I’m going to tell you a story that really happened. It’s about the time when I went to the post office, the bank was robbed, a baby was born, and—at least initially—a criminal got away with stealing in plain sight. And even though this is one of those you-can’t-make-this-stuff-up stories, I promise you there’s something real-life-true about the lesson we can all take from it.

I live in Colorado now, but when this story happened, I had just moved to Taos, New Mexico. One day, I was waiting in line at the El Prado branch of the US Post Office in order to send a manuscript to an editor. We did things that way then, before email attachments were safe enough, and when cell phones were barely a thing.

Inside the post office on this cold winter morning, five or six customers stood patiently as the postal clerk behind the counter argued with a man about whether he could claim the insurance refund for a package that had been lost in the mail for six months. Why this was dubious, I couldn’t tell, but it was clearly going to take a while for these two to work it out. I was behind a woman with a big baby bump, and I asked her when she was due.

“Any minute now,” she said, lifting a hand to her face and rubbing her brow.

Before I could speak any platitudes of joy to the expectant mom, a frantic woman burst through the doors behind us, rushed straight to the counter, and yelled: “Call the police! There’s a robber at the bank!”

At that point, the postmistress, who had ignored the long line of customers as she idled away at her desk in an adjacent office, jumped up, swiftly pulled a wad of keys from her pocket and charged past us to the doors, where she turned a key in the lock. She yelled at the clerk behind the counter: “¡Vamos! What are you waiting for? Call the police!”

As the clerk made the call, I looked out the window towards the branch of Peoples Bank next door. The parking lot was empty, and all was quiet. The young woman in front of me began to breathe rapidly, in frenzied,  loud puffs. “Oh, no,” she moaned, dropping the package she’d been holding. She grabbed her belly. “Not now!” Her water broke and pooled below her on the floor. Two of the women who had been in line in front of us came to her rescue and led her to the office, where they sat her down in the postmistress’ chair.

Almost immediately, a sheriff’s car pulled into the parking lot of the post office. Then another, and then a squad car from the Town of Taos police. The postmistress had gone behind the counter and was on the phone asking for an ambulance. The laboring mother-to-be was panting in a desk chair as the clerk and the two customers held her hands, muttering to her in Spanish. The law enforcement officers took position behind one of the Sheriff’s SUVs and drew their guns, aimed at the doors of the post office. I went to the counter to try to get the postmistress’s attention. If I could get the keys to the door, I was willing to go out (with my hands up, mind you) to tell the officers that the bank was where the robbery was reportedly taking place, and also to ask them to let the ambulance through for the patient.

But chaos ensued. A young man who’d been in line behind me began to pound on the windows, yelling and waving, and this had a deleterious effect on the disposition of the officers, who stood their ground and steeled their grips. One raised a bullhorn and warned us to stay inside and keep our hands up. This did not deter the young customer, who yelled louder and pounded harder on the window. The postmistress held a finger in one ear as she shouted into the phone that we didn’t need the police here, we needed an ambulance.

Meanwhile, those of us not freaking out or coaching childbirth watched through the glass as a broad-built young man emerged from the bank, unnoticed by the officers with their guns fixed on us. The robber crossed the Paseo del Pueblo Norte, carrying a canvas bag. He easily topped the barbwire fence at the perimeter of a now-empty plot of pasture where the Pueblo’s bison herd often grazed in summer; and he darted away across the field at an astonishing rate, trailing a thin, vaporous stream of pinkish-red dye across the frost-covered grass. By this time, the patrons of the post office performed frantic charades for the deputies to try to persuade them to look behind them at the robber making his escape, but to no avail.

Meantime, within minutes, a pickup full of shotgun-toting locals arrived at the bank, having no doubt come to defend their savings after hearing the first call go out on the police band. Then another carful and another, such that the small parking lots for each of the two businesses were full, the road was blocked, a crowd had assembled, and the ambulance, when it arrived, could not get close to the patient in need.

Eventually, the EMTs got through with a gurney, the postmistress finally conceded to unlock the doors, and they wheeled the birthing patient to the ambulance and sped away, siren singing.

The police took one look at the rest of us in the post office and left to clear the crowd outside, the shotgun militia dispersed down the road to Rita’s for chile rellenos and beer, and the postmistress told us all to come back tomorrow, that she was closing up for the day.

