Jackson lay perfectly still in the sparse grass, holding a string in his left hand. In front of him, about ten feet away, was a box trap he’d fashioned out of sticks and more string. A little farther out, about twelve feet away, was a blue-and-green lizard, otherwise known as snake bait. She hadn’t said anything about trapping their mysterious visitor. She’d only said he couldn’t kill it. Before he could trap the snake, though, he had to trap the bait. Inside the box, he’d staked out a cockroach. All he had to do was wait for Mother Nature to take a ride on the food chain. A flash of color in the lush growth of forest caught his eye. He glanced up in time to see Sugar disappear behind the base of a gracefully buttressed tree, a splash of bright yellow against a world of unremitting green. Lianas trailed from the higher limbs of the châtaignier, any one of which could be camouflaging the snake he was trying to catch. He swore under his breath. She was a great one to go forbidding him to do things.
