(This is part of the Growing Up In Utah's Dixie series, by LaVarr B. Webb)

Rattlesnakes make creepy crawlers run up and down

my back, so, over the years, I have been able to sense

their presence. In the middle of the 1970s we were build-

ing a house in Hidden Valley, near Leeds, Utah. We had no

electricity, so were dependent upon a generator for our

power. Late one summer night, I left the mobile home we

were living in to turn the generator off. There was moon-

light, so I didn't think I needed a flashlight, but as I moved

away from the front door, I felt something crawl across my

booted foot. There was no sound, just a sense of presence.

I knew there was a rattlesnake near my feet. I called

my wife, and ask her to bring me a flashlight. She com-

plied. The light picked up a large snake, coiled up, head

and upper body weaving, tongue flicking in and out, just a

foot from my boot.

One of my pictures of hell, that I live with, is being

tied down, arms and legs shackled, unable to move,

surrounded by the many rattlesnakes I have killed, and them

weaving like demons, continually biting, but me, never

dying.