The Drifter by Vicki Lewis Thompson Page A

was a rattler. Using the stick to lift the bedskirt at the foot of the four-poster, he hunkered down and peered into the shadows. His gut tightened. There was something under there, all right. Something big. He sure wished he had a flashlight.
    Bartholomew’s crying lessened, then stopped. Chase didn’t like the idea of the little guy’s being out in the sun too much longer. Time to get the damn snake out from under the bed. He rounded to the side, lifted the skirt with one hand and began to poke the thick body. If it was a rattler, it might come charging out at him. Despite the air conditioner blasting through the cottage, he began to sweat as he poised on the balls of his feet, ready to react.
    With a dry whispering sound the snake began to uncoil. He waited, heart pounding, to see which side it would choose. It started moving away from him. Chase eased onto the mattress and inched to the other side, the forked stick poised. The shape of the head would tell him everything, but he hadn’t been able to see it in the murky light sifting under the bedskirt. He held his breath.
    The bedskirt moved, and the snake started out, its body thick as a baseball bat. Chase shoved the stick down hard just behind the creature’s head, which was oval, not triangular like a rattler’s. The intruder was a very large, very harmless, bull snake.
    Weak with relief, he had a hard time holding the stick steady. Fortunately, the snake had become as motionless as a length of cable, as if complete stillness would keep it safe. It was several seconds before Chase gathered the coordination to reach down and grasp the snake behind the head where his stick had kept it pinned.
    He wriggled off the bed and hauled the snake up. Chase was nearly six feet tall, and he had to hold the snake head-high before its tail no longer touched the oak floor.
    â€œI have the snake, Amanda,” he called out the door. “It’s big, but it’s harmless. I’m coming out. Don’t be scared. It won’t hurt you.”
    â€œYou mean it’s still alive? ”
    â€œYou shouldn’t kill them,” Chase said, walking toward the door as the snake undulated in the air. “They help keep things in balance around here.”
    As he walked out on the porch, she gasped and stumbled backward, nearly running into Chloe, Dexter’s dog poised right behind her. Chloe’s ears pricked forward and she gave a sharp bark.
    â€œCareful,” Chase warned. The upended cradle lay a few feet beyond where she stood. “You could trip over the dog, and if you fall, there’s a lot of prickly stuff you could land in.”
    â€œOf course there is. Everything around here is dangerous. I’m in the middle of `Wild Kingdom’!”
    Chloe wagged her tail and sat down next to Amanda. Chase could have sworn the dog, a golden retriever and sheepdog mix, had decided to guard Amanda and the baby.
    â€œMaybe you’d better go back inside while I take this guy out and let him go,” he said.
    â€œOh, God. You’re letting it go?”
    â€œI’ll walk pretty far out.” Chase stepped off the porch and Amanda backed up another step, nearly landing on Chloe’s tail. “Besides, this fellow attacks rodents, not people. This snake is no threat to you or the baby. I promise. Now go on inside and wait for me. I’ll be back real soon.”
    She shook her head.
    He controlled his irritation. “Amanda, it’s safe now, and the baby should be out of the sun. Chloe will react if there’s anything else in there to be afraid of.”
    â€œI won’t go in, and stop calling him the baby! If you can call a dog by her name, you can call him by his name, which is Bartholomew!”
    God, how she tested his patience. “But I didn’t get any say in that choice, did I?”
    â€œAnd you hate his name.” Her lips quivered as her gaze remained riveted on the snake he held