Durango (10 page)

As they left the small restaurant, Mrs. Farnsworth took Caroline's arm. I hope you'll stay, she said. I think you should stay. I have a sense that—perhaps like me—this is where you belong.

A few days later, Caroline signed the papers for her mountain property, and she moved in shortly thereafter. That was just after the controversy involving Daniel Sheridan.

18.

The Southern Utes, with the actions of Congress and court decisions on resource rights, were on the way in the mid- and late 1990s to the establishment of their resource company Red Willow and were receiving advice on how to manage their new trust fund, whose revenues were beginning to grow. They were being besieged by investment advisors and investment funds, all of whom had elaborate, sometimes baroque, financial systems for maximizing gain. Almost all these schemes were focused on the near term and laid out intricate development plans that, for certain fees, would direct the tribe's newfound wealth into immediate returns for individual tribal members. In every case, the paragraphs regarding fees were near the end of lengthy proposed retainer contracts, and all were in small type.

Leonard Cloud and his tribal council found themselves spending increasing amounts of time with Sam Maynard and his law firm. Having been relative outcasts for well over a century, the Utes now were everyone's new friends, particularly everyone who could smell money. There were enough tribal council members who had been manipulated by one kind of immigrant American or another to make them wary. They trusted Maynard, and they had reason to. He and his partners had always treated them fairly, had never propagated large legal bills, and had shrewdly advised the tribe on a number of occasions of one party or another to steer clear of.

But Cloud and his colleagues were troubled nevertheless. On one occasion in the Maynard law firm, he told Maynard, Every way we look at our development plans, we run up against the water problem. Even though we have the new federal laws about our water rights, having the rights and having the water are two different things.

Sam Maynard nodded. You're right, Mr. Cloud. You've got established rights to the Animas and a lesser amount in the Florida and smaller streams, but it clearly isn't enough to meet the requirements of large-scale mineral development. Some of the proposed technologies are water intensive. Besides, you have downstream obligations to lower basin users in New Mexico to return some of those flows to the stream.

It gets down to the Animas–La Plata, doesn't it? Leonard Cloud said. It always gets down to that project.

Absolutely, Maynard said. If we can't find a way to restart the project, get some federal construction money, and get it going, the Southern Utes are going to hit their heads on a development ceiling. You'll be better off than you were, but not nearly well enough off to create that trust fund for the future that you've decided on.

After the other council member left, Cloud and Maynard walked across the street for coffee. Leonard Cloud was a placid man, measured and thoughtful, not one to become agitated. But his demeanor now was decidedly edgy. Sam, things aren't good around here these days, he said. He waved in the general direction of the town and beyond. It doesn't seem like Durango these days. The atmosphere is not good.

Right enough on that, Leonard, Maynard said. My family's been here well over fifty years and I've never seen this place in such an uproar. The longer this project stays unresolved, the more this community becomes a political war zone. We've got neighbors who've lived next door to each other for decades and now won't speak to each other.

Cloud said, I ran into Sheriff Ramsay the other day. He was making his weekly cruise through the reservation, and he stopped in to our council offices. He was pretty casual about it, but he made it clear that there are one or two hotheads that might want to make trouble. He asked the tribal law enforcement team to be on the lookout.

This isn't like Durango, Sam Maynard said. We've had our politics and our campaigns and our debates about this and that. But we're going to have to either build this project or kill it and move on. Otherwise, it's a sore that could become some kind of cancer pretty quick.

What have you heard from the feds? Cloud asked.

Since you and I were back in Washington a couple of months ago, Maynard said, I've kept in touch with the staffs of our congressmen and senators and, though they're committed to helping us, it's a struggle to get the construction money. All they can talk about back there is balancing the budget.

Cloud said, But they've got to understand this project's important. We can't get anything done without it.

Understood, Maynard said. But you've got five hundred other people in the Congress who've got some federal project they think is as important as ours. I made your point to Senator Thornton's staff guy and he said, Listen, we can get votes for Animas–La Plata, but you know what that means? It means Thornton has to vote for projects in every state those votes come from—and there goes your balanced federal budget.

So what you're saying is, we're stuck, Cloud said. To get the fed's dollars, our congressional folks have to trade votes, and next election time they get crucified for running up spending.

Sam Maynard nodded. Politically, that's the way it works. But I'll keep in touch with them, and maybe they'll figure something out. In the meantime, though, when any of the congressmen come down here, they get an earful from the project opponents. So they're trapped in the local politics. They support the project and half of southwestern Colorado is angry. They oppose the project and the other half of southwestern Colorado is angry.

That's why we pay them the big bucks, Sam, Cloud said and then laughed wryly.

19.

Mrs. Farnsworth had always had great admiration for Daniel Sheridan but could not claim a close friendship. She had come to believe some years after Sheridan left office that he had been treated unfairly, both by the press and by some elements of the community. As to her own paper, the
Herald,
she and her husband had struggled to treat him fairly during that period when the controversy was treated in the statewide Denver papers as a scandal and a sensation. On more than one occasion, she had gone back through all the
Herald
stories from the time and was struck by a realization. Except for his brief announcement of his resignation—with great regret—from the county commission, Sheridan had never made a comment or submitted to an interview. He had refused to speak in his own defense.

Mrs. Farnsworth spent time considering this. Why had he not? Why not approach the Farnsworths for an open-ended discussion of the matter and get his story on the record? His silence had been assumed, especially in an age of ego and self-advancement, as a tacit admission of guilt—if not of corruption, then of something. Why else would he not speak out and speak up?

