Protected

attlesnakes were common in the Smoky Mountains, where I grew up, and I knew to avoid them at all cost. But the timber rattler I came up against one sorry day when I was nine had been hiding under the roots of an old tree stump. I didn’t notice until it was coiled like a tight spring, its forked I thought. But I wasn’t standing. I was crouched down on my haunches, eye to eye with the huge reptile.