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Chapter 17
"I don't know about this Spearfish Lake of yours," Gerjevic said. "Would there be a lot of favorable habitat for this snake outside of the sewer system?"
"It's pretty swampy, especially south of town, and off to the north a ways," Pam said. "I haven't exactly spent a lot of time out in the swamps looking for water snakes, but I've never seen one that's marked much like this one. I think if I had, I'd have picked up on it."
"John?"
"Me, either. It'd be a good habitat for them, but there's a hell of a lot of area that you'd have to go through with a fine-tooth comb if you're looking for them. This is the wrong time of year, anyway. Most water snakes are going to still be curled up under some log,
zonked out."
"This one obviously wasn't," Gerjevic said. "Sewers are usually down pretty deep, and you'd expect that they'd be a little warmer than the outside. You've got a warmth source, a food source, and an air source, and probably not a lot of predators. It sounds like the sort
of environment where an isolated species could find a niche."
"I think that's been demonstrated," Pam replied.
Pacobel reflected on how college had changed the young brunette. When she'd been in school, snakes had been about number 107 on her priority list, if it had been there at all. Now, she was even beginning to sound like this tall, bearded herpetologist, and maybe even
think like him. There had been a window of opportunity with her, once upon a time, and he had taken advantage of it, but now it was probably closed. Well, that was life. Everybody changed. "It doesn't really matter," he said. "The fact that it came out of the sewer meant that it
had been in the sewer. It sure seems to me like it needs further investigation, but what's the next step?"
"Good point, John," Gerjevic replied. "Actually, what I think we should do next is to notify the Fish and Wildlife Service. They're the ones that actually administer the Endangered Species Act, and if there's even a possibility that this snake is a nathrex sipedon gibsoni,
then they would be the ones with the authority to take whatever means necessary to protect it."
"At least until it can be defined that there is a colony of them living in the Spearfish Lake sewer," Pam added."
"That's an interesting question all by itself," Gerjevic said. "Obviously, some one is going to have to go look for them. There might be some emergency grant money available, perhaps from the Fish and Wildlife Service, perhaps from one of the environmental
associations. You're still looking for a project for this summer, aren't you, Pam?"
"My grant applications got shot down one by one," she admitted. "It was beginning to look like I'd have to flip burgers somewhere this summer."
Gerjevic smiled. "Well, if you don't mind spending the summer at home, perhaps we can find some last-minute money. If you don't turn up any more of these, then it'll be kind of a negative result, and there wouldn't be much in it except the field experience. Of course,
if you do, it will make quite a research report. I can't spend the summer there, but I could get up there a couple of times to consult with you."
"It would be nice," Pam agreed. "It's been a long time since I've been able to spend much time at home."
Pacobel's ears perked up. Maybe there was a chance to renew the old relationship, after all. Something seemed strange about Gerjevic, anyway, but Pacobel couldn't quite put his finger on it. He was kind of a queer duck; perhaps that was is. Maybe he was a little
swishy. But how did Pam fit in? It didn't matter. If she was going to be home for the summer, then there were all sorts of possibilities. "I don't know that I can put a lot of time into it, off the cuff," he said, "But I'd be willing to help where I can. One thing we've got to think about
is if they really are living in the sewers. We'll have to inspect those lines, somehow. They're not big enough to get down into, so we'd probably have to get some company that does TV inspections of sewers."
"Good idea, John," Gerjevic said. "We'll have to be sure to write something into the grant proposal for that. Do you have any idea of how much that would cost?"
Pacobel shook his head. "No idea," he said. "Although I would think that it wouldn't be cheap. I wouldn't even have any idea of who to ask that does such stuff. I probably could ask the sewage plant superintendent. He probably would know, or probably the local one
here would, too."
"This is a little strange to me," Gerjevic said. "I guess I don't know too much about such things." He yawned, and looked up at the ceiling of the herpetological lab. "It's Saturday, and there's no point in trying to contact the Fish and Wildlife Service much before
Monday, and then, since they're a government agency, it will take a while before anything can get done. They'll probably want to send someone out from their office to do a preliminary assessment before they decide to do a thorough study, so that will give Pam and I a little while to
lay some groundwork before we start preparing grant applications."
"Is there anything we can do about this storm sewer separation?" Pam asked.
"The Fish and Wildlife Service will be the first step to that, too," Gerjevic said. "They'd have to be the ones to declare it a threatened habitat."
"There's a little time," Pacobel said. "This whole thing is in the talking stage right now. All I know is what I read in the paper, but I get the impression that there might be a couple of years before they get the funding and get started on the project."
"Then, we've got time, but not a lot of time," Gerjevic said. "That's plenty of time for the area to be declared a threatened habitat."
"Well, all right," Pacobel said. "I guess it's worth the effort." He picked up the jar with the snake in it. "I guess I might as well be heading on back. It's a long drive."
Gerjevic looked alarmed. "You're taking the specimen with you?"
"I brought it," Pacobel said. "I wouldn't want it to get lost."
"You don't want to do that," Gerjevic replied. "The Fish and Wildlife Service will want to inspect it. We may have to forward it to them in Minneapolis."
Pacobel flipped a nickel in his mind. As long as he had control of the snake, he had some control of the situation. Perhaps there was a way a little of the grant money could be diverted his way. "I don't know," he said. "I think it belongs in Spearfish Lake."
"John," Gerjevic protested, "If the Fish and Wildlife Service comes here to inspect it it ought to impress them more and give us a better chance of getting a grant from them."
Oh, what the heck, Pacobel thought. He really didn't want to spend the summer mucking around in the swamp, getting mosquito bitten, or grubbing around in the city sewers, either. He was willing to spend a little time at it if Pam were part of the bargain, and being
complaint now might help her to be more compliant later. She hadn't exactly been a mink in the sack, anyway, but had been young and willing to learn, which had counted for a lot. "Well, I suppose you're right," he said. "The only thing is, I want a receipt that shows that I left the
snake with you."
"We can do that," Gerjevic agreed.
