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This morning, we learned that our friend and contributor J.P.S. "Joe" Brown died in Patagonia on January 9. Over the past decade, we've had the privilege not only to profile Joe in our pages, but also to publish several of his essays, including this one from 2012. 

Born in Nogales in 1930, Joe was a fifth-generation Arizonan who went on to study at Notre Dame. He was a Marine, a boxer, a whiskey smuggler, a cowboy through and through. More than that, though, he was a storyteller, weaving his experiences into text that became rich with his voice, his love of Arizona, of horses. Nothing was unfamiliar. Everything was a wonder. 

We'll hold fast to your words, Joe. Godspeed. 

— Kelly Vaughn, Senior Editor

The High Lonesome
Our favorite cowboy storyteller reflects on his boyhood home in Apache County — the 175-square-mile High Lonesome ranch. Located at an elevation of 7,000 feet, the place is high, wide and dry, but the characters Joe Brown grew up with were full of color.
An Essay by J.P.S. Brown

In August 1940, the year I turned 10, my parents, Vivian D. and Mildred Sorrells Brown, threw in with cattlemen Herb Cunningham and Roy Adams, and Nogales banker Wirt Bowman, and bought the 175-square-mile High Lonesome ranch in Eastern Arizona. The ranch sits in Apache County, 18 miles south of Sanders and 35 miles north of St. Johns. Vivian took over as manager, sold our home in Nogales and moved us to the ranch. The place had been part of the Aztec Land and Cattle Co. Its mean altitude is 7,000 feet; the ground is sandy loam, the trees are Utah junipers, which we call “cedars,” and piñons, short pine trees that yield sweet nuts. The place is high, wide and dry. Adams, Cunningham, Bowman and Brown erected windmills on 12 new wells in the first year.

I was a boarder student at Saint Michaels in Santa Fe, New Mexico. When school let out, I caught the train from Lamy, New Mexico, to Chambers, Arizona, where Mildred and my little sister Sharon met me. We received our mail at Sanders a few miles east of Chambers on U.S. Route 66. On our way to the ranch, we stopped there and I met Clarence “Hop” Balcomb, the postmaster. The post office, the only telephone in the region, a mercantile store and a gas station were all parts of a trading post owned by Hop. He had ridden broncs for the Aztec. Both his legs had been ruined by broncs. He used crutches to get around and drank a lot of beer. His store was right beside Route 66, between Holbrook, Arizona, and Gallup, New Mexico. His customers were tourists who came to see the West, refugees of the Dust Bowl on their way to California, a few ranchers and miners, and a lot of Navajo Indians. He spoke Navajo as well as a tribesman, and traded his wares for their blankets and jewelry.

We found him in a trade with a tiny Navajo lady who had spread a bright, new rug in the middle of the floor and scattered turquoise and silver rings, bracelets and earrings over it. After a while he left his chair to open another bottle of beer and attend to us. 

Jalopies piled high with furniture and loaded to the gunwales with poor families clattered by on Route 66. Some stopped at the store to stretch their legs, buy soda pop and trade Hop out of his gasoline. My mother said they were Oklahomans who had lost their outfits to drought and dust storms and were on their way to work in the fields and orchards of California. Hop said they didn’t argue over his price, but on this last leg to California they traded their last and most precious belongings for gasoline.

The High Lonesome doesn’t have a steep place on it. The loamy ground is so soft we didn’t have to shoe our saddle horses. The ridges are spotted with plots of small, jewel-like rocks that were washed round and smooth centuries ago under the sea. We found small, whole seashells that must have been thousands of years old. Petrified wood lay everywhere. In those days, the place was spotted with dozens of prairie-dog towns. The audacious creatures stood 5 inches tall by their holes with their hands on their chests, looked us in the eye, dared us to attack, and chattered their derision. They’re all gone now.

Nogales had been full of birds that bunched in big trees and sang together all the time. Birds on the High Lonesome lived far apart and sang solo. I heard the song of a meadowlark for the first time. Her yellow breast discovered her to me from inside the turpentine and sagebrush. The air was so clear, the great space of that ranch so clean, I heard her song a half-mile away. Every so often, some old hawk would whistle at us from way, way up high.

Our well water was delicious, pure and cold. Even the dust in the draws and on the ridges was clean. The snap of the air in the early hours made me wince. I hoped it would make me grow. I had boxed in the 65-pound class at Saint Michaels that spring, and I thought of myself as a runt.

