THE CORONADO CONNECTION

As the light of day gradually settled over the land, G.B. studied the face of Red Mesa in wide-eyed interest.  Dark reddish-brown in color, the Mesa was formed by continuous strata of weather-beaten sandstone all the way from the desert floor to its crest some one hundred and fifty feet above his head.  The base of its jagged front had at least twenty vertical openings, the first one being the crevice he and his companions had just spent the night, and the last well north of the area behind the renegade village.  Most of these openings were no more than three feet wide and, as far as he could tell, penetrated the solid sandstone for quite some distance.  From his perspective, the high rise of rock took on the appearance of a giant loaf of sliced bread with the slices slightly separated.

G.B. watched the eastern sky grow steadily lighter and finally blood red as the sun’s powerful beams burned through haze and small thin clouds.  He watched the shadow of the horizon as it gradually moved down the face of Red Mesa.  Every contour, every high point he eyed carefully.  Nothing, no shadow, no trick marking, no reflected ray of light escaped his determined vision.

Then he saw something peculiar, something so awe-inspiring that it made him stare in disbelief and brought a sudden increase in his heartbeat.  A single beam of light streamed through the small “V”-shaped notch in the top of the tallest column of rock on the eastern skyline and penetrated the haze above the renegade village just before it came to rest directly between two openings in the base of Red Mesa.  Ironically, the presence of the village had defeated its own purpose.  Smoke from its many campfires created the haze that highlighted the beam.  The only problem he now faced was which opening to choose--the one on the right or left.

G.B. snapped his finger and smiled.  It was a matter of simple scientific deduction.  Figuring that he was five or six days late, maybe even as many as seven or eight, and that the sun was on its seasonal journey northward, that meant the opening on the north  -- or right  -- side of the beam was the entranceway to the Cities--or whatever.  Six or seven days earlier, the sun’s rays would have fallen directly into the one on the north.

Excitedly, breathlessly, G.B. ran to his companions and awoke both.  “I think I know where the Cities are.  They’re inside the Mesa itself.  My professor friend and I got our hieroglyphics confused.  It was sunlight not a shadow which did the marking, and the marking was produced by a sunrise not a sunset.  Come here, I’ll show you.”  He led the two to a spot just beyond the obstruction of tree branches and pointed.  “See the opening with the big gray rock beside it about ten feet above the desert floor?”

“The one shaped like an upside-down heart?” asked Jerry.

“That’s it!  The opening on the north or right side of that stone is the one we’ll need to enter--.  The problem is, how do we get to it and search it out?”