outside (june 2018), copyright © 2018
by kyle dickman, outsidemagazine.com.thrilling—just scary and everywhere.
At night, I’d grab Turin in my sleep
because, I insisted, she was falling
and I needed to catch her. I struggled
to walk in the woods without seeing
something slither.
“Maybe you just see the world like
the rest of us always have,” one friend
suggested.
Maybe, but I miss my old opti-
mism. Instead I feel sad, grateful,
dazed. I want to know whether I did
something wrong to deserve my fate.
Maybe I violated some rule of nature
unknown to me. Maybe the bridge
would reveal answers only the herpe-
tologists can interpret.
Rattlesnakes, Hansen tells me,
emerge in spring hungry, spend their
summer hunting, and head back to
the same den in the fall to breed. Han-
sen and Grasso suspect that I was bit-
ten after stumbling onto a den during
spring emergence.
Finally we reach the bridge, the
exact spot where I was struck. I’d
always thought of rattlesnakes as
the gentleman’s viper—considerate
enough to warn you before they bite.
Mine never rattled. I ask Grasso why,
and he says he’s not sure.
Because the creek had been flooded
at the time, he posits, the snake’s
senses might have been overwhelmed
by tremors of rushing water shaking
the bridge. It was probably hunting
and unaware of me until I stepped
into its field of vision and boom!
“I’m surprised you lived,” Grasso
says. Which I hear as “You’re lucky to
be here.”
“That ledge there, that’s my best
guess,” Hansen says, pointing to a
shadowy overhang located about
30 feet up a slab of sloping granite,
where he imagines the den might be.
Garrett turns to me. “Want to
check?”
“Yeah,” I say, trying to sound bold.
When we reach the ledge, I peer into
a dark crack and see a mouse skitter
across the base of the opening, but no
snakes. And I feel very lucky indeed.I was thrilled to be out of the
hospital. My leg was still black
and yellow and badly swollen.
I needed help to walk. But I was alive!8 DAYS
LATERrd.com 109Drama in Real Life