Huntsville Cows
20x24 oil
I came within a whisper of death from a rattlesnake bite on my first trip to the mainland. It was in December and we were headed to Monterrey, Mexico, to see our grandparents after their son, my step-father, had passed away. I was eleven years old.
Looking back, I’m amazed that my mom mustered the grit to set out alone on a four-thousand mile journey with four kids in tow, ages 2, 6, 8 and 11. We flew Pan American from Honolulu to LA on one of those lumbering old prop planes. It took around eight hours to get there. This was the same year a Pan Am DC-4 took off from New York heading for Miami … and vanished into thin air. No trace of the plane and the 61 people aboard was ever found … and then … that plane landed … 37 years later … in Venezuela. Wrap that one around your head. Really. It happened. Reportedly.
But I digress.
Once in LA, we spent one night in a motel with one large bed and a small black and white TV that we had to feed quarters into every fifteen minutes to keep it on. The next day we flew to our aunt and uncle’s house in Fort Worth, Texas, and then flew on to Monterrey, Mexico, where we were to spend two weeks with my grandparents. My grandfather managed a copper mine outside the city.
Before we left Texas, though, my mom thought it would be nice if my middle sister, Pat, got all gussied-up with a brand new hairdo, a permanent. Pat was not happy with the result, and went around sulking and complaining that she looked like Little Orphan Annie.
At our grandparent’s stone and stucco hacienda in Monterrey, we were not allowed to make any noise or make any messes, which I guess we obeyed, since I don’t remember being reprimanded, and I was the one most likely to have pushed the limits. But I did do a lot of talking and hand-motioning with the maids, who seemed to like me. I liked them, too. They were happy and chatty … at least, when my grandmother wasn’t around. I wanted to learn how to speak like my relatives in Texas, whose Spanish flew off their tongues like rapid-fire gunshots. I learned to count to 100 and say what I wanted for breakfast — zumo de naranja, huevos fritos y tortillas con mantequilla. And of course, por favor, gracias, buenos dias, buenas noches and hay galletas.
My grandpa took me to see the mine and showed me a collection of rocks and minerals, including asbestos, which I peeled apart with my fingers. Later, I somehow got hold of a small vile of mercury, which I rolled around in the palm of my hand and cleaned silver dimes with. I really like rocks and minerals and started a collection of my own.
And then there was the rattlesnake.
On the afternoon of Christmas Eve, we all drove into the country past old houses, barns, corrals, goats, and pastures with horses, burros, cows, and sheep in them. It was dreamy country. I almost felt as if I were in a western movie.
We ended up at a beautiful church where we sang carols and met other Americans living in Monterrey. Toward the end of the service, I escaped with a couple of boys I’d just met. We strolled away from the church down a narrow dirt path with old rock walls on either side. I must have wandered too close to the wall on my right, because a sudden rattling sound made the two guys I was with freeze. I froze, too, but had no idea why. One of the boys pinched my shirt and whispered, “Don’t move.” I peeked over at the wall, trying to see what had them so scared. The snake was halfway out of a crack between the rocks, head high, eyes a terror to see, looking for something to strike … and I was the closest target. “Back away slowly,”my new friend whispered. And I did. Very slowly. After piercing me with its slitted eyes with spooky vertical pupils, the snake lowered its head and slithered away. That was the scariest thing I’d ever experienced to that point in my life, because I’d learned from watching Wagon Train on TV that rattlesnake bites could kill you.
A couple of days before we took a train back to Texas, I got a scratch on the top of my hand. I thought nothing of it until it got infected and turned into the most painful boil you can imagine. All I remember of that train ride is how much my hand ached. When we got to my aunt’s house in Texas, she had me soak my hand in hot water, then she got a needle and lanced the boil. I nearly fainted from the pain, but didn’t because I couldn’t take my eyes off all the yellowy gunk that oozed out. It was fascinating. My hand got better after that.
When we got back to our home in Kailua, O’ahu, I sat on my top-bunk bed and took out my two most prized souvenirs from our trip to Mexico — a piece of crumbly asbestos and a hand-carved, multi-piece Christmas scene we called a Nacimiento.
Painful boils, huevos fritos y tortilla con mantequilla, galletas, rocks, dreamy farmland and Christmas scenes. That’s what I remember most.
And always and forever, rattlesnake eyes.
