It turns out that Illinois ground squirrels (Spermophilus tridecemlineatus) exhibit the same signaling behavior that Aaron Matthews had observed in California ground squirrels (Spermophilus beecheyi). Matthews was the guy who gave the paper on rattlesnakes at La Paz, the guy who told me that no one knew quite what to make of squirrel “flagging.”
What happens is this: When confronting a rattlesnake—especially when defending its pups—the squirrel will raise its tail and wave it back and forth (flagging). I discovered that it’s also emitting an infrared signal by pumping more blood into its tail. It’s this signal that discourages the snake from attacking. How did I figure this out? With a lot of help from Cramer, I’d be the first to admit. Cramer and I trapped a lot of ground squirrels and caught a few rattlesnakes—some of the same ones we’d translocated—and got them together in the lab in a setup where the rattlesnakes could threaten the squirrels but couldn’t really get at them. Everyone knows that pit vipers are sensitive to infrared light—which is really radiant heat—but what no one knew was that squirrels were capable of sending out infrared signals. We tried this and that, and then I asked, “What if we used an infrared imaging camera to record each encounter?” That’s what we did, and we discovered that the squirrels were in fact emitting infrared signals. We still didn’t know why this particular infrared signal deters rattlesnakes, but we knew we were on to something, and we started generating hypotheses: We know, for example, that California ground squirrels will in fact harass rattlesnakes, kicking dirt at them and nipping at the snakes’ tails and moving their own tails erratically. We hadn’t observed this behavior in Spermophilus tridecemlineatus, but it was still early days. Our initial thinking was that the erratic movement of the tails causes them to heat up and give off more infrared radiation—possibly so much radiation that it overwhelms the rattlesnake’s infrared sensor. The problem with this hypothesis was that confronted with gopher snakes, the squirrels flag their tales without emitting an infrared signal. There’s no need for an infrared signal because gopher snakes are not pit vipers and therefore wouldn’t register the signal. How do the squirrels distinguish between the different kinds of snakes? What causes them to emit infrared signals in one case and not the other? And on and on, one question leading to another. And maybe that’s all you need to know for now.
My three rented timpani, which I kept till the last minute, have been returned to Thompson’s Music. This time I had a bottle of scotch on hand for Mr. Thompson’s men. The books—Claude’s and Jackson’s—have been carted off to the TF library; I have canceled Jackson’s subscriptions to the New Yorker and L’Avenir; the truck is packed, my route has been plotted by the Chicago Motor Club; my last suitcase is open on Jackson’s big library table, which I sold with the house.
I walk out to get the mail for the last time. Tomorrow’s mail will be forwarded to me care of the Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Maya races through the young corn, off leash, but when we get close to the road, I call her and put the leash on. Just in case. It’s been more than two years since Jackson left. I’ve tried to keep up with the news in L’Avenir, and you don’t have to know French very well to understand none of it has been very good. Where is Jackson now? Does he know how our world has changed? Does he know about the attack on the World Trade Center? About the war in Iraq? About the capture of Saddam Hussein? Has he survived the violence of the Second Congo War? Has he made his way into the depths of the Forest? Has he found his old girlfriend, Sibaku? Or his daughter?
I pause for just a moment before opening the mailbox. I’m still hoping for a letter. Some word from Jackson. I can’t help myself. But the mailbox is empty. I turn back and let Maya run free.
Joie de vivre.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my first three readers for their support and encouragement: Virginia (my wife), Henry Dunow (my agent), and Nancy Miller (my editor).
Special thanks to the following for reading the manuscript and offering suggestions: Larry Breitborde (anthropologist), Carol Chase (French professor), Jeremy Karlin (attorney), Mathys Meyer (herpetologist), Joanna Tweedy (writer and native of Little Egypt). And to the following for sharing their expertise: Ken Cramer, Dr. Robert Currie, Steve Gardiner, Joan Killion, Stephen Kotler, Nikki Whitaker Malley, Esther Pennick, and Jennifer Templeton.
The two stories that are intertwined (like two snakes) in Snakewoman of Little Egypt were prompted, or perhaps inspired, by Colin Turnbull’s The Forest People and Dennis Covington’s Salvation on Sand Mountain.
Sunny’s work on Illinois ground squirrels relied heavily on “Ground Squirrels Use an Infrared Signal to Deter Rattlesnake Predation” by Aaron S. Rundus, Donald H. Owings, Sanjay S. Joshi, Erin Chinn, and Nicholas Gianni. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 104, no. 36 (September 4, 2007).
“ ‘Fieldwork,’ Claude used to say, ‘is to anthropology what the blood of the martyrs is to the church.’ ” It was actually C. G. Seligman who proposed this striking analogy in a pamphlet published by the Department of Anthropology 1972–73 (London School of Economics, 1972): 4; quoted by I. M. Lewis in Religion in Context: Cults and Charisma (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986): 1.
The lesson that Sunny learned from Cramer—“that we share the room, that taking turns is important”—was adapted from Lisa Ress’s “Setting the Table, Eating What is Served,” which won the Word Works Washington Prize in 1987 and appeared in the March/April 1988 issue of Poets & Writers. The epitaph that Warren proposes for his own tombstone was prompted by a passage on page 11 of Thomas Nagel’s Mortal Questions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979.).
A Note on the Author
Robert Hellenga was educated at the University of Michigan, the Queen’s University of Belfast, the University of North Carolina, and Princeton University. He is a professor at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, and the author of the novels The Sixteen Pleasures, The Fall of a Sparrow, Blues Lessons, Philosophy Made Simple, and The Italian Lover.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
The Sixteen Pleasures
The Fall of a Sparrow
Blues Lessons
Philosophy Made Simple
The Italian Lover
Copyright © 2010 by Robert Hellenga
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address Bloomsbury USA, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
“As Befits a Man” from The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes by Langston Hughes, edited by Arnold Rampersad with David Roessel, Associate Editor, copyright © 1994 by the Estate of Langston Hughes. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.
“Precious Lord, Take My Hand” words and music by Thomas A. Dorsey © 1938 (Renewed) Warner- Tamerlane Publishing Corp. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Alfred Publishing Co., Inc.
“Jesus, Won’t You Come By Here?” written by Sam Hopkins © 1969 (Renewed 1997) Tradition Music (BMI)/ Administered by Bug Music. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard Corporation.
“Cake Walk Into Town” by Taj Mahal © 1972 (Renewed 2000) EMI Blackwood Music Inc. and Big Toots Tunes. All rights controlled and administered by EMI Blackwood Music Inc. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Used by permission. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard Corporation.
“The Last Thing On My Mind” words and music by Tom Paxton © 1964 (Renewed) United Artists Music Co. All rights controlled by EMI U Cata log, Inc. (Publishing) and Alfred Publishing Co., Inc. (Print) All rights reserved. Used by permission of Alfred Publishing Co., Inc.
Published by Bloomsbury USA, New York
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING- IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Hellenga, Robert, 1941–
/> Snakewoman of Little Egypt / Robert Hellenga.—1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-60819-262-5
1. College teachers—Fiction. 2. Illinois—Fiction. 3. Americans—Africa—Fiction. 4. Domestic fiction. I. Title.
PS3558.E4753S63 2010
813'.54—dc22
2010004164
First published by Bloomsbury USA in 2010
This e-book edition published in 2010
E-book ISBN: 978-1-60819-323-3
www.bloomsburyusa.com
Robert Hellenga, Snakewoman of Little Egypt
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