by Shannan Chapman | Winner of the 2024 Writing Contest – Fiction
I follow a few paces behind Josh, because I know how it works out here in the desert. I know that there are six species of rattlesnakes in this remote area of southern Arizona, and I know that they are more active as the blistering August sun begins to touch the horizon. I breathe softly, so I can hear. But I also know that sometimes they don’t rattle.
“Hurry up, Cassandra!” Josh says sharply but doesn’t look back at me.
“I’m just listening for snakes. It’s going to be dark soon. We have to be—”
“What Cassandra? We have to be what?”
He stops and whirls around and I can’t help but look to see if his hand is raised. I take a step backwards and touch my cheek where I feel the desert heat the most and I wonder if the skin has gone to black and blue yet.
“It’s just, you know, we have to be careful.”
He huffs in the glare of the setting sun, and I can’t see his expression very clearly, but I can tell he’s rolling his eyes. He always rolls his eyes when he huffs.
“Cassandra,” he says slowly as if I am a child. “We’re already going to have to set up camp in the dark. If you hadn’t been so damn slow, we’d be there by now.”
Josh’s icy blue eyes are locked on mine, intense and wavering. Though I dare not look away, I’ve stopped listening.
#
“Go talk to him,” Rhea shouted over the loud noise of the dance music. She nudged me towards a guy across the room, sitting by himself. “He’s been staring at you all night.”
I tried to act as if I wasn’t interested, stealing glances at the window above his head instead. “No way! He’s way out of my league.” Eyes so icy blue, I could see them from across the room. A face, rugged and handsome. And kind.
“Whatever,” Rhea said, rolling her eyes. “Stop selling yourself short. You’re beautiful and smart. And you have a great career. I love telling people you’re a freaking snake scientist for god’s sake. Any guy would be lucky—”
“A Herpetologist,” I corrected her, smiling because she was always calling me a snake scientist.
She gave me a mischievous little smirk and walked over to the bar and whispered to the bartender who handed her a pen. She reached for a napkin and scribbled on it before handing the pen back. She walked by me, right up to the guy sitting by himself, handed him the napkin, whirled back around and winked at me. Then she grabbed my hand and lead me back to the bar.
“Did you just –” I turned and looked over my shoulder. He was reading the napkin and before I could turn away, he looked up at me, smiled, and everything went wobbly.
#
Josh finally stops talking and turns on his headlamp, the light in my face a blinding interrogation. I know he’s looking at the mark he made a few hours ago. When he turns and starts walking ahead of me again, I turn my headlamp on as well.
The sun is almost gone, and I breathe in the sweet scent of the tall desert cactus and dry brown earth. A coyote calls from somewhere nearby, a shrill yelp piercing the silence, answered by more yelps that seem to surround us. It’s a startling sound like someone in trouble, but I know it well and it reminds me of why I love the desert. I feel alive out here, in this rugged landscape where everything and everyone must traverse a narrow ledge between life and death on a daily basis. Survival depends not on strength, but on cunning, not on logic, but resourcefulness.
We continue in silence towards the horizon and above us, the first of the stars begin to dot the night. I think about the camp we will set up, the fire Josh will start, the apology that will eventually come. Like it always does.
#
“It was just a shove,” I told Rhea that first time. As if the word “just” would somehow soften the blow, render the action less severe, less important. We walked side by side on the rocky desert path, our words filling the canyon as we talked.
“You need to leave him, Cass!” Her words were sharp, almost as sharp as his. “It will only get worse.”
I shook my head at the idea. “No, he said he was sorry, and he really was. He even cried. It was a mistake. It was—”
“No! The mistake was him. I’m sorry I ever got you into this. You are better than this, Cass. He’s not worth it!”
I stopped listening then because she didn’t understand. She didn’t get to see the moment when he apologized. She couldn’t know the slow, easy burn that filled my heart when he went from a hard grip to a soft touch, a burn like a streetlamp in the fog. A burn that warmed and soothed the ache in my soul.
Rhea called me a week later. “Do you want to go get a drink?”
“No,” I whispered into the phone, looking over my shoulder at Josh watching TV and drinking a beer. “I’m busy,” I said. I would always be busy.
#
As night falls, dark and silent, I think of Rhea and how much I miss her. I know she was right. I’ve always known she was right, and I wonder how I got here. I should have left three years ago, but instead, I believed I could change things, that deep inside, Josh was good and if only I could make him happy, he would love me. But love is not harsh words and a hard fist. All of the flowers in the world cannot take away the bruises that build up inside until they overflow. And then, one day, it’s too late. I want to run away, but I know he will find me. I want to fight back, but I know he will win. I also know that Rhea would tell me there is always a way out.
