If you have been reading some of my recent posts, you are probably aware that I have been talking about some of my exploits and experiences after being assigned to the Joint Interoperability Test Center (JITC) at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. My story today centers around a subject that is near and dear to my heart, but it is not hunting. Sorry to disappoint, but today, my subject is about running, again. However, today, my running topic isn’t about a morning run, but about an afternoon run. Infrequently I also ran in the afternoon. I did this for various different reasons. The most common reason was that I got up too late to run in the morning. In other words, I overslept because I was worn out from my gym workout, so I decided to gaffe off the morning run. When that happened, I usually started feeling guilty, right around lunch time and started to think about running in the afternoon. However, that wasn’t my excuse on this particular occasion. I was up bright and early with the birds and the chickens as usual, but I didn’t head out on one of my typical morning runs. Why, you ask? That is an excellent question. It turned out that thirteen or fourteen of the Army soldiers assigned to JITC were due to take their annual random drug test and physical fitness test. Notice that I said that the random drug test was both a random event and an annual event. Well, that’s because JITC made every soldier assigned from every military branch take the random drug test every year. There was no ‘random’ about it. The drug test was strictly ‘mandatory.’ But they liked to call it ‘random’ because the regulation said that’s what they were supposed to perform. As a result, we diligently peed in a cup every year, whether we liked it or not. JITC didn’t have the policy to award the achievement medal for scoring four maximum scores on the physical fitness test in a row, but I was one of those overachievers that just had to get the maximum score anyway. That morning was no different. I was the first person to finish the physical fitness test. Later that afternoon at about 4 o’clock, I left work to go out running. One of my favorite afternoon running trails took me up past the hospital where I turned left and headed through the senior officers’ quarters. I stayed on the high side of the parade field while running through the senior officers’ quarters toward Huachuca Canyon. I liked to run in Huachuca Canyon because I very rarely ran into other people. Occasionally, I would see one or two people on bicycles or maybe somebody in a four-wheel-drive vehicle coming down from the high country, but that was very rare. As a result, my runs in Huachuca Canyon were very peaceful. While on those runs, it was just me and my music and the outdoor nature around me. Once in a while, I would even catch a glimpse of a white tail deer or two grazing in the trees alongside the trail. There would always be other critters such as ring tails, birds, and squirrels out and about. Another thing that I really liked about running in Huachuca Canyon was that it was uphill, the whole way into the canyon. What that meant was that it was downhill the whole way back out of the canyon and back to my house. That meant that I could run like my ass was on fire, and I usually opened up the throttle on the way back and let ‘er rip. As they say in the movies, I would go like a bat out of hell on the way back. That particular run was no exception. I was moving at one helluva good pace going back out of Huachuca Canyon. I was nearing a concrete horse and cattle crossing that dipped in the trail where a seasonal creek crossed. I could see a rather thick branch lying over a portion of the trail. I thought that was really strange because I didn’t remember seeing a branch lying in the trail when I ran into the canyon. And the other strange thing was that there wasn’t much of a breeze or a wind to speak of that day. That meant that the wind didn’t blow the branch down. You know. One of those acts of nature. In a windstorm, it was foreseeable that a tree branch could blow onto the trail from one of the trees surrounding the trail. However, there was no goddamn wind that day. And I was pretty sure that I wasn’t going crazy. Then I thought I saw the goddamn branch move. Okay. I know. I know. Shit starts to fall apart when you start to get old but come on. My eyes were still working pretty good. I slowed down just a tad just to be safe. Cuz you can never be too sure about these things. When I got closer to that damn tree branch, I realized that it wasn’t a tree branch at all. It was a rattlesnake. But it wasn’t like any rattlesnake that I had ever seen. Not at all. That rattlesnake was actually quite beautiful. Its body was black with a kind of a yellowish cream-colored belly. The markings on its back were multicolored: yellow, black, and green. And the tail was solid black just before the rattles. I didn’t break stride as I approached the snake, rather I leapt over it and ran to the concrete crossing about five yards beyond and circle back for a look at the snake. The snake was outstretched near the edge of the trail with his head turned to me. He looked at me while I looked at him and we stared at each other for a minute or two and then it slithered into the brush at the side of the trail. After my run, I went to the wildlife management office to report what I had seen. The wildlife manager was just getting ready to leave, when I got there. I described what I had seen. He immediately became interested and asked me where I had spotted the snake. After describing where I had spotted the snake, the wildlife manager asked me to accompany him out to the site where I had spotted the snake. I didn’t think it was such a big deal. Apparently it was. Since there had been no other traffic in the canyon that afternoon, we could still make out the track where the snake had slithered across the trail. I showed the wildlife manager the direction in which the snake had been traveling. After he made some notes and set up a marking stake, we left to go back to his office. The black tail rattlesnake seemed very docile and nonchalant to me. As a result, I experienced no exercises in futility while encountering that beautiful magnificent creature.
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