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I pull my pistol in a flash.
Fire leaps from the barrel.
The snake jerks, as if zapped by an electric shock, and falls still on the ground. Birds take flight from nearby trees, startled by the sound of the gunshot. Back in the yard, we can hear the children squeal with surprise.
“They’re not going to hurt the snake, are they?” Etta asks her mom.
“Shh,” Josie says reassuringly. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
Parker and I step closer to get a good look at the snake. Blood spills out of the bullet wound, which nearly blew it in half. Only a sliver of scaly skin keeps the body in one piece.
The snake, what’s left of it, is small and slender, only about a foot and a half long, no thicker around than one of my fingers. The head is tiny, hard to distinguish at first glance from the tail. Along the length of the body, there is a pattern of large bands of red and black bisected by thin rings of yellow.
“Just a milk snake,” Parker says, relieved. “Thank God it wasn’t a rattlesnake.”
I try to remember the saying I was taught as a kid.
Red touch black
Safe for Jack
Red touch yellow
Kills a fellow
If it were a harmless milk snake, the red bands would touch the black bands. But on this one, the yellow touches the red. Which means…
“It’s not a milk snake,” I say. “That’s a coral snake.”
Parker stares at me with a look of confusion. He either doesn’t know what that means or is hoping that what he’s thinking is wrong.
“The venom is more toxic than a rattler’s,” I say. “That’s one of the deadliest snakes in the world.”
CHAPTER 16
PARKER LIFTS LEO into his arms.
“Hey, bud,” he says, his voice shaky, trying to keep the boy calm even though Parker isn’t. “We’re going to take you to the hospital and get you checked out. Just to make sure everything’s okay.”
The kid wraps his arms around his father as Josie stares at us with confused, terrified eyes.
“I’ll drive,” I say, picking up the dead snake by its tail, just in case the doctors want to see it. “We’ll get there faster.”
With his son in his arms, Parker jogs around the tree and heads through the yard. Before I follow—now that Parker’s son is out of earshot—I explain to Josie what kind of snake it was and that Leo needs medical attention ASAP.
“You take Etta and meet us at the hospital,” I say. “Don’t drive recklessly. Everything will be okay.”
Without waiting for her to respond, I sprint after Parker and get to the truck at the same time he does. I open the passenger door for him, then I hurry around the hood, jump in, and fire up the engine.
“Hey, Leo,” I say, trying to sound nonchalant. “Ever ridden in a police vehicle while the siren was going?”
He gives me his best brave smile. I turn the lights on—blue and red flashes that come out of the grille and from underneath the passenger sunshade—and I let the siren wail. As soon as I hit the roadway, I push the truck up to a hundred miles an hour. I zoom past cars puttering down the two-lane.
I grab the police radio, identify myself, and ask to be patched through to the hospital in Snakebite.
“This is Rory Yates from the Texas Ranger Division,” I say when someone answers. “I’m bringing in an eight-year-old boy with a bite from a coral snake.”
“Are you sure it was a coral snake?” the female nurse asks, surprise in her voice.
