On a cool spring day, in the bewitching crystalline light for which New Mexico is famous, I stood in the middle of the Acoma Sky City and looked out into the ocean of desert at an island of pale red and dun colored rock called Enchanted Mesa.
My tour guide, Marissa Chino, a young Acoma woman, said it isn’t known if her people once lived there. There are tales, though, that say they did. One story holds they descended to the valley to tend their squash and corn and, while they were farming, a violent storm washed away a stone ladder that was their only access.