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Where We Left Off:
Gus, Oliver, and all the humans were devastated by the loss of a wildlife friend.
***Phobia Warning – This case file is about a snake creature.***
Dark Blue World:
I know Gus misses having his super highway of fallen trees to run around and perch on where he was able to look down for any rustling movements indicating critters. It hurts me to see him walk to the edge of the (now) Forbidden Forest and stop with his gaze focused on those trees.
If I sense that he doesn’t want to go anywhere else, I’ll try to take him on a more dangerous adventure which involves crossing this high-traffic country road that was once barely used. I let him get to the wall where I pick him up and take him to a small copse of woods on county land (so no one can kick us out).
In mid-October, during a Caturday patrol, I had Gus and Ollie to escort. Ollie got quite silly. I said it. Silly. He rolled on his back inside his buggy and wanted to play. He loves when I have the end of Guster’s leash to dangle for him. Sometimes I’ll find a twig, a feather, or a long piece of grass. If nothing else, my fingertips are good enough to be swatted and softly given love bites in his spirited mood. Ollie seems to only like me now if I’m giving him treatos. Like many Caturday adventures, his Butler came out to relieve me of Ollie. They went on one of their long rides up the busy road to a road that’s barely fit for goats.
Gus and I didn’t stay in the woods long. He didn’t want to be there. I knew where he really wanted to be, but this was the compromise. He led me up the steep embankment to a parking area which got a thorough inspection from his Super Smeller. We went to the Raccoon House again where Gus desperately wants to go inside because it smells and looks interesting. No way. The place is filled with broken glass and is generally not safe at all. He loves it though. Plus, it obviously smells like critters!
Around the back of the Raccoon House, the shrubs are not even shrubs. It’s a jungle. An impassable tangle of native plants, bushes, and trees that I cannot get in. Gus finds this challenge exciting. He begs to go into this jungle. The best I can do is let him go as far as his leash allows, which is precisely what I did on that particular day.
Gus came barreling out of there at high speed. His leash got wrapped around a tall stalk of something. I was thrown off-balance trying to keep an eye on him, assess the situation in less than a second, and make decisions. My brain said I could not untangle the mess of his leash while it was still looped around my wrist. I took the chance to let it go. I knew it could lead to the worst kind of danger. There was Gus—hellbent on getting away from that jungle and heading towards the road. He wanted to get back home immediately!
I can’t even remember how many times I’ve had that panic that he could get hit by a car. This road is awful and evil, if a road can be. It takes animals’ lives all the time. If not the drivers, then other animals preying on each other.
We were blessed that day (again) that nothing bad happened to Gus. He got to the Raccoon House. I was out of breath by the time I climbed the slippery, dewy grassy hill. I can’t run to begin with. I especially can’t run with an adventure bag, parasol, and camera bag.
I gave him pets and snatched up his leash as quickly as possible so we could walk home. He was fine then. Whatever was in those bushes and scared the crap out of him did not follow us.
Coming around the Raccoon House, I saw something light-colored on the ground that I didn’t notice before.
“Gus, what is that?” He had ignored it initially until I called him back to the object.
“It’s dead.” Gus can be blunt.
“Are you sure?”
He sniffed the small thin body and assured me, it was dead. The body was a Common Eastern Garter Snake…or…a baby Gorgon. We’ve been watching the Wednesday Addams show and love the fact that they included Gorgons.
I began taking photos. The body was still soft, still fresh. I was easily able to untangle it from the beautiful, intricate knot it coiled into when it died. It looked like my friend’s Celtic weavings. The snake creature measured an astonishing 21 inches long!
When Gus and I were able to reconvene with the Butler and Oliver to go over the details of the dead snake (or Gorgon), I became more fascinated with how the creature twisted itself up while dying. Humans don’t twist, but our bodies do, in fact, curl up into a fetal position which is why many skeletons are found in that posture. It doesn’t mean they were placed that way.
“Enlarge that,” Oliver tapped on the tablet screen. One of the injuries caught his attention.
“There’s another here,” I pointed out.
“Two punctures,” Ollie said. “Two sharp teeth.”
“I didn’t do it,” Gus said.
“I know. I was with you.” If I hadn’t had my eyes on him as we found the snake creature, I probably would be suspicious of Gus. He loves snake creatures.
Two puncture wounds instead of three or four might indicate that the attacker was a bird rather than a creature with fangs. The body was not flattened or squished, so we ruled out that it had been run over. Another thing was that the body was left behind. Did the attacker get interrupted? Did another animal want that target for its own meal?
“Gus,” I said, “what did your super olfactory sense tell you?”
“I did smell a hint of crow on it,” he said. “And blue jay, now that you ask.”
Case Findings:
It appears that either a crow or a blue jay snatched up the snake creature intending on making a meal of it. Problems arose when the bird without the snake noticed the other with the snake and launched an attack. Blue jays and crows are often fighting around here so it makes sense that one would try to steal from the other. We believe the crow was the original attacker based on the size of the largest wound on the victim.
Case Status: Closed