“Carla, you grew up in Denver,” Jake said. “Here’s an assignment that might interest you.”

This is his standard opening line. It means he is about to dump another “local interest” piece on me.

“Come on, Jake,” I said. “No more nutty Bronco fans who’ve spray-painted their kids orange and blue, okay? Give me a real story. Please?”

“Bronco season’s over, and the NFL draft was last week,” he said. “This isn’t a local interest.”

“You’re right there,” I said. “These stories you keep giving me are of no interest, local or otherwise. I did the time machine piece for you. And the psychic dentist. Give me a break. Let me cover something that doesn’t involve nuttos.”

“It’s for the ‘Our Living Western Heritage’ series.” He handed me a slip of paper. “You can interview her this morning and then cover the skyscraper moratorium hearings this afternoon.”

This was plainly a bribe, since the hearings were front page stuff right now, and “historical interests” could be almost as bad as locals—senile old women in nursing homes rambling on about the good old days. But at least they didn’t crawl in their washing machines and tell you to push “rinse” so they could travel into the future. And they didn’t try to perform psychic oral surgery on you.

“All right,” I said, and took the slip of paper. “Rosa Turcorillo,” it read and gave an address out on Santa Fe. “What’s her phone number?”

“She doesn’t have a phone,” Jake said. “You’ll have to go out there.” He started across the city room to his office. “The hearings are at one o’clock.”

“What is she, one of Denver’s first Chicano settlers?” I called after him.

He waited till he was just outside his office to answer me. “She says she’s the great-granddaughter of Coronado,” he said, and beat a hasty retreat into his office. “She says she knows where the Seven Cities of Cibola are.”