“I’m not going to cite you,” Stefanic said.
Hypok still couldn’t muster whatever it would take to look at this... this unthinking block of stupidity standing over him. He remained kneeling, looking into the box. He felt a little stream of relief try to form inside him and he tried to hold on to it the best he could.
What? Wait — the ranger wasn’t going to cite him! He felt the tightness disappear from his chest and he wanted to smile warmly and perhaps clasp the shoulder of this man of the great outdoors, this firm but fair enforcer of natural law and order.
“Well, I really don’t feel as if I’ve done anything wrong.”
“Possession of venomous reptiles in the State of—”
“—You can understand the circumstances of those boys stoning young animals, can’t you?”
It came out much sharper than he would have liked. He was just a little out of balance now — his words didn’t match his thoughts and his thoughts didn’t match his feelings.
“I can understand you were keeping five-foot rattlesnakes as pets, too.”
Hypok told himself to just hold on now, just settle down, and everything would be all right. Stefanic would leave, forget his name, forget the encounter. All he was doing was walking in the woods, letting a few snakes go back home. Stefanic was not going to cite him.
“I’ll have to write up an incident report, though. That’s just to have on file. If I find you out here again, in possession of venomous reptiles, then I will have to cite you.”
Hypok nodded noncommittally. He felt his heart plummet to the center of earth and come out the other side, somewhere over in fucking China probably. He wondered if the rage showed on his face. In case it did, he looked away to the trees, then down into the box, then at his feet, then finally at Stefanic’s nameplate, so he wouldn’t have to look the ignorant ball of meat in the face.
“So.”
Stefanic took a knee, as if to be familiar, on his victim’s level, or at least comfortable while he wrote. He took the citation book off the box and flipped up the black lid. He pulled a silver pen from the pocket of his shirt and looked across at Hypok.
Stefanic spelled out Hypok’s Web name letter by letter, looking up at Hypok when he was done.
“Correct?”
“Correct.”
Why in the name of Moloch didn’t I just tell him my name was Lumsden?
He’ll check my license when we’re done and see Lumsden.
He’ll take the van plate numbers and see Lumsden.
Right then, at that moment, it was impossible for Hypok to tell who he hated more — himself or the crisply starched dipshit kneeling not three feet across from him.
Hypok stood up and expected the ranger to do likewise, but he didn’t. The moron was full of surprises.
Stefanic looked up at him. “Age and local address?”
Hypok made them up.
“You know your California driver’s license number?”
Hypok made up that, too. He realized that everything was going to be quite all right. He felt good again. Powerful and good. Then, “You know, I hike the parks in Orange County a lot. This is far and away the best one. You guys do a great job.”
“We try,” said Stefanic, still writing, but not looking up. “We do try.”
He was one of those guys, noted Hypok, who took about five minutes to write one letter or number.
“Do you mind if I set the juveniles free?”
“In a minute. Car make and model, year?”
“Oh, it’s a Dodge van. Ninety-six. In fact, I waited until last to set these babies loose, because they’re such cool, good-looking little animals.”
“Trouble, if you step on one.”
“That’s sure true.”
Hypok knelt down again and took up the jar to look at it. “You wonder how many will make it another year. You know, because of how small they are. Have you ever seen one of these eat — I mean, in nature out here?”
Stefanic stopped writing and looked at Hypok. “No. What’s your local phone, Ian?”
Hypok stood with the jar in his hands and held it up to the sky. He looked at the little snakes sliding around inside.
“Six-eight-one...”
Stefanic lowered his face to write, fifteen minutes to write three numbers, then looked back up at Hypok.
“Four-seven-seven-eight.”
Stefanic looked down at his citation page again and Hypok hit him over the head with the jar as hard as he possibly could. It broke into big shards because it was the heavy kind of half-gallon jar made for bulk condiments. Stefanic grunted and his face lowered. The right side of the jar came off in Hypok’s right hand so he held fast to the lid and set a big triangle of glass under the ranger’s throat and drew up fast and hard with it. He bent his knees for torque. There was this sudden intake on Stefanic’s part and a red stream looping in the air. Hypok did it again. The ranger lifted his head to look up and the stream gushed bigger so Stefanic kind of rolled with it, rocking back on his knees and half upright, with both hands at his throat and a bubbling wheeze issuing through his fingers. With his head cocked at an unnatural angle he stared up at Hypok in disbelief. Hypok jumped back and dropped the lid. He reached into the box and felt outside the bag for the big head of the male horridus and found it easily because it was nosing its way in the corner of the bag like they usually do, pressing the seams for a way out. He grabbed it firmly through the cotton with one hand and reached in with the other so they almost met and got the head good and firm and dragged the thing out. The other snake he didn’t even think about. The big horridus was just as strong and heavy as he knew it would be. The rattles hissed like a tire leaking air, but much, much louder. The mouth was open wide from the pressure of Hypok’s grip and the fangs stood out when Hypok hit the snake’s nose against the box. Three-quarters of an inch of hollow bone, dripping venom. Stefanic had gotten up. He still had both hands up to his neck and there was blood all over him, but he was up and backpedaling with his head still cranked to one side. He tripped and fell and rolled over. Hypok hustled to his side and pressed the open mouth of the horridus against the ranger’s calf. The snake bit down like a dog. Stefanic kicked his leg free and seemed to be trying to scream — Hypok was pretty sure — but the sound was a wet hiss that sounded like water against the pebbles of a streambed. Hypok jammed the snake’s mouth against the ranger’s ass. Stefanic rolled over and struggled upright, but Hypok was beside him and the ranger couldn’t see much because his eyes were smeared with blood and he couldn’t straighten his head without his neck gaping apart so Hypok drilled the big, white, open mouth of the viper straight into Stefanic’s face, right below the cheekbone, pressed it so hard the ranger lost his footing and fell over again. Hypok let go of the snake, but the horridus was stuck fast, anchored by those fangs, its upper jaw up by Stefanic’s eye and its lower one spread all the way down to the bottom of his chin.
Hypok stood there and looked down.
He’d never seen action like this, not even when he fed his mother to Moloch. If she hadn’t been feeble it would have been better. But this was another thing completely. He couldn’t stand it He felt himself excited down there and didn’t know what to do. It surprised him to feel that way now. That’s what the Items were for, and all the work he went through to collect them. It absolutely shocked him to feel stimulated, and he had the terrifying idea that this might mean he was homosexual. Because of Stefanic.
The ranger was still hissing wetly. But he wasn’t strong enough to get up and his chest was heaving, unbelievably fast. It was amazing that much blood could keep coming out. Hypok took a knee and watched, checking the time. It was the oddest thing, but he felt like he had all the time in the world. Compared to Ranger Rick here, he thought, I do. The snake let go and crawled away.