Durango (15 page)

I haven't studied these allocation proposals, Sheridan said, and I haven't talked with Sammy about them. But he's a straight shooter, and he wouldn't advise the Utes to hold out if he didn't believe they were unfair. I'm afraid Mr. Sam Maynard is the fella you ought to be dealing with. Not me.

Sam Maynard is the best lawyer in town, the mayor said, and I wish he was representing the city of Durango or La Plata County in this matter. We'd be a lot better off. But he's not. He's representing the Utes, and their interest is his interest.

But he's also a leading community figure, Sheridan said. He doesn't want this place to blow up any more than any of us.

That's true, the older man said. But he's shown his hole card and he doesn't have any more cards to play. He says he doesn't know what else to do to get this ox out of the ditch.

The table was silent. The other men waited for Sheridan to speak.

I don't know exactly what you think I can do, he said presently.

Patrick Carroll said, The mayor and I've been talking about that, and we believe—he believes—that you can talk with the Utes.

Sheridan held up his hand. I talk with Leonard Cloud and his folks quite a lot and have over the years. I'm not about to tell them how to run their business or how much water they need or anything like that.

The mayor said, No, what Patrick meant to say is that you might be able to devise a formula that would provide the water the tribes need for their projects but that would also not drain the reservoir dry.

Sheridan shook his head again. I still don't get it. I'm no expert in water project management. And, other than some kind of general idea of the Utes' rights and needs, I don't claim any expert knowledge about what's fair to them. Seems to me what you need here is one of these expert negotiators to bring everybody together and divide up the pie.

Your reluctance is understandable, the mayor said. Would it be possible, though, for you to give young Carroll here some wisdom and guidance and perhaps, as his famous father's son, let him enter the fray on the Utes' side? I'm sure the tribe remembers what his illustrious father did for them over those many years. They would welcome, I think, his advocacy of their position. Plus, he does report for the dominant newspaper in these parts.

If you mean just give him an introduction to the tribal leaders, Sheridan said, then of course. Who wouldn't do that? But I don't have any magic formula to solve the conflict and with that he'd just be seen as another do-gooder out to be a hero…and a young one at that. God knows more people have broken their pick on this claim over the years than you can shake a stick at.

He is the son of a well-known father, a real political leader, the older man said. And with your endorsement, Chairman Cloud and the others would have to treat him seriously.

Well, if that's all you're after, Sheridan said, you could have saved yourselves the price of the lunch. I'm always happy to make introductions in the interest of a peace treaty.

After the mayor and Patrick Carroll had left, Sheridan walked down the block with the professor. Duane, what was all that about? he asked.

Hurley couldn't bring himself to ask you to bargain with the tribe, Smithson said. He was trying to find a way to use your goodwill with the Utes and leave you personally out of it.

Sheridan said, Doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but I gave up trying to figure people out a long time ago. Leonard and his people will be polite with that young man and hear him out. But he's not going to change the course of history here.

I know, Dan, I know, the professor said. But there was another agenda at work here. Hurley has been carrying you around in his conscience all these years, he wanted to get rid of the burden. He's an old man trying to settle accounts. You're probably one of the biggest ones he's got. So even for you to sit down to lunch with him is going a long way to getting that monkey off his back.

Doesn't take much sometimes, does it? Sheridan said. If that's all that he wanted, we could have had a hamburger years ago.

28.

Mr. Murphy said, I hear the mayor and Danny Sheridan finally patched it up.

Bill Van Ness said, Well, then, we must be nearing the End of Times.

Long overdue, Sam Maynard said. Everybody else is reaching for his holster around here or filling up his pickup gun rack and here these two aging warriors are have left the war path. Maybe it will spread.

The coffeepot made a second round.

What brought about all this unexpected goodwill? Mr. Murphy asked.

I had something to do with it, the professor said. Congressman Carroll's boy, Patrick, my former student, has got himself into the middle of the Animas project history. And he's trying to figure out a way to end the war. He had the idea of going to a pillar of the community, his dad's friend the mayor, and together approach Dan about bringing the Utes around.

Sam Maynard snorted. What's that about the road to hell being paved with good intentions? I'm not making any official pronouncements in this august assembly, he said, gesturing around the table, but the Utes will come “around,” as you put it, when they are treated fairly. Simple as that.

Anyway, the professor said, Sheridan and the mayor smoked the peace pipe, more or less, and the old man feels a lot better about things now. Dan offered to introduce Patrick to Leonard and the tribal council.

And? Sam asked.

And, the professor said, Patrick will at least offer to help any way he can. He's not under any illusions that he has any magic. But although he hasn't told me, I think this has a lot to do with trying to appease his father's memory somehow. He hasn't followed in the congressman's political footsteps, at least for now, and I believe he's just stumbling around looking for a helpful role to play.

Ah, the good intentions of youth, Bill Van Ness said. What would we do without their inherent idealism?

We'd all go straight to hell, Mr. Murphy said. We're back to the road there being paved with good intentions.

Now, Mr. Murphy, the professor said, don't underestimate idealism. When we see it in the young, we remember how much we all believed in creating a better world in our youth.

You may remember it, Mr. Murphy said, but I don't.

They all laughed. Of course you don't, Mr. Murphy, Sam said. You missed the idealism gene altogether. You went from kid to cynical old man overnight.

Well, you have to be realistic in this life, Mr. Murphy said. You go around with your head in the clouds, dreaming wonderful dreams about a “newer world” or a “great society” and that “hopey-dopey” stuff and all you're really talking about is raising my taxes. I'm not fooled by any of that idealism stuff.

The professor said, Tom, do you really believe we're stuck where we are, that things are never going to get any better?

