The Rattlesnake’s Tale

From “Tales from the Basin”

©By Harold Gower   April 17, 2008

“Andromeda, I am going down to the creek for a bite to eat. I expect to return before sunrise”

“Ok, Copernicus, but be careful! The two-legged beasts are prowling again. I have sensed them for the last two days. Be aware! They are extremely dangerous!”

“Yes, I know that very well. I too have sensed them, and I have witnessed their viciousness. Their sole purpose is to kill. They kill anything that walks, or crawls, or flies.

They even kill their own kind!  I promise you; I will be constantly on my guard.”

Copernicus was on high alert as he exited the den which was under a great basalt boulder. The brush near the entrance to the den was very dense, and had, many times, provided cover to allow Copernicus and Andromeda to escape the unprovoked attacks by the two-legged beasts.

It was still dark out, but the sky was just beginning to brighten, as Copernicus ventured out into the dry grass where the brush grew farther apart. He paused while a coyote trotted by. The coyote was of no concern. He was hunting jackrabbits. They exchanged wary glances, and Copernicus moved on down towards the creek. He was within a hundred yards of the creek when he sensed that something was different, that is to say wrong! He sensed fire! And then he sensed a familiar odor that told him that the two-legged beasts were camped there. One of them was making such a dreadful noise, that he wondered how any of the others could sleep at all. Copernicus skirted the camp on the south side, and made his way on down to the creek.

On his way back, Copernicus saw that one of the creatures was stirring, moving about, building up the fire, and preparing to heat a pot of water. As the sky got lighter, Copernicus knew he would have to be more cautious. If even one of these strange creatures were to see him, he would be in grave danger. At the same time he remembered his promise to Andromeda to be back before the sun was up which could dehydrate him making his trip to the creek all in vain.

He gave the camp, what he considered to be a wide berth, but just as he thought he was free and clear, he sensed one of the smaller beasts walking towards him. Instinctively he coiled and shook his tail. Copernicus was rife with fear and. the young beast screamed “RATTLESNAKE! THERE’S A RATTLER OUT HERE I’M SCARED HELP ME I DON’T WANT TO DIE”

Instantly the camp was alive with beasts of all ages and sizes...Copernicus looked around for better cover. He calmed his nervous tail. He crawled under a large creosote bush that had a lot of tall dry grass and waited hoping the beasts would not find him.

“Can you still hear him?” a deeper voice called.

“No. what should I do now?”

“Move away from where you think the rattle came from”.

Copernicus sensed that the young beast was a safe distance away and moved on towards the den. Not until he reached the safety of the thick brush at the base of the boulder,

 did he dare turn to see what a stir he had caused in the camp. Three adults and 4 young beasts were beating the brush with sticks.

As the first rays of the sun were creeping down the boulder, Copernicus entered the den. “I am convinced now that they are the stupidest creatures alive. They sleep at night when it is cool and rise with the sun to work in the heat. They dig great holes in the ground, for who knows what purpose? While they are digging these holes, they have devices that make thunderous sounds that shake the ground, all for absolutely no reason. The only possible reason I can think of is to trap unsuspecting beasts that fall into the deep, deep holes and kill them. Often times they even trap and kill their own kind! “

“So, what makes things fall, Pop? I don’t understand. Why can’t we fly like birds? And why do they kill their own kind?  It does not make sense. They really are stupid.”

“Ho, ho, so many questions. Your first question is the greatest mystery. Well, it’s all about turning. You see, son, I had a very strange experience a while back. It was one of those rare times when I had a close encounter with a two-legged critter, and I thought I was going to be killed for sure. I shook my tail then I coiled and struck, and then I felt myself being pinned to the ground, and then the next thing I know I felt a very warm sensation at the end of my tail. And to my great surprise I found myself being raised up above the sagebrush, and I was just hanging there.  Too frightened to move, I saw this two-legged critter looking at me, and I thought this one is different somehow. The next thing I know it is swinging me around its head. Slowly at first and then faster, until I was nearly level with the ground, but way up high. And the brush was rotating below me in the opposite direction. Even the trees and the mountains were moving. Then to my astonishment, the warm sensation left my tail and I was flying through the air like a bird, and the brush rose towards me, until I found myself entangled in the branches, and then I dropped to the ground, got my bearings and crawled back to the den.”