Had she known Daniel Sheridan better, she would have sought him out and simply, in her notoriously direct manner, asked him these questions. Give your side of the story, she would have told him. Don't let your accusers dominate the matter. There has to be more to this than what was alleged about taking money from that investment bank to buy favor with the Ute tribal council and, in the process, pay off a blackmailer.

When she thought about it, and she found herself doing so more often now, it frustrated her. She believed in fairness and justice. She and Murray had editorialized against community prejudgment and in favor of understanding all the facts before rendering opinions. Anyone who knew anything about Daniel Sheridan had to believe that this man was incapable of bribery and intimacy with a prominent woman in the community. But there it was, the allegations were there—though her review of the story caused her to be struck by how much of what was accepted as fact was actually rumor and hearsay—and the only one who knew what really happened would not speak.

During the hell week when everything had come crashing down, Caroline Chandler had not been available. A
Herald
reporter had sought her out. She was not at home. She was not painting in the high country. She was not to be found. It was maddening to Sheridan's friends and supporters that neither Sheridan nor Caroline would publicly deny an improper relationship. But, thinking back on it later, Mrs. Farnsworth understood from her years in journalism that a denial is cause for yet another round of stories based on the denial. To deny is to add grist to the rumor and journalism mills.

She wanted to ask Sheridan so many things, and if she knew him better, she would do it. But he was a solitary man and certainly would not welcome a return to that painful era that had changed his life. She wanted to know whether he had urged Caroline to escape, to find refuge with friends on the East or West coast, until the furor abated. Though she was a professional newspaper publisher, she knew that was none of her business, even as many in her industry believed everything was their business.

Mrs. Farnsworth pondered whether Caroline might someday open up to her about the whole matter. Most now assumed that Caroline and Sheridan had an intimate relationship, but no one knew for sure, and by now very few people in Durango and surroundings cared. Times had changed since those days more than twelve years ago, and it was all old news. For herself, Mrs. Farnsworth hoped that they did. She had grown enormously fond of Caroline and considered her almost one of her grown children.

She doubted the opportunity would arise for her ever to know Daniel Sheridan that well. He was just not that kind of man.

Her romantic streak wished them well. They both seemed to her to be high-caliber, quality human beings and, God knows, she thought, there are not enough of them around these days to waste any.

The day finally came sometime later to explore the Sheridan mystery. She passed by Kroeger's Hardware store on 9th Street one Saturday morning and encountered Dan Sheridan coming out carrying a tool box and a coiled length of lariat rope. Good morning, Mr. Sheridan, she said.

How do you do, Mrs. Farnsworth? he responded.

Very well, especially on a day like this. Which way are you headed?

Sheridan nodded to the parking lot a block away. Got to throw this stuff in the pickup, he said.

Mrs. Farnsworth said, I'm going that way and will walk along, unless you object.

No ma'am, he said. No objection at all. A pleasure to see you out and about today. I've been meaning to say, since Murray passed away those months ago, if you ever need anything fixed around your place, I'd be pleased to help out. I'm an amateur repairman, but not a bad one at that.

You're very kind, Mr. Sheridan. My son drops into town every month or so, and he's been very good about fix-up, patch-up. But I greatly appreciate the offer. Now, I assume, given your place way up the Florida Road, that you wouldn't take too kindly to an emergency plumbing crisis in the middle of the night.

This made Sheridan laugh. Well, now, that's a horse of a different color. It's not the middle of the night that would bother me so much, it's that I don't know the first thing about plumbing. When it clogs up at my place, I'm on the phone to Slocomb's right away. But anything else your son can't take care of, don't hesitate to call.

They reached the dusty red pickup and Sheridan unloaded the lariat rope and tools into the back. He waved to the lady and said, A good day to you, Mrs. Farnsworth.

She hesitated, then on a sudden whim said, Mr. Sheridan, if I were to invite you to dinner some evening, what would you say?

Sheridan looked surprised. Well, I don't know. I guess I'll have to wait until that situation arises. But as a general principle, I make it a practice to respond politely to dinner invitations. There just haven't been that many occasions that have arisen, come to think of it.

Then, I'm inviting you, Mrs. Farnsworth said. Let me look at my calendar and give you a call. You do answer your telephone, don't you?

Sheridan laughed. I do. But it doesn't ring any more often than dinner invitations arise. Surely, just give me a call. My number's not in the book, but I seem to recall that you might have it from times gone by. He suddenly remembered that she had tried to reach him during his troubled times.

I do have it, she said. But if I can't find it, I know who to ask. She started away, then turned back. By the way, you wouldn't mind if I invited someone else—say, Caroline Chandler—to join us.

Sheridan pulled the straw Stetson just slightly lower above his eyebrows and looked at her steadily. Of course, I wouldn't mind, he said. It would be a pleasure to see you both.

Then they parted.

20.

Professor Duane Smithson had given much thought to his former student Patrick Carroll's idea of approaching Daniel Sheridan with the notion of intervening with the Southern Utes to resolve the Animas–La Plata water project and eventually heal the deep divisions in Durango. He cared passionately about the place. He knew its history from the beginning as part of his professional status as the preeminent historian of southwestern Colorado and one of the most highly recognized historians in the state. His books on Colorado history filled more than one library shelf and were notable for the life and energy their author imbued them with.

He himself was not the man, the professor had concluded. He had known Sheridan so long and had been so close to him over the years that he simply could not bring himself to pressure his friend to return to a more or less public role in a highly visible and contentious controversy that was only growing in bitterness and that had so much Sheridan history wrapped up in it. For Sheridan to insert himself into the Animas–La Plata dispute, even at the urging of well-meaning, community-concerned people, would be the equivalent of sending a badly wounded veteran back into the conflict where he had received his wounds.