. . . I spoke to Cochise.

      I can vividly recall the moment, for I felt somehow that he was there, watching me.  In truth, I had made that assumption months before:  Surely his spirit fills this place --  his presence is nearly palpable.  Aloud, I made this plea:

   "Cochise, my friend, I'm afraid I'm going to need your help.  I'm not very good at this sort of thing, and I'm not even sure you want me to find this place.  But if it is something you will allow, I'm sure I can't do it by myself."

     With that I slung the camera bag over my shoulder and blindly headed toward the sprawling rock field at the foot of the mountains -- deciding quite arbitrarily to bear slightly south from my present position.   It was about five minutes into my walk that I first noticed two large turkey vultures circling above me -- a fact that I noted with only a slight amount of interest. 

    Continuing on, I half watched the birds as they flew away from my area toward the mountains.  A moment later I stopped to catch my breath and noticed the same two heading back my way.  In fact, they gracefully wheeled a couple of circles, rather low, right above me and again flew back toward the mountain, following their previous route. 

     When this happened a third time within minutes, I joked to myself that maybe they wanted me to follow them.  The notion at first seemed ludicrous but the more I thought about it, the more it intrigued me.  Why not?  After all, I had no real game plan and the nook they kept returning to was as good a place to aim for as any other. 

    Altering my course accordingly, I found myself heading nearly due east of the Forbes "peace treaty" site, following the vultures' lead, wondering if maybe Cochise had sent along a couple of guides.  As I neared the foothills I had to weave in and around thick clusters of prickly acacia and mesquite, a keen eye out, as always, for rattlers.  I stopped frequently to consult my "field copy" of the Crane photograph -- comparing it to the mind numbing array of boulder shapes sprawling out before me.  Soon I was standing at the foot of a rocky spur jutting out from the mountain.  The turkey vultures were circling overhead and this time they stayed in the vicinity instead to flying back out to the plain where they had found me.  Curious.

     This spur ran parallel to a second spur only a few dozen yards north, creating a deep and narrow recess that had an almost comforting aura to it.  The ground up to this point had been a gentle and gradual slope, but here at the mouth of this recess the slope increased dramatically.   I took a deep breath and started into the recess, literally dwarfed by the magnificent towering boulders on either side of me.  It would have been an easy position to defend, I noted silently.  Making my way deeper and deeper into the recess, I made it a habit to stop every ten or twelve steps to scan the formations all around me, comparing the photo to my surroundings. 

     "This is impossible," I thought, trying to fight off a wave of discouragement.   I could see, from any given vantage point this near the mountain, no less than a hundred boulder clusters in every direction.  To think that I might find "this" one in the photo seemed an exercise in futility.  I was getting tired from the steady climb. Clambering over rocks and brushing on occasion against unfriendly vegetation  was wearing away my resolve (still a greenhorn, I chided myself).  I resisted the temptation to give up and took two or three more steps up into the dead-end recess, and something caught my eye.  I stared at it and felt my heart skip a beat.