EYE FOR EYE

Warden Stourley Bend felt the heat through the soles of his boots. It was like he stood still in smoldering embers. He'd told Magda Prae it was illegal to handle, harbor, and harm black snakes. He'd told her such more than 10 times in the last five minutes. All while watching her move from coop to shed to stump. Her hands tight round thick cord of snakes. Their heads weaved in air. Their tongues shot out thin and black tasting air. They were so black they appeared blue.

Now don't think I don't understand your anger Magda Prae, Warden Bend says. If I come out sunup and find my hens lose and gone and all their eggs been eaten on by heap of black snakes, I'd work same course as you. Bend wiped his forehead. Magda Prae grabbed hold of machete. Its blade ran thin and then bloated at the head. It was orange with rust. Magda Prae held a black snake to the stump with her boot. Its head weaved upon the wood and then was gone to the grass. Its mouth wide and breathless like a fish dead on the bank. Magda Prae held the body squirming upon the stump with her boot and worked pliers from the tail to the neck and the skin come off like a sock. Thin as onion paper. Sun shone through it gray and it seem as shadow made material and real.

You know, Magda Prae, I, you see, I wish you stop killin them snakes while I stand right here to bear witness, Bend says. It aint like you hidin it. Cicadas screeched in pines and Bend could hardly hear his own self and he stopped talking and watched Magda Prae as she beheaded and skinned another snake and another and tossed their headleass skinless bodies into an orange Home Depot bucket and carried them into the house. Bend stood and looked at the pines spindly and thin standing in water brackish and boiling with flies. Bend followed Magda Prae inside. She set the bucket down by the stove. Cast iron pot on flame. She scooped lard from a bucket with a wooden spoon and slapped it into the pot and it hissed and then went from solid to liquid, white to clear. She cut the snake into one inch pieces with a rusty boxcutter and shook the pieces in a brown paper bag filled with corn meal and season all. She set the pieces in the bubbling lard and they fried up brown and she took the pieces from the pot with the wooden spoon and set them to dry on another brown paper bag.

Snake skins and turkey beards tacked to walls. Two gator heads smiled shiteatin grins on shelf above the sink. Black velvet painting of Christ on the cross hung over kitchen table. Pile of okra in a basket below it. Magda Prae motioned to the table and Bend grabbed a seat. She put a heap of fried snake on a paper plate and handed it to Bend. She put a bottle of Louisiana Hot Sauce in front of him. She heaped fried snake on another plate for her self and sat down across from Bend. You want a drink, she says. That'd be fine Magda Prae, Bend says. She get up and ran the faucet into a coffee mug says JESUS LOVES ME THIS IS KNOW on it and a rainbow over the sayin. Way you do this is shake some hot sauce on them pieces and then gnaw away the meat around the bones like this, Magda Prae says, her little brown teeth chewing away on the fried snake. Bend picked a piece up and gnawed on it and he chewed and says hey this aint too bad and he chew some more and by the time he's done with one piece of fried snake Madga Prae's eaten four and her plate is red with hot sauce. This crime I done committed, Magda says. Bend waves her off and gnaws some more. Only sound other than their eating is the cicadas screeching.