RANGO // OӘͶAЯ - Another Outlaw Story [Engl.]

39. A Picture of a Rattlesnake and More Disaster

It was late in the afternoon. The sun lay very deep over the horizon and threw long shadows over the hill of the cemetery. The gravestones stood still and silent. They didn't care about the future, just the past they kept in their memories. Also the rattlesnake in their near who stood not far away on another hill watched them like forgotten friends. He didn't want to think about the future. He felt like the tombstones which wanted to live in the present, but not what will come.
Jake winced. The slithering sound behind him let him cramp.
"I'm sorry," Coral apologized. "Are you busy?"
The snake sighed and looked behind. She still wore the hat and necklet. In the evening sun it looked more beautiful than in the noon. The red light made her light skin more exotic like an apparition not from the real world.
"You shouldn't be outside," he said monotony.
"I understand."
She wanted to crawl away.
"Wait."
She stopped.
"Alright, you can stay here, but don't absent yourself too much."
"Are you waiting for someone?"
He didn't reply to this question.
"It surprises me that still nobody of the Jenkins Brothers came."
She looked around unsurely.
"But you are sure they will come, aren't you?"
"Who knows. Everything suggests that they could. For this reason, it's a very odd thing."
She placed herself next to him. "You don't have to labor because of us," she muttered lowly. "We are used to traveling around."
"But where should you go?" he asked.
"Maybe we will come through somehow."
"Without a chance to defend yourself?"
She gave him a shocked glance. The bigger rattlesnake didn't look at her face, his eyes were still directed at the gravestones. Then slowly he moved his sight to her.
"Aren't you?"
She didn't know what to say. "I don-t kn-ow what you mean."
"This. About I'm talking."
He lifted his tail gun and touched her left cheek. He turned her head to the right side so that he could see the side of her face.
"Clear cuts over the venom glands."
He released her. "That wasn't a cosmetic surgery, was it?"
She dropped her gaze and the rattlesnake found his answer in this way.
"No," she began with weak voice. "It wasn't."
He narrowed his eyes more. He was right with his guess.
"Completely?"
She nodded with lowered face. "Yes. I'm dry like the sand around."
"How long have you been nonvenomous?"
"So many years, that I can't remember when they cut through my venom canals."
"Who?"
"Humans. For their safety."
"But against your health."
She lowered her face so deep that the hat covered her albino eyes.
A soft wind blew around them. No one more seemed to breathe life. There lay a heaviness over the reptiles.
"Am I still a rattlesnake?" she whispered.
He lifted his armed end of his tail and shook it.
"I have no real rattle tail, but people call me still a rattlesnake."
Now she lifted her face higher.
"But what about me? No camo color, no venom, no home, no... with nobody."
His eyes moved to the desert where the sun was almost gone.
"Colors have no meaning here," he muttered. "Venom doesn't control your being, and... isn't your home here now?"
She looked up. "Is it?"
He touched her with a surprised glance. "Isn't it?"

Mr. Parsons looked at the clock. He shook his head. Mr. Merrimack hasn't left the bank yet. "He never needed so extremely long for the accounting. Very strange. Better I look in on him."

"But..." she avoided his eyes. "I don't know whether I should stay here. Priscilla can hide easily somewhere, but me... They could find me. And they will retract me. And maybe much worse."
The rattlesnake sheriff narrowed his eyes. "Not if I prevent it."
"That could be dangerous," she submitted. "They will never give up their plans to own the land."
He rattled his tail. "It's just because of the missing water. But if I find it, it could end the useless fight."
The albino snake shook her head slowly. "I'm not sure. They want more than water. They want to rule the town, instead of the Danby Clan."
"The Danby Clan," the male rattlesnake muttered darkly. "I almost forgot their old family war. But if we have water again, it would end the drought in this town at least."
Thoughtfully, Coral looked out into the desert. "In my tribe there is an old legend about how to find water."
She looked at him. "Have you ever seen the many cacti that grow around here?"
"Yes," Jake replied with confusion as she continued.
"When I first saw her, I thought it would be snakes, which were looking out of the ground. Then they told me, it was the Spanish dagger. But in general, they call them Walking cactus here."
Jake looked at her in surprise. "Walking?"
"According to an old legend, they actually walk across the desert to find water. Of course, I wanted to know whether there was something to it and I often watched them, to see if they would move. I thought I could follow them, they would lead me to someplace wonderful. Someplace with enough water for everyone. Some people draw circles on the ground around the cactus to see if they have moved."
Jake paused. Now he remembered the circle that had been drawn in the sand around the cactus on Stumps farm. Were Stump and his family believing in this legend, too?
Coral sighed. "I always watched them. I never saw them move."
She winced. "Oh, now you must think I'm crazy."
"No, no, not at all," Jake said quickly, although it was quite unbelievable to him. In this life, he had never cared much about legends. Not even after the armadillo had preached to him from a legend of a Spirit of the West.
Coral wasn't sure if he was bored with her speech and asked another question.
"Why is the water gone?"
"I'm not sure. I have hoped she would say something if she talks with him."
"Who?"
"One of Joel's daughters. The one who came in town this morning."
She watched him questioningly. "What has missing water to do with her and her father?"
The rattlesnake bit his underlip. "Maybe nothing, but I just have a theory."
"About what?"
"THE BANK'S BEEN ROBBED! THE BANK'S BEEN ROBBED! THE BANK'S BEEN ROBBED!"
Both rattlesnakes looked up like electrified.
Mr. Parsons ran over the streets of the town like a mad man and cried again and again the same words. The city people looked out of their houses while Mr. Parsons still ran over the street.
"Good Lord! The bank's been robbed!"
"What's going on?" someone asked.
"It's gone!" the bank assistant continued with loud voice. "The water's all gone!"
"What'd he say?" another one on the sidewalk asked.
"He said, the bank's been robbed," Mr. Snuggles said shaken by that news.

