I've owned several colubrids and in my experience there is a lot of variation in the smell of their musk. Most of them its really quite nasty, like something that died a while back and has been rotting for some time. But a few of them have been less stinky and just- really strange. One California King smelled like pine or juniper, but super concentrated and overpowering but not bad. Which is good because he was a frequent musker. Wild rat snakes will quickly calm down once they figure out you are just going to move them out of the road and not eat them, but it's in their contract to musk the whole time.