God, Death, and Snakes in West Texas

Over the summer I took a cross country trip with my best friend. Having been estranged from my parents for the last year, I had decided to use this opportunity to write to them from the west coast to have them believe I had skipped town so they would cease attempting to contact me. My father had been sick for years and I had intended on telling him I had no intention of attending his funeral. I have my own reasons for this and the reason why is not relevant to this story.

Anyways, our route was leaving Virginia, stopping Denver to see a friend, then swinging northwest to Portland to visit some other friends, then down the coast to meet my girlfriend at a work conference in San Francisco. From there I was dropping my friend off in Austin and headed home. The point is, we were at the last leg of our journey pretty much, here somewhere pictured in West Texas.

Traveling on a budget we camped everywhere we could. This time we were in the desert, an environment new to me. When we woke up in the morning, we decided we would hike to the top of this hillside and eat our breakfast up there.

On our climb up, we were completely haphazard about where we were putting our hands climbing rocks and shit. I’m no Davey Crocket but as a child I was taught safety about snakes and where they like to hide from my father, and I was ignoring all of that, just blissfully using small crevasses in loosely packed rock to ascent this cliffside that wanton adventure beaconed us towards.

My father had good reason to be afraid of snakes. It was actually somewhat of an obsession of his. He had reoccurring dreams of snakes coming to attack him. You see, the early 1960s of segregated Virginia, my young father was bitten by a copperhead, at the back of the farm he lived on. He had to not only run home, but leave the farm, and go to the hospital, who did not prioritize the treatment of a black child. From what I understand the snake had already used his venom, and had that not been the case the bite could have potentially been deadly because of his age and prior health conditions, and the disinterested white doctors.

However, the memory of my estranged father’s childhood traumas in my thoughts at the time. In fact, nothing but the top of that hill was in my thoughts. Something deeply American had seized us, an almost grotesque compulsion, to plant our packs at the top of this strange god damned mountain, in this land foreign to two sons of the friendly deciduous forests back east. Halfway up, at a spot before the climb became more technical and risky, we encountered a yellow jacket nest. Despite getting stung a few times, my partner insisted we press on and I happily obliged him. Even to two reckless strangers this country seemed to warn us of the danger ahead and caution us to turn back. But if course we didn’t.

After about an hour of hiking and climbing, we reached the summit. At the top, my friend begins to holler about his bug bite, how he’s ready to crack a beer and take pictures, and just generally celebrate conquering our little mountain. And something disturbed me. I told him to be quiet and insisted we have a moment of silence. I cannot explain at the time what made me insist that this private moment of reflection must be had by both of us. I remember looking at the land below us and thinking I was on another planet. I was about to sit down on the cliffs edge, but I couldn’t. This feeling stopped me.

Truthfully what came to my mind was imagining all the Indians that had died out here. Of all the grotesque strip malls we passed throughout the country. Something made me feel the weight of our trip and what made it possible. It made me sad. And scared, for the future of our planet. My father when he was a younger man had instilled into me taking care of the planet. He would pick up trash wherever we went and had been in a few magazines for his wildlife photography. Two friends driving across the country in a 4 cylinder economy car is hardly a drop in the bucket in the grand scheme of climate change, but it’s the jets and ships and weapons of war that this country produces to murder and steal that made it possible for two idiots like us to climb this dangerous hillside like toddlers on a jungle gym.

I really cannot put into words to you the feeling that took hold of me up there. I would describe it as though I had been turned to lead. But not in a depressive type of way, but as though I was conducting or channeling some sort of energy. But even that sounds cliche. It was like I was being carried spiritually by something, or as if something was trying to communicate with me some deeper understanding of the world I was looking at. If you have ever struggled with math in school, it felt like for the brief second that you can visualize and understand a complex equation before it reverts back to being incomprehensible.

After our pause, I was ready to eat and get down the mountain. I look down for my pack at the cliffs edge and I see coiled next to it a western diamondback.

Now keep in mind, we are about 45 minute drive from any cell service, not even counting the hike back down. And I got about 80 pounds on my friend here, so he’s not carrying me back down. These snakes are not necessarily deadly on their own but given the circumstances this one very well could have been.

Once we see the snake the entire mood of our hike changed. The snake was blocking our path back. We realized we were extremely ignorant to have been climbing in the way we were. We realized we need to find another way down.

We ended up walking the long way down back, which took significantly more time, but we made it down.

About 5 days later I would get an unexpected call from my sister. My father had passed away. This was surprising but not unexpected. He was wholly uninterested in his health. I hadn’t spoken to him in about 7 months. It had been a long time since it was good. I learned more about him and respected him less, and he soured in his age and selfishness. In fact, the last words I had spoken to him were “don’t come back here.”

But out of his kids I was the one he spent the most time with. Perhaps just out of mutual interests and him needing someone to take care of him. But it was true. The trail rides and hunting trips and atvs were all with him.

I’d soon find out that he was found dead in his home. He had been there a few days. He’d driven most people away from him, and he died alone with his dog.

Based on the coroners report he died the same day I saw that snake.

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I don’t think I forgive him for what he did. But I think that was a different man. Or maybe just a different side. But there was a selfless, kind, caring man that I remember as a child. The kind of a man who’d face his own greatest fear to save a loved one. And I think that is what happened on the top of that mountain. I believe my father, through some power beyond our understanding, reached into the lurch and saved me and my friend. And that is a man who will see heaven.