Third Time's the Charm

That was true. All snakes were skittish during mating season so, if we wanted to get any of our herps to mate, we had to withdraw them from the display for several weeks. We could only do that with the species we had at least two mating pairs of.

"Methodist or Baptist gonna lay in the anti-venin?"

"Neither," he revealed. "Memphis State is contacting Miami and Poole to get some species specific OH (Ophiophagus Hannah, the King Cobra's species) shipped up here. We'll have it before Sunny gets here."

"Well, sounds like you're on top of it. We should be ready for him."

Clint looked at me, the smile fading. He took a deep breath, then sighed. "You have some hands-on experience with Kings, don't you?"

"Yeah, I've worked with them. They're actually a lot safer to work with than most cobras. They can be a little defensive, but they aren't aggressive. Biggest problem is that they can get curious, and that can cause accidents."

"Curious?" he questioned.

"Yeah," I responded. "They like to know what's going on it their territory so, unless they feel threatened, they'll investigate. You have to keep an eye on them, know where they are."

Clint nodded, allowing himself a slight grimace. "Okay. Until you can get me or Tammy trained with him, he's your snake. I don't want the kid working with him yet."

Our conversation would have continued, but the door opened and Doctor West walked in. He looked at me and then saw Clint. He smiled and waved. "Heard about Sun King, Clint. Congratulations."

"Thanks, Doc. We were pretty happy about it. When can I get junior here back?"

"Depends," he chuckled. He looked directly at me. "You gonna take a couple of days off or you going straight back to work?"

"Straight back to the zoo," I answered honestly. "Gotta start getting ready for Sunny."

The doctor grimaced, then nodded. "That's what I figured. You can have him back the day after tomorrow, Clint."

"Aw, doc, c'mon! I gotta get back to work!"

"Glen, if I could trust you to be intelligent about this, I'd release you tomorrow. But I can't, I don't and I won't. You know this as well as I do. We've got to get your fluid volumes back to normal and your red count somewhere at least close to normal. Day after tomorrow, and if you give me any trouble about it, I'll tack on another day."

Clint started to laugh, grinning at the attending physician. Then her turned to me.

"You better behave yourself, little boy, or you'll never get out of here."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

He did keep me an extra day. They got my fluid level back up, but they couldn't get my red count anywhere near normal. So, I spent the third day with bags of platelets being poured into my arm. Doc West came by that evening. He looked at the latest set of blood work and told me I could leave the next morning. They took the IV out, but he wanted me to rest one last light. He even told the charge nurse

that I was not to be disturbed. That was nice.

When I got back to the zoo, things weren't going quite as well as Clint had let on. Jackson glass was working on the installation, and that was going to be solid. There wouldn't be any concern about the glass breaking. What worried me was the condition of the floor. In one corner, it appeared to be rotting. I told Clint it needed to be replaced. He called maintenance and they came in and did a horseshit patch job. When I told them it wouldn't hold up, they just blew me off. I went back to my office and sent a report to the Director.

That same afternoon, he came over to visit. Clint and I took him to the king cobra enclosure and showed him our concern. He seemed to think it was good enough until I informed him that it wasn't going to hold up for long with a snake that weighed forty pounds or more.

The Director looked at me with obvious disbelief. He turned to Clint. "Is Sun King really going to weigh forty pounds?"

Clint nodded. "At least. Probably considerably more."

"How much do you think he will weigh?" Doctor Klein asked.

The Curator looked at me with a sigh. "He looked pretty healthy to me in the photos and the video they sent us. Good and stocky. I'd say somewhere between 45 and 60. That sound right to you, Glen?"

"Somewhere in there," I confirmed. "He's going to be a handful."

The maintenance department was in the next morning with a full crew. They replaced the entire floor, including the subflooring.

Sun King did arrive the next month. The cage was fully ready and Nagaroina was already in there waiting. They smelled each other briefly then went to separate corners. Naga just laid down, while Sunny decided to explore the entire enclosure.

He was magnificent. His color was better than the photos showed. He looked like a yellow crayon. Immediately upon his arrival, we had tubed him and anesthetized him. That allowed us to get the initial measurements safely. He weighed in at 53 pounds.

