Careful where you step there, mind the tall grass. Hear that buzz? Feel that hum? That’s a warning, and that’s from a rattlesnake.
Why do they rattle? Well, rattlesnakes don’t like being stepped on, and humans don’t like being bitten. It’s real nice this way, it keeps everybody happy.
How did they get rattles?
Huh.
That’s a fair question. Tell you what, I’ll let you know what the humans say about it.
So, once upon a time (the really old time, you know the one – no, no, it was before last March), there was a human walking through the woods. A hunter human, a brave one, because that wasn’t a very safe place for humans back in the day. Too much magic, too many animals. But he was quick and quiet and his bow was fast and sharp to shoot, so he was safe enough. More importantly, he loved the woods, and he’d have gone back there even if it would’ve meant him getting eaten by a bear or something before you could say massasauga, which he said means “really big river mouth,” so that’s all right then.
Anyways, the hunter was out doing hunter things. Setting traps, collecting traps, shooting at game and stalking prey, checking for footprints. Stuff like that. And then while he was looking at some deer tracks and thinking about how he was going to find those deer, why, something grabbed ahold of his foot. And before he could even look twice – not even once – he was swept up and he was being hugged the hug of a big old rattlesnake. It’s not a kindly hug, like your grandma might give you, and it hurts a lot more. Real tight to breathe in.
“What do you think you’re doing in my forest?” demanded the rattlesnake haughtily, speaking through its hollow fangs like snakes do (snakes without hollow fangs can’t do this, and have to talk by humming).
The hunter thought to tell the rattlesnake that it was anyone’s forest, really, and he didn’t think he was being greedy or anything, but he was a bit short on air and it was hard for him to make his point.
“Speak up, or I’ll crack your ribs and crush your head,” threatened the rattlesnake, loosening itself a bit. The hunter was a bit out of breath, but he cleared up his head and made his point right there. The rattlesnake wasn’t impressed by it.
“It may be anyone’s forest,” it said, “but it’s more some people’s forest than others. You’ve got no business putting yours in mine, and I’m thinking I might eat you.” It smelled the hunter’s face with its tongue, eye-to-eye.
Well, a lot of people would’ve panicked right then and there. Just lost it plain and simple, started gibbering and teeth-chattering and done nothing useful. But the hunter was a brave man, and when brave men get scared (they do get scared, of course), they think through it. So he thought fierce and fast and he said, “What about my traps?”
“Your what?” said the rattlesnake.
“My traps. I’ve only just picked up the close little piddly ones for squirrels and such. What about all my deep-woods traps, the ones that catch tasty rabbits and sweet deer meet and maybe more? I’m the only person that knows where they all are, and my family needs the food that’s in them.”
The rattlesnake listened to the hunter lament all this, and its big cold mind chuckled in its icy thoughts. It was hungry, yes, but one human – gamey at that, the hunter was all muscle and sinew – was nothing compared to the tasty rabbits and tender deer floating in its head. It was autumn too, and the deer were looking pretty plump.
“I will give you your life,” said the rattlesnake grandly, “if you take me to these traps and let me eat.”
The hunter could’ve said that those were definitely his traps and his only, not these traps, but he was far too sensible for that. So because he was sensible he nodded and promised to take the rattlesnake to each and every one of his traps before the sun set.
“Lead me,” said the rattlesnake. The sun was just at noon.
The hunter led it to his rabbit traps, and it ate all the birds and bulged. He led it to his rabbit traps, and it ate all the rabbits and grew plump. He led it to the big, big deadfalls three that he’d set out in the woods so carefully, and it ate all the deer they’d caught, and everything it ate it ate without chewing, just gulp gulp gulp with no manners at all or even a thank-you.
“More!” demanded the rattlesnake. It was fat and thick as a barrel around now, and if it ate much more it’d be wider than it was long.
Now, the hunter could’ve just run away by then. The rattlesnake was too slow to move quickly anymore, and he was very very quick. But he was a fair man and the unfairness he’d seen today ate at him. He wanted more than just a way out. Besides, if he left he knew the rattlesnake would say he’d wronged it, and lied to it, and tricked it, and then it’d try to eat him again anyways and he’d never get anything done.
So he thought fierce and fast again, and he had more time, so he thought more. And what he thought of was what seemed to be a good plan.
“More!” said the rattlesnake. “More!”
There wasn’t any more because it had eaten all the game in his traps (and the traps too). But the hunter had a plan, so he said, “I will give you more, maybe. There is one last trap, real deep in the woods. I catch moose in it.”
