Where had such a poisonous snake come from?

Makenzie made use of the young herdsboy without the latter knowing what the old man was up to. It was too easy.

He suggested that he take his herd to graze at certain strategic places where he could carefully observe Sandra’s residence and her movements. He already had a pretty good idea of the couple’s daily movements, but he wanted to make sure and do some thinkling while he was at it. There was no way that he was going to allow himself to get caught. Stealing from Sandra.

As he kept up his surveillance for a full day, Makenzie at the same time kept the young herdsboy occupied with his captivating tales. When he needed to think he would provoke the younger man with some controversial remark that would really wind him up and get him talking. After that it was easy to just occasionally remark that he did not agree with him to keep him talking endlessly.

The former Miss Sandra Randolph, lived in a somewhat larger-than-usual grass-thatched hut whose walls were cemented. That meant that the walls had originally been done with dirt, like most huts, but cement had been used to finish them. The result was a solid, thick wall and a very firm house. The grass thatched roof kept it cool all day long. It was much cooler than the iron sheets that some of the better houses in the African village had. The hut had been hastily built for them by hired villagers after the couple had purchased the small parcel of land from a certain family in the area who were badly in need of funds to keep a son they were desperate to see through college, in medical school. Sandra had paid about $350 for it.

The hut, like most other homesteads in the area, did not have a fence surrounding it. There was just the dirt track coming from the road and twisting to the entrance of the hut’s solid wooden door. On the other end of the compound was the small pit latrine, built in much the same way as the main house that the couple also used as their bathroom. There was no electricity, but Sandra had purchased a small solar system that gave the house light and ran a small laptop computer which she used to keep her internet affiliate program running via a satellite internet link she had subscribed to. The affiliate program was bringing in a couple of hundred dollars every month. Makenzie had no idea what an affiliate program was.

Makenzie decided that he was going to gain entry from the back. Right next to the thick bush a few feet from the window at the back of the hut. He was going to force the window open and gain entry. Hopefully the entire job was going to take him a few minutes at the very most. All he was going to steal was all the cash he could find. He did not want the hassles of trying to sell off stolen property like Sandra’s laptop, which would virtually be impossible in this poverty-stricken village. And besides, even if he wanted it sold at the nearest town, he did not have the contacts to handle something like that.

Old man Makenzie needed lots of cash and he needed it urgently. He made a decision that he would execute his operation that very night instead of the next day. He would hide in the thick bush behind the house and wait for the couple to leave for their usual evening drink in the shopping center, some two kilometers away. He decided that it was too risky to try and gain entry to the hut during the day. Too many things could go wrong and the possibilities of being seen were just too high. With the cover of darkness, he could hide in the bush behind the house for hours on end and even if the couple were in the house, they would not know that he was there.

That night he was in the bush behind the house as soon as it was dark enough for him not to be seen. He had left his three-legged stool at home and he carried a tiny pencil torch. He could hear Where he was, he could hear Sandra’s voice coming clearly from the hut.

“You’re such a lazy good for nothing…” Sandra was saying.

“Good for nothing, mean what,” Sirma’s hesitant broken English.

“Oh never mind, just pass me that magazine.”

Brief silence.

“Sirma, I told you to pass me that magazine. No not that one you idiot, the green cover one… Oh what the hell, you don’t even know your colors my dear.”

“This one?”

“Yes. Well done you good for nothing husband of mine.”

“Good of nothing?

“Actually you’re good at what matters to me most…”

“You so abusive. Maasai no take abuse from woman.”

“They do when the woman is paying all the bills.”

“Bills?”

“Never mind my dear, you’re actually making good progress with your English.”

Brief silence.

“What’s the problem Sirma?”

“Shhhhh… somebody outside”

In what would appear to have been his carelessness, old man Mackenzie had trampled on some dry twig in the ground. The noise had reached Sirma’s sensitive hunting ears. Only that it was not Makenzie’s carelessness. The high altitude Iveti Hills area was not really known for snakes. Harmless grass snakes were rare, let alone poisonous colored ones. But somehow there had been one in the bush and the old man has trampled on the twig as he twisted round in pain the moment it’s fangs suck deep into his left heel. He did all he could to stop himself crying out.

Makenzie winced as the pain shot up his left leg. Where the hell had the snake come from, he kept asking himself even as he felt his body quickly begin to weaken from the venom. And such a poisonous snake that the venom took effect within moments. He could hear the door to the hut open and Sirma calling out, but he didn’t care about that. He was more worried about the snake venom causing havoc in his body. He knew that it would take a miracle to save his life. But where had such a poisonous snake come from?

CONTINUED

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Nancy Burpee is a world class paralympic swimmer, who has set world records in the 50 and 100 yards freestyle but was disqualified and thus effectively locked out from the 2004 Paralympic Games held in Athens, Greece on a procedural technicality. Law firm simmons jannace & stagg represented her in an effort to have the disqualification overturned and argued that the Australian referee showed bias against Ms. Burpee by making various comments indicating that the Australian referee did not want Ms. Burpee competing against an Australian paralympic swimmer at the games.
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