I began to ride my horse, Pancho, to receive cattle at the stockyards in Chambers, drive them 25 miles to the ranch, and locate them in pastures. By the time we had located a new bunch in its pasture, another arrived at Chambers. I liked the dust the herd brought up out of the ground as much as I did the wide open sky.

We ran 2,600 Corriente cows and 1,100 steers, the common, native Mexican cattle that the partners bought in Chihuahua. Most of the cows had been separated from their calves in Mexico, but some bore late calves on the High Lonesome. To me, a little feller licked clean by his mammy who bucked and bawled at the sight of me was more than a unit of merchandise. He was a little brother.

Viv hired two crews of Navajos, a fencing crew and a crew that built hogans — the mud and cedar Navajo houses. Everybody on the ranch lived in hogans. My family and I lived at headquarters, and the cowboys camped on the windmills to be near the water and livestock in the outer pastures.

At headquarters, the crew built three hogans in a wide open V with rooms that joined them together into one house. They were octagonal with peeled-and-varnished cedar beams and ceilings inside. Hogans on the reservation have round, dirt roofs, but Jim Porter, our maintenance man, erected peaked, triangular roofs of lumber with sand and oilpaper shingles. He built a two-story building beside the windmill at headquarters that held up our water tank and gave us two more bedrooms and a bathroom. The windmill pumped water for our home and corrals into a tank on top of the building. The overflow from that tank was caught by a 10,000-gallon tank that provided water for the cattle and a swimming pool for us. The water was so cold and hard that we bounced when we jumped in.

Jim Porter, a combat veteran of World War I in France, stood 6 feet 4 inches, weighed 160 pounds and used few words. He kept the windmills, construction and gasoline engines working. He knew the ranch well, because he had camped on it with his uncle Burr Porter’s sheep. Adams, Cunningham, Bowman and Brown had bought the ranch from Burr. Jim could do anything on that ranch that needed to be done, except cowboy. He wore a snap brim hat, khaki clothes and brogan shoes. He said little during the day’s work, but liked conversation with an after-supper cigarette. In one conversation, he told us that an 8-inch shell had landed, unexploded, only 6 feet from his post in a trench in France.

Small, thin, wiry Cap Maben was our oldest cowboy, and also a combat veteran of World War I in France. He had been raised at Fence Lake, just over the New Mexico line from our ranch. The High Lonesome’s eastern border lay along the New Mexico-Arizona line. Cap wore a deformed black hat, khaki shirt, khaki trousers with cuffs, and high-heeled, high-topped boots. His laugh sounded like the death rattle of a strangled rooster. He did not stop talking from the time he climbed out of his bedroll in the morning until he pulled the covers back over his bald head at night.

He was the best camp cook of the many cooks that I have ever known, and made huge, soft, golden sourdough biscuits with every meal. With butter melted inside them and with common syrup that cowboys just call “lick,” they were better than any fancy dessert anybody ever knew. He was a fine cowman and an even better horseman. He could teach a young horse to climb the roof of a hogan without hurting himself, if he wanted to. However, he had to be well broke when Cap took him to ride. All the buck had to have been ridden out of him by a youngster like me. He was always at the right place at the right time during any of the work, but he could not stand 5 feet away and catch a rain barrel with a rope. He could not throw a loop over a fence without tangling it. But he could catch his hat, because it always got in the way when he swung a loop.

Jim and Cap were bachelors. In those days, dedicated cowboys who worked for wages didn’t marry, because sweethearts were hard to find near their camps. They worked way out where the sun set between them and women. Their work was more important than wooing. This did not mean that they did not like women, because they did. They brightened when they were near Mildred and Sharon, and they would not cuss within the hearing of any woman. Their lady friends worked in the Winslow and Gallup bawdyhouses. The cowboys often stayed on the ranch for a year or more, but when they went to town, they stayed a month. They always returned full of glee and with new spring in their broken, old, bachelor steps.

Grover Kane was our other cowboy. Only 16 years old, he had already cowboyed with a crew on a Wyoming wagon for two seasons. Like me, he learned his Spanish from vaqueros in Santa Cruz County and Sonora at the same time he learned English. He came to the ranch from Patagonia before Cap came to work. He received the first 1,100 big, Chihuahua steers that Viv and Mildred sent from El Paso early in the spring, and he drove them to the ranch with Navajo help. Then, by himself, he located the steers in their pastures and doctored them for ailments they had suffered in shipping.