With shock the city people stared speechlessly at the open safe where the water had been the last time. They went apart when the rattlesnake slithered through them to the crime scene where Mr. Parsons stood, still looking at it in disbelief.
"Oh, sheriff, how could that happen?"
"Touch nothing," Jake cut his word. "Tell me, what happened?"
"I was looking for Mr. Merrimack. He didn't come out of the bank and I came in and found this mess."
With both hands, he pointed over a big hole that gaped in the floor of the safe.
The rattlesnake crawled closer. The one who stole the water did a good job for this. The whole ground had penetrated so that it had been no problem for him to transport it away without seeing by someone.
"What should we do now?" somebody asked desperately. "Someone stole the water."
"The last drop what had given us hope."
"What now, Mr. Jake?"
"What are we gonna do now, sheriff?"
"Yes, we need that water."
"We're all going to die!"
"My friends," Mayor John said and rolled with his wheelchair forward. "We all know what we have to do now."
"And this should be?" Elgin asked.
"We form a posse, shouldn't we, Mr. Jake?"
He looked back, but the sheriff didn't listen to him. He was bending down over the hole and slicked with his tongue again and again over a special point on the damaged floor.
"Uhm, Mr. Jake?"
But Jake was just listening to his tongue. The smell of the bank workers, city people. Meanwhile he knew every odor trail in that town, but this odor... He knew that smell. But why should they do that?
"Mr. Jake?"
"Mm?"
Now he realized Mayor John's voice.
"What?"
"I think, I made the suggestion for a posse, shouldn't we?"
"Mm, yes, we should."

The whole town stood in front of the sheriff office. Jake sat on the terrace and looked over the crowd. Coral and Priscilla stood a little apart from all people.
"What's wrong?" Coral asked and watched how the little girl was always pulling her shirt.
"This new suit is a little uncomfortable."
The saloon ladies gave her a school uniform what she didn't seem to like.
"Oh, I think it looks very nice," Coral said and covered her smiling mouth.
But then she kept silent again when she saw a figure, what she had never seen. It stood near the neighbor's house and exchanged some words with Mrs. Daisy. The rodent woman covered her mouth and looked afraid. The albino rattlesnake narrowed her eyes. Who was that guy?
"Listen, people," Jake began. "It's going to be night. The one, who is ready to follow the thieves in the night, should raise his hand now."
Kinski and Chorizo were the first ones who came to word.
"Where is Bill?" Chorizo hissed to Kinski.
But the rabbit shook his head. "I have no idea. I hope he didn't run away again."
"But what if we don't find the water."
All people looked behind and watched how Mrs. Daisy went ahead. "What if they have already drunk the whole water. And without water, we have no hope anymore! And it didn't help us, that you were in town."
Before Jake could open his mouth, Mayor John rolled next to him and raised his hands.
"My friends, I can give you something water from my last emergency reserves, what I got from selling my personal properties. And to your question, I'm sure we will make it. With someone by our side who has the power to bring back the water."
He looked at Jake who didn't know what to answer.
"The people have to believe in something," Mayor John whispered at him. "They believe in you. Let them believe."
With that the turtle rolled a little aside so that everyone had a full view on the rattlesnake.
But the snake stood there and looked unsurely.
Then his glance stuck on Coral. Their eyes met each other for a long while. She smiled and he smiled back a little. He closed his eyes, then he looked over the city people heads.
"Thanks, Mayor John," he began. "I appreciate it, and I would like to say the same. But maybe I have some troubles to find the right words. Because I've been living here for more than a few days. I'm still not a long-time inhabitant like you live here and you all. But after what I heard, the drought started over 10 years ago, didn't it? Well, I have not much to say, I can just talk what I have seen and experienced in these few weeks. And maybe you think I can't talk about hope. But truth be told, before I came here in this town, I had no hope, too. On the contrary to you. You had more hope for life than me. But after I saw your situation, you gave me more hope than you think."
He looked at John.
"As the founder of this town, you never gave up your town. Despite the crisis, what is heavy burdened with you. Your life is hard, I saw. But I saw much harder life. But you still hope, despite the water became less you hoped that the water could come back. I didn't know to expect after I became the sheriff. But in these few days, I'm feeling confident that there is hope, despite you can't see it. And if you can't see it, as long until then believe in me. And despite it seems to be useless, don't worry."
He paused a moment. The people watched him. Everyone didn't dare to interrupt him. A warm glance waved over the rattlesnake face.
"I will bring the water back. Just trust me."
[BANG!] [BANG!] [BANG!]
All people cried.
Bullets had perforated the sheriff sign until it hanged half down.
The crowd turned around, seeing who had fired the shots.