The rattlesnake just about died on the spot it was so happy at the thought of eating a moose. It stuck to the hunter’s side like glue, and its big cold mind was running awful hot, too hot to see the little things that it should’ve seen. Like that big fat smile that the hunter kept having to wrestle away from his lips before it gave him away. It should’ve seen that.
So they came at last to a big pit in the ground, just before sunset. It was deep and dark and it led all the way down so far that light couldn’t really reach. And the hunter pointed at it and said, “aha, that’s my moose trap all right! And the cover’s been broken, so there’s a moose in it!”
“Is that so?” asked the rattlesnake. It couldn’t smell moose, and it was starting to get just enough suspicions that they were starting to pipe up over its greed.
“Definitely,” said the hunter. “Here, listen, and you can hear it!” And he pulled out his moose call and leaned over the pit and called down it, and sure enough, up called a moose, twice as big as his.
“More!” called the rattlesnake gleefully, and it hurled itself right down the pit, teeth-first, like an arrow.
Now, do you know what an echo is? That’s good, that’s smart. See, the rattlesnake didn’t.
So down it went and down it went, and by now it was thinking that this pit was a lot deeper than it thought it looked and where was that moose hiding? And finally the shaft got so narrow and so deep that the big fat rattlesnake wedged itself right there, in midair, and it was stuck and man and there was still no moose.
Now, the rattlesnake was stuck there for a long time. Days and days and days. And it lost that bulk, and it was still stuck, and then it lost a little more, and it was stuck fast, and it shrank and withered and shrivelled right up ‘till it had shed out of its own skin over and over and over again, and finally it slipped free and fell out into a little cave next to a riverbank. And down there on the riverbank, sitting in the sunshine, cooking a meal and laughing his behind off, was the hunter.
“Feeling a bit thin?” he asked, and then he laughed some more. The rattlesnake tried to glare him in the eye, and then it saw that it was much too small for that anymore; it was almost too small to glare at his knees.
“You tricked me and lied!” hissed the snake furiously. “That was no trap of yours! There wasn’t even a covering on it!”
“I promised I’d take you to every trap around before sunset,” said the hunter. “And it looks like it was a pretty good trap to me. Now let’s see you try to push around people trying to get an honest meal,” said the hunter, still grinning a big old grin.
The rattlesnake hissed and tried to bite him and he just pulled out something from his pocket and pinned it down with one hand, no problem.
“I brought this for you,” he said. “It’s my son’s old rattle. He’s a big boy now and he doesn’t need it any more, but since you’re so small and weak all of a sudden, maybe you’d better take it. If I hear you ring it loud and clear, maybe I won’t step on you next time our paths get to crossing.” And then he dropped the rattle there and walked away, still laughing all the way home.
The rattlesnake fumed, and the rattlesnake cursed, and the rattlesnake wished a thousand very uncomfortable things upon the hunter and his son and his rattle all together until the world cracked in half and blew away like ashes, but in the end he had to swallow his pride and his curses both and take up that rattle. And ever since that hunter played that trick, all rattlesnakes have to shed their skins (other snakes do it out of sympathy, they say, but I think they’re just poking fun), and all rattlesnakes rattle their little tails off when humans come near. Because they’re still scared, and still hoping for that promise.
Now, that’s a story right there, isn’t it? But you don’t usually get stories alone; they’re sort of like wolves. They like to come in packs. See, that story, that’s what the humans say. The rattlesnakes tell it differently.
Sure thing, I can tell you that one too.
So there’s this rattlesnake, back in the old days (which were back around a time, or maybe a little farther – rattlesnakes are older than humans, I’m pretty sure). She’s just a little one, because rattlesnakes aren’t that big. Well, at least this one wasn’t.
Now she’s just sitting by an anthill, eating ants, because that’s all she can catch; bugs and stuff like that. Back in the old days, you see, rattlesnakes didn’t have teeth. No teeth, no poison, and they’re very little – remember that? – and ants are about all they can handle at that size with no poison because they have no teeth. They don’t taste so good, either. Bees taste better, and the fuzz tickles on the way down, but the stings are dangerous and they just fly away up high so she can’t eat too many of them.
Anyways, this rattlesnake’s sitting at the anthill getting hungry (it’s a pretty slow day for ants; they’re all busy underground building tunnels and such), when a big shadow looms over her. It’s a human, a big fierce human whose foot is bigger than the snake and her husband put together.
“Hello, snake,” said the human. It was a warrior, and you could tell that because its face was carefully painted with some very important things and it had a big ceremonial rattle for a trophy and it was carrying a really big club that it used to kill people. It was dangling carelessly from one of its hands, and it made the snake itch just looking at it.
