Raised By Squirrels, Iowa's Feral Children

     "Well, yes, Abigail, but the problem is Jonathan doesn't want them."

     "Them? How many are you trying to adopt?"

     "Someone has to care for these six children."

     "Six! Delores, I never took you for one to jump on a trendy bandwagon. Couldn't you try just one and see how you like it?"

     "I'll come to talk both of you out of it."

     "No, Abby, these children are a family. I can't break them up. They've been through so much already...You see, they were---raised by squirrels."

     Now, this was really too much. I thought my poor niece had finally lost her marbles. I packed my bag and sped down Interstate 80 from Des Moines to the southwest corner of Page County, fully prepared to sign the commitment papers.

     Upon arrival I saw a banner across Main Street sporting crudely drawn squirrels in diapers. Between them were large letters proclaiming: Tarkio, Home of the Squirrel Children! Had my niece's mania spread to the entire town? I stopped at the Get 'n Gone and had the boy fill my Edsel with petrol. As he polished the grill I asked him what he knew of these squirrel babies.

     "Well, I seen 'em myself, cost me a quarter, but the price is up to a dollar now that them people at the orphanage has 'em. They took 'em from the guy who found them, out by the railway bridge over the West Tarkio River. Nate Berry. He's a hobo. Them poor babies. I ain't crazy about my mama, but at least she ain't no squirrel."

     Now I thought I had it figured out. Some smooth talking railway bum had stolen six infants, and upon capture he spun this insane narrative to cover his despicable tracks. I imagined he was sitting in the hooskow right now awaiting his court appearance on six charges of kidnapping. I said as much to the boy.

     "No ma'am. He's over at the court house, but he ain't up on charges. He's trying to sue the whole county for stealing his property. He says he found 'em, he should get to keep 'em. 'Specially since he killed their little squirrel parents!"

     "Which way to the court house?"

     I promptly headed the courthouse to discover exactly what my niece had gotten herself embroiled in. Upon arrival I saw a disheveled and heavy set man shouting at a thin man in horn rimmed glasses.

     "I killed the damn squirrels! You can't just hand them over to Dolores DuChamps!" Here he squinted and pointed his finger accusingly in the thin man's face, "Now, them rodents fought me like the dickens over them kids and bit me like I was a walnut! For all I know, I got rabies saving them kids! I ought to get something out of it! I was gonna take them on the road, show them to people all over the world! Ain't travel good for kids? If they gotta be adopted, then why can't I adopt them?"

     The man in glasses answered, "Nate, this ain't the turn of the century anymore, we you can't run a traveling freak show, making the folks pay a quarter to see six little kids in a cage full of acorns! Now can't you get that through your head? They ain't your property and you can't sue us for putting them in public custody!"

     "What the hell are you doing with them, Mayor? You got them in the front room of the orphanage and people are lined up around the block paying a dollar to peek at them! Ain't that the same thing but at a 75% markup?"

     "Nate, its only temporary. When the orphanage was condemned it had its funding cut off. We gotta do something to pay for heating the place. And we ain't charging admission! It's only a suggested donation and people are happy to give it to help offset costs!"

     "If you tell them what to give, and they pay it, that's admission! You got that shriveled old hen, Gladys Mueller, giving them her eye! Hell, they're afraid not to pay!"

     "I ain't got time to argue with you, I wanna go see them squirrel babies myself. They stop letting people through the door at 6:00."

     Nate shouted at his back, "You goddamned government drones are all the same! You sit like vultures waiting for a poor man to find or invent something that's worth a damn and then you take it right away before he ever has a chance! Bastards."

     The Mayor waved without looking, "You're lucky you ain't in jail, Nate. Count your blessings!"

     After I recovered from overhearing their conversation, I introduced myself to the drunk. When I asked to hear the story of the Squirrel Babies, he said a ten dollar bill would compensate him for the trouble. When I gave him a twenty, he whooped, "Lady, for Andy Jackson, I would walk through the fires of Hell. You get the Grand Tour!"

     Nate took my hand led me to the orphanage. True to Nate Berry's assertions, Gladys Mueller did frighten a dollar out of me. Battery acid has a far sweeter disposition. Nate waited outside, saying he'd not pay to see his own property. Gladys opened the curtain on a large room where a litter of six children no more than 10 months old scampered about at a frantic pace on all fours, chittering and jabbering exactly like squirrels. I have to admit I was astounded. Gladys came up from behind and hissed through her teeth, "We got them taking milk from bottles, finally, but they prefer soft fruit and field corn. And beechnuts. God, they go crazy for beechnuts. They ain't got the chompers to break them open themselves. They cry until we bust open the nuts for 'em. Gives me the willies."

