When my meeting was over I changed into running clothes behind the door of my truck and then headed north. It was hot and every rock I passed was suitable rattlesnake habitat. I knew right away that I would be telling my coworkers about my encounter. It was less precognition than it was just knowing the time of year and the environment. This time. Other times the precognition has been too obvious to deny.

I scrambled through juniper and buffalo berry and prickly pear and ephedra to the base of the Springdale formation and then started to walk the cliff band north. I dropped lower to go round a pile of rocks and then again stared upslope, my head down, my hat brim blocking the view such that the rattlesnake didn’t enter my field of vision until the brim cleared it, meaning I was within six feet of it. I stopped and took a step back. She was coiled with her head pointed directly towards me. She hesitated another second and then darted off under a juniper and finally rattled. Finally! “We all have a job to do, and I can’t do it for you,” I thought.

But then my adrenaline finally kicked in. I suppose both of us had pretty delayed reactions.