Author's Note:  This story takes place during the run of the series, in the seventies.  However, I thought it up one day when I had the song "Seminole Wind" stuck in my head and there's a reference to the song at the beginning of the story, even though the song didn't actually come out until 1992.  There is, of course, a perfectly reasonable explanation for the guys being familiar with a song almost twenty years before it was released.

I sang it to them.

As always, I own no rights to the characters or story, but I have a bazooka (bubble gum) and a vicious attack parakeet, so just you try to wrestle them away from me if you think you can! :P

by E!lf

"So, John," Chet said, his voice carefully casual, "you're actually a Seminole Indian, right?  'Alligators in the dark' and all that?"

"Huh?  Uh, yeah."

"So you probably have some kind of ancient tribal secret for how to deal with alligators, right?"

"Well, yeah.  Sure."

"Okay.  Good.  So what do you do?"

"That's easy.  You go in the house and lock the door and call the Department of Fish and Wildlife to come get rid of it."

"Ha ha, very funny," Chet said.

Roy DeSoto grinned at his partner through the leaves, blue eyes twinkling.  "Lock the door?"

"Listen, man," Johnny said.  "One time there was this eight-foot gator on my aunt's patio, standing on its hind legs with its claws on the door handle.  If that thing had had opposable thumbs, we'd have all been lunchmeat!  Now, I did have a cousin once that tried to tame an alligator."

"Which cousin was that?"

"One-armed Bob."

"Ah."

Twenty feet below the firemen, the alligator lashed his tail and hissed and bellowed at them.  They had shed their oxygen tanks as they were running and now the alligator had claimed one as a chew toy.  He bit down and popped a hole in the tank.  It hissed at him as the oxygen ran out.  He hissed back.

"Okay," Chet persisted in a tone of voice that just screamed that Johnny was trying his patience, "but what if you're not where you can get to a phone.  Say you're out in the middle of the swamp somewhere when you come across an angry alligator.  THEN what do you do?"

"Oh, that's simple.  You run as fast as you can and climb a tree.  Preferably one without a snake in it.  Roy, don't move!"

There was movement on the branch over Roy's head and a brightly-colored rope slithered down onto the senior paramedic's right shoulder.  Roy froze and went pale.  The snake was about twelve inches long, with a tiny, bullet-shaped head and it was marked in alternating bands of red, yellow, black and white.

In another tree, about five feet to their right, Marco Lopez was looking back the way they'd come.  "Hey, fellas?" he called.  "I don't want to alarm you guys, but I think we've got a problem . . . ."

* * * *

It had started out as a routine, even a boring call.  Happy Slitherings, a small, private reptile sanctuary, was burning its old snake house to make way for the construction of a new building.  Fifty-ones were just there as a precaution.  They stood in a knot, enjoying the sunshine.  Chet had been reading a book on exotic reptiles and he was showing off his new-found knowledge while they waited for the sanctuary workers to start their fire.  The old snake house was a primitive style building raised on two-foot tall stilts and backed up against a chain-link fence.  Happy Slitherings workers had piled gas-soaked rags under the structure.  While the firefighters watched, the foreman ignited the rags with a flame thrower and the snake house caught quickly.

It was just about that time that the owner, a Mr. Murphy, realized Stella was missing.  He'd gone over to talk to some of his workers and it suddenly dawned on him that someone wasn't where they should be.  He pelted over to the firemen, waving his hands around hysterically and hyperventilating.

"Stella!" he cried.  "My little girl!  My Stella!  She's missing!  Oh, she must have gone back in the snake house when no one was looking.  She's just a baby.  She doesn't understand.  She'll die!  She'll burn to death!  You've got to save her!"

Captain Stanley caught him by the shoulders.  "Wait, now.  Hold on!  Now, are you sure she's gone back in the snake house?"

"Oh, but she must have.  She's always been happy there.  It's where she feels safest and most secure!"

If it crossed Hank Stanley's mind to wonder what kind of kid feels safest in a snake house, he didn't take the time to question the man's parenting skills.  The firefighters had already been in their turnouts, and they started pulling on SCBAs as soon as the man ran over.

