Copperhead by Sharon Frame Gay

IOWA, 1959

“IF IT ISN’T ONE thing, it’s another,” my mother was fond of saying. It seemed to be her answer for everything. She said it when I was ick, if the hens quit laying eggs, or a storm was comin’. There was no way of knowing if we were heading for a train wreck or just a bumpy ride.

So, I paid scant attention when she reeled through the door one morning, mumbling about one thing or another, and fell into the chair at the kitchen table.

“Go fetch Daddy, Charla, and tell him to drive me into town.”

“What’s wrong?” I asked, peering out from behind the book I was reading. It was the good part, and I resented stirring from my chair and going out to the field to holler Daddy in.

“Copperhead,” she said, then collapsed.

Her arm was swollen, turning black, and there were several distinct holes in it. More than one snake bite. My heart thudded.

I didn’t stop to put on my shoes and raced across the fields through the dirt, rocks, and clumps of manure. I elbowed my way through the cornfield, the stalks taller than a grown man, following the sound of our tractor. Daddy was at the far end of another field. I screamed and motioned with my arms until I thought they’d fall off, but he was driving in the other direction. Pin-wheeling across the planted furrows, I decided yelling was doing nothing but hurting my throat because he couldn’t hear me.

Daddy reached the end of the row and turned the tractor around. When he saw me, he sped up, stopped a few feet away, and climbed down. I told him what happened. Daddy left the tractor running in his panic as we cut across the fields together.

“Charla, get over to the Beasley’s! Call the fire department. Maybe they can meet us halfway up the road to town! Tell ’em it’s a snakebite!”

I split off and sprinted down the gravel road to the Beasley farm, my bare feet cut and bloody. Nobody was home. Their cars were gone, the dogs sleeping under the porch. The doors were never locked, so I flew up the steps and threw myself over the threshold, knocking over a pile of books on a small table as I reached for the phone.

I talked to the fire department, then saw Daddy’s truck as it sped by the window. I burst out the door and chased after my mother and father until they disappeared over a hill. Then I put my hands on my thighs, bent over and retched.

AFTER MAMA DIED THAT day, sorrow roosted in our hearts. It was confusing, because copperheads are usually found down by the creek that divides our property from another farm, twenty acres from our house.

“Why was your mother all the way down at the crick? I don’t understand.” Daddy said it over and over as we sifted through our grief and shock. It was a mystery. One we’d probably never figure out, but nothing would ever be the same again.

I didn’t feel the same either, tiptoeing to the barn the next morning in knee-high rubber boots to fend off snakes. Using a pitchfork, I poked through the straw before loading the manure into a wheelbarrow and dumping it behind the building. Horrified, frightened, and heartbroken, my emotions swirled like oil in a puddle.

The whole town turned out for Mama’s funeral. After the service, we formed a caravan of cars and trucks, raising dust on the dirt road to the cemetery. The preacher led us through the ceremony, then The Lord’s Prayer. My boyfriend, Britt—known as Codger among our friends—was restless as we stood together by the grave, his skin itching from a wool blazer he’d borrowed from an older brother. He shifted from side to side until I wanted to punch him in the arm.

“CHARLA, BABY, I DON’T know what to do.” Codger said later that night. We were in the backseat of his old greasy Chevy, with enough mysterious stains on the seat that it looked like one of those modern art paintings. Codger had his pants unzipped, bare-chested, dusty boots still on his feet. He rose off me and lit a Marlboro, blew the smoke out in a lazy ring.

I pulled down my skirt and swung my legs around. Reaching for his cigarette, I took a drag and kept the smoke in my lungs until it burned.

“There’s nothing you can do.” I patted his leg. “I know you’re sorry. Everybody’s sorry. But it won’t bring my mama back. I need you to love on me, just a little bit.”

Codger sucked the last remaining tar from the cigarette, then tossed it out the window. He was a big farm boy. The kind of kid who plays tackle on the high school football team, square headed and beefy. He was one of those boys who looked all grown up, even as far back as sixth grade. That’s why we called him Codger. He could pass for twenty-one years old now, which was a bonus when he drove over to the next town to buy booze. We’d guzzle a beer or two, then head for the backseat most Saturday nights.

But tonight was different. Codger couldn’t get worked up enough to make love. I guess he kept thinking about that damned snake and what happened, shameful that he was trying to poke the newly departed’s daughter off to the side of an old farming road. My begging for comfort and affection gave him the willies. I can’t say I blamed him. I wasn’t behaving like myself.

