One nice fall day in Mississippi, four friends set out to hunt deer on the nearby leases, taking two beat up old trucks and several coolers of drinks with them. They were a few hours and two coolers into the trip when Dick, one of the drivers, had a bright idea.

Thunk. Dan frowned, tightening the grip on his steering wheel. Dick had pulled up beside him on the dirt road and proceeded to play bumper cars again. He could hear Dick and Bob cackling through the open windows.

Thunk. Good grief. It was only a ten minute drive to the next location, couldn't he wait to dick around until then? Dan didn't particularly want to be run all the way off the road. Even if it was closer to a game trail than a street.

Thunk. Dan sighed.

"C'mon man, it's a little funny," Jim said from the passenger seat.

"Oh, it was funny the first two times." Thunk. "Not s'much anymore."

Jim snorted. "You're just mad that we didn’t see any deer this morning."

Thunk. "Eh, maybe."

The quartet were heading to the next stand, not that they were expecting to find anything in the middle of the day. They pulled into a clearing to stop and pretend to hunt for a while. Lunch was a picnic at the last location, and they were simply passing time until the sun started to set.

Some time later Dan and Jim took it upon themselves to at least check near the stand for deer. Nil. But they brought beer, so they paused for a bit.

"— and Martha's been worrying over— is that a snake?" Jim squinted and pointed at a wiggling shadow in the grass.

"Huh? Where?"

They stared down the shape, and sure enough it resolved itself into a dark, fat snake, slithering less than twenty feet from their boots.

"Aw, shit. It's a cottonmouth." Jim turned to leave. "Let's go, we don't need him chargin' after us. Nasty fuckin'—"

A lightbulb appeared over Dan's head. "Hold up, Jim... I've got an idea. Go get my pliers from the truck, quick.” He thought for a moment, grinning. “And a bag. We’re gonna need it.”

Dan and Jim walked back to the clearing, Dan calmly holding something with a bag over his left hand and the object, Jim trying to keep a straight face.

"Y'all ready to go?" Dan yelled to Dick and Bob. He kept the bag low to his side.

"Sure! Let's go." Dick hopped down from the bed of his truck.

They all loaded up and pulled out, Dan's truck in the lead, Dick's truck close behind. Just like before, Dick pulled up alongside Dan and started trading paint, laughing and hollering the whole way.

"You— hehe— you sure about this?" Jim asked.

Dan just smiled. "Oh yeah."

On the next approach, Dan slid the bag off, and in one smooth motion tossed the freshly de-fanged cottonmouth through both truck windows and straight into Bob’s lap. It took a second for the men to process this. The vengeful critter, however, immediately did what it did best; bit the shit out of everything in sight.

Dan and Jim almost couldn’t hear the others’ screams over their howling laughter. Dan dropped back to let Dick have the road. The blue pickup truck jerked back and forth, kicking up dust before sliding to an abrupt stop in a ditch on their left.

Dan rolled up next to it. He decided that he’d better hang back until Dick and Bob put their heads back on their shoulders. Jim, on the other hand, had to go see the aftermath.

He walked up to the blue truck while Bob was squeezing out of the passenger window, yelling obscenities.

“SHIT! FUCK! I’m gonna kill ‘im!” Bob collapsed in the ditch, shaking.

Jim snickered. “Who? Dan?”

Bob blinked up at him. “No! Dick! He never fixed the damn door!” He smacked the side of the truck. “I couldn’t get out!”

Jim couldn’t help himself. He lost it. He wiped away the tears in time to see a dead snake go flying in Dan’s general direction.

“FUCKIN’ ASSHOLE! I THOUGHT I WAS GONNA DIE!”

“Don’t worry, I pried the fangs out!” Dan called out helpfully.

“YEAH, I SAW THAT! AFTER IT BIT ME!” Dick marched out of the ditch, pointing as aggressively as he could with shivering hands. “You owe me a fuckin’ drink!”

Dan chuckled.

The quartet finagled Dick's truck out of the ditch and moved on to the next spot. After another beer, of course.