You’ll want to know about the snakes, of course. The rattlesnakes, I mean. They aren’t the meat of the story as far as I’m concerned—the cows are—but the snakes were to Sunday’s run what the shower scene is to Psycho—the tense bit likely remembered. The snakes were undeniably tense. There were two, Frank the Killer Snake and Dolores/Mulva. Steve suggested Frank the Killer Snake was really Jerry the Killer Snake. Myself, I just needed the Killer Snake bit. Whatever preceded it was just fine with me. Truth be told, I thought the Seinfeld reference was perhaps a little cavalier with such a Killer Snake, but I appreciated the wit. I found the wit calming, in fact. I tell you the names, because when Bill came up a moment later, he wanted to know why his two trail companions were armed with four-foot sticks, poking at something. We said it was snakes. Rattlesnakes, we added without turning away from them. After asking how big they were and being told they were plenty big enough, he inquired as to their names. And so naturally we told the names. Our story, we pick the names.

Let me back up.

There I was, banging along the trail, and on this particular section, we were spread out a little bit, me and Steve and Bill, but not by much. Anyway, there I was, and BOOM! SNAKE! Right there on the trail without so much as a by your leave. I thought first maybe gopher snake or bull snake or something other snake-ish, but not lethally so. After a closer look, I thought the bugger looked like a rattlesnake looking at me the way he was, but I didn’t hear any rattling in spite of…well, a rattle right there where you’d expect one. I suspected fake rattle because he was staring me down all ticked off looking, but silent. I figured a real rattlesnake’d be rattling in that circumstance. It was then I realized he was a deadly quiet rattlesnake, but a rattlesnake nonetheless, and also two rattlesnakes instead of just the one. So I got all King Arthur-ish and whatnot and picked up Excalibur The Stick (I got there first, so I got to pick. Someone else might have chosen Batman, but I chose King Arthur and you can just learn to deal with that if it’s a problem for you.) Lancelot Formerly Known As Steve came up behind me and I suggested he get a big stick. Now, Lancelot Formerly Known As Steve is a man not much keen on snakes in much the same way I’m not very much keen on bears. Our respective…let’s call them “highly rational concerns” are never far from our thoughts. If you were to say to me, “Hey, Chris, look over there!” I’d expect it was a bear over there, just by way of an operating assumption. Call it vigilance. Naturally, when I said back over my shoulder to get a big stick, without even seeing anything yet, Lancelot Formerly Known As Steve knew not just the order, suborder and family, he knew the genus and species—just on a hunch. Vigilance. Lancelot Formerly Known As Steve came up with a stick/lance. We were ready to do battle. Well, not battle, really. We’re not mean or anything. There were two snakes in a ball on the trail, clearly trying to perpetuate the species and we’d done interrupted ‘em. So what we did was, we poked ‘em offa the trail. That’s when Dolores started in with the full on rattling. Jerry never did. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about that. We’d cordoned off a perimeter with traffic cones and that yellow police tape, and had the all the FEMA trailers set up down in Arizona, when the president called to tell us we had the full support of the nation, added that his sleeves were rolled up in a symbolic gesture of this support, then said, “Heckuva job, Chris!” Just then, Bill came up and got updated on what was going on, and this is where the whole King Arthur/Lancelot thing falls apart. See, Lancelot betrays King Arthur, but there never was a moment when I had that sense of betrayal, least of all by my stick-wielding cohort. It was a bad metaphor, as I am wont to pick. What happened was, me and Steve, sticks in hand, eased on by the terribly deadly venomous poisonous viper snakes just off to the side of the trail, leaving Bill without anything to poke away the dangerous vipers not a one of us could say with any certainty weren’t snakes just faking the retreat, and were instead waiting for that moment when they could double back and be deadly in that way that rattlesnakes are known to be deadly. So you see, Bill was betrayed, making me and Steve both the Lancelots to Bill's King Arthur. We were downright bastards about it. We felt bad about being bastards and immediately offered our sticks. We did get by, and I suppose those guys recommitted themselves to unceasing vigilance as I did. I did notice they let me tumble off in front again, kind of like a stupid snakeplow.

