Shan's mother calls out to him as he wades in the creek in front of their home and warns him of the water moccasins. Last week, she tells him, a boy his age named Roy Deer was bitten by a mocassin and is on the brink of death now. It is Sunday, and she will have to leave Shan home alone while she goes to the Deer's house to check on the sick boy, since her husband, Shan's father, is out hunting groundhog. She leaves feeling uneasy and worried for her son. Shan, meanwhile, is unphased by Roy's close encounter with death. He sets out into the creek with a club made of wild-plum and begins hunting down mocassins. He stirs the water to make it muddy and waits for the snakes to rise up to the surface, killing them with one blow of his club. He kiles fifty three snakes that day, and heads home in the early evening. On the path home, he passes two snakes he assumes to be fighting. He calls out his his Uncle Alf who is nearby. Uncle Alf laughs and explains that the snakes are loving on one another, not fighting. He calls his wife and Shan's mother comes back home at the same time. She announces that Roy Deer is dead. Shan wants to kill the two snakes in love. The adults are mesmerized by the snakes and seem to glow with a certain joy that Shan does not comprehend.