Durango (23 page)

Caroline said, What are you going to do? If you print all of this—or even part of it—I'm afraid I will not want to be around here for awhile.

Frances said, Mr. Sheridan, what about you?

I'd just as soon you left me—us—alone, he said. This doesn't change anything. It's ancient history. It just rakes up old dirt. I don't see as how it does anybody any good. Might sell a few newspapers. But then what? You'd have all the town gossips going back over it all and it would be the bad old days all over again. I learned a long time ago that if people wanted to think the worst of you they would do so whatever the facts were. What's done is done, at least where I'm concerned.

What about Caroline? Frances asked him. Wouldn't you like to see her reputation restored?

Sheridan grimaced. There's nothing wrong with her reputation and it doesn't need restoring. But that's for her to say. If that's what she wants, of course I'll stay out of the way.

The wounds that were caused are now old, Caroline said. I don't see them being healed by reopening them, Frances. Besides, this is not our decision. You're the newspaper woman. This is your information and you can, and probably will, do with it as you please.

Frances said, I wouldn't hurt you, my dear friend, for all the newsprint in the world. But I did give your former husband a lecture that was recently given to me. It was about suppressing lies. Learning to live with them. And the consequences that causes for years thereafter. What do you do—what do I do—when I know a serious wrong has been done and it should be made right, but to make it right involves bringing further misery…reopening old wounds? She shook her head. I don't know the answer to that. I wish I did.

No one cares now, Sheridan said.

They should, Frances said with considerable heat.
They should
. I know for a fact that people, good people, stayed away from local government because of what happened to you. All of a sudden, because of the treachery of this awful man, civic duty was tarnished. Politics and government were tainted. Good people didn't want to touch them.

Sheridan shrugged. So be it. If people suddenly believe bad things about someone they've known for a long time…if they gossiped and dragged this fine woman—he gestured at Caroline—in the dirt, that's their fault.

Alright, Frances said, I will be brutally honest. This has been on my conscience all these years. Back then, the
Herald
covered the story as if it were a sports event. We printed the outrageously false accusations, even though they were anonymous, because if we hadn't we'd have been accused of a cover-up. We printed your denial, when you stepped down…or stepped away. It was a sensational political story, at least by local standards, and we helped make it a statewide story. I'm ashamed of that, and now I have a chance to set it right.

It sounds to me like you promised Russell you wouldn't, Caroline said.

Frances said, I didn't promise him anything. I said I'd have to think about it. I wanted him to have this hanging over his head for the rest of his life. I wanted that threat to keep him awake at night. I wanted him at least to get an ulcer, if not also a heart attack.

Well, I've said my piece, Sheridan said and stood up. I'll thank you for the drink and bid you ladies good night. As far as I'm concerned, Caroline has my vote. I'll leave it to the both of you to decide about this. Right now I'm mostly interested in getting this new Animas–La Plata project brass bound and copper riveted before things fall apart again. In the grand scheme of things, it's more important that this town get itself back together and move on than anything that might happen to me, one way or the other.

He bent to kiss Caroline and murmured in her ear, then shook Frances's hand and left.

After he was gone, Caroline said, What do we do with a man like that?

Mrs. Farnsworth said, If it were up to me, I'd put his statue in the courthouse square.

47.

It's done, Leonard Cloud said. He and Sam Maynard had just returned from three days in Washington. They were reporting to an informal meeting of the Southern Ute tribal council.

Sam Maynard said, He will not like me saying this, but Mr. Cloud deserves a medal. You would all be proud of what your chairman did in Washington. We met with the chairman of the Senate appropriations committee, who said the first year of construction money for Animas–La Plata will be in the next federal budget. That was confirmed by the secretary of the Interior and the director of the Bureau of Reclamation. They all showed us the papers that guaranteed it.

He grinned widely, and the council stood and applauded them both.

Leonard Cloud said quietly, It has been a very long road for our people. But we are now almost to the end. We will start digging the Ridges Basin Dam in the spring. In fact, the people we met in Washington said it would be perfectly fitting to have a ground-breaking ceremony this fall as a celebration.

There was much laughter and backslapping around the council table.

Leonard Cloud opened large spreadsheets and said, We will pass these around so that you can all see them. These are timelines that plot out the progress of the project. The most important thing is that the pipeline from the reservoir to the reservation will be opened, according to this plan, two years from next spring when the reservoir is filled. In the meantime, we can go ahead now and begin to make contracts between Red Willow and energy development companies.

Sam Maynard said, My firm—your law firm—has already begun to draft contracts between Red Willow and investors willing to finance your development projects here and between Red Willow and those energy companies.

Leonard Cloud said, This council agreed unanimously a long time ago to three things. First, all of these contracts will be made available to all tribal members and to the public at large. And second, every bit of energy development we undertake will be according to the strictest standards of environmental protection. The final thing is that a large percentage of proceeds from our energy resources will be placed in the Southern Ute Tribal Trust Fund for the use of our children and their children.

We are preparing requests for proposals for the council's approval, Maynard said, to issue to Colorado and national environmental consulting firms for a competition to select one or more companies who will guarantee these standards are met at every step.

The tribal secretary asked, When can we have the ground-breaking? Let's do it as soon as possible.

Leonard Cloud said, We'll have to consult with the mayor of Durango and the La Plata county commissioners. And we want to issue a press release inviting everyone from the community to attend. But Mr. Maynard and I discussed on the plane yesterday the idea of having it a week from Saturday, probably in the morning, and having some shovels for the digging and a platform for all the speeches at the site where the Ridges Basin Dam will be just south of town.

Sam Maynard said, Mr. Cloud and I calculated that the weather has been known to move in on us in a surprising way in late September, early October. So we want to do it soon. And before those politicians in Washington change their minds.

