Second Chance

I haven't seen Chance in a few weeks, not since he stuck his head out of a hole wiggled his tongue then retreated. Pat assumed that I had killed him when I shoveled dirt and rock into the hole he appeared from during the first sighting. Chance still hasn't shown himself, but there's a possibility that Chance might in fact be a she, and she might have given birth.

Pat called me on his cell phone while standing on the side yard filling the cistern. He said to come out right away. Said he wanted to show me something. "Should I bring the gun or the camera", I asked. He said, "the camera if you want". Later, I thought it prudent not to ask ever again but to just bring both.

Once outside, Pat lifted a large rock that lay a few feet from the cistern exposing a foot-long baby snake. Funny how that sounds. In most areas a foot-long snake would be full grown, but here they're just getting started.

We, or I should say Pat, determined that it was in fact a bull snake. And since the proximity of the baby was within 15 feet of where we last saw Chance, we assumed Chance was its mother.

I suppose Chance could still have died; snakes give birth and move on. They don't have anything to do with the offspring once they hit the ground. But in either case the legend lives on in Second Chance. And so it is.