We crawled back into the front seat, and Codger drove me home in silence. He walked me to the door with a flashlight, both our heads swiveling around, looking for coiled vipers hidin’ in the grass.

Daddy was upstairs asleep. A half empty whiskey bottle and a cloudy glass rested on the table, right where Mama collapsed. Our dog, Pal, snuffled at my legs and wagged his tail, looking around for Codger.

“He’s gone home, Pal.” I patted his head and climbed the stairs. My room was the same, but everything had changed. I looked out the window toward the barn and saw one of our cats creeping along the building, hunting for mice. But in my mind’s eye, a snake was waitin’ in the weeds.

My heart sped up. I tried to relax and sat on the bed paging through a magazine but couldn’t land on the words. It was futile. That snake slithered into our lives and turned them upside down forever.

THE FOLLOWING SPRING, I looked out at the auditorium on graduation night. My father sat alone in his only suit, no tie, hands in his lap like he was at church. I saw the bald spot on top of his head, a vulnerable patch of skin pushing away at his hair like one of those mysterious crop circles. When they gave me the diploma, I blew him a kiss and saw the tears in his eyes all the way from the stage.

Afterward, the graduates piled into cars and drove out to Custer Lake, lugging coolers full of booze and food. We sat on top of the picnic tables and toasted each other. Two of my girlfriends were pregnant, sealing a time-honored tradition of marrying right after graduation. This is what we did in our small town. We grew up, we mated, we reproduced. Codger and I just got lucky, I guess. It wasn’t for lack of doing the deed.

I didn’t want to marry him anyway, and I know for sure he wasn’t interested in marrying me. He was off to the University of Nebraska next fall on a football scholarship. Codger attached a Cornhusker flag to the antenna of his car. It fluttered in the breeze when he drove through town, like a knight who won a jousting match.

I had no idea what I would do with my life. Daddy needed help on the farm with Mama gone. We didn’t have the money for college. I was pretty much stuck.

Grizzled old Mike Taylor, who owned the Elbow Room Tavern on the seedy side of Main Street, hired me to wait on customers, sweep the floors, and wipe tables. I soon learned to hate the smell of booze and smoke. The men who sidled up to the bar had known me all my life, and known my parents too, but they looked me up and down like I was the Tuesday special at Mary’s Diner next door.

Sometimes on a Friday night, younger men piled into the Elbow Room and gathered around the jukebox, talkin’ loud and smoking hard. Codger would wander in when he was home from school, but our romance had sputtered and died. He didn’t even try to pick me up. He sat in his college sweatshirt and told adventurous tales to our old high school friends. I’d walk up with a tray of beers and his eyes shifted away, like he was ashamed of me and what I’d become. Once in a while, he brought college friends home, and they looked at me curiously. I wanted to toss the beer in their smart-ass faces, ask them how they thought they’d make a living in this one-horse town. Because of my attitude, tips were slim. But they would have been anyway with all these lackluster losers.

ONE LATE NIGHT AFTER the bar closed, I walked into our kitchen and found Daddy sittin’ up for me, a cup of coffee steaming on the table. His eyes were bloodshot, and his face was pale. I don’t think he’d slept at all.

“Charla, sit down. We have to talk.” He fumbled with a coin he took out of his pocket, looping it back and forth between his fingers. The coin spun across the table and bounced onto the floor. He leaned over, picked it up, and stared out the window into the darkness. I saw his reflection in the glass, lookin’ like a ghost of what he used to be.

I pulled out a chair, sat down, and held my breath. Something was coming. It was in the air, like when a tornado is making its way across the open fields. There’s a silence before the crashing wind, and right now it was dead calm in the house.

Daddy cleared his throat, took a sip of coffee. “I’m selling the farm. I’m gettin’ too old for all the work, and after losing your mother, I don’t have the heart for this anymore. Figure I’ll ask around, see what we can get for it. There’s a lot of work needs to be done, but the soil’s good, and somebody could rebuild the barn and have a shot at decent farming.”

I stared at him, opening and closing my mouth like a trout I’d caught in the creek as a kid. I felt so sorry for that fish that I took out the hook and set it free. Now, the barbs of Daddy’s words lodged in my throat and tightened. The farm was all I’d ever known. It was ours. It was a part of me and Daddy and Mama, God rest her soul.

“Daddy, you can’t! You were born and raised here, and so was I. Where would you go? What would you do for God’s sake?”

