Day 50: It's been several years since I spotted the first head (top right) lodged in the crotch of a tree alongside the trail to Rainey Creek. With a playground nearby, I figured some critter or mischievous kid had stuck it there and didn't think anything more about it. Late last year or early this spring, I found the fuzzy guy (bottom right) wedged in his knot like Winnie the Pooh in Rabbit's doorway. I did not connect the two until yesterday when I found evidence of two more relatively fresh beheadings, one nailed six feet up a tree facing the trailhead, the other jammed onto the spike of a deteriorating post. Suddenly it occurred to me that there was a theme going on, and that no reasonable explanation was going to cover the purposeful placement of these items. The trail is most often frequented by hunters during bird season and occasional dog-walkers, and the trailhead is a popular drop-off point for the locals who feel they can't afford a trip to the dump, but the latter fails to explain the heads in any logical way, and the fact that they have been appearing over a period of years suggests that this is not the work of a child who surely by now would have outgrown the need to torment a younger sibling by sadistically mutilating their toys. The heads of Rainey Creek must remain a mystery, and one I hope never to resolve during my walks on the rambling paths.
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