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You suck the venom out, that’s what Bronco Henry always said.
A snake bites you, you grab that fucker just behind the jaws and pinch it tight. That makes it let go. Then when you got the fangs out of your calf you crush its skull beneath your boot. You hike your trousers up, let everybody see the twin holes pierced into your flesh, the blood trickling down into your sock, your boot. Then you press your lips right against those holes and you suck.
Providing you can reach.
“What if you got sores in your mouth?” Phil asked, twelve years old, not sure of much.
They were leaning against a haystack, Bronco Henry with his hat tipped over his eyes, Phil with his legs splayed out before him. Overhead the stars were crisp and bright, winter frost making them so sharp you could almost hear them twinkling. Bronco Henry’s lips twisted into a half-smile, showing his pale pink gums, his crooked teeth.
“Then you’re fucked,” he said.
Obviously, if you had sores in your mouth, then you couldn’t suck the venom out. It would leave your blood one way and go straight back in the other. Only who didn’t have sores in their mouths? Phil had always had a habit of biting the inside of his cheek; Ma was always yelling at him for it. It left the skin inside his mouth raw and spongy. Was that a sore?
In the narrow bathroom on the second floor of the ranch house, he leaned over the standing sink and peered into a spit-stained mirror. His long-johns hung down to his waist, exposing patterns of dirt on his chest that almost made it look like he had hair growing there already. Really, he didn't yet, but from a distance it might fool somebody. With blackened fingernails, Phil peeled his bottom lip back and studied the canker sore throbbing there, white and pitted against pink flesh.
It hurt to touch. So he kept touching it. On his horse, out in the mountains, fishing or riding, he couldn’t help but run the tip of his tongue along that pit and make it sting. Every time Bronco Henry gave him a forbidden pinch of chew (Ma wasn’t supposed to know) he wedged it deep against his gums and it nestled right up alongside that sore, like they were meant for each other.
If he ever had to suck the venom out of a snakebite, well…
“I’d be fucked,” Phil muttered to his reflection, and to his embarrassment, he caught himself waiting for the reflection to smile.
Like Bronco Henry would.
There were snakes in the creek, of course. Snakes everywhere. Little black ones that slithered through the mud and darted out to bite your ankles when you waded past. The first time he got bit, Phil was just a kid. It was his first time bathing in the creek with Bronco Henry, trying to act like an adult, like one of the ranch hands. He felt the searing sting of fangs against his flesh and kicked his legs out with a yelp. And he fell on his ass in the water as a result, his head going under — and the sound became a muffled warble all around him, and sunlight streamed through the surface overhead, lighting up the dust motes in the water, and oxygen turned to something fiery and choking in his lungs.
Dimly, he saw his left foot slip up above the surface — the snake dangling from his calf, triumphant in its catch. Then broad, warm hands closed around Phil’s ankle and held him still, his head still beneath the water.
Bronco Henry squeezed the snake behind the jaws and ripped its fangs away. He dropped Phil’s leg and let him splash back under the water again. Then those same hands were suddenly hooking underneath Phil’s arms, rough and callused, dragging him back to the light, back to air. Sputtering, Phil lay his head against Bronco Henry’s shoulder and held on tight, not aware, really, of the way his legs wrapped around Bronco Henry’s waist, the way their stomachs touched. Gravity upended as Bronco Henry walked him out and lay him down in the cool grass alongside the river.
“Is it poisonous?” Phil asked in a cough, his face wet.
“Probably,” said Bronco Henry with a grin.
Phil tried to laugh, but it came out ragged, hoarse. When his eyes squeezed closed, Bronco Henry disappeared. A hand trailed down Phil’s naked stomach. Over his thighs. Down to his ankles.
“Delicate,” Bronco Henry said. “Like a girl’s.”
Phil kicked out at him, but the sudden motion made his lungs ache even more. His cock rested flaccid against his stomach, a dribble of urine squeezing out every time he coughed. He thought maybe Bronco Henry wouldn’t notice, because of all the water. But then that callused hand landed on his stomach, right above his cock, and rubbed the piss away, and now Phil’s cheeks were hot, his lips trembling, his ankle still caught in Bronco Henry’s grasp. One dirty thumbnail dug into the soft skin of his cock, so hard it pinched. A long, slow rub up to the glans, until Phil was trembling.
“Hold still,” Bronco Henry said. “I’ll suck it out for you.”
Phil’s stomach clenched. Another stream of urine arced out of him, stronger this time, splashing hot and shameful against Bronco Henry’s hand. He was so much bigger than Phil that there was no point in protesting. No point in kicking out again. What chance did a half-drowned twelve-year-old have against a full-grown ranch hand?
And anyway, Bronco Henry’s lips were warm and soft against Phil’s skin.
And anyway, Phil’s cock was already half-hard.
And when Bronco Henry finished, when he leaned over Phil to kiss him, there was blood — and maybe venom — on his tongue.
You don’t suck out the venom when a snake bites you, Phil learned when he left for college. What you’re supposed to do is lay the victim down and take off anything that might get caught when the bitten area starts to swell. What you’re supposed to do is wash the bite with soap and water, keep it covered, mark the leading edge.
Sucking the venom out does nothing. It doesn’t work at all. It just traps the kid on the river bank, naked and small with his ankle in your hands, with his bladder giving out and water in his lungs and a sob caught somewhere in his throat. With his cock hard and your lips on his lips and a heart-hammering certainty that any moment now, if he doesn’t do exactly what you say, he’s gonna die.
Who knew? Phil thought, reaching under the desk to palm himself. He stared at the textbook, at the diagram of a snake bite, and felt his cock jump against his hand.
Who knew?