“Hello, warrior,” said the rattlesnake politely.
“I’m bored, snake. They say snakeflesh is tasty. Is that true?”
The rattlesnake thought about this. She didn’t have to think long. “No.”
“Is that so?” the human leaned down really close and peered at her. “I think you’re lying, snake,” it said. “I think you’re telling me what you think’ll save your skin. Well, I’m hungry and I think I’ll eat you. Now hold still.” The warrior slipped its club into both hands and began to take aim.
“Wait!” said the rattlesnake. “I have a husband, and I have children on the way! You can’t just kill a mother like that!”
The warrior shrugged. “You’re a snake. Snake mothers don’t count.” You see, killing pregnant women is usually a bad thing for most warriors. It doesn’t make them look very impressive.
“Then do I count as a warrior?” asked the rattlesnake. “At least let me fight for my life!”
The warrior stared and stared and stared and then it let out a big booming laugh that shook the trees to their roots, and it didn’t stop for some time.
“You?” it said through the tears. “YOU? Hah! Snake, you wish to duel me?! I’ll crush your head under my heel and crack your back with a breath and a harsh word! Your challenge is taken and met, and I’ll see you at sunset tonight. I’ll have your flesh for dinner!”
The warrior stomped on the rattlesnake’s anthill and walked off laughing, and the rattlesnake slithered back home to her husband, whom she told about their troubles.
“Well, you should hide under a rock until it forgets, or maybe dies,” he said.
“Humans live longer than we do, and their grudges last longer,” she said sadly. “I’d have to hide all my life, and so would my children, and children’s children.”
The rattlesnake’s husband agreed that this was not a perfect solution.
“Maybe I could fight,” she said.
“That’s crazy,” he said. It was, a little, but he’d known she was a little crazy for years. That’s what being married is all about.
“Maybe it is,” she agreed.
“You’ll need some weapons. It’s going to have that big club.”
The rattlesnake hissed to herself. “What kills humans?”
“Other humans,” said the rattlesnake’s husband.
“I don’t think they’d be much help – one human’s enough trouble for me.”
“Bears?” suggested the rattlesnake’s husband.
“Bears are greedy and lazy and cowardly,” she said. “They’d never help me.” But then she thought about it. “Help me on purpose,” she corrected herself, and then she thanked her husband and went on her way through the forest with a promise that she had a plan and it was all going to be just fine.
Now, bears those days were different too. Bears were bigger and fiercer (most things were bigger and fiercer in the old days, even things as big and fierce as bears), and they had poison in their teeth that would make anything they bit drop dead after three heartbeats. They ate everything and they weren’t scared of anything, and that meant they had no real problems and got lazy and selfish easy. The rattlesnake had seen a bear down by the lake days and days and days ago, and knew he was probably still there.
He was. And he was asleep. So the rattlesnake slithered right up to his big hairy muzzle, heartbeat steady and slow, and pecked him right on the eyelid with her smallest tooth.
He snored.
The rattlesnake pecked the bear on the eyelid with its second-biggest tooth.
The bear belched. It smelt like fish.
The rattlesnake made a rude face and bit the bear as hard as she could with both her biggest fangs, on the nose.
The bear jumped up with a yelp and glared at her as she dangled. “That was mean,” he grumbled. “I should eat you.”
The rattlesnake was getting annoyed at big, nasty people threatening to eat her all day (wouldn’t you?) and had to swallow her next words and think them through twice before she spoke them.
“If you eat me,” she said, through a mouthful of bear nose, “you won’t get to eat all these delicious bees I found.”
The bear blinked at her. “What’s a bee?”
“It’s the most delicious bug ever. It’s tastier than a grub and finer than a fly and it’ll make your tongue dance like a spider in season,” promised the snake. “I know where a whole hive of them is sitting, and they’re all for you because I’m so impressed with your big teeth and fierce claws.”
The bear thought this over. It seemed like an unlikely motive, but he wasn’t that bright and a pretty girl was telling him how wonderful he was (even if she wasn’t a bear), and so he was just fine with it all.
The snake led him down to the bee hive, dead center of a meadow. The air hummed and the flowers crawled with bees, but the rattlesnake told him not to bother with the little bunches. “The hive is the good bit,” she said. “There’s lots and lots in there. Just take a really big bite and chew carefully.”
The bear eyed the hive, wedged as it was in the crook of the tree. This all seemed a bit fishy to him, but that did look sort of tasty, and he was a bear and not scared of anything. Didn’t he have the most poisonous bite and strongest claws in all the woods? Of course he did. So he opened wide and bit hard – crunch – right through the bee’s nest, and he had a thousand-and-three stingers jammed in every gum and a million-and-one in his tongue, all before you could say makwa, which means a bear.