“Wow, Pop! So you flew like a bird! I sure wish I could fly. It musta been a great feeling, huh?”

“Yes, it was a feeling of pure freedom, and it was then that I had the revelation of what the mysterious power is, that draws us and keeps us on the ground and causes rocks to fall on top of us.”

“I don’t follow you Pop. What’s the connection? How…”

“It all has to do with turning, son.  You see, while the critter just held me, I was hanging down, but when it spun me around its head I swung out horizontal to the ground. The earth turns, the sun turns, the moon and planets and stars turn…

“Wow! How do you know all this Pop? Or are you just making up stories?”

“No, no son. I was listening to some other two-legged critters who were sitting around their campfire talking, and gazing upward at the stars and discussing the mysterious power. They had a very strange name for it, a name I had never heard before. They said that even the galaxy turns and the whole universe turns. At the time I did not understand, until the creature swung me around by my tail. And that is when it all became clear to me”

“If you say so Pop. It sure isn’t clear to me.”

“Do not worry, son, each of us must gain his own enlightenment in his own way.”

Read the Manual

A young teenager is convinced he can drive because

he has watched his parents drive, so he takes the car-keys

off the table and gets in the driver’s seat, turns the ignition on,

Puts the car in drive and steps on the gas.

The tires squeal, and speeds down the street, and before he can think

 To take his foot off the gas and hit the brake, he is in a serious accident.

His mistake is that he BELIEVES he is a driver without knowing…

To BE A driver, he must know how. he must be taught, and pass the driver’s test, and practice.

And to do that he must read, study, learn, understand the rules and regulations in the driver’s manual and demonstrate his ability.

SIMILARLY,

To be a Christian, one must study the “manual of instructions” found in

The Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Every chapter, every verse. And then practice it.

Only then can he truly say, “I am a Christian”.

JUJU Witch and the Black Ghost

 JuJuWitch and the Black Ghost

©By Harold Gower   May 11, 2012

          as told to him by Henry Elfonsi Gumenuk III, RPCV.

“Anyanui is a quiet little fishing village on the eastern bank of the estuary of the Volta River. The Africans pronounce it On-yon- we, but we liked to call it Any-a-new-e. I had been teaching there a year, so I was an old-timer when Mary Lee arrived fresh from the States, full of enthusiasm, and after eight weeks of intense training, ready for the rustic life. She was actually quite good looking, and I had the enviable pleasure of showing her the ropes. So the first rope I showed her was the one tied to the bail of a bucket.

“This is one of those things they don’t get around to explaining in those university classes.   Since our only source of fresh water is a well and there are no water pumps, we have to draw the water using a bucket on the end of a rope. Now if you drop the bucket into the well, one might expect the bucket to fill, but instead of filling, it floats. Sooo, what you have to do is raise the bucket just above the surface and wiggle it with an up and down motion till the bucket swings upside down, and then drop the bucket into the water, let it fill and then draw it up. We have a two burner kerosene hot plate to boil our drinking water for ten minutes before we cool it. However, since we don’t have a fancy dancy modrun water heater, we draw our bath water just before we bathe because the water fresh from the well is several degrees warmer than after it sits topside for a while. And since we don’t have bathtubs or showers, we bathe with just one bucket of water which is doable with a little practice. One of the worst things you can do while you’re here is to drop your end of the rope while the bucket is in the well.

“Now whether you are religious or not, religion is interesting especially to the Africans. Many Africans confuse us with Christian missionaries, which of course, we are not, but religion is a curious thing on both sides of the fence. If you ask them about their pagan beliefs, they will clam up and shut you out. The best way to get them to open up is to not mention it at all, because eventually they will ask you,’ what do you believe? Do you believe in juju?’ and you can truthfully respond ‘I never heard of juju what is it?’ I must tell you that Anyanui is in the region of the Ewe tribe and the Ewe people are the originators of Voodoo. It is all about witchcraft, black magic and juju, but on any normal day you will never see any of it in practice.

“I took Mary Lee down to the river to show her the marina.  Unlike the marinas in the states, this marina had a pier with an old rusty ferry boat  powered by a diesel engine, and a couple of long dugout canoes powered by outboard motors which were also used to ferry people, goats, chickens, and market mammies with their wares from and to the market. And since we were on the estuary of the river, fishing trawlers from the Gulf of Guinea would tie up here to unload their catches.  Some of the trawlers were owned and operated by Africans and others were owned and operated by Europeans often from neighboring countries. Ghana had been a British colony and Togo is still French. So it was not unusual to hear people speaking French.

