snakes

The next morning, Ellie saw Lonnie walking up the dirt road toward the house with a riffle.

It startled her. Actually, she forgot who he was and with all that dark curly hair, he looked a bit like a desperado.

Naturally, she met him at the yard gate. Funny, how just one visitor could excite someone in the middle of the morning out in the middle of nowhere.

"What are you doing here?"

"What do you think? You gotta go to the garden, sometime, right?" He looked at her as if she wasn't dressed in just her tank top with a smock apron over it and bare legged with flipflops.

She nodded.

"Rattlesnakes." He winced.

"Oh, yeah."

"So get on some jeans and some boots. Lets do it before it gets any hotter. I think your Aunt is counting on some tomatoes."

"Tomatoes?" She thought of those in cans and in grocery stores. Not right off the vein.

Ellie didn't waste anytime, She pulled on the skinny jeans under the smock and grabbed the first work boots she could find. She shook them in case any scorpions were asleep. You just couldn't be too careful out here.

"Maybe a long sleeve shirt too." He advised after she'd gotten dressed.

Of course, she hated to be dressed with so much on just to go out into the heat.

"Is it even worth having a garden out here?" She walked toward the back of the yard past the big chicken wire cages that used to hold birds when Aunt Maggie raised them. Going to her old gray barn was like walking into a ghost town. There was the skelton of a tractor with no wheels. A few other items of farming equipement that Ellie had no idea what they were used for, but no telling how long the rusty machines had been out here as vegetations grew around them making it all part of the landscape.

"I wish I didn't have to do this," she told him.

"You'll get use to it."

"I don't know about that, I really don't want to be out here any longer than I have to be," Ellie said. "How long have you lived here?"

"Pretty much since I was six or seven." He picked up a dry piece of grass and put it in his mouth like a toothpick.

"And you're OK with that?" Ellie winced.

"I guess," Lonnie shrugged. "Not like I can do anything about it."

"So how long have you known Ben?"

"A very long time," Lonnie said, "Why?"

"I don't know, did you know his parents?" Ellie hoped she didn't sound to much of a snoop.

"Just his Dad, don't know where his mother was. She's not around." He was picking up a few rocks now.

"What's that far?" Ellie asked.

"Rattlesnakes. Sometimes, you just hit'm and thats enough." He grinned. "I've killed a couple, hitting'm right in the head."

"Really?" Ellie didn't want to talk about rattlesnakes. "So where's Ben's dad now?"

"I don't know, maybe he moved to Florida or California." Lonnie chewed on the dry grass stalk. "You know he's gay."

"Ben?"

"No, his dad." Lonnie nodded. "But he's an all right Dad. Really. See, before Ben was born he had this falling out with his partner and it was kind of like one of those celebrity divorces according to my grandma. They'd bought up all this land and it got divided. I don't know, I guess it wasn't a big deal that much. But his partner got married had a family, and I guess that's why Ben's Dad adopted him."

"Oh." Ok, now Ellie was back to her Mom and the picture. Ellie felt a bit shakey. They were finally at the garden.

Lonnie pulled down the fence for Ellie to crawl over.

"Well, her goes nothing," Lonnie said.

Ellie looked around at the danger zone. She supposed any place out here could be the danger zone.

Lonnie told her to be quiet as he listened for rattle snakes.

"They like being in the shade, and its all cool down there in those veins."

Ellie heard something then.

"What was that?"

"It wasn't a rattler." He bent over close to the plants. There the tomatoes were hiding like Easter eggs.

"Damn," Ellie said under her breath.

"What?"

"I forgot to bring anything to put them in."

Lonnie pooked around with the point of the rifle.

"Go ahead."

Somehow she didn't find much comfort in what he said. She bent down and started picking tomoatoes. It looked like all would go smoothly. She picked at least half a dozen of ripe tomatoes. And then it happened.

It was an irry sound and Ellie stopped in her tracks. Lonnie pointed. The gun went off..and the snake exploited with the meat of the tomatoes flying through the air.

Ellie fidgeted a bit wondering why she wasn't running back to the house.

"I hate this." She nursed her bottom lip. She so wanted to go home now.