I don’t know that it technically was a heist, but it felt like one. Is it illegal to rescue a rare plant from city property if the city is considering selling that land for development? The open space has been torn up by all-terrain vehicles that created rutted gullies, much rougher than the official marked hiking trail that runs along the edge of the bluff above the Rio Grande. The city wouldn’t sell the hiking trail, but they might sell the rest of the mesa. Despite the damage, it’s a cactus garden.
In the spring a few years back, I took to running in the gullies created by ATVs to escape the wind. As a result, I discovered an unusual, stubby little cactus with hot pink flowers and starry- patterned thorns. They were unobtrusive the rest of the year, and I could hardly find them when they weren’t in bloom.
Once the city decided they might sell the land. I worried about the little cacti. I put their picture on a New Mexico native plants website’s discussion board, and the unanimous reaction was “Save them!” Though not endangered, they’re rare and special. An expert in desert plants volunteered to rehome them to the arboretum she manages.
She drove all the way to T or C. We met on a road near the trail, I escorted her in, and she dug them up. I’d worried about how to do that, afraid I would hurt them or myself. She didn’t even use gloves, just stuck the shovel in the ground as if she could see through the soil to the exact span of the first plant’s roots, picked it up by those roots, and put it in a paper bag. Then she dug up the next one and laid it on its side on top of the first one’s bag in a plastic bucket with another bag on top. The third one was bigger, so I held a large tote bag open, and with flawless shovel management she slid the stoutest of the little cacti in.
As we returned to her car, the cactus I carried poked and scratched at my left leg through the plastic side of the tote bag, as if to say, what are you doing to me? I’ve lived here for years. We’ve been friends. You’ve admired me every spring, even brought me water once. What’s going on? How do you explain to a cactus that you’re trying to save its life in case its habitat gets razed for houses?
Anyway, off they went in bags and a bucket in the back of her car, and now they have a new home where rare desert plants are cared for and where visitors can admire them. I’m happy for these little cacti, even though I won’t see them on a regular basis anymore. I plan to visit them in the spring when they flower in their new home. And I will say no more about exactly where that is, in case this rescue really was a heist.
Amber Foxx Mysteries 