So anyway, that’s the snake part of the story, but like I said, really, it’s only the terribly scary part. The really good bit came before the snakes. Even if I hadn’t tipped to it earlier, you’d probably right off suspect frolicking cattle anyway. And with bells on! Cow bells. On the Western States trail, shortly out of Miller’s Defeat, Steve stopped and asked me if I’d heard that and after I’d looked over for the bear and saw none (though I have reason to believe many bears have perfected the art of hiding behind even the skinniest of trees), said what back at him and he said that again. And then I heard it. First, it sounded like a circular saw, and then it sounded like what Steve said he thought it was, which was wind chimes. Out here? Got on down the trail (well, up the trail, to be perfectly honest, we’d reached a slight up bit), then BOOM! COW! Standing there in a thicket at 6,000’. What we did then was start talking to it. Later on, we wouldn’t say anything to the snakes, but there’s something about a cow which prompts a desire to talk with them. Next time you’re within a few feet of a cow, see if you don’t feel compelled to say, “Hey, how’re you doing today?” We said these things out loud to the cow, quite naturally, and I suppose we were a little surprised and a lot disappointed to be just stared at in return. And then we were actually cow-shunned, were shown a cow’s backside. Then a bit later, three more, frolicking hither and yon. Seemed like some kind of cow game was afoot (maybe ahoof is the PC thing to call it here.) That, or someone left a gate open on Saturday night. Cow freedom. I half expected to hear a cow saying, “Weeeeeeeee!!!” Well, we had a good chuckle and while we stopped, blamed the previous weekend’s Tevis Cup for having rendered all the dirt into a fine, dusty powder, which Bill had to pour out of his socks about a cup at a time. Wasn’t like running through sand; it was like running through brown flour about six inches deep. Soft, yes, but wreaked havoc on my feet. I may have been eating a lot of cob webs, but anyone not in front was inhaling vast quantities of dust. But back to the cows. The run was cowless again until we approached Last Chance. What is that, about five or six miles? I’ve never in all my miles had the thought cross my head, “Well, gee, it’s been a while since I’ve seen a cow.” I challenge you to think of the last time that thought’s ever crossed your cortex anywhere, let alone up in the Sierra. Fortunately, about half a mile out of Last Chance, I heard the dinging and donging of cows in the manzanita thicket to my right. A lot of cows.

COW1: Shhhh. It’s one of those pinky two-leggers. Could be a meativore.
COW2: Okay. I’ll hide behind this bush.
COW1: Be careful, there’s a bear behind that one. I kicked him in the balls, but I think he’s coming around again.
COW2: Okay, I’ll kick him in the balls again. <BOOOOSH>
BEAR: Oohhhhh.
COW3: HEY GUYS! I WAS TALKING WITH BUTTERCUP AND SHE THINKS WE WIN IF BESSIE CAN’T FIND US IN ANOTHER FIVE MINUTES. GUYS? WHAT’S A MINUTE?
COW1: Shhhh!
COW3: WHAT, YOU SEEN BESSIE?? BUT WE’RE BEHIND THIS THICKET! NO ONE CAN SEE US BEHIND THIS THICKET!!! THIS IS THE BEST FARGING HIDING PLACE IN THE WORLD!!!! ANYBODY KICK THAT BEAR IN THE BALLS LATELY?
COW4: Dude, you have GOT to try this manzanita. I am SO wasted.
COW1: That’s not manzanita, you moron. That’s horse poop. You’re eating horse poop. You’re a cow with a bell around your neck! We’re ALL cows with bells around our neck! We’re beef, you know that? Beef! Meat! Meat wearing bells! But you? You’re STUPID meat. (COW1 is given to fits of existentialist despair.)
COW4: Don’t have a cow, dude.
COW5: AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! THERE’S A PINK TWO-LEGGER COMING!!! THERE’S A PINK TWO-LEGGER COMING!!!!
COW1: Crap, here’s Bessie anyway. We have to stampede now. You know they eat us, right? The two-leggers, I mean? Yup. Kill us, cut us up into steaks, grill us and serve us up with potatoes. Barbaric.
COW4: Really? Aw man, that sucks. Why would anyone eat us with all this manzanita around?
COW1: I keep telling you, moron, that isn’t manzanita. It’s sh*t. You’re a sh*t eating cow.
BESSIE: Hey guys! Tag, you’re it! Hey, there’s a bear over there! Need me to kick him in the balls?
COW3: Bessie, there’s a two-legger coming and Bertrand says we have to stampede now.
COW1 thru COW20: WEEeeeeeeeeEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!! StamPEEEEEEEEEEEEDE!!!!

I was sitting down on a log at Last Chance when Steve came in, saying he’d missed the turn into the place because the cows had stampeded across the trail, raising a dust cloud which blotted out the sun momentarily. Bill came in and sat down on his end of the log and dumped another cup of dirt from his socks. Just then, a truck pulls up and it has the unmistakable air of livestock about it, and we ask if he’s come looking for cattle. He says he’s just checking on them. They’re up there for summer vacation. We get to talking about what happens to cows up in the Sierra for the summer and the guy allowed that he’d lose a few, but that those bells helped him round nearly all of them up. He admitted that one or two might fall victim to a cougar, but that bears were leary of his cows for some odd reason. Then warned us about falling victim to cougars and bears ourselves. Nice guy. Not used much to seeing trucks up there.

As for the rest of the run, well, we mosied and took our time and did a bit of sight-seeing, poking our heads in on an abandoned gold mine operation we’d never noticed before. I finally ran up to see the Deadwood Cemetery. We took it easy and relaxed at both river crossings, with those guys actually getting into the river properly to cool off. We noted the climb up Devil’s Thumb hadn’t got any easier, nor the one up into Michigan Bluff. It would have been better if there’d been some cows along the way. I’ve discovered that cows wearing cowbells along the trail make your feet feel a little lighter. Much more so than do rattlesnakes. Cows have panache.