Clint was afraid that his 18 feet 21/4 inches would be just short of the record. We contacted St Louis and talked to Doctor Morton, their Curator of Reptiles. As Clint had suspected, Goliath measured 18 feet 4 inches. Sunny was close, but St Louis still held the record. Ah, well, he'd still be one hell of a draw. And Goliath was a brown-phase, so maybe we did have a sort of record.

Sunny had arrived in early April, mid-spring in Memphis, so he got acclimated during decent weather. By the time it started getting really hot, he was in a climate-controlled cage and perfectly content. Revenues shot through the roof. Throughout the summer, we were averaging about 500 people a day through the reptile house.

When the kids went back to school in late August, things slowed down. We were able to catch our breath and do some of the administrative work we'd been procrastinating on. As the first week of October approached, Doctor Klein announced we were going to have our annual picnic mid-month. It would be at Pine Lake Picnic Grounds, in the Shelby Forest State Park. Klein called to tell me and Clint that we were absolutely forbidden to leave the picnic area and go snooping around in the rattlesnake preserve. We both grumped about it, but he's the Director.

The picnic was a lot of fun. Pine Lake has a large picnic ground capable of holding some 300 people, if you're willing to rent three pavilions. We were.

There wasn't any beach area to speak of, but swimming wasn't one of the recommended activities here. Too many snakes and, over the past few years, alligators had turned up in the river. Boating was allowed and rentals were available. Fishing was popular.

There were wide open areas and plenty of soft ground with lush grass growth. It didn't take long until the volleyball nets were up. We couldn't always get enough people to play six on six, so four on four, and two on two were more common.

As the morning wore on, quite a few of the players started migrating towards the grills. Standard picnic fare, hotdogs, and hamburgers, but there's just something about outdoor charcoal grilling. We were going to go through a lot of both today.

I wasn't quite ready to eat, so I was playing a two-on-two co-ed match. My teammate was a girl from the accounting office, a really cute little brunette named Wanda. She had the reputation of being something of a wild child, but who cares when you're playing volleyball.

In the middle of the game, the girl on the other side made a really nice little dink shot. Neither of us was going to get it, but we both dove for it anyhow. Wanda landed on her back and I landed on top of her. I had just started to scramble off of her, stammering an apology, when she wrapped her arms around my back and gave me a big kiss. She tasted terrific and I hadn't been around a girl this way in quite some time. I very happily returned the kiss.

We were still in a lip lock when I heard some laughter and a strong male voice. "Alright, Morris, either get off her or get a room."

I looked up, seeing the Director looking down at us and a circle of others standing around grinning, chuckling, snickering or outright laughing. "Gee, Doctor Klein, there don't seem to be any rooms around here! What were we supposed to do?"

He stared at me with an exaggerated frown on his face, but it was obvious he was trying not to laugh. "Get your asses off the ground and get back to your volleyball game. Better yet, why don't you both get a dog or a burger and sit down where we can watch you?"

I got back to my feet, reaching down for Wanda's hand and pulling her up. She looked at the Director with an impish grin, then turned around, threw her arms around my neck, and gave me another penetrating kiss. The laughter got a little louder.

"Watson, get your butt over to those grills and get something to eat. We're not filming any pornos out here. Now move!"

Wanda reached for my hand and we headed for lunch.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Wanda spent that night with me, and the next night, and the night after that. She was a wild child, alright. I don't think I'd call her a nymphomaniac, but she didn't lack much. There weren't too many items on the sexual menu that she wouldn't sample. Come to think of it, I don't think there were any.

The age difference was a minor concern but, at twenty-eight, I wasn't exactly over the hill yet. Besides, as I said earlier, she tasted terrific, and I don't mean just her lips. After about three weeks, she moved in.

Clint warned me about her, telling me not to get too deeply involved.

I just shrugged. "I'm lonely, boss. She's a great kid, and she's a lot of fun. I'll take my chances."

He just shook his head. "Okay, but you've been warned."

I should have listened.

- - - - - - - - - -

About a week later, he walked into my office with a curious frown on his face. I just looked at him as he sat down on the other side of my desk.

"You know the Security Officer out at the Naval Air Station?"

"I've met him. Wouldn't say I know him. Why?"

"Do you think he's reliable?"

