I am out in the weeds on the shoulder of Highway 1-11, searching by my camera’s flashlight for an armadillo, the first living armadillo we’ve spotted in the state, a spotting which delighted my wife so severely she jammed the breaks, yipping with joy and cutting me off mid- sentence—I’d been yammering on, thinking aloud about who, I wondered, had first thunk up the idea of a sword, as opposed to a club, which probably predated the sword as the more intuitive weapon, more in line with a stick or tree branch, something our neanderthal ancestors would have used, and how I meant to look up the ancestry of martial warfare—that my seatbelt dug painfully into my neck.

As I wander around on this fruitless mission, searching for an animal who doubtless vamoosed, my feelings are hurt over being interrupted. Instead of an armadillo, my light reveals a large, tan snake coiled beside a rock, who, after we exchange a startled “oh, shit” look, begins rattling.

For the first time in our six years of marriage, I hiss at my wife, who’s rolled down her window and started asking after my progress, to shut up. I can sense without looking, without removing my eyes from the rattlesnake, that her—my wife’s—feelings are hurt, and whether or not this snake strikes me, I’ll have much apologizing to do; this I have learned now on my second attempt at marriage.

I’m not scared of snakes—wasps scare me; I will run without opprobrium or demurral—but snakes don’t bother me. I don’t know much about snakes. For instance, I don’t know if I’m within striking range, here about seven feet away. The thing would need to pounce, or dash. I’m unsure of their method of attack. Are they defensive or offensive creatures?

My heart informs me I’m scared shitless. My inclination is to back away. My wife, who is wounded and unaware of my predicament, says, “What? What’s going on?” and exits the car to walk around.

“Snake,” I say in a low, flat voice, as though I were telling the snake its species. My wife doesn’t hear, says, “Andy?”

Scuttling in the bushes behind the snake stirs it and it, well, snakes forward in a rapid “S.” I squeal and run for the car, catch a glimpse of the armadillo disappearing into the far yonder bushes beyond the snake, think how unlikely it was that said armadillo chose to stay nearby instead of fleeing into the trees, though perhaps it’s nest or den or whatever is nearby—I know nothing about armadillos, only that my wife is fascinated by them—and I catch my wife by the shoulders at the front of the car where she’s been coming ‘round to see and pull her back to the driver’s side to explain the situation.

At the mention of “snake,” she breaks out panting—she is afraid of them—and nearly slams my fingers in the door, leaping into the car. For a second, I think she will leave me on the roadside.

I’m momentarily left there to think how my first wife, to my knowledge, feared nothing—heights, maybe?—and that bravery is something I never give her credit for, only dwell on her flaws because of our gruesome divorce—I drank (a lot), she cheated (once). I wonder how she would have handled this?

The engine revs and I snap to, then climb into the backseat. Riding home in silence, I ponder my dreams, how I’m always still married to my first wife but dating my second one, and wonder when, if ever, that will change.

Is that love, or self-defense?