They all laughed.

48.

It was glorious, Sam said. I brought Mr. Cloud with me so he can tell you I'm not just blowing smoke signals, so to speak.

Mr. Murphy said, I can't believe that for once those clowns in Washington did the right thing.

Tom, Sam said, they didn't have a choice. We've been kicking this project down the road for over thirty years and not a drop of Animas water yet sits in storage. We finally came along with a deal they couldn't refuse. Mr. Cloud signed off for the Utes and we had letters of intent from the city of Durango and the county of La Plata. We even had two senators and a guy from the governor's office with us. For all practical purposes, we had everybody that mattered there to cheer us on.

Leonard Cloud said, Gentlemen, don't forget that this gets rid of a big thorn in the government's side. They've had to deal with this—up and down, back and forth—for a long time. They were just waiting for all of us to get together. When the Interior Department people and the senators heard that the Indians wanted this done this way, they couldn't have been happier.

Bill Van Ness said, Sammy was telling us you had some other folks there on your side.

Sure did, Sam Maynard said. Mr. Cloud's counterpart from the Navajo Nation joined us and brought the New Mexico congressional delegation along. The only thing we didn't do was put the chiefs in native costume and have them do a little victory dance.

Leonard Cloud smiled in spite of himself. What those folks liked mostly, he said, was that this satisfies the Indian water claims and gets those out of the way without more lawsuits. And the project is smaller and costs less than it was originally designed to. Given today's federal budgets, this little dam is a pretty inexpensive way to get the Indians off their back.

Well, hallelujah, Mr. Murphy said. That's a first for Washington. Something smaller and cheaper. Even I'd vote for that.

The professor said, The main thing is that this town now has a chance to get this cocklebur out from under its saddle and move on. There hasn't been anything in this town's long history that caused more confusion and more bad feelings that the Animas–La Plata. A lot of us never liked it and just wished it would go away. But when it became a Ute water project, that made it a lot more palatable.

Water is water, dams are dams, Professor, Mr. Murphy said huffily. How come this one becomes okay when Mr. Cloud's people—with all due respect—get the water, and not the people of Durango?

The difference, Tom, is that the Utes have been denied their water rights for a century and the original project was going to put a lot more dollars in the hands of some fat-cat develops and mining moguls.

Sam said, Now, folks, we just got this thing wrapped up. We're all laying down our cudgels and the lion will lay down with the lamb. A new day has arrived and we're all going to enjoy this coffee on a remarkable day in paradise and not look back.

As the Monday and Friday coffee club broke up and drifted away, Leonard Cloud put his hand on Sam Maynard's arm and said, Sam, I know you've begun to put this ground-breaking ceremony together for next week. And I just want to say that there's one person who has to be there. It's Danny Sheridan. We wouldn't be doing this now if he hadn't got together with us down in Ignacio and come up with a water allocation formula that made sense to the tribes and could be sold to the leaders here in town and in Washington. He deserves the credit and he's got to be there.

Sam studied his friend's face, then looked away. Mr. Cloud, he won't come. He won't come for a lot of reasons. He's a private man. He doesn't like noise and big gatherings and speeches and bands and all that. It's just not his kind of thing, and it never was.

It isn't fair, Leonard Cloud said.

Of course it isn't, Sam said, and you more than anyone are a judge of what's fair and what's not. But what isn't fair is what happened years ago, and it had to do with the Utes and the project, and while he put all that behind him a long time ago, it still has to have put a fishhook in his heart.

I'd feel better if we at least tried, Leonard Cloud said.

Tell you what I'll do, Sam responded. There is only one person who could convince him and that's Caroline Chandler. I'll have a word with her and see if she can persuade him.

49.

Did you do this, Mr. Carroll? Frances's face looked to the young reporter like the wrath of God.

Do what? Patrick asked. Do what?

There are only three copies of your story and one other document, and they are all in my safe at the paper, she said. You have the finished draft of your story and all your notes and research. No one else has anything—at least to my knowledge. Did you give them to anyone? Did you discuss this with anyone? Have you been in touch with any other news organization? And I beg of you, for the sake of your own future, do not lie to me.

Patrick looked pale. No, ma'am, I swear it. No. I haven't. I wouldn't. This story belongs to the
Durango Herald.
I wrote it on your time and your money. Except the trip to Kansas City. I paid for that.

Very well, she said. If at any point you wish to change your story, in your own interest you better do so.

Why are you asking me this? he said.

I'm asking you this because an hour ago, for the first time in my very long professional life, I got a call from a newspaper asking for a comment. The paper is the
Rocky Mountain News
, and it was the managing editor in Denver.

Comment on what? Patrick said.

On your story, Mr. Carroll. That's why I'm questioning you. How did they get your story? Even worse, I think they might run it.

The young man was standing in Frances's office holding tightly to the back of a chair facing her large desk. I don't know, he said. I can't imagine. I didn't talk to anyone about it. I wouldn't have…

What's the matter? she said. What just occurred to you?

He hesitated. What just occurred to me is my friend Mitch. He was my roommate at Fort Lewis. He's the guy who tracked Chandler down, in the very city where he works.

Does he have the story? she demanded.

No, he doesn't have the whole story. I never showed it to him after I wrote it. But he does know about Chandler. He does know why I was looking for him. I had to tell him the background. And all that's a matter of public record anyway. Let me call him and see if he knows anything about this.

You do that, Mr. Carroll, she said. Then you come right back in here and talk to me.

Patrick went into his office and dialed his friend in Kansas City. Mitch, for God's sake, have you talked to anyone about Russell Chandler? Have you shared any of the information we've been working on?