The black widow spiders just hang in space like hookers in a doorway. Looks like each spider has her nightly post. I know there's the one that hangs by the water faucet (take care) and then there's one in each corner of the slab. It seems like they go to the same spot every night. I was killing them then I quit killing them. If they are that reliable, then I shouldn't kill them, I thought. I mean they aren't coming into the house looking for trouble, are they? The other night I stood with my flashlight staring at a widow in her web. I would say "suddenly,the web began to tremble," but there is no sudden out here in the Mojave. The word doesn't apply. Maybe--if there's a big quake. Ok, a flash flood can be somewhat sudden, but you do see the clouds building a long way off. The web began to tremble. Just a little movement. The desert eye gets trained very quickly to swerve toward any movement. The creosote bushes are spaced just so. If anything stirs between them, you notice. As I watched this widow sort of gather herself and turn around to adjust to the new motion she sensed, I saw what looked like a small pebble moving just beneath her. No. It was a head. The head belonged to a baby sidewinder about the size of a pencil. If it were not creeping along against the slab of the house, and if it had not disturbed the widow, I am sure I would have never seen it. Well, I thought. It's time to follow the snake. The only reason a little snake was creeping around the perimeter of our cabin, I figured, would be to find a way in. There was a slight edge to the late summer night--you wouldn't feel it if you weren't a year-round resident here, but just a faint hint of cooling was indeed in the air. I followed the snake. Sure enough he slithered up onto our porch.I wasn't sure what to do because it was tempting to just reach down and scoop the little guy up. But that would have been stupid. They say the babies are the most dangerous because they release all of their venom at once. I suppose the grownups only release enough to stun their prey. It takes a lifetime to learn how much venom to release and how much to hold back, given the situation in which one finds oneself. I took the broom and swept the snake off the porch, across the driveway, and underneath a creosote bush. Away from the house. If we'd still had Luna I would've killed it--or asked Kip to kill it. But that little snake was not dangerous unless it crept into our house, where it would blend in with the floor, or coil in a corner, or wait in a shoe. The next morning I checked under the creosote, but there was no sign of the baby snake. So that was that. And I thought maybe there were a dozen or so more in a nest nearby. But I never saw that snake again and I never saw any of its siblings.