I'd been working with my friend Lee, helping him build his cabin out in the Rockies. Six straight weeks of butchering wood, digging out splinters and mashing my thumbs, and I was ready to take a break and go boatin'. Lee told me he had walked by while I was sleeping in the back of my truck one night and heard me mumbling "Right, RIGHT, NO YOUR OTHER RIGHT"...so he knew I was suffering from a paddling deficiency.

Lee kindly offered to let me go for a few days (mighty nice of him, considering I was working for free) and even worked out a shuttle scheme so I could spend as much time as I wanted on the river: We'd drive to the take out together and drop off his car, drive my truck to the put-in and drop off me and my boat, and then he would drive my truck back and leave it at the take out. Sounded like a plan.

As we were driving along we had a discussion about the relative merits of Mojave vs Black Tailed rattlesnakes, and I casually mention that another friend of ours would like to have a Black Tailed rattler as a pet (you'd have to know the friend...).

Lee dropped me off at the put-in, gave me a lot of advice about the river (most of it either bad or, possibly, relevant to some other river...it sure didn't have much to do with the place I ended up paddling). As I watched Lee take off, gunning my truck up the nasty, washed out Forest Service road, I didn't even care...I was just too damn happy with the prospect of spending a few days off by myself in my canoe.

On reaching the take-out, after an enjoyable and surprisingly calamity-free trip (no thanks to Lee's "advice"), I scoured up the beers I'd hidden in a nearby stream, grabbed a State highways map off the dash, kicked off my shoes and stretched out in the camper bed to fantasize about where I'd head off next...gotta get the roof on the cabin first, and Lee's gonna need help with the roofing vegas, but after that I ought to be able to slip away for a bit again.

So I'm dreamily surveying local roads and river systems when I notice a note Lee had penned on one corner of the highway map: "Mike, I found you a Black tail. I put him in the back of the truck"

Things suddenly got very quiet in the back of the truck. Not that they weren't quiet previously, but it got much more silent after I stopped breathing and my heart shut down. After a quick visual scan determined that Lee hadn't included a snake bag or pillow case with his deposit I exited the camper bed; concurrently setting new land speed and broad jump records.

I emptied the back of that truck, searched every nook and cranny, took everything apart...and I never did find that damn snake...and I didn't get what you would call a good nights sleep in the truck for several weeks.

After we finished with the roofing vegas I went off to paddle in Texas for a spell and never caught up with Lee again. I wonder if he ever found those Great Desert Hairy scorpions I collected for him?