Lifesaver [Engl.]

2. Alone in the desert

After a long gallop, Rango shortened in the reins. His roadrunner reduced his pace and walked leisurely through the hot but quiet desert. Rango enjoyed the peace around him and held his face in the sun. On this way, he could regather his thoughts without someone disturbed him.
When he was still a pet, he had never imagined that he would ever sit on a roadrunner as a great hero, who rides through the desert. And now everything was perfect. He had made it to be a hero and won the heart of a beautiful girl. Maybe she was more than a beautiful girlfriend for him. Maybe it won't be long until they will marry and will have children...
He stopped his thoughts. One thing after another! At first he had to protect a town. It didn't escape his attention that it has been very quiet lately. Exactly this silence worried him. Too much peace in near of a town with a lot of water was more than suspicious for him. He looked around. But everything seems to be as usual, when he made his control. Nothing has changed. Even the Walking Cactuses didn't change their positions. Rango shrugged his shoulders. Nevertheless, there was something in the air. Something frighteningly.
Suddenly, he heard a shrill cry of a hawk. He looked into the sky, but he couldn't see a hawk. He stopped his roadrunner and listened. But everything was quiet. No bird was visible in the sky, even not a cloud.
He touched his forehead. Made the heat him crazy?
There! Again a cry of a bird. That was a hawk, without a doubt. But where?
Rango's eyes moved in the direction, where the screams came from probably.
On the left side, high rocks towered into the sky. Rango knew these rocks and had never dared a ride into this area. He avoided this place for two reasons. First, because he knew that there had happened a robbery on a human trek many years ago. Until today, the remains of the old covered wagons lay there and waited for to be decayed completely from the hot desert at last. And second, because of the ghosts of the murdered humans, who should spook there apparently. Not without reason called all people this area "Death Mountain".
Boring name, Rango thought. But fitting.
He wasn't curious enough to ride in this direction, but he was the sheriff and it was his responsibility to tidy things up. Maybe someone was in danger.
Again he heard an angry cry of a predator bird. Unwillingly, he steered his roadrunner in the direction of the rocks. He rode slowly to avoid that the bird could take him by surprise.
There! Again a cry of a bird. This time it was louder. If he thought, he was close enough, he jumped down from the roadrunner and went to a rocks bending.
Carefully, he peeked around the corner.
Shocked he fell back. Dust was kicked up into the air. Rango coughed several times, then he dared a second look.
On an open sand area, two hawks fought against each other. Again and again, they pecked his enemy with their beaks and flew up and down several times. They shouted loudly and attacked each other heavily with their claws.
Rango would have gone and had left the two fighting birds, if he didn't want to know what their fight was all about. When he heard that the birds were on another part of the sandy surface to continue their fight, Rango risked a second look.
The view was a little bit dusty because of the kicked up sand. Still he could see the big, old, rickety frameworks of the covered wagons from a considerable distance. A dreadful sight, like a picture of a western cemetery.
Rango shuddered. He wanted to turn around, but then he noticed something.
At first, he thought nothing of it. Only after a closer look, he had an odd feeling. There was something wrong. He looked over at one of the old covered wagons of which metal bows stood free. Something longish hung down limply on the top of the first one.
At first, Rango thought, it would be a scrap of cloth from an old tarp or something similar. But it wasn't ragged. And it didn't flutter in the hot wind like a piece of a cloth. It was something heavy. Rango narrowed his eyes, but he couldn't see more details from this distance.
Rango cursed his curiosity again.
Carefully, very carefully, so that the two birds couldn't see him, he left his hiding place and snuck to the old destroyed covered wagon. But the birds were too engrossed in their quarrel to notice him. If he was close enough in the wooden wreckage's near, he looked up again to the partly rusted metal bow.
Rango couldn't believe his eyes. In bewilderment, he looked up to the old metal bow. Hastily he jumped on the wooden bench of the wagon, always fixed his eyes on the top of the metal bow.
No, this couldn't be! His mind must play tricks with him.
He climbed up the metal bow quickly. Halfway up, he stopped.
No, it couldn't be true! But it was true. He saw it with his own eyes, which or who was hanging on the metal bow.
A rattlesnake.