“I’m too old to handle this myself, Charla. I’ve been talkin’ to Cousin Wes in Kansas, and he said I can retire there pretty cheap. It’s time, honey. Losing your mama was the end of all of this for me. We could look for new opportunities in Kansas. It’s time to let this go.” He opened his arms wide, as though embracing the entire farm. Then they fell to his side in defeat. He heaved himself up from the chair and put the coffee cup in the sink. “We’ll talk again, but right now, I gotta get some shut-eye.”

Wandering out to the back porch, I checked for snakes, then sat in Mama’s old rocker. Just sittin’ there made me feel a little better. I ran my hands over the arms of the chair, worn smooth from my mother’s hands. I thought of all the days I sat on the floor next to this rocker, shelling peas or watching her knit a sweater. And all the nights I sat out here on the porch swing with Codger, lettin’ him put his sly hand up my skirt, taking a chance, even though light shone through the kitchen window and we heard my parents as they talked about their day.

Now, the porch was cold, the chair made old man noises, squeaking and groaning with every movement. I got up and walked to the top of the steps that led down to the path to the barn. It was quiet, a few night sounds coming through the darkness. I heard an owl in the distance, callin’ for a mate. Pal grumbled in his sleep, legs moving like he was chasing a rabbit.

I hardly slept that night, but somewhere in the early hours, I thought of something that might work.

THE NEXT AFTERNOON I walked across the fields to Codger’s farm. He was home for spring break. He was bare-chested, flattened out on a chaise in the backyard, soaking up the sun. His mother’s car was gone. This was a good thing, as I always thought she didn’t like me very much. Codger raised his head and gave me a wave. I walked across the fresh mown grass and patted his coon hound, Huck.

“Hey, Charla, how’s it goin’?” Codger rose from the chaise and gave me a hug. He smelled like beer and sweat and other familiar things that would make it easy for me to pick him out in the dark. His arm lingered across my shoulder, and he brought me in for another hug.

“Wanna beer?” he asked, reaching into a cooler and plucking out an icy bottle.

“No thanks, Codger. I came to talk to you about somethin’.”

“It ain’t Codger no more.” He took a swig. “I’m Britt now that I’m in college.” He climbed back on the chaise. “Come sit,” he offered, patting the end of the chair.

I sat down and told him everything that had been going on.

DADDY WAS ALREADY IN the house cooking rice and beans for supper when I walked in. He gave me a little smile, turned the heat down, and put a lid on the pot. Then he sat at the table and lit a cigarette. I leaned against the counter and took a breath.

“Daddy, I think I might have an answer for us, at least for a while.” I rolled up my sleeves like I was gettin’ ready to scrub our lives clean. Daddy crossed his arms over his chest and listened while I explained.

I’d asked Britt if he knew of anybody at college working on their agriculture degree who might want to apprentice here at the farm for a while, get handson experience. He said he’d check around. That way, Daddy could have someone here to help but not have to pay much. We’d provide free room and board and a few dollars a week. Maybe we could work with a new apprentice every year.

My father stubbed out his cigarette and pursed his lips. He got up and stirred the rice, then sat down again.

“Is that what you want, Charla? To try something like this first?”

I nodded. “It might give us some time until we figure things out. I can help around here, but it’s easier for me to cook the meals and handle the barn than to haul in the heavy crops. It’d be like when we hire extra men at harvest time. Only this guy can stay in the guest bedroom, and we supply him with a roof over his head.”

My father cocked his head and looked at me. He nodded. “It just might work. That’s some smart thinkin’, honey.” We spent the next two hours talking about the possibilities.

A month later, a young man named John Lasher showed up at our front door. He was tall and lanky with blond hair that I knew would be too long for Daddy’s taste. We shook hands all around and sat in the living room and discussed things. Then I took John on a tour of the house. Daddy said John should be ready in half an hour, and he’d walk him around the farm before supper.

“Here’s your room,” I said, sweeping my hand in an arc, like I was showing him a consolation prize. John threw his suitcase on the bed, looked around the room, then peered out the window at the farm.

“Looks great, Charla. Let me wash up, then I’ll go find your dad.”

I noticed his eyes were green with tiny flecks of gold in them, like an agate I once saw at the county fair. I led him down the hall to the bathroom, then ducked under his arm and stepped aside. It felt a little awkward to have this man filling up our hallway. I hoped he’d be nice.

It was strange at first, having John here. He worked hard with Daddy every day, and when they’d come in for supper, they’d talk on and on about farming well into the night. Sometimes I’d hear them arguing, their voices rising all the way up the stairs and down the hall to my room. On those nights, I wondered if this was a good idea, if things might work or not.

