The Snake Mother Under My Bed

The pretty woman said she had lost two sons and had come looking for them.

When she came crying to our door, my brother had just finished eating two fat snakes he had stolen out of the snake den up the back slope.

My mother saw how pretty she was, lured her inside, poured two big bowls of doctored liquor down her, and put her in my brother's bed.

Chapter 1 I took the woman her food the next day. She was still crying.

When she saw me she caught hold of my arm. "Where are my sons?" "Your house has the smell of my sons in it." "I don't mistake a smell like that.

Why can't I find them?" I started to say something. Then my mother came in. She had a rope in her hand, thick as a thumb. She tied the woman down to the bed, tight.

While she tied her down, my mother pinched that soft white skin twice. "Fine little body on you." "Bet you've had plenty of men at you." "Nothing but a slut, and my boy's good enough to take you anyway, and here you sit bawling.

Quit your playacting." I stood there beside them and didn't dare make a sound. I waited until my mother had finished the tying, finished working off her temper, and gone.

Then I leaned close to the woman and kept my voice low. "I really haven't seen your sons.

Why don't you tell me what they look like and I'll look for them, keep an eye out." When she heard I would help her look for her sons, her eyes lit up all at once. "My sons.

One of them is black all over, and one of them is white all over." "Plump, both of them. Good as could be." One white, one black. Plump. I turned it over in my head.

Then a fright went through me. I ran out of there like something was after me. I had just reached the door when I saw my brother, drunk out of his mind.

Three men were coming along behind him. Headed straight this way. I knew what they were coming to do. I rushed up and got in front of my brother.

Scared out of my wits. "Rex, don't." "You can't. There's something wrong with that woman." "Those sons she's talking about, they're—" I never finished.

My mother came flying out and kicked me to the ground. "Who do you think you are, getting into your brother's business." "Open your mouth again and I'll beat you to death." I covered my head and shrank back into the corner.

I watched, helpless, as they went into her room, rubbing their hands and leering. That night I had just poured out my brother's washwater and was on my way outside.

I ran right into my mother coming the other way. Her face was bad. I didn't dare get in her way. I carried the basin out fast. After I shut the door I didn't leave right away.

Something made me put my ear against the wood and listen to them talk. My mother kept her voice way down. "Hog cholera this year.

Every pig in the hollow's dead." "The old man that runs the hollow says there's got to be meat on the table for Thanksgiving." "He picked out a few houses to come up with mutton." "We're one of them." That puzzled me.

We didn't keep any sheep.

I held my breath and kept listening. "We could hand over the woman in the back room." I clapped my hand over my mouth, afraid the fright would make me cry out.

The mutton they were talking about was… "No." My brother was up in arms at once. "Me and my boys have got good use out of that woman." "No way we're handing her over." "But." My mother was stuck. "If we don't come up with somebody, the old man's going to be mad for sure." My brother didn't think much of that. "Why not just hand over Bub?" Chapter 2 "He eats a whole lot these days.

We hand him over, the old man's satisfied and we save a mouth to feed." "But…" My mother hesitated. She didn't get to finish. My brother cut her off. "What?

Is there anything more important than me being happy?" "We're poor as it is. I finally get me a woman, and you want to ruin a good thing for me over Bub?" When he was done.

My mother was quiet for a few seconds. Then she said it, firm. "You're right.

You're right." "Nothing's more important than you being happy." "We'll give them Bub." I went back to my room numb all over.

I had always thought that even if my mother didn't like me, I was still her son.

It never once crossed my mind that two sentences out of my brother's mouth would be enough for her to push me out to die.

I curled up on my bed a long while before I came back to myself. Then, once the two of them were asleep. I crept to the woman's room. There was an iron chain around her neck.

She lay naked on the bed. Black and purple marks all over her. When she saw me her eyes went huge. Her whole body writhed on the bed. "You said you'd help me find my sons.

Did you find them?" I made myself walk over to her. Then I undid the chain. I leaned down to her ear.

I kept my voice as small as it would go. "You said our house has the smell of your sons in it." "Haven't you noticed, on my brother—" "—that the smell of your sons is stronger?" At first she only looked at me, not understanding.

Then something seemed to come to her. The tears came down in big drops. And her face turned savage. It scared me back several steps.

I stammered. "It—it's got nothing to do with me." "My brother killed your sons. My mother helped him." "Nobody in that house listens to me.

I couldn't have helped your sons even if I'd wanted to." "And I did save you, near enough." "Whatever you do, I won't get in the way of it.

I'm only asking you to let me off when the time comes." "I just want to live." I said it and I didn't wait to see whether she agreed.

I got out of that room like something was after me. The next morning my brother's screaming woke me up. I rolled off the bed and ran to look. The woman was dead.

She had hanged herself in a white wedding dress. Her face was blueblack and her tongue hung way out. My legs gave and I went straight down on the floor.

Before I could get hold of myself. Uncle Cleve came in through the door with a black look on his face. He went over to the body and handled it a little.

Then he drew a long breath and looked at my mother. "Where did this woman come from?" My mother laughed it off. "Kin on my side of the family." He plainly didn't believe her.

He narrowed his eyes at her, and his voice came lower than before. "I'll ask you one more time. Where did this woman come from?" There was too much edge in his eyes.

My mother shivered and didn't dare lie again. "She came to the door on her own." "I saw she had some looks on her.

Thought she'd do for a wife for my boy Rex." "How was I to know she'd take it so hard." My mother looked at her with contempt. "Still playacting.

No luck in her at all." Uncle Cleve barked at her, his voice held down. "Enough." My mother jumped and shut her mouth. He squatted down and handled the woman again.

His face got darker and darker. My mother called his name twice from where she stood, feeling him out.

Chapter 3 Only then did Uncle Cleve sigh and straighten up. "This thing here is hard to deal with." "One slip and your whole family goes in the ground with her." That set my mother off at once. "Uncle Cleve, you've got to do something about this.

Rexie, he's your—" She didn't finish. He cut her off, sharp. He gave her one cold look. She shut her mouth. Rexie was my mother's pet name for my brother.

Something told me they were keeping something from me. But they weren't saying, and I didn't dare ask. Uncle Cleve stared at the body a long time. Then he waved me over to him.

He put his hand on my head, kindly as could be. "Bub's grown. Old enough to carry a thing or two now." Everything in me pulled tight, and my body tried to back away on its own.

But there was too much strength in his hand. I couldn't move at all.

He narrowed his eyes at me. "Bub, in a little while you'll carry this woman to your room." "When you sleep tonight, she goes under your bed." "That is the only way out of this, and the only way your family lives." It horrified me.

I shook my head hard. Did he even know what he was saying? A dead woman under my bed. He felt me balking and softened his voice. "Don't you fret.

A clean boy holds the dead down." "You've not been with a woman yet, so that thing can't touch you." I still wasn't willing.

My mother ran to the kitchen, grabbed a boning knife, and started in on me with it.

Cursing the whole way. "You don't get to be unwilling." "I'm telling you, you don't do what your uncle says and I'll cut you down right here." Uncle Cleve looked at her, perfectly calm.

Then he turned back to me. "Now. Are you willing?" With my mother glaring at me like that. All I could do was set my teeth and nod. Before I carried the body back to my room