“Ah shit!”
Josh’s scream brings me back to the desert and fills my gut with a soft but rising panic as the light from his headlamp scrambles across the sky, the ground, my face, and he staggers backwards.
“What?! What is it?” I catch hold of him as he works to regain his balance.
“Snake! A damn snake!” His words shake and I can almost taste the fear in his breath as he leans hard against me.
“Are you bit? Was it a rattlesnake?” I jerk my headlamp off and point the light to the ground just ahead of where we stand. Movement, slow and unmistakable as the large diamondback makes its way back into the brush along the trail.
“It bit me! Holy shit, Cassandra, it didn’t rattle. I thought they rattle.”
“Sit,” I say, my voice firm for a change, and help him to the ground where I examine the bite, just below his knee. A trail of blood trickles down his leg. Already, the area is swelling.
“Do something. Please Cassandra! You’re the expert. What do we do? A tourniquet?”
“No, a tourniquet will not help. It will only make things worse. The bite is deep, it’s bad. That rattler was a Western Diamondback, and it was a good five or six feet long. It—”
“What does that even mean? What do we do?”
“It means you need anti-venom, and you need it fast. You need to sit as still as possible, breathe slowly.”
I reach into my pack and pull out my cellphone, but I know there is no service this far out into the desert. We are a good two hours walk from the jeep.
“Why didn’t it rattle? Jeez this hurts, Cassandra!” Josh grabs my arm and in spite of everything, all I can think of is how badly it will bruise.
“They don’t always rattle,” I say, surprised by the calmness in my voice. “I have to go get you help, and you need to stay still while I’m gone.”
“You can’t just leave me here!”
“I have to. If I try to carry you, it will take too long, and the blood will pump to your heart much faster. I can run for the jeep and get help. Don’t worry. As long as you stay still, you have plenty of time.”
It’s only a little lie. I know that it will take me hours to get help and if Josh isn’t treated within the first hour, the golden hour, things will get bad. But as long as I return with help, he has a chance.
I pause and take a deep breath, feeling the weight of the moment pressing down on me. Everything is in my hands now. Everything.
He lets me go with a push, the fear thick in the desert air. “Remember,” he says, his voice catching, “You promised you’d never leave me again.”
#
I was only 2 months along when I lost the baby. I didn’t even go to the hospital because the bruises were too fresh. I simply bled alone in the bathroom as my body pushed from me my one glimmer of hope. A promise of something good, now gone. The next morning, when Josh left for work, I packed my bags and walked out the door.
When he showed up at the hotel, he had flowers. I blocked the door, standing my ground.
“Please come back home, babe. I promise it will never happen again.”
“I can’t. I need some time. The baby.” The words caught in my throat, and I couldn’t bear to look at him.
“We can make more babies. Just let me in and we can talk.”
I looked up into his icy blue eyes, eyes I once thought to be kind. He smiled, that same smile that once made my knees go weak and my heart skip a beat. Where did that boy go? How did I not know. I looked away and slowly started to shut the door.
Josh put out his hand and stopped the door, pushing it open. He stepped into the room and slammed it shut. Throwing the flowers on the floor, he grabbed my wrist.
“If you leave me again, I will kill you. That is a promise. Do you understand?”
And I did understand. Now there was fear where once there was love, acceptance where once there was hope. Because now the only escape would be a window ledge, high above the city street, the loaded gun in the closet, a bottle of pills promising peace.
#
I run, but the light from my headlamp makes the ground shake and I know I need to be careful because there are a lot of rattlesnakes in this desert. The coyote yips again somewhere in the distance and I imagine it running alongside me, sharp-eyed, cunning, knowing.
Finally, the moon reflects off the metal of the jeep. I look at my watch. as I catch my breath. It’s been over an hour. I wonder for a moment what Josh is feeling? Is he afraid? Is the pain too much to bear? I unlock the door, throw my pack in and climb into the driver’s seat. I still have no signal, so I crank the engine and drive towards Tucson, my heart beating fast in my chest. My phone rests on the seat next to me and after a few minutes I check the signal. Four bars. The tiny restaurant at the edge of the desert is lit up so I pull into an empty parking space, take a deep breath and make the call.
It seems an eternity until there is an answer and I almost hang up.
“Cass? Is that you? What the hell girl? You ok?”
“Hey Rhea, yeah, I’m fine. Listen. I’m sorry. You know, about everything. I was thinking maybe we could go get that drink.”
There is silence for a moment.
“What about Josh?”
I look in my rearview mirror, back towards the desert. There is no light, except for the stars.
“It’s over. It’s finally over.”
My words float out into the night sky and the only sound I hear is the solemn howl of a lone coyote.