What if?

This is Chaco, the New Mexico kitten:

"Lynx Point Kitten"

I call him that because we found him in the middle of the road to Chaco Culture National Historical Park on our 2009 New Mexico trip. We’re not sure if he suffered a glancing blow from a car or if some critter got hold of him. The only injuries we could find were on his face, so we cleaned him up the best we could once we reached the park, using antiseptic wipes and Neosporin from the first aid kit the rangers were kind enough to offer. He was in shock so I wrapped him up in my fleece jacket, but he came out of it pretty quickly when he smelled our roast turkey sandwiches! The volume of his screams and the fact that he got up and started searching out the turkey led us to believe he wasn’t injured too badly. We made a nest for him in the back of our car and took him around the park with us all day. He was sooo good–napped most of the time.

I REALLY wanted to keep him, of course, even though Oliver might not have been too thrilled about it. Even Kevin liked him, although the volume and frequency of Siamese kitten screams shocked him.

The only residence anywhere near where we found the little guy was well over a mile away. We weren’t planning on stopping as we left the park and even passed the place by. We figured we didn’t want to return him to somebody who was careless enough to let him out for critters or cars to get him. But we weren’t sure what we’d do with him and we’d only have one day to figure it out before our flight home. Our host probably could have found a good home for him, but I doubt he would have been thrilled to see us come back with yet another animal–he already had four cats and three dogs as it was! And finally, I couldn’t shake the vision of some little girl crying and heartbroken because her kitten was missing. So we turned around and learned it was his home. I was tempted to leave and to hell with the details of taking care of him or getting him home. The owner said she THOUGHT she had 13 cats but wasn’t sure. There were cats of varying ages all over the place, running in and out the house door that remained open. She THOUGHT he’d been missing for two weeks, but didn’t seem to really care. She also didn’t seem to care that he’d been injured or that he’d been returned. It was obvious she wasn’t going to take him to the vet or even make sure he stayed safely inside while he healed. But he seemed to know where he was and we could hardly snatch him up and run off with him. So we left, and I cried most of the way back to the ranch, which is about a three hour drive. I felt like we’d saved him from immediate danger only to hand down an indefinite death sentence.

The next day, which was the last day of our trip, I took this photograph:

"Three Room Ruin" by Jamie Powell Sheppard

Yes, it’s the header image from the top of my blog. Because we chose to return the kitten to his home I had time to wander the ranch one last time and take one of the best photos I’ve taken in the last 5 years.

I was pretty sure I’d taken some fairly decent photos during our trip:

"Coal Mine Movie Projector" by Jamie Powell Sheppard

"Cracked" by Jamie Powell Sheppard

"Mason Jars" by Jamie Powell Sheppard

"Three Crosses" by Jamie Powell Sheppard

"Santa Fe Car 502" by Jamie Powell Sheppard

But I knew deep down in my gut that I hadn’t taken that one photo yet, and I was just as certain that it was out there waiting for me.

There’s no denying the fact that if we had kept Chaco I would not have photographed the ruins. I would have been 60 miles away in Santa Fe, spending most of the day at an emergency animal clinic, while simultaneously on the phone with the airline trying desperately to get official passage for him, because after having rescued him there’s no way I would have been able to leave him behind.

So…what if I hadn’t photographed it? Would I have been satisfied with the photos I already had, knowing that somehow I’d missed an important one? Would I have been so delighted in having a kitten that I wouldn’t have cared?

And what about Chaco? Was he able to heal without proper care, or is he maimed for life? Is he even still alive? Outdoor cats in that area are lucky if they live a year, what with cars, coyotes, and birds of prey.

What if I could go back and do it over?

I’d pick the kitten.

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