Why not? Mr. Murphy said. Do you see things getting any better? We've been fighting over Animas River water for a century and we'll be fighting over it a century from now.

Bill Van Ness poured more coffee all around. Yes, but there is progress. You live better than your parents did and so do I. So do all of us.

Mr. Murphy said, That's because I got off my butt and worked for it. Nobody did that for me. There're too many of these kids and lazy people just sitting around waiting for government handouts. He had started to include the Indians but checked himself.

The professor said, Now, Tom, the government is going to build the Animas dam, I'm afraid, and it brought the Interstate highway over to Glenwood Springs, and it cleaned up the uranium tailings outside of town—

And made me pay for all that stuff, Mr. Murphy interjected.

Sam said, I'd give my lesson in democracy right here, but you've all heard it. Anyway, so much for idealism. Young Carroll will fulfill his mission. He will probably fail. Not because my clients are against idealistic youth, but because they are, as Mr. Murphy says, “realistic.”

29.

Daniel Sheridan asked his friend Duane Smithson to drop by the ranch for a beer.

Duane, he said, as they sat by the Florida stream, help me understand the Utes' position on the water issue.

They're in a totally new situation, the professor said. You know they've had virtually nothing all these years, and they've tried to make the best of it. They've been a lot more patient with us then we've been with them. I'd say our attitude over most of those years has been casual neglect.

But then they got the rights to all those minerals, and energy prices shot through the roof, Sheridan said. Now they're in the catbird seat. Right?

Not exactly. These are by and large thoughtful people. They've been watching us—the immigrants—all these years as much as anything to see what
not
to do as to learn what they should do. And they've seen our prosperity and our farming and our markets and our big houses and cars. And who wouldn't like to have all that? But they've also watched the price we're willing to pay for all that. Not just dollars. But the obvious costs to the air and the water and the land.

Sheridan said, Two Hawks is the best preacher I've ever heard on this.

He is, indeed, the professor said. It's pretty commonplace by now to talk about the devil's bargain we struck when we put science and technology ahead of nature beginning a couple of centuries ago. The native people didn't do that for the simple reason they never had a chance to do it. So they've been stuck, you might say, in the old ways. Nature, the mother, is where life comes from, and if you screw up nature you're screwing up life itself.

Little hard for us to reverse course now, isn't it? Sheridan said.

The irony is that the Utes are poised on the cusp of the so-called Enlightenment three centuries after the rest of us, and they're trying to figure out which way to go. The professor finished his beer, and Sheridan dug in the icy cooler for a replacement.

Leonard wants to see me, Sheridan said, and something tells me it's about their choices now. What do you think I ought to tell them? Any history lessons that might help out?

Well, Smithson said, if I were offering such advice, I'd probably say something like this. You've got two…no, maybe three choices. One is, you can develop these natural resources full steam—like we, the so-called white people, have done—and all be rich for generations to come. Settle down for the rest of your lives in the lap of luxury. Turn the res into a resort and only let your friends visit. The other option is you can sit on the resources you have and wait for time, and human greed, to bid up their price. Preserve your options and wait to decide which way to go. In the meantime you're keeping your bargain with nature. You're not rushing headlong into the commercial and material world.

Sheridan said, I suspect the tribal council has figured out those two options already. You said you thought there was a third one.

The third one, as you might expect, is a compromise between the two, the professor said. I've studied the history of these parts all my life and, as you know, I've written more books on the subject that anyone will ever read. What I've learned from all that research is a pretty basic human truth: people—maybe just Americans—don't know how to reach a balance between the old world of nature and the new world of technology. It seems to me the Utes are kind of like flash-frozen dinosaurs, if you'll pardon the expression. They are frozen examples of the prescientific world who suddenly find themselves waking up to vast undeveloped resources—riches—that offer them the chance to leap, overnight, into the world of commerce and consumption.

Right, Sheridan said, so what's the trick? Leonard would be the first person to tell you he's no smarter than the rest of us. If our tribe couldn't figure out how to use resources without destroying their source, how can we expect their tribe to do it?

Well, I'll give you one man's opinion, for whatever it's worth, the professor said. The key is that their beliefs about nature are different from ours. You know as well as I do that they think tearing up the earth, leaving scars all over the place, dumping pollution in the stream, and putting chemicals in the air is wounding a living thing, the most important living thing. If you do that, it is evil. That gives them an outlook the rest of us “enlightened” souls don't possess.

If and when they decide to pursue what I'd call the balance option, he continued, they have to use the ancient wisdom combined with the best modern techniques to protect the earth. Now, your mining experts and energy development companies are going to resist this like crazy. They'll tell the tribe all about “efficiency” and mass production methods that get the most bang for the buck—the most dollars for the least expenditure at the fastest pace. That's called modern industry. It's the culmination of enlightenment thinking transposed to the commercial world.

So, the Utes have to insist that the resources are extracted and processed with maximum protection of their land and water, Sheridan said. That will appeal to them. But something tells me they already know that. Seems like just common sense to me.

They know it, but they don't know it, Smithson said. If I advised them, I'd say let's find the best experts in the country, maybe even the world, to help us figure out if there's a better way, better than the rip-and-plunder way, to develop resources with the least possible damage. And do it in a way that shows respect for the earth, for nature.

Sheridan nodded even as he pondered this. Well, the theory of what you're talking about will appeal to them, anyway, he said. Whether it can really be done is something else.

30.

Sheridan patted the big red horse on the rump and said, Let's go. He was traveling light. He didn't take the packhorse and all the gear. He had a bedroll, his fishing tackle, some collapsible cooking gear, and a slender fish-filleting knife strapped to his ankle. He settled the Winchester in its scabbard, just in case. Toby the border collie leaped with joy when his master invited him to come along.