late to change my mind, for the thing that was moving on the road was so close now I could taste its shadow, as they say. Any second now, it was going to come into sight.
There was nothing for it but to hide and hope I was not gone out of the fish-pan straight into the firepit. I ducked down in the ferns until they was up over my head.
The thing, whatever it was, come crashing and thrashing by. It stopped a while, which had got to mean it seen my footprints on the road and was sniffing around them. I was grateful now for the heavy rain. A light shower will freshen a scent, but a downpour scatters and drowns it.
Then of a sudden I seen a sight that was a deal less welcome. Something unfolded itself out of the weeds and earth in front of me, like the earth itself was rearing up and moving. I stared at it, dumb and scared, until it opened its mouth. The streaked red and black inside that mouth, and the four fangs at the corners of it, told me what I was seeing. It was a molesnake.
I did what you’re meant to do in such a case. I froze still where I was and made no move at all. A molesnake sees only two things, which is movement and heat, but them two is enough in most cases for it to find you. I was chilled from the rain, but I still was warmer than the air all round me. When the snake started to sway from side to side and gaped its mouth even wider, I knowed it was going to strike.
I spread my fingers, slower than slow. The onliest chance I would have, when the snake moved, was if I could grab it right behind its head and hold it away from me, far enough so it couldn’t bite. But I knowed how fast molesnakes was, and I did not hold much hope.
I heard heavy steps further off. The thing on the road had started moving again, away from where I was hid.
I drawed a breath, held it as long as I could then gun to let it out. Of a sudden, the snake reared up and back. Breath’s hot, I thought, too late. The brown, fanged thing, as thick as my arm, snapped like a whip.
At the exact same time, a tawny brown mass drooped from out of the branch above. Claws as long as my hand’s span snicked out and stabbed home. The tree-cat yawned. Its mouth was as wide across as its body was long. Two rows of dagger-sharp teeth was in there, with a sliver of red between, so it looked like a fence had met its reflection. It bit down, seemingly with no haste at all, and the snake’s head was gone.
The tree-cat spit the head out, hacking and hawing a little to clear any poison that was left in its mouth. Then it commenced to eat. It didn’t try to part flesh from bone, but bit off and crunched down everything that was there. The molesnake’s head stared up at me out of the grass, its mouth still gaped to bite me as though it didn’t guess yet that it was dead.
I sit there still until the cat was done with its meal. It looked at me once or twice in that time – a hard, hooded look like it thought I might try to join in the feast and it was warning me not to – but it made no move to hurt me. When there was nothing left to eat, it jumped back up onto its branch and padded back up into the leaves where it had been hid before. Its yellow eye winked once as it passed me, like as to say we was sharing a good joke between the two of us.
It was a while after that before I stood up and walked out of the ferns. The road was clear, both ways, and the sky was clearing too.
36
The way got easier. I never seen the third cairn but I come upon the fourth, knocked down and spilled across the road, the top stone overturned. When I turned it right-side up again, I seen the hand mark with four fingers raised instead of the three I was expecting.
Being closer than I thought, I pressed on. I was wary of lookouts and guard posts, ready to throw myself down on