Meremec Caves, Missouri

A tourist ploy rumored these caves to be the secret hide-out of Jesse James. Hundreds of freeway billboards call to passing drivers to see the kitschy phenomenon. I chose to not go to those caves, instead opting for the state park of the same name, with a large, wet cave stripped of all strange artifacts. It did have a paved walkway, courtesy of FDR and the CCC.

Large caverns with the tips of their stalactites chipped off (for head-clearance) used for dancing in a bygone day. The only remnant of these activities, other than the chipped rocks (some whose white-bone centers still gleamed as though only exposed yesterday) was a carved-wooden head, hidden behind a rock that had one time been set up as a type of ghost-guardian of an ancient graveyard.

The woman who gave me the tour was in her early twenties. She had a pixie haircut, and her arms were covered in ivy tattoos. While I wanted her talk to be more adult-educational, I was satisfied with the facts she had learned to teach the various school groups who come through the caves. (She compared everything to a soda can, which many times lacked in accuracy. An adult has a broader range of simile objects that would explain the movement of water and carbon more clearly.) As I was the only one on the tour, we talked around many subjects about the woods, including bugs and spiders.

"I was once bitten on my back by a brown recluse," she said brightly. "Do you know what the bite does?"

Picturing the images I have seen on the web of flesh around such bites dying, flaking away to reveal the bone of an unfortunate man's hand, I said, "Yes, it makes the flesh die."

"That's right," she said, glancing at her hand, and I knew we had seen the same pictures on the Internet. Her's apparently didn't progress as bad as those bites, only causing a small amount of skin to turn grey and flake away when scratched.

When I first moved to Indiana, I had been looking for pictures of the recluse spider so I would know what to look out for. I knew about the "violin marking" but was always vague about the rest of the spider. I can pick a black widow out of a crowd, discretely covering her belly to try to hide her true nature, but a recluse is more elusive. Hence, my web searches which revealed the bites more than the spiders.

Later that day at Meremec State Park, I went on another hike, saw another cave, then broke camp for what I knew would be the last time on the trip. I had to go to the bathroom, and went to the camp restrooms rather than use mine (since I will have to think about emptying and winterizing soon). The first stall was filled with flies, the second was wet with muddy foot prints. The third seemed good, and after I sat down and looked ahead of me from the stool, I thought, "Ah, that is what a brown recluse looks like." Just like that, I knew it and could tell. It had made a web between the top of the stall door and the wall, and was hunched on the door hinge waiting for what might fall into its ugly, cottony web. It seemed to stare at me, the little violin shape on the throax, it's legs splayed out, with something of a slimy look to its texture.

I left the bathroom carefully, then told the rangers. They said I could keep it free of charge.