"John, Roy, looks like we might have a kid in there."  The old snake house was blazing merrily.  "Chet and Marco will cover you.  Get in, find the little girl if she's in there and get out.  Be careful."

The building consisted of a long series of low-ceilinged rooms, one leading off the other, laid out in such a manner that walking through all of them led the visitor in a circle.  The firemen split up at the entryway, Johnny and Chet going left and Roy and Marco going right.  The snake house had been stripped of everything that could possibly be salvaged.  The floor was littered with broken laths and bits of glass, but there was nowhere for a child to hide.  When the four men met again at the far end of the building, in a room dominated by a cracked Plexiglas window looking out over a wooded, marshy hollow, they were satisfied that, wherever Stella was, she wasn't in the building.

Unfortunately, by that time they were all four trapped.

Using their axes, they managed to hack a big enough hole in the heavy Plexiglas for them to dive through.  The building flashed behind them, blowing out the rest of the window and shooting flames over their heads as they rolled in the mud.

Out of breath, giddy and shaking with adrenaline, they pulled one another to their feet, staggered away from the fire and congratulated themselves on being safe.  Then they heard a strange, loud hiss, like gases escaping from a decomposing corpse.  Then there was a loud "clacking" noise and then, close behind them, an angry bellow.

Then they turned around and saw the alligator.

* * * *

Eyes fixed on the snake that was crawling around his best friend's collar, Johnny ignored Marco for the minute.  "Chet, you were reading that book this morning.  What kind of snake is that, do you know?"

"Oh, yeah.  Sure.  What that is, see, what that is is a milk snake."

"A milk snake?"

"Yeah, perfectly harmless."

Roy and Johnny both relaxed a bit.

Chet continued.  "Fascinating species, really.  You know, its natural defense from predators is that it mimics the coloring of the coral snake, which is one of the most deadly snakes in the world.  The coral snake's venom is a powerful neurotoxin.  Kill you dead in seconds!"

"Chet," Johnny asked, his voice tight, "how can you be sure that it's a milk snake mimicking a coral snake and not, in fact, an actual, genuine coral snake?"

Chet froze.  "You know, Gage, I never considered that possibility."

"But you can tell, right?" Roy demanded.  The snake nosed in between his bare neck and the collar of his turnout coat.  "There is some way you can tell them apart."

"Uh, yeah.  Sure.  There's a poem.  I was reading it just this morning.  It goes, let's see . . . it goes . . . "

"Chet!"  Johnny growled.

"Okay, 'red next to black/ don't bother Jack . . . "

"What does that mean?" Roy demanded, a note of carefully controlled panic in his voice.  "Is Jack the snake or the person?  Does it mean red next to black means it's harmless and 'won't bother Jack' or does it mean red next to black means it's deadly and you shouldn't 'bother Jack'?"

"Uh, I don't know.  I don't think that's right though.  And there's more.  Let's see . . . I think it's yellow by black/ don't worry Jack/ black by red/ you soon be dead."

They looked at the snake, now working its way between the heavy fabric and Roy's skin.  Its rings went black, yellow, red.

"Black by red/ you soon be dead/ red by black/ venom lack!" Chet tried.

"Black by red and red by black are the same thing," Johnny growled.  "You know, you're really tempting me to feed you to the alligator!"

"Roger," Marco said from his own tree.

Johnny swung around to give him a disbelieving look.  "What?"

"Roger," he repeated.  "The alligator's name is Roger."  He pointed through the trees.  The gorge they were in -- the alligator pit, as they now knew -- was ringed on three sides by high stone bluffs topped with a heavy chain-link fence.  On one of the walls someone had painted a colorful cartoon reptile along with the words ROGER THE ALLIGATOR.

"I'd rather not, thanks," Chet muttered.

Johnny smacked him.

The snake disappeared inside Roy's turnout coat.

"Guys," Marco said again.  "I hate to insist, but I really think you need to look back that way."

Johnny and Chet turned to look back towards the burning snake house.  (Roy was too afraid to move.)  Flames had climbed from the burning building into the nearest tree and now they were spreading increasingly rapidly from branch to branch.