I say that cowboys fly. Some fly more often than others, some higher than others, but they all take wing when they find themselves in the big middle of an astoundingly lucky, risky and perfect performance of cowboy skills. Grover could already do anything a cowboy needs to do. He often flew when he rode horseback to turn back the bovine, but he could also stay on the ground, put on his brogans, fix fence and windmills, dig post holes, and service pump engines. I camped with him months at a time. He baked good baking-powder biscuits every morning and taught me to keep a clean camp.

Hoska Kronemeyer, a Navajo, supervised construction of the hogans. Later, his wife, Caroline Goldtooth, worked for Mildred. Viv always consulted “Hosky” when he did business with the Navajos. All the High Lonesome hands respected him and valued his advice.

Charlie Redhouse led the Navajo fence crew. One day Sharon and I rode out with Viv to the fence line, where we saw tall, thin Charlie for the first time. The crew worked bareheaded under a dry, June sun, their black hair and russet faces and hands wet and shiny with sweat. Some cut cedar posts out of the trees. Others strung barbed wire and dug post holes.

Sharon and I watched Charlie cut a big corner post out of a cedar. He accompanied effortless, rhythmic strokes of his ax with gentle grunts. Big chips tumbled and curled out of the post’s heart. That crew worked from sunup to sundown every day with no day off. Each man cut more than 100 posts a day. In later visits, I never saw those men make a tired move, not even when they turned away from the work and walked to camp in the evening.

The crew camped on the ground where it finished the day’s work. While Sharon and I were there that first time, it broke for lunch and gave us fry bread. Later, Charlie sat on the ground and sharpened his ax with a pink slab of sandstone he found on the fence line. Sharon and I stared. One of the other Navajos said something to Charlie in a deep murmur, then looked at us with no smile. The look was that of a strong and dignified man who required that children be polite enough not to stare at a man at work.

Charlie then gave us a look that scared the peewadding out of Sharon. She was still scared when we got home. We used kerosene lamps. Ever after that I could scare my little sister by mentioning that I had just seen Charlie Redhouse’s face pass by in the shadows of the night outside our lamplight.

I knew Charlie for 14 years, and he never spoke a word to me. To speak his mind, he only ever gave me a look. He pitched for our Puerco River Athletic Baseball Club. Walter Marty was our stalwart catcher, but once in a while I substituted him. Charlie always pitched the whole nine innings. I caught two of his games, but even then he spoke not a word.

One day, Jim Porter climbed the windmill tower at headquarters to work on the gears in the fan. Charlie stood by on the ground to help. When Jim wanted a tool, Charlie tied it to a light cotton rope and Jim pulled it up. Once, while Jim had a long leg hooked over the edge of the platform so he could lay out in space to do his job, Charlie sent up the wrong tool. Jim was ordinarily a patient man, but that day, after hanging upside down too long 50 feet above the ground, he shouted a stream of cuss words, threw away the wrong tool, demanded the right tool, and waited.

Charlie always tugged on the rope as a signal for Jim to pull up the tool. Jim waited for the tug. He always cooled off quickly. He felt bad that he had cussed. He hoped Charlie wasn’t offended. “Find that tool, Charlie?” he asked. He didn’t look down, because that was too hard to do.

“Charlie, are you there?” he asked and finally looked down and saw no Charlie. He straightened on the platform to have another look. The headquarters windmill stood in the middle of the mile-wide Tucker Draw that stretched for many miles through that country. Far off to the north, Jim espied Charlie Redhouse’s form as it strode away out of earshot toward Navajoland.

When World War II started, Charlie joined the Army. I don’t know how he got by without talking to people there, but I bet he didn’t say more than five words the whole time he served. He served honorably, and after four years came home whole, but nobody ever knew what he had done, or where he had been.

Jaden Redhair, a Navajo designer and engineering student at Stanford University, has partnered with Nalgene Outdoor to design a water bottle that supports the Nalgene Water Fund in its efforts to combat the water crisis on the Navajo Nation. The water bottle can be purchased here, and $5 from each purchase will go directly to the Navajo Nation.

We talked with Redhair about his partnership with Nalgene and the importance of bringing awareness to the water crisis that many tribal communities across the nation are facing.