That was a strange question. I'd met Commander Geralt a couple of times. Never thought much of it. The guy was a Lieutenant Commander in the Navy. Couldn't exactly be too unreliable. Besides, as the Station's Security Officer, he had to go through a special type of psychological evaluation and some pretty stringent personal and lifestyle examinations. Yeah, I'd say he was reliable. "As reliable as you're gonna get," I replied. "Why? What's up?"

"He just called. Says he has a cobra loose in his back yard."

That got my attention. We saw a lot of strange things in our line of work, but cobras weren't a normal occurrence in Tennessee. "When did this happen?"

"Just a few minutes ago. He said he was going to call the police, but he figured we'd have a better idea of what to do about it."

That made sense. I bit at my lower lip, nodding. "Did he say what he saw?"

"Yeah. Said he had just started mowing his yard when he saw something moving in the grass. He took a couple steps toward it and it reared up and spread a hood. He headed inside and called us."

"Could he describe it?"

"Not really. General size and color but no patterning. If it is a cobra, sounds like an Indian, not an Egyptian."

"Okay. Want me to go check?"

"Yeah. Take the truck and take the kid with you. This will be a good experience for him. And take your sidearm."

I carried a weapon any time we had to deal with a dangerous snake in a potentially dangerous situation, such as in public. I was licensed for it, and had to attend safety courses, gun law courses and target practice every six months or so. My sidearm was a little Bersa Thunder.380, basically a cut down 9mm. Fairly small round, but good enough for what I did with it. I didn't use snake shot, as that would tear up the barrel in no time. Besides, I was a good shot.

'The Kid' was Jeff Washington, short for Jefferson. If his parents intended it as some kind of practical joke, it wasn't very funny. Jeff hated his full name. He was a twenty-two-year-old African American studying zoology at Memphis State, same as I had. He'd taken the current semester off to serve an internship with us. Didn't care what job we gave him, he just did it. That was a good attitude, as a lot of working in a zoo was far from glamorous. We inventoried the gear in the truck and headed out.

"You ever use a snake loop?" I asked.

He nodded. "A few times. I'm better with the grip-stick."

I told him what we were going after and his eyes got wide. "You serious, man?"

"That's what Clint told me. You ever work with a wild cobra?"

"Uh uh. That's outside my level of experience. Ain't so sure it's in my job description."

That made me laugh, and I turned an approving smile on him. "Alright, let's call this OJT. You handle the loop and the stick; I'll handle the bucket. You up for that?"

"Sure."

The drive to the Commander's house took a bit more than half an hour. He lived in an affluent suburb just northwest of Memphis. His house was in the back of a large subdivision, sitting in a cul-de-sac. We pulled in to find a Raleigh Police unit and two DNR Ranger squads waiting for us.

"Glad to see you guys," the officer smiled. "Anne Harrison. This is a bit beyond me."

"You see it?" I asked.

"Yeah," she confirmed. "It's back there. Doesn't seem to want to move. Just wants to be left alone."

"That's about right," I assured her. "Cobras are territorial and defensive. This one's got to be very nervous. Nothing about this area will seem natural to it." I looked to my right and accepted the bucket that Jeff handed me. It was fairly large, with a locking lid. He had the rods in his hands. "You ready?" I asked. He just nodded.

"Okay, officer. Lead the way."

She took us around the side of the house. When we reached the back, we saw the rangers. They were on either side of the yard, making sure nobody got curious. She pointed to our right and we followed her into the grass.

About twenty yards in, she stopped, holding out her arm to stop us. "There," she said, pointing to a dark shape basking in the warm sunlight.

I pulled a coin out of my pocket and flipped it at the figure. Immediately, a long, cylindrical form lifted out of the grass. The snake faced us, hissed, and spread a hood.

"Jesus," Jeff whispered.

"What do you think?" I asked him.

He paused for a moment, studying the animal. His lips were pursed as he nodded. "Looks to be Naja naja. Head's too small to be haje. About four, four and a half feet. It's a little thin, but there's a bulge near the ground. May have found a rodent here in the yard."

I folded my arms across my chest, staring at the alert animal. It didn't look angry, just very interested in what was happening. Jeff's observations were right on. I think he had it nailed. "I agree. Wonder how it got here."

Turning back to the police officer, I told her, "We're going to try to catch it now. If either of us gets bitten, just stand by. If one of us falls, shoot it."

She looked at me with a sober expression, then pulled her sidearm. "Be careful."