As time went by, it was easier in some ways. John was always polite. Never made a pass. Which, to be honest, annoyed the hell out of me. I upped my game by wearing makeup and making sure I looked nice every day. John seemed oblivious to my charms, and I was thinkin’ maybe he was right to leave me alone, but it was agitating. I bristled when he was around, slammed his food on the table, and stalked into the other room with my plate. He looked mystified. It was gratifying.

One morning, John volunteered to wash our windows with Daddy. They pulled out the ladder and John climbed up and down with a bucket of soapy water. I brought more old towels outside. John reached down for them and bumped me, knocking the towels out of my arms.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

“Watch what you’re doing!” I hollered, then flounced back into the house.

Before the screen door even closed, John was behind me.

“What the hell’s wrong with you?” Those agate eyes were stormy, and he clenched his jaw.

“Nothing,” I muttered. “Nothing at all.” I jutted my chin out and crossed my arms.

“Maybe this isn’t working out.” John shot the first volley.

I shrugged, looked straight ahead like a dog when he’s caught thievin’ in the pantry, and tapped my foot.

He stomped out the door, and I ran upstairs, flung myself on the bed and cried. I wasn’t even sure why. It just seemed like the thing to do.

LATER THAT NIGHT, JOHN walked into the Elbow Room, ordered a beer, and sat down at a table in the corner. I brought it over, and he looked up at me like he was looking for the answer to life itself.

“Thanks, Charla. Hey listen, I’m sorry about our spat earlier. I didn’t mean what I said.” John leaned back in his chair, spread his palms on the table. I looked down at the part in his hair, his scalp burned from working in the sun all day.

“It’s okay,” I muttered and walked away before he could say anything else. I got some satisfaction that he sought me out and apologized. My spirits lifted.

Two strangers were at the bar, guzzlin’ beer and making obnoxious noises toward the locals. One of them wore a greasy shirt with sweat stains under the arms. The other one had his hair all slicked back with oil, dirty jeans frayed at the cuff.

As I walked by, they whispered and laughed. I ignored them and picked up a tray with drinks for another table. As I passed their way again, one reached out and patted my butt. The whole tray went flying, glass shards everywhere. My face burned with humiliation and anger. I bent over to pick up the mess, and they snickered. “Bend over a little more there, honey, we’re likin’ the view!”

John stood so fast his chair toppled over. He walked straight up to the men, fists clenched. “Leave this woman alone, or I might have to hand your asses to you.”

The Elbow Room got quiet. Mike stopped polishing a glass and set it down on the counter. The two strangers got off their stools and faced John. He held his ground. There was a scraping sound, chairs sliding out from tables as half the men in the bar got up and stood behind John. One cracked his knuckles.

Mike said in a low voice, “You best leave here right now, gentlemen. Consider those beers my treat and never come back.”

The men huffed out, swearing, and tossed a lit cigarette on the floor. John put it out with his boot, then kneeled to help me clean up the broken glass.

“Are you okay?” he asked. My hands were shaking. He turned to Mike. “Charla’s leaving now for the evening.” It wasn’t a question but a statement. Mike nodded, and I took off my apron and laid it on a bar stool.

Out in the parking lot, all was quiet. The men were gone. John walked me to my car, checked inside, and told me to lock the doors. I drove home with John following behind me.

“Don’t tell Daddy,” I said when we pulled into our driveway and parked our cars. “This happens all the time. I could lose my job.”

“And that would be a bad thing?” His eyes glittered in the light through the kitchen window.

I was welling up with tears again, so I mumbled a thank you, then pounded up the stairs into my bedroom. When I closed the curtains, he was still standing in the driveway, staring into space.

Things were awkward the next day. I think we both wondered if this would continue to work. Being near him in the kitchen set off some sort of electrical feeling. I’m surprised Daddy’s remaining hair didn’t stand on end just by witnessing it.

That morning, John and Daddy dug a new post hole out on the road for the mailbox. I wandered out behind the barn to the chicken coop. The chickens weren’t laying as many eggs as they used to, which was puzzling. I scattered feed in their yard and tucked a few eggs in my basket, then turned to go.

An old red biddy squeezed past me as I opened the gate and flapped into the blackberry bushes behind the coop. I heard her clucking and fussing. Damn, I thought. Now I had to chase that stupid chicken around and mess with those blackberry thorns. If I didn’t, a fox would grab her for sure.

I parted the bushes, and saw something shiny on the ground. It was Mama’s metal pail for gatherin’ eggs, still with the straw inside it. Broken shells were scattered everywhere.

