After parking the SUV, the three got out and headed towards a white-fabric domed building. The ceiling of the structure was held up by air pressure from the inside, a fact that was reiterated by the revolving doors at the entrance and exit.
Sean made his way over to one of the information desks while the women looked around the room at the various souvenirs and trinkets available for purchase. A cheerful looking Native American woman with long, black hair and a narrow face stood behind the desk, smiling as he approached.
“Good afternoon,” she greeted him. “How can I help you today?”
He returned the smile while he answered, “I was wanting to take a look at Eagle Point, preferably as close as possible.”
Her grin turned to confusion. “I don’t understand.”
“I’d like to get close look at the location called, Eagle Point. What’s the best way to do to that?”
His new explanation didn’t help her out much. “Sir, Eagle point is a rock formation in the middle of the canyon. You can’t get close to it.”
He thought for a minute, uncertain what to do.
“You could take a helicopter ride. That could get you pretty close to it.” Her suggestion seemed like a possibility.
After a few moments of contemplation, he thought that doing a little recon work first might be the best course of action. “Can I just get three tickets to take the short tour around the area?”
“Sure. That will take about one hour to visit Eagle Point and Guano Point before returning here.”
“Guano Point?” Sean snorted a small laugh. “Isn’t Guano bat crap?”
“Yes, sir it is,” she cut him off with a laugh of her own. “It’s the best fertilizer in the world, and it has been harvested from a cave on site here for a long time.
“Would you like to add tickets to the sky walk?” She added while she rang up the tickets.
“Is that the glass walkway that goes out over the canyon?”
“Yep,” she seemed proud.
He shook his head violently. “I’ll pass. I have a thing with heights.”
She puckered her lips and nodded in understanding then handed him three tickets.
“Just head out that door right over there and you will see the line forming to get on the next bus out to the point.”
“Thanks,” he said as he clutched the tickets and walked over to where Emily and Adriana were eyeing some Native American jewelry.
“You two ready to go?”
“What did you find out?” Emily asked.
“Seems we have to take a tour bus over to Eagle Point, but we can’t get close enough at the moment. I thought it would be a good idea to see what we’re working with first before we do anything else.”
Emily nodded in agreement. Sean’s thoroughness was something she wished more of her agents had.
He handed them their tickets. “We get on the bus out there,” he said as he pointed to the exit.
A few minutes later they were on the air-conditioned shuttle, a major contrast to the desert warmth outside. Even though the evenings and mornings could be cool that time of the year, the afternoons could still get fairly hot by southern standards.
The ride over to Eagle Point was only about ten minutes. After arriving, the tourists on board got out in an orderly fashion despite a few people wishing they could edge their way out a little faster.
Once outside, the magnitude of the location set in. The Grand Canyon spread out before them as far as their eyes could see. The red stone walls jutted down thousands of feet until they reached the Colorado River below.
“I cannot believe how enormous this is,” Adriana said quietly. Sean had gotten the impression that she was not easily amazed so seeing her awe of the landscape surprised him.
Emily and Adriana stepped over to the edge to get a closer look of how far down it really was. Sean wasn’t nearly as eager to get near the precipice. “Don’t you want to take a look?” Adriana asked.
Sean simply shook his head slowly. “No. I’m good.”
“He’s deathly afraid of heights,” Emily explained.
Adriana raised an eyebrow. “So, the great Sean Wyatt is afraid of something after all.”
“We all have our things,” he defended. She didn’t need to know beautiful women was another one.
He made his way over towards an old railing that stood about ten feet from the edge. Even being that close to such a huge drop off was somewhat unnerving to him. He’d been afraid of heights since he was a child.
When he was young, Sean would play with his friends and cousins in the trees near his house. They built tree houses and seemed fearless with how high they would climb. Young Wyatt would regularly find himself at the top of an old cedar tree near their house. For some reason, climbing those trees never bothered him. But it never cured him of a fear of heights either. Being up in tall buildings or high cliffs always bothered him. He figured it always would.
Out across the giant gash in the earth, about five to six hundred feet away, a narrow rock formation rose up in the middle of the canyon. It had a thin ridge that ran parallel with the canyon walls. In one spot in the middle of the formation dropped down about fifty feet. It then ran another few hundred feet.
In the middle of where the break in the ridge was something that caught Sean’s eye. A smaller rock formation popped up in the middle of the other and looked somewhat like a large bird with wings spread in both directions, the head of peering silently off to the east.
“Eagle point,” he whispered to himself. He understood what the lady at the visitor center meant when she’d said they couldn’t get close to it. The other realization that hit him was that a standard helicopter ride wouldn’t get them close enough either. They were going to need another way.
Chapter 28
A thick diamondback rattlesnake sat coiled about seven feet from where Tommy and Will were about to walk. Its tail shook violently, so fast that the movement appeared blurred.
“Maybe we should go around it,” Will said.
Tommy’s eyes were wide with terror. The color had left his face a pale ashen color. He nodded silently, and the two men began to carefully step backwards at a snail’s pace.
The pointed head of the snake pulled back slightly towards its body, as if readying for an attack. After backtracking a few steps the men turned and continued around the snake’s location, careful to keep a good distance from the reptile. Upon reaching the rock wall, Schultz walked around to the other side and began investigating the area where the rock met the canyon wall, trying to see if he could detect anything behind it. Will did the same, running his finger along the back edge of the stone to see if he could feel an opening.
“There’s no way we can move this thing,” Will said.
Tommy knew he was right. The big rock had to be at least a few tons. It was oddly shaped, like a tall finger pointing up at the sky. Near the top of it, about ten feet high, a rut was carved into the stone, providing a groove that wrapped around the entire piece.
“Can you feel anything behind there on your side?” he asked Will after a minute of examination.
“Nah, man. I can’t feel anything. You sure this is it?”
“Pretty sure.”
Tommy stepped away from the pillar and rubbed the scruff on his face in silent contemplation. A few moments later, he sat his backpack down and pulled out some black rope.
“What are you thinking?” Will asked curiously.
Tommy’s hands worked the nylon rope quickly, forming a loop at one end. “We can use that grove at the top to leverage the thing over,” he answered as he walked back over to the stone and tossed the lasso towards the top.