sawtooth mountains

years ago I had a ranch leased south of Arizona city. it was surrounded by  the papago reservation on three sides.  the ranch had mis managed and run by a known drug dealer who had a air strip in the middle of a mesquite thicket on deeded land  behind a locked gate. the owners were absentee and lived out of the country. the saw tooth mountains were in the northern most pasture and the reservation fence was a mile or so west of the slope.  this fence was overgrown with mesquite and white thorn for miles along the boundry. this thicket was any where from a few hundred feet wide to a quarter mile.  I had jumped a big maverick cow  and she headed north along the fence through this nasty thicket.  after a couple miles the tracks and shit became fresher and the fence started climbing the gentle slope of the sawtooths. on the right the mountain was steep and rocky, but the slope was bare and open with just rocky soil. as I got closer to the maverick I caught a glimpse now and again of her trotting through the brush, hugging the fence. I suspitioned she was a papago who found her way into the ranch.  up ahead the brush opened up and I made a run at the cow who by now was winded and hot. she was easy to rope and when I forked a tree she laid down to catch her breath. that was fine with me because my horse had melted a lot of tallow and was in bad need of a rest. after tying the cow to the tree I led my horse to some shade, unsaddled him and sat with my back to a tree while ole buck cooled off. up slope was a jeep trail and as I sat there a old 1950 s model jeep pickup was poking along that road. the driver saw me and stopped. I walked up the slope to the truck to see what he wanted. when I got there he handed me a jug of cool water and smiled asking if I had seen any snakes. he explained that he caught them to milk the venom and sell it.  I told him I had been moving pretty fast and hadn't time to watch for any snakes. about then I heard a buzzing and I looked around on the ground for the snake. but that old coot had built a box under his seat and covered it in screen wire. inside the box was his days catch and him sittin on them!! I mthanked him for the drink and backed away promising to call him if I found a good snake ground. he drove on, I put the cow through the fence and rode back home seeing rattle snakes under every grease bush!