I froze. My mother hadn’t been down at the creek the day she died. She had been right here near the chicken coop.

The copperhead was in these blackberry bushes somewhere! It was poachin’ eggs, and it killed my mother. Blood swished in my ears as I flushed with fear and fury.

I backed away, ran up to the house and pulled Daddy’s pistol out of the kitchen drawer. Checked for bullets. Then walked back, shaking with rage.

Heart pounding, I pushed apart the lower branches, pistol aimed in front of me. I saw nothing at first. Then I saw the hen. She was dying, legs quivering and eyes glazed. Off to my right was a tangled, writhing mass of golden skin. A nest of copperheads. Mama never had a chance.

One raised its head, tongue darting out as it tested the air. Its eyes were as dead as that chicken when they locked into mine. I stepped back. It unwound from the others and slid across the ground toward me.

Shaking, I pulled the trigger and missed. The jolt from the pistol knocked me on my back. The snake came at me fast and struck. Its fangs punctured my wrist. I aimed the gun again and blew its head clean off. Then I pumped all the bullets into the nest, scattering the snakes.

“Don’t move!” I heard John yell. He came running up behind me, took the pistol from my hand, then lifted me under my arms and tossed me over his shoulder.

“Harold! Harold!” he shouted as he raced toward the car. “It’s Charla! Copperheads!”

Daddy sprinted across the driveway. John placed me in the back seat, then got behind the wheel and gunned the engine. My father threw himself into the seat next to me, put my head on his lap. “Christ, John, hurry! No time! No time!”

We spit gravel as John wheeled onto the county road and fishtailed. Then the car righted itself, and we sped away like the Devil was after us.

I stared out the window at the sky. The clouds raced by, telephone poles etched across the blue like a picket fence, and I thought of my mother and those copperheads “Mama,” I whimpered. “Hold on, hold on,” Daddy sobbed. I felt a strangeness wash over me, like a blanket being drawn over my soul, soft and out of focus.

I DIDN’T OPEN MY eyes at first but heard noises. Voices, telephones ringing, footfalls. I didn’t want to wake up. My body felt heavy. Slowly my mind cleared, and I looked around.

Daddy and John were sittin’ in chairs next to the hospital bed. I had an IV in one arm, and my other arm wore a huge bandage with just my fingers poking out. A wave of panic washed over me as I remembered what happened. I struggled to sit up, but my father pushed me back down gently, reached for my hand and brought it to his cheek.

“The doctors say you’ll be fine. They’re keeping you here overnight as a precaution, honey. Lucky for us it was one snake bite, not multiple. You killed three of those bastards. I think one or two got away.”

Daddy looked like an old man. The two-day stubble on his cheeks was gray, and his hands were still dirty from digging that post hole. His eyes were red from crying.

John slumped in the other chair, his arms straight down at his side as though he’d collapsed in it. They both look so worried. He and Daddy looked out of place in the hospital, but their faces were like home to me.

I thought about the past couple of days, the copperheads, and the farm. It seemed like we rubbed against the things that, in the end, weren’t important at all.

The things that are important can walk right out of your life.

Talking was an effort, but I looked at their faces and whispered, “Stay.”

“Charla, honey, we can’t right now. We need to get back to the farm this afternoon.” Daddy said. “We have to feed the animals, then John and I will burn down the blackberry bushes near the chicken coop. But we’ll be back later, after supper.”

I shook my head. That wasn’t what I meant. I looked straight at John. “Stay.”

He understood, reached over and brushed the hair off my forehead and smiled. “Yes” he said, “I’d like that.”

I nodded, feeling warm all over, and it wasn’t from the snake bite.

“We gotta go.” Daddy pushed himself out of the chair, clasped John’s shoulder, then bent down to kiss me. “We’ll be back as soon as we do our chores, I promise.”

As they walked out the door, Daddy said to John, “Son, we need to pick up some feed on the way out of town, then check the crops. A big thunderstorm’s on its way, blowin’ in from the north.”

John muttered as they walked away, “Well, if it isn’t one thing, it’s another.”

The sound of his footsteps down the hall was a song I wanted to hear again and again.

I looked outside the window at the clouds gathering in billowing fists, the sun beating them back, refusing to give in. It was as though my Mama was up there saying things will be fine. We just have to wait for the storm to pass.

Previously published in New Reader Magazine, and in Song of the Highway. a short story collection by Sharon Frame Gay, published by Clarendon House.