How did this partnership come about?
I did some graphic design work in 2018 for a nonprofit here on the Navajo Nation called Community Outreach and Patient Empowerment program (COPE). I made some posters for them that they hung up around the Navajo Nation that encouraged drinking water. Recently, Nalgene reached out to COPE because they are one of the organizations that helps the Navajo Nation with water disparity. They asked them if they knew of any designers who were Navajo who could work on this. Their first suggestion was me — just because I have done work with them before. From there, Nalgene reached out to me, and that’s how they came to find me.

How did you come up with the design for the bottle, and what does it mean?
When I first started creating the bottle, I actually had three different designs that all had different aspects. I ended up combining them for the final. One design had the outline of the Navajo Nation, which is on the bottle now. The other design was just an illustration of Monument Valley in the background. I decided to use Monument Valley just because it’s one of the more notable monuments on the Navajo Nation, and they asked me to make the design a little more recognizable for people and help them contextualize where geographically they can place the people who are facing these problems. The third design incorporated a Navajo basket. From there, I decided to combine all three. I put Monument Valley inside the shape of the Navajo Nation and also put the Navajo basket inside, just to connect it more to the Navajo people.

Proceeds from the bottle help people on the Navajo Nation with water access. Why is this cause so important?
I think this cause is really important because I see a lot of people on the Navajo Nation, especially in rural areas, that struggle with getting water. Oftentimes you have people who get trucks with huge water barrels that they haul around and drive half an hour to an hour to get water for their homes. They use the water for cooking, drinking and for their livestock. Some of my grandparents live in Sanders, Arizona, and I know they have to haul water to the livestock. I think it’s really important because it creates more access points, so people don’t have to travel as far.

How did you get interested in graphic design?
My dad is actually the graphic design teacher at the high school I attended in Window Rock. I took that class for three years. I learned a lot and really enjoyed it. Even at Stanford, I’m one of the graphic designers for the football team. It’s something I enjoy doing, and it’s a way for me to get out of engineering and get away from the numbers all the time. It’s a good outlet for me to express my creative ideas.

How did your upbringing on the Navajo Nation inspire your art and the creation of this bottle?
I think growing up here has shown me what it really means to come from the reservation. In a way, I wasn’t [only] creating this bottle for Navajo people to use. I was creating this bottle for other people to help contribute to the Navajo Nation. I had to look at it through that lens, which was a little difficult at first, just because I’m used to creating designs that Navajo people see all the time. Now it was the opposite, because I was marketing to people outside the reservation. My upbringing has helped me contextualize what I should and shouldn’t design.

What do you hope people will get out of either purchasing the bottle or just seeing it and gaining awareness about the topic?
I hope what comes out of it is understanding that, across the United States, it’s not just the Navajo Nation that struggles with these issues. Other communities and reservations face issues similar to this. Being at Stanford, I’ve realized that a lot of people who grew up in big cities aren’t really aware of problems like that. When I would speak to them about the problems we face on the Navajo Nation — like people who don’t have running water or electricity — they were amazed. It’s a good way for people outside of the reservations to recognize that these types of problems do exist, not just across the world, but right here in the United States.

How do you hope to use your electrical engineering degree to give back to your community?
I think renewable energy is very important, especially for the Navajo Nation, because there are places that don’t have access to electricity. I think it would be a really good idea to have some things powered by renewable energy. It’s important for us to help push our goals to be focused more on renewable energy because it’s a clean way to provide energy to people who need it.

— Ameema Ahmed, Associate Editor

With COVID-19 concerns on the rise, many people are practicing social distancing and self-quarantine methods. We know it can be hard to stay indoors and away from your normal activities, but there still many things you can do to keep yourself and your family active during this time. Here are 10 options you can try in the coming days.

1. Take a hike.
Public lands are still open for people to enjoy. If you want to get some exercise and enjoy a free dose of nature, take a hike at one of our many parks and hiking areas across the state. As long as you are keeping a safe 6-foot difference between yourself and others, outdoor activities are still acceptable. Check the status of national parks before heading out.

2. Check out the wildflowers.
Wildflower season is upon us, and areas such as Picacho Peak and Bartlett Lake are already blooming. Photographing and enjoying the beauty of these areas will be a welcome break from staying indoors. Once again, follow CDC guidelines while out in public.

3. Enjoy a family bike ride.
While the kids are home from school, make time for them to get some physical exercise during the day. A bike ride around your neighborhood is also an acceptable activity that will get you out of the house without endangering your health or that of others.

