When I first read these words, sent by the chief intepretive ranger at Organ Pipe, I thought it was a joke. The farewell volunteer banquet was scheduled for the 15th of March; all the staff would be dressed up in Italian or Roman garb, bringing Italian food; surely that's all that was meant by the Ides of March reference. Surely there wasn't any serious threat looming that day, casting dark shadows over us all. It wasn't until I looked at the chart showing the number of hours I'll have worked by March 15th that I began to suspect a darker portent: 666. Even then, with all the signs screaming to be seen, I could not truly comprehend the nightmare I was about to face...
March 18, 11 AM, Organ Pipe Campground:
The lamb was cute enough, I suppose. It bleated hungrily, following behind the nanny goat with whom it had somehow strayed, miles north of its home in Mexico. The two animals had already
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been wandering around the campground for several hours when I arrived, coming down from the neighboring hills into the campground. The campground fee collectors asked for my help, so I did my best to lure the animals with a bowl of water. After draining several gallon-jugs, they finally let me get close enough to slip a dog leash around the goat's neck. The lamb was too young to do anything but follow after the goat, and it was easy enough to slip it into an animal carrier. With a little bit of maneuvering, we were able to get the goat into the back seat of a ranger vehicle, and soon we were on the road, taking the two animals back to Mexico. We had no way of tracking down their true owners, but one of the rangers had a friend in Mexico who was all too happy to receive two free animals. Leaving the two animals on the south side of the fence, surrounded by laughing children, I reflected that it had all gone rather smoothly. But then, as I told the ranger, capturing a lamb was fairly simple, after the bobcat.3 days earlier: It was on Beverly and Luther, two of the volunteers for the Resource Management Division, that the heavy hand of fate first fell. Forced to leave a month earlier than anticipated, a few hours later their RV was packed up and they'd hit the road, to Ajo. Before they headed back to Ohio, though, we decided to meet one more time for a farewell dinner, in Mexico. The next day, we were just piling into the cars, when Charles, one of our biotechs, announced that he had a tiny itty-bitty little errand to take care of in Sonoyta, before we went to the restaurant, and would we like to tag along? Earlier that day, it seems, he got a call from a friend in the Mexican park service, that 'un gato silvestre' had been captured in a high school down there, and could he please come take it somewhere that it would be safe? "A mountain lion???" "No, no, más pequeño." "Oh, a bobcat, okay." So, with Beverly, Luther, Ami (the other biotech), and Ernie (my housemate, a cultural resources intern), we went down to Mexico. I was rather nervous about Ernie coming along on a wildlife protection mission, given his response to the bark scorpion hiding behind the bathroom cabinet earlier that day (without going into too much detail, let's just say that a can of cooking spray and a lighter had featured heavily in his methodology).
Anyway, we arrived at the high school to find the bobcat trapped safely in a large cage behind
the cafeteria (best not to ask why they had a cage handy in that particular spot...). So, as Charles explained, all we had to do was reach into that cage, wrap the cat in a blanket, and transfer it to an animal carrier that could be put in the back of our car. "Your worker's comp is going to cover this, right?" "Quiet." Pushing a broom through the cage to keep the cat pinned, Charles grabbed the blanket, and began to reach into the cage. All seemed to be going well, until we realized, at the same time the cat did, that in the process of doing all this, we had somehow tilted the cage up, leaving it open at the bottom. In a streak of tawny fur, it was out and racing across the parking lot. We, meanwhile, were frantically trying to dodge out of its way as it careened off Ernie's shins, BETWEEN MY LEGS, and away. The Mexican high school students, on the other hand, in an impressive mix of raw courage and sheer insanity, were chasing after the bobcat and trying to grab its tail. It spun back around in the direction it had come from, dodging another student before getting smacked in the side with the broom, at which point Charles leapt on top of it with the blanket, successfully pinning it to the ground. Bringing the animal-carrier closer, he 
then began to transfer the bobcat in, narrowly averting disaster a second time, when he discovered that rather than shoving the cat into the carrier, all he was moving was the blanket, and that the animal's head and front claws were now uncovered, and inches from his face. "Aaaah!" He wrapped the bobcat in the blanket again, and this time stuffed the entire pile into the carrier. 15 minutes later, we were past the city limits and in what looked like an acceptable feline territory, and we quickly dumped the bobcat out. It staggered into the bushes to lick its wounds, and we went back to Sonoyta for dinner.Two days later, we would be pulling the lamb out of the same carrier, and returning to Organ Pipe. And it was at that point, talking to the rangers, that I mentioned the other interesting event that had occurred that morning.
Hiking up the Twin Peaks, over to the campground, I was surprised to hear voices at the top ridge of the hill. I paused, listening, and a moment later, a young Mexican man, clearly a scout for the drug cartels, stepped out, holding a radio. "What are you doing here?" he asked me (in Spanish, obviously).
"Hiking."
"Where are you going?"
"To the campground. And you? What are you doing?"
"I'm working," he said.
Then, polite as you please, he asked me to tell people in the campground not to come hiking up in these hills, since they're working here.
"Oh, okay, sure, thanks." Sorry, I wouldn't want to distract you from your DRUG SMUGGLING in MY NATIONAL PARK.
Prick.
No, actually, he seemed like a nice enough guy, who was probably just trying to earn extra money to feed his family, and I'm sure if we met in a bar somewhere, we would get along fine. I still reported him though. It's a matter of principle, after all. The next day the rangers went up and busted him and his partner, and handed them over to Border Patrol. That afternoon, Mary, my supervisor, reminded me that I'm not supposed to go hiking up in those hills, since there's drug scouts up there. Grrr.... That's the same thing the scout told me! Don't you see, if we stop hiking up there, we're letting the terrorists win!
It wasn't until the next day, though, that I finally felt the full effect of the week's dark portents. Walking into the kitchen to make a batch of cookies, I opened the cabinet and discovered, to my horror, that all my worst fears were realized: I was out of chocolate chips.
"No! No! No! Damn you, Ides of March! Damn you!!!"
Ciao,
Nathan
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