Eater’s Gold
By: Jeff Suwak
Tags: Horror, Short Story, Fiction, Fantasy

On the group’s third day in the Sonoran Desert, Danny found himself riding a mangy horse through a tangled stretch of crucifixion thorn, saguaro, and palo verde, wondering what the hell he had gotten himself into.

No trails ran through that that parched wilderness. The only markers that existed to guide them to Schulz’s gold were scattered pillars of rock that the murderous old miner supposedly left behind, but trying to find stacks of stone in that place was like trying to find a politician’s promise in a bag of farts, as Butch put it.

All Danny had wanted was enough money to get his mother and little sister Rose out of the southwest and into one of the big cities. Santa Fe didn’t hold a great deal of opportunities for an uneducated 17-year-old in 1856, and even joining a crew of outlaws to search for abandoned gold seemed like a better option that watching his family starve. Now, however, he was starting to worry he might not ever return to them at all.

Images of his sister with her curly black hair and hazel eyes, like a miniature version of their mother, flashed through his mind as he rode out of the thicket and into an arroyo, where an old woman squatted over a gutted rattlesnake coiled limply in a pile of its own entrails.

The crone’s head snapped up at his approach and her eyes narrowed. Wiry black hair stuck out from her head like clumps of dried creosote bush. A dusty, tattered skirt covered her legs, but the rest of her emaciated form was unclothed. She curled her lips back, baring her dead, black teeth, and hissed.

Desdemona reared back and neighed in terror, nearly throwing Danny. He dug his feet into the stirrups and gripped the reins and managed to stay saddled, which was no easy feat considering the fact he was just as unsettled as the horse.

Butch and Carl rode onto the scene, the grizzled brothers looking like opposite ends of a ballpeen hammer, Butch being stocky and round, Carl being flat-faced with the pockmarks checkering his face like a waffle iron.

The woman stood and appraised the new arrivals, holding the snake in one hand so that its innards dangled into the dirt and lay there like a question mark.

Butch sneered. “Your horse isn’t worth shit if it gets spooked by an old woman, kid.”

Danny patted Desdemona’s flank. “Horses never like coming up on snakes.”

“Kid, if your horse can’t tell the difference between a dead snake and a live one, then she still aint worth shit.”

The brothers laughed and spit streams of tobacco juice into the dirt.

Cisco came next, rifle at the ready, eyes placid as an alpine lake on a windless day. The possibility of danger and violence seemed to put him at ease.

Cisco eyed the woman. “This desert is crawling with all kinds of reptiles, isn’t it? Well, best quiet her now, in case she’s got friends around. Desert Indians are crazy.”

Danny watched Cisco’s hand move to his gun. “Wait,” he said, and then went quiet. He had no idea what to say next, only that he didn’t want to see anyone get killed. An idea struck him. “We should wait for Mr. Canfield.” It was a smart move. Not even Cisco wanted to risk angering that old man.

Cisco’s finger tapped the pistol handle. “Right,” he said, voice calm but eyes full of threat. “Best wait for Canfield.”

On cue, the old man rode up from the east. Wrinkles furrowed his skin and dark silver colored the hair jutting out from under his hat, but his green eyes glowed with an ageless, endless fire. He rode right past the other men and stopped a few feet from the woman. “You speak English?”

She hissed.

Canfield nodded. “Well, I guess you must be her, then.”

Danny looked to the other men to see if they knew who ‘her’ was. They didn’t show any recognition.

The woman picked up a dead branch and drew a line in the sand before her. She shook her head and pointed her finger violently at the party. Danny didn’t need to speak her language to know that she was saying back off.

“We better make sure she keeps quiet,” Cisco drawled, “or we’ll have Yaqui all over us.”

Canfield shook his head. “The pistoleros I talked to in Silver City said that the Yaqui think this woman’s a bona fide sorceress, and not a nice one. They won’t step foot in this part of the desert as long as she’s here.”

Danny sighed in relief. No one was going to get killed. Not today, anyway, he corrected himself.

They rode through the arroyo and around the woman.

After he’d reached the other side, Danny looked back to see her rooted in place, watching him. Without diverting her eyes, she scooped up the string of snake entrails in one hand, and took a bite.