The Cobra Of Oneida County

Dennis Kozlowski fancied himself to be the most interesting man in Oneida County. His family’s parcel sat amongst a group of dairy farmers on a small chain of lakes in Sugar Camp, Wisconsin. Koz took pride in explaining its history to any unsuspecting barstool occupant who wandered too close. Affectionately referred to simply as “Koz” the entire town had heard his stories. Ordering a pint with a side of Koz’s tales had become a right of passage. His greatest hits were known far and wide - the “Route to Australia” being a favorite opening number, especially for those travelers just passing through.

“Yessir, it’s true,” he’d exclaim. “Not only can you sail all the way to Australia from this here chain of lakes, but I can prove it to you.” 

At this point, Koz would unfurl a map of the Sugar Camp estuaries that he kept on him at all times, using his finger to trace a route from his family’s farm on tiny Sand Lake to where it ran into the Chippewa River 40 miles west. 

“From there, it’s a hop and a skip til you hit the mighty Mississippi. That’ll carry you all the way down to Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico. Then you’ll just sail down through the Panama Canal and into the South Pacific Ocean, and BAM! You’re petting Kangaroos.”

Travelers and tourists alike would be mesmerized while locals chuckled and rolled their eyes. After his tale was done, he’d of course offer the traveler a room at the “Sand Lake Bed & Breakfast” so that they too might get a taste of this entry point to the world for a small fee. 

He made his living telling tales to the seasonal travelers and truckers who passed through the sleepy forested town. The family farm hadn’t been in operation for several decades and even when it had been it struggled to turn a profit. Of course, this could be explained by another infamous Koz story where his great-great-grandfather Josiah Kozlowski reneged on a deal with a Menominee Chieftain who cursed their land to be haunted by the spirits of fallen tribesmen for all eternity.

Koz would always lower his voice and lean in as he’d tell it. “Some nights in the dead of winter you can still hear the war cries of the Menominee. Objects cast across rooms without touching them, footprints in the snow half an acre long. Puts a chill in my bones just thinking of it.” Predictably, a pitch for the Menominee Ghost Tours would come next and paranormal enthusiasts would pay a fee to tour the “haunted” grounds. 

Koz was a dreamer, a schemer, a performer with no stage. He loved the little slice of heaven that his family had bequeathed unto him and would do whatever he could to keep and share it with the world. 

Suffice it to say, no one in town was particularly surprised when he first came up with the idea for the legendary Muskarella. The way he tells it, Koz was fishing out on the lake in the dead of winter as he did every Saturday. 

“I drilled through the ice and set the line, waiting for a small bass or musky to take the bait, but it was as quiet as ever. Just before I packed to leave, I saw the line go taut, and the reel went berserk. I jumped up and tried to grab the pole but it was no use – whatever had bitten down was too much. The rod snapped right there in my hand and wedged itself across the hole. The ice began to crack and that’s when I saw it. Passing right under my feet, a beast of otherworldly proportion - hand to God if it wasn’t 50ft long and 5ft wide.” The first time he told it, most of the locals scoffed. And that’s when Koz would remove from his pocket a set of two sharpened teeth, nearly six inches long.

“Once I finally came to my senses and picked up the line, this was all I found.” They looked just like musky teeth - after all, Oneida County was the musky capital of the world. Only these were gargantuan, menacing, unlike anything that anyone had seen before. 

The performance sparked a fervor immediately and fierce debates from skeptics and believers alike. Yet every time someone raised a doubt, Koz would produce another artifact – a severed fin, giant eggs, a missing pet from a neighbor’s yard. The whole charade had reached a fever pitch the following summer when a group of “marine biologists” from the University of Wisconsin arrived with fancy sonar equipment to scan the lake. The townsfolk gathered to watch with bated breath and nearly gasped when the scientist’s screen emitted a loud BEEP. There it was. The evidence was irrefutable. There was indeed something in Sand Lake. It didn’t matter that the scientists were paid actors because Koz knew the only truth that mattered was a good story. And with that, the legend of ol’ Muskarella was born. 

The attention was unprecedented, to say the least. News outlets from around the world rolled into town, interviewing locals about their supposed run-ins with the beast. Merchandise, boat tours, and restaurants sprouted up overnight to capture the pandemonium. Thousands of travelers would make the pilgrimage every month to Sand Lake, paying a pretty penny to catch a sight of the legendary Muskarella. Books, tv shows, and documentaries all came out simultaneously. By the time the animated film was released, the transformation of the town was nearly complete. The boom in tourism had evolved the quaint mom-and-pop stores on Main Street into high-end retailers, with Disney owning half the block. 

The richest among them was none other than Dennis Kozlowski himself – keeper of the Muskarella myth. Having made more money than he could spend in a lifetime, Koz spent most of his days staring into a bottle - for there were no more stories he could tell and no one he could tell them to. There were no more brisk Saturday morning ice fishing trips, or Summer naps out on the canoe. Just an amusement park dedicated to the character of his own creation and the polluted waters of Sand Lake to remind him of what once was.  

Sometimes, he’d drink so much that he’d let the truth slip. “I made it all up!” he’d cry, “It was all a big joke! A sham! I swear it!” But Koz knew they would never believe him, for a good story can always devour the truth. 

One evening a tourist, out for an evening stroll, stumbled across old Koz with his face lying in the dirt near a campfire with half a bottle of bourbon at his feet. The man hurried over and helped prop him up against a nearby tree. In return, Koz offered the bottle and the two strangers listened to the crackle of the fire as they passed the whisky. The deafening silence was only broken by Koz’s shallow weeping. Through tearful eyes and drunken slurs, Koz finally told the kind stranger the whole truth - of how he staged the artifacts, hired the scientists, even how he kidnapped the neighbor's dog - all of it.

 “Please you must believe me,” Koz pleaded. “There is nothing in that Lake!” 

After several moments, the man laughed heartily and patted Koz on the back before taking another swig. 

“Of course there is!” he exclaimed with a thick accent. “You’ve got yourself a cobra mate.”

Koz was puzzled. 

“A cobra? Muskarella is supposed to be a fish.”

“Nah mate, it’s a cobra.” The man took a swig of bourbon and sat forward. “You see, back when the British controlled India, the whole place was overrun with venomous cobras - nasty buggers. So the government offers up a bounty - six pence for every dead cobra. Brilliant right? Except these clever lads start breeding them for the reward. When the Brits find out, they scrap the program. So the cobras are set free and their population booms. Don’t ya see? You built yourself a bloody huge cobra mate!” 

He hands the bottle back to Koz who eyes the man curiously.

“Where’s that accent from?” he asks.

“Same place as me. Melbourne, Australia.”

Koz smiled for the first time in years and pulled out the map that he still kept in his back pocket. 

“Well mister,” Koz grinned as he laid the map across his lap. “Let’s get you home.”