“Months later we were alone in the house on a quiet Sunday afternoon when he walked in uninvited. Short and stocky and filthy, with red curly hair and a grubby beard, he clearly expected the house to be empty for he seemed surprised to see me and delighted to see Mary Lee. His gray-blue eyes gleamed as he grinned through his jagged yellow teeth. Clearly, he had rape on his mind, though he wouldn’t have called it rape. She was just another toothsome morsel and he was not about to let me stand in his way. I was younger by a few years and too clean cut to appear to be any threat to a rough, tough sailor, so as I stood between him and Mary Lee, he grabbed me by my shirt front and snarled as he shoved his fists up under my jaws. I must have looked a bit ridiculous wearing my broad brimmed Bolgatanga hat. It had been hand woven in that northern village, and I was, and am still, very fond of it. It is a very sturdy hat with a sturdy crown.

“The moment he touched my shirt I reached up to defend myself, so before he had time to threaten me or tell me to get out of his way, I grabbed his right wrist with my left hand, and squeezed with much more strength than he anticipated and twisted it backwards which caused him considerable pain. I then got a grip on his little finger with my right hand and bent it backwards till it broke. By this time he was enraged and trying very hard to recover control. As he was drawing back to hit me with his right hand, I brought my heel down hard on the instep of his left foot and I could hear at least a couple metatarsals break. As he was still attempting to fight, I hit him in the solar plexus with the tips of my fingers of my open right hand. He collapsed to his knees and speaking English with a heavy French accent, he begged me to let him go, as all the while I maintained a firm grip on his wrist.

“I told him that my name was Pipewrench, and that he was the pipe.  I also told him that her name was JuJuWitch and that she was in total control of all my actions, and that I was only her vassal.

“By her powerful juju, she can turn herself into a snake, a cobra in fact. She can even turn the likes of you into a beautiful young woman.  You must leave this house immediately to escape her awful power. I whispered.

“By now he was more than willing to go, whether he believed me or not. I followed him as he hobbled out of the house as fast as he could on his broken foot, and cradling his right arm. I followed him at a distance, all the way to the pier on the river where I saw him board a black fishing trawler used to smuggle contraband from Togo. As he stood on the deck I could swear I saw him look at himself to make sure he was still a man and not a beautiful young woman.

“When I returned to the house, I was shocked to find myself facing a very large Black Mamba. It is considered to be the deadliest snake in all of Africa. Its bite is called the kiss of death.

“No, No, No”, I thought, as panic began to set in, “this cannot be Mary Lee! I was only messing with the sailor’s head about JuJuWitch.

“And yet there it was right where I’d left her, Mary Lee that is. If this is not Mary Lee, then where is she? If the snake had bitten her, then her dead body would be lying on the floor.  I listened. I heard no other sounds. The mamba, with its head raised two feet off the floor, lay poised and still as a marble statue, and looking straight at me. And I, I was afraid to breathe or utter a sound, knowing that this creature was the fastest and most aggressive serpent in all the world.

 Just then, Mary Lee came out of the kitchen, and screamed when she saw the mamba. The mamba turned its attention to her and began to move in her direction. With no further thought, I took my hat by the crown holding it in front of me and presenting it to the mamba, the viper turned instantly toward me and struck the inside of the hat band several times in rapid succession before hanging on, and sinking its fangs into the fibers of the hat. I seized the opportunity to grab the snake just behind the head gripping it as tightly as I could. I let go of my hat and gripped him with both hands for it took all of my strength to hold him. He was long and slender, sleek and powerful, and not accustomed to not having his own way. I called to Mary Lee to bring a knife from the kitchen, so as I held his head to the floor, she drove the knife through his skull three times before he stopped writhing.

 The mamba measured out to be nine feet in length, and I estimated his weight to be more than twenty pounds. I found his fangs protruding from the inside of my hat band where they had become detached when I grabbed him by the neck.

Mary Lee and I got married, for as she had saved my life and I hers, what else could we do? And as far as I know JuJuWitch is still haunting the trawler known as Le Fantôme Noir.

.

…and dats da trut, so help me Hannah, or my name ain’t Henry Elfonsi Gumenuk III, Esquire, RPCV.

                                                                   ©Harold Gower