The snake was weary. He had just digested a gopher. Its progress through his gut had exhausted him. All he wanted to do was rest.
The sun was getting hot. He moved off the dirt road and into the shade of an old lilac. The lilac had been planted a hundred years ago by a sheep herder's wife. They had a cabin on the meadow lands beside the river. Great cliffs enclosed them in the canyon floor. When wool went out of style both sheep and humans left the canyon, leaving little behind except the lilac, a sod roof cabin and a forgotten wagon road where the snake had rested in the early sun.
The snake heard animal footsteps on the road. He wasn't concerned. He remained coiled in the lilac trunks. But suddenly a sandaled human foot intruded itself into his personal space.
``Oh look! A lilac!'' A loud human voice. Then a deeper voice: ``Honey watch out - that's a rattle snake by your foot!''
The human foot withdrew with alacrity.
``My God!'' the woman said.
The snake did not move. The man took his hiking stick and prodded the snake. He yanked it up in the air and his wife took photos of the helpless creature looped on the stick.
``Look at those rattles,'' the man said, ``I want those rattles.''
``You're going to kill it? Don't kill it!''
``Why not?''
``Because it didn't hurt us - we trespassed in his place. Leave it alone!''
The man dropped the snake and it slid back under the lilac bush.
While his wife slept in the early morning the man slipped out of the tent and found the snake in the lilac bush and he killed the snake and took the rattle.
It was five years later that she found the rattle. She recognized it right away. She held the rattle in her hand and shook it gently, remembering the river, the cliffs, the lilac and the hot sun. A few more tendrils of connection to her husband withered and died.