The Tale of the Procyon Lotor

Not long ago, the tireless Viktor and I were exploring Fort Travis on Bolivar Island on the Texas Gulf Coast.

It is often the case with fortifications that once a good defensive spot has been chosen by one group of people, a fortification will be erected on that spot, put to use for a time, and then, after some years, another group of people will build a new fortification atop the site of the old, and so on and so on. So it is with Fort Bolivar.

It is a curious fort with several great earthen mounds, which I assumed hid underground and now quite inaccessible chambers. The fort in its current incarnation was constructed between 1898 and 1899, damaged in the 1900 Hurricane, repaired thereafter, and enlarged in 1942. It served as a garrison during both World Wars. It looks every bit its age.

The structure is protected by large, solid, and quite photogenic doors, constructed from massive sheets of steel with four mighty hinges.  The doors are enhanced with strange, target-shaped circles. Viktor and I were entranced by the palpable strength of these objects, and took copious photographs before continuing with a survey of the grounds.

Suddenly, a brief flash of movement caught my eye. Aroused, Viktor called out, "Einida, did you see that?" I had indeed seen something, but since I'd not been expecting to see a moving object in that setting, I had not been sufficiently alert and had failed to identify the fleeing object.

"Was that a raccoon?  But it was red! How could a raccoon be red?"

I could not reconcile these two apparently contradictory facts with my knowledge of zoology.

"I didn't even know such a thing existed! How curious. My mind is a whirl of questions."  Viktor's voice trailed off in cloudy confusion.

I, of course, gave chase to the mysterious creature. (Gentle Reader, I caution you--I am a trained professional, and so I discourage all amateurs from chasing after frightened wildlife.  It could end badly for those who are unskilled in the perilous arts of adventure.)

At any rate, I ran behind a row of cabanas with the stalwart Viktor close at my heels. We carefully and thoroughly searched every possible site for a possible raccoon nest. Did you know they can nest in trees? Did you know they can roost in trees? And what, you may ask, is the difference between nesting and roosting? Well, the former involves taking care of eggs, while the latter involves sleeping.

Raccoons are quite creative in their roosting habits. So I had to think like a raccoon: "If I were a raccoon, where would I roost?"

This led my thoughts off on a tangent--perhaps I could produce a line of bracelets bearing the initials "W.W.A.R.D.," for "What would a raccoon do?"-- but I soon remastered my thoughts and returned from the hazy realms of fancy and back into the rigid world of scientific fact and sound logic.

And so, Viktor and I studied the landscape from what we assumed to be a procyonidic mind-set and still came up with nothing.

It was then that I noticed a storm sewer. "Ah ha!  I daresay that the Rare Red Raccoon may have fled to yon storm sewer!"

I have it on good authority that urban raccoons "commute" to their food sources via storm sewers. So it seemed possible that our elusive friend could be scurrying underground towards her country roost, miles away in a tree somewhere.

Raccoons are cunning, and I imagined that Rare Red Raccoons are even more cunning than most. So, despite the very real possibility that our creature was long gone, we continued our search of areas close at hand.

In so doing I discovered a helpful display that showed the original layout of the old fort. The display challenged me to match random pieces of concrete, old metal, and foundation materials to their points of origin around the fort.

This was just the sort of attention distractor to which Viktor and I are particular vulnerable. And so we combined our goals, and elected to search for the raccoon as well as look for which component of construction material belonged in which spot.

I had passed the cabanas again when I heard a noise coming from within. "Hmm, how odd," I thought. "It is the dead of winter and it's highly unlikely that someone has rented this cabana for a reasonable $25.00 a night, or indeed for any price!"

"Viktor!" I whispered while waving and pointing my hands wildly. "I think there's something in there!"

"Do you want to knock? What if it's a vagabond? A raccoon? A renter en déshabillé?," he calmly asked.

"If it's a raccoon or a vagabond, they probably won't answer. If it's a renter, well, then, I shudder to think...."

"Curses!" Viktor ejaculated. "We have no time to waste on further mysteries, Einida. Our skittish friend has most likely retreated to her sylvan fastnesses, and I'm afraid we must do likewise, as the shades of evening are lengthening."

Days later, we recounted our story to our old friend, Dr. Henry Paget-Lowe, Professor of Cryptozoology, in the raccoon-free comfort of his library. He corrected our misinterpretation of the "Rare Procyon Lotor," stating that what we had seen was in fact an orange raccoon, a rare specimen created by genetic anomalies. He added that this type of raccoon is also referred to as being in a “rufous-phase” or “melanistic.”

Being thus enlightened, Viktor and I resolved that in future social gatherings we should endeavor to find conversational openings into which we can drop these new and hard-won additions to our vocabularies.