“He`s dead,” she whimpered as both her arms encircled him.

            “Who?  Your father?” he asked as he unwrapped the girl`s arms.

            She looked up at him, her eyes red and swollen, and nodded.

            “Premises are secure, Hawkins reported as he stepped from the house.  “No sign of hostile attack.”

            “I think the situation here is different from what we expected, captain,” Winterson indicated.

            “Show me where he is,” the major said.

            Patsy led the way out across the field to where the brush by the creek began with its characteristic thickness. Lying across the line between brush and clearing was the body of Bryce Hester.  He lay flat on his back.  He eyes stared lifeless into the sky.  Winterson noted the dead snake that lay less than six feet from him cleaved in half by one of the tools.  He squatted by the man and placed two fingers against Hester`s neck just below his ear lobe.  He felt no pulse.  There was not even a slight rise and fall of his chest.  Hester`s arms were mottled with the greatest area on the arm that still had the leather belt wrapped around it.  The snake venom had eaten away at the skin around the two points of entry causing them to ooze a clear liquid.

            “Captain, organize a burial detail!”  Winterson called to the house.  He heard Hawkins call out the names of four men in the patrol.

            “Where are your mother and little brother?”

            “They are dead, too.”

            “What?  How?”