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Let it be said that I am very much a “live and let live” kind of person. Whether it be spiders, stink bugs (especially as those suckers completely revitalized my comedy career thanks to a feature in The New Yorker), or rodents, I embrace a strict catch-and-release policy.

However, anything that might harm the horses or dogs, well, do not ask for whom the garden hoe tolls…

Last week, as a low, bruised belly of clouds hung over the farm and the wind kicked up, I strode hurriedly across the field to bring in 23-year-old Valentino to bunk in with the Fjords in the back barn. The ponies would share the first stall and paddock, while ‘Tino’ would occupy the second. Tino was walking placidly beside me while pasture-mate Forrest was neurotically cantering circles around us, anticipating the excitement of a changed routine and spending the night in his stall.

Donna, Mistress of the Fjords, was yelling something unintelligible above the rising wind at the pasture gate and waving her arms. I couldn’t determine what she was saying, but I’d seen Paul pull up in his Morgan, so I knew he was alright. In fact, he’d enjoyed a splendid day with his car club friends and was in a very good mood.

Until…

“Don’t bring Tino in!” I could now hear Donna cry, “There’s a copperhead in his stall!”

I’ve learned to no longer jump at the sight of a black or hog-nosed snake—in fact, I thank them profusely for keeping pit vipers away. But ever since Forrest was once bit in the chest in the middle of the night, resulting in being found early the following morning standing and trembling in excruciating pain, on the rare occasion a copperhead has been seen on the farm, it has been quickly dispatched.

(Funny word, dispatch. Why not just say, beheaded? Same thing when hunters say they “took the shot.” Why not just say you killed the deer who now stares back at you from the den wall and wears Mardi Gras beads?)

“Are you sure it’s a copperhead?” I asked Donna. “Because a lot of snakes can look like one.” 

“It’s got the markings and I looked it up on the snake verification site.”

“Triangle head?”

“I’m not getting that close to look!”

“How big?”

“About 4 feet.”

Expletive! Only one thing to yell at this point as we joined voices.

“PAUUUUUUUL!”

And Paul, bless him, having just tucked his car in for the night and an absolute hater of snakes, was now forced into the role of male protector that he never asked for. In fact, I’m pretty sure that had Donna not been there, he’d have said, “Not my barn—YOU kill it.”

His thoroughly pleasant day shot to hell, I handed him a pitchfork to pin the snake and ran down to the tractor shed to grab the the square shovel we used for edging that would now transition into a guillotine. When I returned and tiptoed into the evening darkness of the stall, he had the snake—or so he thought—between the tines. 

“Absolutely sure it’s a copperhead?” I asked again.

“Here, let me take a picture of it with my phone,” suggested Donna.

We were quickly barked at by Paul, who was squirming nearly as much as the snake, to shut up and get out of the way as he took the shovel in his other hand and raised it.

“Wait a minute!” He gasped. “This thing has two tails!” 

“It’s TWO copperheads!!”

“Are they—“ I asked, leaning in. “Aw, geez, get a room!”

“They did get a room. Just the wrong one.”

No one had ever told Paul that snakes keep moving even after they’ve been killed, and looking as though he was stifling a scream, he carried out, at arms length, the writhing couple and deposited them into an empty feed bag. He thought his nightmare over.

“Dogs’ll get into that and bring them on the front deck.” I said.

Exasperated, he took a length of baling twine, tied the neck of the feed bag closed, threw it into the bed of the truck. Gravel was flung behind the rear tires as he drove it to the dump before they closed.

I looked at Donna.

“Wonder if he’ll come back?”