I had gone through the glass cases at the auction house once and came up empty-handed. When I passed by again, an auction-house assistant stood behind them.
Did you see anything interesting, I asked the man, who’s usually very good at spotting items that get past me. What about the turtle, he remarked.
I had seen the mounted animal, but I had breezed past it. I’d written several times in the past about mounted animals – from bats to snakes to bears to turkeys to an elephant foot made into an ashtray – so this small turtle didn’t strike me as much as seeing the mounted head of a black bear hanging on an auction-house wall for the first time.
It’s signed, he said. What? Now I was intrigued. Who signs a mounted animal like it’s a work of art?
From a glass case, the assistant pulled out the bottom half of a cardboard box that held the turtle. He took it out and turned it over. And there it was: something written in black ink on the bottom.
TAXIDERMY BY
DARAL & MARK
JACKWOOD
JULY 1971
Then the assistant directed my eyes to the stitching on the underside (or plastron) of the turtle. These taxidermists must have been pretty proud of their work. I wonder how many others sign their mounts.
The turtle was dusty and dirty from the top of its head to its spiked tail and spiky feet. Its eyes were wide open and, to be honest, it looked a bit anxious.
I aimed my cell-phone camera to get a few pictures of its face. Then I went around to the back of the turtle to get some shots.
What are you doing, the assistant asked, looking in astonishment at another auction-goer who stood next to me. Getting a photo of the two absentee bids, I said. Chuckling, he said he thought I was taking a picture of the animal’s butt – which he found quite strange.
We all laughed. I was actually getting photos of the two orange stickers affixed to the cardboard box. They represented absentee bids left by two people who really wanted that turtle – which I found out was a common snapping turtle.