4. Work on a puzzle.
There are plenty of things to do indoors including working on a puzzle. Whether it's one you have had for a while or a new one that you want to try, puzzles are a great way to keep your brain engaged. Plus, they can be done solo or as a family activity. We recommend our Retro Map Puzzle.

5. Take a virtual museum tour.
Many museums around the world are offering free virtual tours. This is a great way to check out a place you have never been, as well as a fun learning opportunity for kids. 

6. Try a home workout plan.
With many gyms closed for health reasons, people are having to change their workout regimen. The good news is many apps, like One Peloton, are offering free home workout plans and trial memberships. Gyms are also providing free access to training programs and livestreamed workouts.

7. Have a family game night.
A good old-fashioned family game night may be just the answer for getting everyone away from the screens. Board games are making a comeback, and now is the perfect time to engage in some friendly competition and discover (or rediscover) your favorite game.

8. Catch up on yard work.
You've been meaning to clean up those weeds and mow the lawn, but just haven't had the time. Well, now you do. You can get the whole family in on it and distribute the work while getting some much-needed Vitamin D. 

9. Listen to a new podcast.
You may not have your normal commute to work, but you probably have some extra time to listen to your favorite podcast. If you're not into podcasts yet, this is a great time to try them out. Stitcher and Apple offer a variety of podcasts that can appeal to many interests.

10. Write that thing you've been meaning to write.
You know what we're talking about. You always say you'll write a novel or a poem or simply start a journal. Now is the time to do it. Use this time to brainstorm and let your creativity flow.

— Ameema Ahmed, Associate Editor

Michael Hankins is a Lake Havasu City resident who's fascinated with rattlesnakes. With his new Outskirts Press book, Arizona Rattlesnake Tales, he's betting other people are, too. The book is a compilation of hundreds of newspaper articles detailing frontier Arizonans' encounters with the dreaded "rattler," stories Hankins gathered over many years of research. Via email, Hankins spoke with Arizona Highways about the book, his background and his soft spot for one of Arizona's best-known reptiles. (This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.)

Tell us about your background and how you ended up in Arizona.
My first trip to Arizona was in 1957. We were headed to Victorville, California, on Route 66 to my father’s new job assignment at George Air Force Base. Somewhere near Holbrook, Dad wheeled into a gas station to fuel up. This was in June, and our car had no air conditioning. The vehicle was gloss black, which greatly amplified the inside temperature.

A curious owner of this garage peered into the back seat, noticing my brother and me motionless. Dad and Mom believed we were simply sleeping. This gentleman warned my parents that if they didn’t get us cooled down, "them boys will not survive!” Jim and I spent the rest of our journey hovered over a block of ice placed inside a pan on the floorboard of Dad’s Mercury.

Part of my reason for coming back to Arizona had to do with my love of Western movies. I’d read that much of that filming took place in Old Tucson. We visited the town, finding it to be most interesting. Even the kids, who were quite young at the time, enjoyed going there.

Residing in Alaska for 45 years gave us many opportunities to fly down. My wife, Joleen, and two children, Gunnar and Miranda, spent almost every winter vacationing in Phoenix and Lake Havasu City. Joleen and I loved the state so much that we decided to move here upon retirement. We’ve been in Lake Havasu City close to 10 years now.

How did you get interested in snakes, and rattlesnakes in particular?
My first encounter with rattlesnakes was in, of all places, Selma, Alabama. A family of rattlers claimed a tree in the middle of our school playground as their home. The Southside School custodian promptly took care of them. An encounter with a water moccasin also occurred in this state. I was wading in Soapstone Creek near Selma when adults began yelling at me from shore to get out of the water. Spotting what I thought was a stick headed my direction, I was snatched out of the creek just in time by some quick-thinking individual.

The sole fascination with rattlesnakes came at an early age after seeing them in movies, or reading about their dangerous demeanor in Western magazines. Rattlesnakes seemed to always make an unwelcome appearance in both entities. There was something about the unmistakable sound of a rattler that placed me on edge while sitting in a theater seat or on the couch.

You've collected hundreds of newspaper clippings about rattlesnake encounters.
I’ve been a big connoisseur of Old West articles for over 50 years: True West, Frontier Times, Golden West, Real West and, of course, Arizona Highways. Some kids spent their lunch money on comic books, while I used mine to purchase cowboy-related periodicals. Almost every Western story had some hair-raising-tale regarding a killer rattlesnake. As I became older, I wanted to separate fact from fiction. Beginning in the 1980s, a search began for actual accounts of people bitten by rattlers.

