Johnny would never forget the sight. Many times he had watched the robots parading in thin-lined silence down the long, silent roads which men no longer used, but now he could have almost reached out and touched them. The absolute quiet was unnerving. The Robots must have weighed close to a ton each but walked with the stillness of stalking jungle cats.
"Where are they going, Diane?"
"I don't know. Who understands the ways of Robots? Who can say...." Abruptly, Diane was still. Her eyes went big and wide but she wasn't watching the Robots.
Directly in front of her face and staring at her from unblinking eyes, its body half-coiled and dappled with the sunlight which filtered down through the foliage, was a copperhead. The tongue darted out in a quick, blurring red streak, the head cleared the loose coils and swayed slightly from side to side.
"Don't move," Johnny barely formed the words with his lips and hoped Diane would retain her presence of mind and obey him. A sudden motion would set the snake to striking.
The file of robots paraded by just in front of them, an occasional joint creaking, metal skins polished to keen reflection. The copperhead was fully coiled now, head cocked flat and ugly and perfectly still. Johnny placed his hand on Diane's thigh and let it crawl upwards, as if of its own volition, with an agonizing lack of speed. Now his fingers had reached the edge of the buckskin shorts and now they climbed on the smooth pelt. He could feel Diane trembling faintly, the motion unseen but felt. And now his fingers climbed to the girdling belt, grasped the haft of the hunting knife, slowly withdrew it, tiny fraction of an inch at a time.
At last he had drawn the knife clear, easing it slowly toward his own body. He balanced it on his palm, trying to judge the weight. He would have only one chance, for the quick motion of his arm would make the copperhead strike if he missed.
Sweat rolled down his forehead and into his eyes, half blinding him. He cursed soundlessly, held his hand out flat, squinted, whipped it forward. A sigh escaped Diane's lips.
There was an angry thrashing as the copperhead uncoiled. But the blade had pinned it to the ground, piercing the body just below the flat head. Ignoring the column of Robots now, Johnny crawled forward swiftly, grasped the knife and drew it cleanly toward him. The head was severed from the body. The body thrashed furiously, then lay still in death. The Robots marched on, oblivious of the drama which had unfolded at their metal-clawed feet.
The last Robot glided by, the long line retreated into the woodland, vanished.