Johnny said something ungentlemanly.  They were trapped in a tree with a possibly-poisonous snake by an angry alligator . . . and now the woods were on fire.

* * * *

Author's note:  At this point I was sorely tempted to post this story online as a WIP, then neglect to ever go back and finish it.  I'm really not a mean person, though, much as I'd sometimes like to be.  So, here you go.  Here's the ending:

* * * *

Roy was turning blue.

"Did it bite you, man?"  Johnny asked anxiously.  "The snake!  Did it bite you?"

"No, not yet."

"Okay, then, listen.  Roy, you have to breathe."

"I'm afraid if I breathe it'll bite me."

"Yeah, but if you don't breathe you're going to pass out and fall on the alligator."

Roy closed his eyes and forced himself to take slow, deep breaths.

A new voice, a familiar voice even when amplified by a bullhorn, reached them from the other side of the fence beside the burning snake house.  "Gage!  DeSoto!  Kelly!  Lopez!"

Johnny, Chet and Marco responded by shouting and waving their arms.  "Cap!  Cap!  Up here!  We're over here!"

"Oh, thank God you're all right!"

"You know," Chet said, "I think his definition of 'all right' is a lot broader than my definition of 'all right'."

"Cap, we got problems!" Johnny called.  "There's an alligator down there!  And the trees are on fire!"  No point in mentioning the snake in Roy's turnout coat. There was nothing Cap could do about that.

"We've got it covered, John!"  A few seconds later a stream of water from a fire hose shot out and doused the flames.  When the fire was extinguished, Cap called again.

"Okay, fellas, we're putting a couple of ladders down.  Do you see them?  I want you to pick out a path between the bottom of your trees and the ladders.  Can you do that for me?"

"Yeah, Cap.  Only there's one little problem.  The path goes over the top of this gigantic, enormous, man-eating reptile here!"

"Leave that to me, pal."

They waited for a couple of minutes, watching through the trees as Cap and Mike conferred with a small crowd of sanctuary workers.  Then Cap got back on the bullhorn.

"Okay, Mr. Murphy's going to lure the alligator away with some frozen turkeys.  When I say go, I want you to climb down out of the trees, run over here and get up these ladders.  Mike and I will cover you with a fire hose.  Understood?"

"We hear you, Cap!" Chet called.

Johnny looked at Roy.  "Can you do this?"

"Do I have a choice?"

The two men exchanged a tight, worried smile.  Johnny wanted to pat his friend on the back or the shoulder for encouragement, but he didn't dare.  He didn't know where, under the coat, the snake had gotten to, and he didn't want to startle it into striking.  Instead, he brushed his knuckles lightly against Roy's chin.  Roy's wan grin strengthened a little as the two men took courage from one another.

From the far end of the pit they heard a series of loud whistles and the owner calling in his high, excited voice.  "Roger!  Roger!  Roger want a turkeycicle?  Come to Daddy, Roger!"  Roger immediately turned and pounded across the alligator pit, away from the waiting ladders.  "There's my Roger!  There's my boy!  Who's a good big old Mr. Silly Pants?"

"Okay!" Cap shouted.  "NOW!"

The four firefighters climbed down out of the tree as fast as they could, dropping the last few feet to the ground and sprinting for the ladders.  Chet and Marco went up one and Roy and Johnny took the other.  Johnny made sure he went up last.  If his partner got bitten and collapsed, he wanted to be in a position to catch him.  His fears were unfounded, though.  They all four made it up and over the fence intact.

Cap and Mike ran up to welcome them back to safety, but Johnny held out his hands, warning everyone back, as he, Chet and Marco turned to Roy.

"Where is it, man?  Do you know?  Can you feel it?  Can you tell me where it is?"

"Here."  Roy indicated his right breast with a careful motion of his hand.  His face was red and sheened with sweat, his expression tight and worried.

"Here?" Johnny clarified.  "Right here?"

"Yeah."

"What's going on?" Cap asked, but didn't say anything when no one stopped to answer him.

"Okay," Johnny said, "here's what we're gonna do.  We're gonna pull your coat open, real gentle (Marco, get that side will ya?) and see if we can't ease it off you."