"Count on it. Okay, Jeff. I'll distract it, you loop it."

It worked like a charm. The snake turned to watch me. Jeff dropped the loop over its head, pulling it tight just at the base of the neck. Before the cobra could react, he had the grip stick on the center of its body. He released the loop and moved toward the waiting carrier.

I backed away while he lowered the animal into the bucket, then moved forward to place and fasten the lid. The snake didn't fight us, curling into a tight loop at the bottom of the pail. I looked at Jeff and gave him a thumbs up. He just grinned at me.

"Wow," said the officer, holstering her weapon. "That was something else. Does it always go that smoothly?"

"Not hardly," answered another voice. I looked up as Lieutenant Davis of the DNR extended his hand. "Good to see you, Glen. Who's your associate?"

Introducing the pair, I intoned, "Jeff Washington, this is Lieutenant Davis, Department of Natural Resources. You'll likely work with him occasionally. He's stationed over at the rattlesnake preserve."

The pair shook hands as the second ranger joined us. "This is Mike Dennis," Davis told us. "He works out of the preserve, too."

We were all talking about the cobra when Commander Geralt walked out into the yard. A round of introductions followed, after which he turned to me.

"What was it? That really a cobra?"

"Yep," I confirmed, "an Indian Cobra. I'm glad you got away from it. These things aren't aggressive, but their bite is strictly bad news."

"What's it doing in Tennessee?"

Lieutenant Davis pointed at the rising back yard, which sloped away for almost fifty yards. It was quite a bit higher than the ground on which we now stood. "Other side of this rise," he revealed, "is the Raleigh/Frasier Mall. They have a Pier One Imports. I'll lay odds that if we go over there, we'll find a shipping crate with some broken wood on the sides or bottom."

"This happen before?" the Raleigh officer asked.

Davis nodded. "A couple times. Can't really blame the store owners because their shippers are careless, but we can't have dangerous animals coming in, either. Last spring, it was a mongoose."

"Oh, yeah," I smiled, "I remember that. We still have her."

"Are mongeese dangerous?" the officer asked.

"Mongoose is the singular and the plural," I chuckled. "They bite, although they're not really aggressive. They're relatives of the cat family. But they aren't pets. Too unpredictable. Their bite can lead to serious infections, especially rabies. There have been fatal bites."

"Is that what makes them so dangerous?" Commander Geralt asked.

"The real danger is to the ecology. They don't have any natural enemies here, although I expect hawks and owls might try. Problem is that they have voracious appetites, and their favorite food is snakes. On the surface, that might sound good but, if they destroy too many of our native snakes, the rodent population will go through the roof. Then the disease vector goes nutzoid. If someone should ever lose a pregnant female, we've got problems."

"Well, if this happens again, especially with a snake, we're going to have to pull their business license. This is just too dangerous."

The Commander invited us in for a cup of coffee, but Jeff and I had to decline. We needed to get the cobra back to the zoo.

We locked the snake into the back of the truck. I tossed the keys to Jeff and climbed in on the passenger side. He looked at me. "I'll write the report," I told him. "You've done enough on this one. Good job, Jeff."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I was driving into work a couple of weeks later when my phone rang. Reaching for the center dash display, I touched the 'phone' button and answered. "Morning, Doctor Klein. What's up, sir?"

"Morning, Glen," came the answer. "How you feeling today?"

"Fine, sir. Yourself."

"Doing well. How far out do you think you are?"

"Probably 20 minutes, if the traffic stays the same."

"Okay. Could you please come directly to my office? I have a really full schedule today and I need to talk to you."

"Something wrong?"

"We'll talk about that when you get here. Coffee will be fresh and hot."

I chuckled at that. Everyone at the zoo knew I was a caffeine nut. A good cup of coffee in the morning was an amenity that I really enjoyed.

"Thank you, sir. I'll be there shortly."

The receptionist smiled as I walked into the Director's office. "Good morning, Doctor Morris. The Director is waiting for you. Go right in."

"Thank you, Norma, but it's just Glen, please. I'm not a PhD. Okay?"

She smiled again but didn't say anything. I knocked on the inner office door.

"Come on in, Glen," came the voice from inside. "Coffee's hot and ready."

Indeed, it was. Norma even remembered how I liked it, teaspoon of sugar, just a touch of cream. It was delicious. I sat down with a grin.