     I had to admit to an unsettling feeling myself, but it had more to do with my niece bringing these children to my house for Christmas dinner.

     My tour guide took me to the railway bridge where he discovered the children.

     As we got closer to the trestle, a rat took a flying leap into a sparkling, crystalline river. The image brought to mind the freedom, carelessness, and innocence most of us associate with a normal childhood. A stark contrast to the plight of not only these six abandoned children but the growing number of rootless tikes in America's urban centers, and now even rural Iowa. Nate shattered my reverie by hurling an expertly aimed rock at the animal in the water. "Rats," he said, "I hate them. Squirrels with naked tails."

     The railway tramp pointed to a cranny under the bridge, and I could see hundreds of squirrels darting crazily around the rusting metal of the railway supports. "That's where I found the kids. Up there in the hidey hole place. They were crying and stuff, but when I tried to get them down they just threw nuts at me. Then these two white squirrels started attacking me. I broke the neck on the one and smashed the other one into the cement wall there until it stopped moving. Then the kids started hollering in some kind of squirrel language, and they attacked me too, like I'd killed their parents or something. Exactly like that. That's when I realized those kids were being raised by squirrels, and that was something I could probably parlay into a few hunnert dollars."

     "Where did the children come from? Who do you suppose abandoned them?"

     "Well, that is what the whole town would like to know. I looked around all over these woods and there is a little cabin back a way over there. Somebody used to live in it, but they don't anymore. There is a bunch of cigar butts and empty beer cans; used to be a lock on the door, too, but that's all gone now."

     He took me to the dilapidated hovel. I noticed right away that the windows had been nailed shut and there were all the signs of occupation. There was also quite abundant evidence in the form of nut shells and human feces that it had been a more recent home to several children and a squadron of squirrels. I began to feel extremely unsettling vibrations, sensations of imprisonment and hopelessness. The back yard beckoned me; I went. Nate sputtered after me, a terrible nuisance now that my divination abilities were kicking in.

     As regular readers are well aware, various police departments throughout the state have employed me to assist with "unsolvable" crimes. I was now certain that here lay a series of truly horrible crimes committed in this place...and had not only gone unreported, but wholly unnoticed by the local constabulary.

     Spying a shovel propped against the back wall of the house, I instructed Nate to employ it where the emanations of suffering flowed up like a geyser of spiritual pain. It took Ulysses S. Grant to induce my accomplice to manual labor. In a short time, esteemed Mr. Berry had unearthed the mortal remains of a young girl no more than twenty. We hastened to the authorities and a murder investigation sprang into action.

     In the end, I could not dissuade my niece from adopting the children. Enraged over the matter, her husband left her. Although he changed his name and moved to Kossuth County, police soon arrested him on charges of kidnapping, rape, murder, and child abandonment. As it turns out, the investigating officers discovered several large bottles of prescription medications and discarded syringes in the kitchen of the hovel. The bottles contained Urofollitropin, a follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) used to treat infertility. Each carried on its label, was the name of my niece, Delores DuChamps. A DNA test soon proved the squirrel children were fathered by her own husband!

     When the coroner identified the young woman's body as Louisa Marie Pelincott, a pretty teenager from the neighboring town of Snow Hill, the pieces of the puzzle fell together. Louisa was on the Snow Hill Wrestling Cheerleading Team and was first reported missing shortly after a meet held in Tarkio City in November of 1996. Robert DuChamps was the wrestling coach for Tarkio. He had become infatuated with Louisa and kidnapped her to make her his love slave. When she resisted his attentions, he decided that if she became pregnant, she would happily accept him in her heart. He stole substantial portions of his wife's fertility medications and forcibly injected into Louisa. Detectives also found several bottles of powerful sedatives at the scene.

     When Louisa did become pregnant, he insisted she bring the pregnancy to term. After what must have been a horrific ordeal of giving birth to six children in a tiny shack in the woods with no one but a wrestling coach to assist, Louisa died. It is yet to be determined if the death was a result of complications brought on by the medications, the childbirth itself, at the hands of Robert, or self inflicted. Regardless of how she died, after her death Robert had no further interest in the children and abandoned the babies to their fate in the woods.

     Kindly squirrels, who had been Louisa's only companions during those months of captivity, adopted the babies and raised them. When the babies were old enough, they were apparently led by the squirrels to the main community hutch at the bridge. There, Nate Berry found them. The rest is now my family history.