Johnny and Marco both pulled their gloves on, then each took a side of Roy's coat.  They tugged the fasteners apart, pulling as gently as they could, until it hung loose.  Then they eased it off his shoulders.  "Just you don't move," Johnny told his partner.  "Let us do all the work."

With the coat on the ground, they could see a bulge in Roy's right shirt pocket.

"Now, if we can get your shirt off --" Johnny began.

Just at that moment Mr. Murphy ran up.  "What about Stella?  Where's Stella?  Did you find her?  Did you find her?"

A bright little head popped up out of Roy's shirt pocket.

"YOU FOUND HER!"  Laughing with delight, Mr. Murphy held out his hand and the little snake slithered out of Roy's pocket and curled up in his palm.  He brought his hand up to his face so he could caress the little reptile with his cheek.

"That's Stella?" Cap demanded.

"You naughty baby," Murphy cooed.  "Look at all the trouble you caused!"  He beamed at Roy.  "You know, you must be a very kind and gentle person for her to be so trusting with you.  She's normally very shy, but snakes always know."

"That's my partner!" Johnny said, slapping him on the shoulder.  Roy, absolutely limp with relief, staggered under the light blow.

"Can I pet her?" Chet asked.

"Certainly," Murphy held his hand out towards Chet.

"So that's a milk snake," Chet said, reaching for it.

"Milk snake?  Oh, no.  Stella's a coral snake.  It's an understandable mistake, though.  They look very much alike."

Chet froze with his finger a couple of inches from Stella's mouth.  "But I thought coral snakes were, uh, poisonous?"

"Yes, indeed!  Why, Stella's one of the deadliest snakes in the world!"  Murphy looked around at the firefighters and read their expressions.  "Oh, but she's very friendly!"

Roy took a deep breath and closed his eyes.  "I'm just gonna . . . go . . . sit down . . . or somethin'."

"Yeah, I'll come help you," Johnny said.  The two of them backed away from Murphy, made a wide circle around him and headed for the squad.

"THAT'S Stella?" Cap said again.  "I just sent four men into a burning building to rescue a poisonous snake?"

"Wonderful people, firefighters," Murphy said with feeling.  "I hope this incident hasn't turned you against us!"

* * * *

When Captain Stanley turned away from talking with Mr. Murphy, he found his firefighters had already stowed their gear and were ready to leave.  "Well, gentlemen, the fire's out and we're free to go.  I should tell you that Mr. Murphy has asked us to come back and help again next week when they burn off the dry underbrush in the alligator pen."

The men of Fifty-One stared at their captain in disbelief.  "What'd you tell him, Cap?"  Mike asked.

"Well, naturally, I told him Fifty-Ones would be glad to be here."

"Glad to?" Roy asked, his voice climbing an octave.

"Certainly.  Guys!  Guys!  Think about it!  It's about helping the public.  It's our job.  More than that, it's our calling.  More than THAT, it's next Tuesday."

"Next . . . Tuesday?  But we're off next Tuesday."

"Yeah, I know.  It'll be B shift doing it.  So tell me, do you think we'd ought to warn them about Roger?"

The End.

Author's (final, I promise!) Note:  Coral snakes are a New World relative of the cobra.  There are over thirty species in southern North America, Central America and northern South America.  Only two species are found in the U.S.:  the eastern, or Texas coral snake and the western, or Arizona coral snake.  (Audrey's probably got one in her back yard right now. ;)) Largely nocturnal, they are not aggressive and seldom bite, fortunately, because when they do their poison is deadly with a capital DEAD.  Because they are so deadly, many other harmless snakes mimic their coloring as a form of defense.  The rhyme that Chet was trying to remember is this:

Red on yellow- kill a fellow, 
Red on black- venom lack

However, if you come across a bright-colored snake and you're not sure if it's poisonous or not, the safest thing to do is panic and run away fast screaming, "snake!  SNAKE!  Really, really, really big SNAAAAKE!"  When walking in snake country, it's also a good idea to carry a bottle of bourbon so you'll have something to steady your nerves.

If you didn't understand the "Roger the alligator" joke, I'm not going to explain.

Thanks for reading and have a great New Year!

*Click on Roy's new 'friend' to send E!lf feedback

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