It was slow going at first. I had to painstakingly search through microfiche at Arizona libraries while we were on vacation. In rare cases, vintage newspapers were available to look at. Research was hard to do as my wife and kids had more important things on their agenda, like hitting the swimming pool or shopping. Of course, there was no internet back in the '80s. When the computer finally came along, eBay was born. I was able purchase a few old Arizona newspapers with snake stories, along with several vintage rattlesnake photos from that website.

Eventually, colleges and libraries began to scan and place old newspapers online. My collection of clippings began to expand after that. While visiting the Mohave County Museum of History and Art, a gentleman there showed me a couple of pay sites where I could search for rattlesnake specifics. That’s when I hit the jackpot. At last count, I’ve accumulated over 500 articles dating from 1866 to present.

How did the concept for this book come about?
The idea came to me in a most unusual way, as I’d never contemplated doing a book. The process began by sharing my material on Facebook. I was attempting to make a few female friends squirm. There’s something about snake and spider stories that causes people to shudder. All in all, though, friends and family found the tales more interesting than scary.

Joleen and Miranda prodded me into placing the information into book form. I was initially hesitant after hearing horror stories about publishing and publishers. I’d been an automotive mechanic most of my life, knowing absolutely nothing about book composition. I did write several historical articles for magazines and newspapers, yet it was strictly a hobby. A lengthy rattlesnake book project did not sound like fun! After checking with a copyright attorney, I was informed I could legally only use material that was dated prior to 1924. At that point, I considered my project dead in the water.

Having in my possession less than 200 articles composed before 1924, I assumed it wasn’t enough for a book. I went ahead and sent this material off to a publisher, figuring they’d think the same. Turns out, there was sufficient data to work with. My publishing agent enhanced most of the scanned images and reconfigured them as well. A good portion were blurred or hard to read. Printing presses in the 1800s and early 1900s caused ink to easily smear or smudge. We elected not to retype the stories, wanting readers to experience the crudeness of early publications. Although some of the stories are still out of focus, overall, it was the right direction to take.

What was the most surprising or unusual thing you found during your research?
Easily the most unusual abnormality I found during my research was that savvy freelance writers sometimes sold their material to newspapers long after an incident happened. I uncovered the same stories in different newspapers years after they'd first been reported. The most extreme case was a rattlesnake story repeated some 10 years down the road, with no mention that it was old news. Not only did I find this common practice with rattlesnake tales, but it was true with other attention-getting stories as well. I suppose when times were lean, hungry reporters had to do whatever it took to eke out a living.

How long did the research and writing process take?
My research of rattlesnakes ran over a span of 40 years. The last 10 years presented me with the most material. A couple of weeks were needed to write the foreword and conclusion, including compiling all usable data and sending it off. Much thanks goes to Outskirts Press on knowing how to professionally manage those obscure scans and photos and make them presentable. That portion of the project took two months. Looking back on things, it was actually a painless procedure.

Where can people get the book?
Folks can purchase Arizona Rattlesnake Tales online at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Walmart, eBay and Outskirts Press. The Mohave County Museum of History and Art has copies for sale in their gift shop. I’m hoping other shops do the same. I was told by a longtime park ranger that besides being asked about the Grand Canyon, rattlesnake inquiries from tourists are at the top of their "most questioned" list.

What should people know about encountering a rattlesnake in the wild?
I’m a conservationist at heart. Unlike early pioneers did, rattlesnakes do not need to be needlessly slaughtered just because they’re in the way. In most cases, they’ll only strike or lunge out half the length of their body. They won’t leap or jump on you from long distances, like mountain lions. Hollywood can be thanked for placing that misnomer into people’s minds.

If you should come across a rattlesnake, do all that’s humanly possible to back away or wisely skirt around it from a safe distance. Generally speaking, in most Arizona towns and cities, there are professionals who will remove and safely relocate rattlesnakes without killing them. If by chance you are bitten, immediately seek medical attention!

The Phoenix Herpetological Society in Scottsdale is renowned for taking in reptiles of all types, both wild and domesticated. I totally support the work they do do in helping these fragile creatures survive. A trip to view their facility is well worth the time. Ten percent from the sale of Arizona Rattlesnake Tales goes to help that organization.

— Noah Austin, Managing Editor