Díaz Bolio also pointed out that the number of dorsal scales of the Yucatán rattler is thirteen, which is one quarter of the solar cycle of fifty-two weeks. Maya glyphs for the Sun included images of the rattlesnake, represented by a coiled rattler with the “face of the Sun” just below the rattles on his tail.
Linda said the Maya experts, including Maya people themselves, accused Díaz Bolio of using poetic license to construct the geometry and architecture of the Maya around the rattlesnake. But I found his book very appealing because I have been a “Crotalus-centric” believer for years without realizing I belonged to the cult of Ahau Kan.
Evo, the indoor rattlesnake, was cranky and edgy this year, 2002; was it some negative energy I carried back with me from Mexico, from the town of Puerto Penasco, full of witchcraft? Or was it all the earth-smashing the neighbors did to remodel their house? When I fed him, Evo ignored the white mouse I offered him and half-heartedly sprang at me to show his irritation. I am always careful, but it was a good reminder.
I bought long tongs so I can reach in and get his water dish safely. When he was slow and docile, a few times I dared to reach in with my bare hands to remove the water dish, but no more, not after the mood he’s been in.
I watched Evo’s skin. It appeared lighter in color first, still beautiful, but then it looked faded, and the designs of his diamonds lost their clarity. The scales on the surface of his eyes became cloudy — a pale blue — as if he were blind.
The following day his eyes cleared, those scales molt first; his skin was dull and dusty looking, the outlines of his diamonds blurred. Evo went in the dark corner of his cage and sat in a loose coil. Even when I filled his water bowl he didn’t move to investigate. Only a day before he’d been animated and alert. Three days passed and Evo didn’t move. He was waiting to molt. I watched him more closely than usual because as soon as he molted, he would want to eat. I had to go out of town and I wanted to feed him the rest of the mice before I left.
Maybe it was the arrival of the humidity with the rain that finally triggered the molt. He began by rubbing his nose on the porcelain water dish until the scales and skin of his nose loosened. The dampness on the inner surface of the skin adhered to the porcelain; the snake’s reaction was to pull his nose away from the porcelain and as he did, the skin peeled back over his face and head inside out, like a sweater coming off, and he crawled away from the water dish and the skin peeled off him to leave behind a delicate translucent tube.
At Christmas a visitor arrived. He was a friend of a friend. He knocked at the west door and when he came in we greeted one another by the snake cage, which was covered with blankets. But the visitor was anxious and exhausted by the travel. He didn’t come into the living room but instead stayed in the west porch conversing with my companion while I made dinner.
Before we could warn him or stop him, the visitor sat down on the top of the snake cage which he mistook for a couch. His weight caused the screen top of the cage to collapse. Fortunately Evo was in his winter doze, so the visitor was safe. I covered the damaged cage top with a piece of plywood and forgot about it until the warm weather came and it was time to feed mice to Evo again.
I never repaired the screen on Evo’s cage after the visitor fell through. The other morning I took off the plywood in preparation to feed the rattlesnake a few white mice. Evo rose up suddenly through the broken screen — he is about twenty-eight inches tall when he does that; oddly my heart didn’t skip a beat because I was standing well back from Evo’s cage. Simple caution or some intuition?
Still his aggressive behavior left me feeling very cautious. I know he is very hungry. I bought him mice, but how do I get him to settle down enough to safely feed him?
Evo is so beautiful — a pale beige and pale brown, a kinsman to the near albino rattlesnakes in these black mountains. His big head is potentially lethal if I am not careful. Next time feed me sooner, is what he meant by rearing up in front of me.
Evo associates the light-colored or white clothes I wear in the summer with the white mice I feed him in the summer. Bright white means food and now when Evo sees me he gets very excited and jumps up like a pet dog. I’ve made a decoy mouse out of cotton balls I sewed together with a length of string to dangle outside the long glass snake cage to catch Evo’s attention and to lure him to the far end from me. I wait until he watches the decoy before I slide open the lid and drop in the live mouse.
He only eats in the warmest months when the nights are in the eighties and the days over one hundred because heat aids the rattler’s digestion, and helps activate the enzymes in the venom which also aids the snake’s digestion.
The last time I fed Evo, without thinking I spoke aloud to him and said, “Now don’t scare me. I want to feed you and give you fresh water.” Speaking to him seemed to help or maybe he just wasn’t as hungry as he’d been the time before but he remained calm and didn’t move toward me.
At sundown as I walked toward the old corrals from the road, out of the corner of my eye motion caught my attention. About forty feet away, a rattlesnake three feet long was on the move through the desert — the most graceful of creatures, sinuous as flowing water, the snake gliding smoothly and silently as if it were floating a little above the ground between the jojoba bushes and palo verde by the old corral.
The biggest rattlesnake I ever saw was on a dirt road in the high grasslands east of Elgin. The grasslands are full of food and water is plentiful so a rattler can grow quite large. This snake was nearly five feet long and as big as my forearm. It crossed the road in front of the car, swift and sinuous, its head held high through the tall grass and sunflowers. As it headed west it seemed almost a golden apparition as the afternoon sunlight glittered off its scales.
Laurence Klauber the great rattlesnake expert wrote that a seven foot Eastern diamondback would be rare but possible. Any reports of rattlers over ten feet are myths, he writes. The extinct Crotalus giganteus reached twelve feet in length.
At the time of the coming of the Europeans to the Americas, giant rattlesnakes in excess of ten feet in length with the diameter of a man’s thigh lived near springs and permanent sources of water. The indigenous people believed the springs belonged to the big snakes, and they revered the snakes as divine messengers and bringers of rain. Reports by the Spanish troops and the Catholic priests recount their diligence in hacking up these giant snakes or burning them alive in the name of Christianity.
But the Americas are vast. Great expanses of mountainous areas are virtually inaccessible even by helicopter. Many rural locations are only visited a few times a year by a handful of people. Rattlesnakes are wise beings, so it seems possible that in remote box canyons in mountains too steep and rough for humans to enter, a number of twelve foot long rattlesnakes have survived after all. Viva Crotalus giganteus!
CHAPTER 20
Late June now, and the heat penetrates the highest reaches of the atmosphere, burning away the gases and chemical pollutants above the city. As the heat expands the air molecules they are thinner and less buoyant, no longer able to carry the particles of dust. The heat boils the sky to a deep blue. No traces of clouds, only the deepening blue as the air becomes crystal clear. The angle of the Sun causes the light to have the luminescence of a blue flame. The Sun is seated in the north corner of Time.
The dry heat of the desert is sensuous. There is a perfect exchange between the dry air and the human body’s moisture so there is no end or beginning of skin or air.