“Oh,” said the bear. And then, a lot quicker, “ow.” He chewed and chewed as hard as he could, but the stinging wouldn’t stop, and although something was tasting nice in there, it was hard to tell through all the pain. And the swelling. His mouth was inflating like a water bladder and it didn’t feel nice at all.
“You have to chew faster,” the rattlesnake said apologetically.
The bear didn’t hear her – he’d forgotten she was there, what with the pain on his mind. Actually, there was worse than the pain; he was in real danger of cutting his lips on his own teeth, and he spat them out in a hurry once he knew that was coming. “Ech,” he said. “Ich. Pttffthuu. Hurrh.” He shook his head and wandered down to the lake to get a drink.
The rattlesnake watched him go, then took the teeth. They were a bit big, but when she tucked the biggest of them back under her gums just like that then they sort of fit. She opened and closed her mouth a few times to get used to the feel of them, tucked the other teeth away for safekeeping, and slithered away in a hurry. The bear wasn’t going to be happy when he came back, and sunset was coming on fast.
The warrior was waiting outside the rattlesnake’s home, warclub at the ready. Its facepaint was all red in the sunset, like something had bled all over it already. Not that it had. It just looked like that. The rattlesnake thought it was being a show-off.
“Are you ready to die, snake?” said the warrior.
The rattlesnake looked at it with distaste. “Did you follow me home?” she asked, angrily; she almost forgot the plan here she was so mad.
The warrior shrugged. “After I kill you, I’ll need more than one snake to make a proper mouthful.”
Now the rattlesnake was so mad that she was nearly seeing double, but she gulped down that anger and saved it up and stored it in her teeth so hard that they near sparked. “I am only a little rattlesnake,” she said, as sweetly as she could, “and I demand the right to land the first strike.”
The warrior laughed and laughed and laughed, all around the trees. “Good one, snake!” it said. “You will get one bite, and then I will laugh again, and then I will eat you! My life is good!” And with that, and another laugh, it mockingly held out its arm for the snake to bite.
So the rattlesnake opened wide, and aimed, and launched herself straight as an arrow and left two perfectly round little holes in the warrior’s arm. They were so small that they barely bled.
“Hah!” said the warrior. “Heh.” “Huh.”
It fell over after three heartbeats and stopped moving very much.
The rattlesnake slithered on over to the dying warrior and up to its ear. “As punishment for your threats and bad manners and never once calling me by my proper name,” she hissed, “I am taking your rattle-trophy. And I will tell your family that whenever they come by one of my relations, they will sound it loud and long, and if your family does not heed the warning of my family, they will bite them, and they will die. So. There.”
The warrior died, the rattlesnake made her warning, and that was that. Her family and all the others got new teeth, and a little bit of the rattle each, and they used them exactly as they promised.
(The bear never really got over his missing teeth, by the way. He was grumpier than ever to things smaller than him, and twice as skittish whenever he met things bigger than he was, and every winter during his long nap he couldn’t dream of anything but the good old days when he had the most dangerous bite in the world and everything was scared of him. He also really hated being woken up from those dreams, so don’t do that. It’s a bad idea.)
So. That’s what the rattlesnakes tell, that story was. Pretty good, huh? I mean, it’s okay. Not bad. Sure tells you how they got that rattle, and a bit different from the first one, huh?
But there’s a third answer.
So, the idea is that a long, long time ago, some of these snakes didn’t have rattles. But a couple had little bits of loose skin on their tails, and they were loose because they didn’t get shed properly with the rest of the skin. A bit messy, huh?
So they get a bit of an ugly bump there, and it makes noise. Now the snakes that just let it flop around, they get heard and eaten by other stuff. Kingsnakes and such. But some snakes are careful, and they’re still quiet even with those big ugly bumps on their tails. So they get to have babies.
Anyways, some of those snakes ended up figuring out that when they made that noise with their bumps a whole lot, it let big clumsy things know they were close, and then those things wouldn’t step on them. Because stepping on snakes really hurts a lot. You know that, I know that, everybody knows that. And whenever that rattle sound played, nothing stepped on those snakes, so they had babies that did the same things. Let that happen long enough, and all the best rattlers have had babies and their babies have had babies and all those snakes are real good at rattling and have some real nice rattles.
Rattlesnakes. There you go.
We asked all the rattlesnakes and humans we could find, and they agreed that it makes pretty good sense. But they also said that it’s not that great a story.