The next day, the TAOS NEWS reported in its police blotter that law enforcement were searching for the suspect in the bank robbery. No further details were furnished.

I am telling you this story about how a crime occurred in plain sight, chaos confused all the best intentions of those who could have prevailed, and a criminal got away with stealing in plain sight, because again—as with my previous post—I worry about what is already happening while we’re distracted by all the madness, mayhem, and shock-show tactics taking place. And I worry about what could still befall us… and what more is at stake.

And that’s why I mentioned right at the beginning that I live in Colorado.

We have a lot of things going for us in Colorado, not the least of which is that we remain a blue state (though slightly more purplish after the 2024 elections). Democrats currently occupy the entire executive branch, we maintain a Dem majority in our house and senate, and we have two Democrat senators. But perhaps the best and most important thing we have in Colorado is the Colorado River. Because water is life.

During the Biden administration, and for some time before, a coalition of states and agencies, tribes and communities, and our representatives in the executive branch and in the US House and Senate worked to preserve, protect, and fairly distribute the waters of the mighty Colorado. Its life giving flow feeds seven states: parts of the Upper basin in Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico, as well as our wonderful state—and in the Lower basin, Arizona, Nevada, and California. The source of the Colorado begins in the Never Summer Mountains in Rocky Mountain National Park right here in Colorado.

And when you look at things from that perspective, Colorado is a very important state.

Last year, during the election cycle, a record breaking amount of money was spent in Colorado to persuade voters to vote for Republicans. All the races were costly beyond belief, and there were lots of MAGA Republicans in the state boasting loudly about how the party intends to capture our executive branch in the next cycle, no matter what they have to do, or how much it costs. They openly promised to take the Governor’s office and that of the attorney general, specifically. They have repeatedly threatened the life of our Secretary of State who has presided over free and fair elections and pushed back against tyranny and the big lie.

So, if you don’t get too distracted and listen to what they are telling you, the extremists who have overtaken the Republican party have laid out their plan in plain sight. There was much talk from Project 2025 and its proponents, including the new VP about taking away public lands for development and resource extraction. They promise to do away with the Environmental Protection Agency and to dismember the Department of the Interior and all its protections for public lands. And during the LA fires, there has been much talk about water.

As any wildland firefighter can tell you, we don’t put out wildfires with water. They are too big to extinguish with water, completely beyond the capacity of any network of hydrants or any force of firefighters and ladder trucks. There are ways to mitigate spread if enough water is available, and there are other methods of containment, but there is not enough water in any state or several states combined to put out a fire such as has been burning these past weeks in Los Angeles.

No, the big talk about “mismanagement of water in California” is less relevant to the wildfires than it perhaps is telling about the plots of the oligarchy. California, with its robust economy, immense resources, and huge population, is not only the stronghold of the west, but it’s fair to say that it is our most muscular bulwark for democracy, the biggest and most powerful of the west coast blue states and those nearby.

Water is life. Irrespective of the wildfires, California needs the water from the Colorado River to maintain life. Control the water from the Colorado River and you can force California to capitulate. Colorado—with its blue executive branch and its blue house and senate, with its two blue senate seats and its four of eight US House seats controlled by Democrats—stands in the breach… for the water upon which the west thrives, and for democracy itself, as it upholds the ideals and principles of our nation.

Coloradans cannot afford to get distracted, especially now, with the oligarchalypse in full throttle. We cannot spare the time and energy to be divided among ourselves, as we move to re-organize the party for the midterm elections. We do not have the luxury to lose a single seat in any body of governance, be it statewide, county, district, and especially at the federal level. We must unify and mobilize a fierce offense for the midterms. There is no time to sit home nursing our sore souls, no time to sit it out until we feel better about the world and how it’s treating us, no time to waste on anorexic initiatives that don’t protect, preserve, and promote democracy—especially here in Colorado. We cannot waste energy and person power trying to answer every outrage or insult. Because we are the guardians of the great river. And water is life.

Wherever you live, I hope you will rise to defend democracy in your part of the world. Please post a comment about your own efforts in the chat. And become a subscriber to sustain this work. And share this blog with your like-minded friends.

This has been Sandi Ault—Reporting from the WILD. You can also listen to me tell my stories on the companion podcast to this blog—wherever podcasts are found. Take care.