Durango

by Gary Hart

  She shook her head, but he continued with a long face. Then, I know what’ll happen. You’ll be hobnobbing with those arty people in New York and San Francisco and all your small-town cowboy friends will be forgotten. He pulled a large red handkerchief from the back pocket of his worn jeans and put it to his eye.

  She laughed out loud. Oh, now look at him. Weeping in his beer at his lost love. She took his face in her hands and now gave him a long, soft kiss. Poor cowboy, she said. Poor, sad cowboy. Taking all this drama in, Toby stood up in the doorway and barked.

  They both laughed and sipped their whiskey. I mean it about these pictures, he said. Lord knows I don’t understand art. But as the fella said, I know what I like.

  Take your pick, she said.

  Oh, I couldn’t do that, missy, he said. These are much too valuable to be tossing around like that. Though I would like to put this one with the deer and aspen trees up on that wall in there, gesturing toward the dining room, where folks could see it.

  Folks? she laughed. What folks? If you have folks in here, it’s sure not when I’m around. She turned her mouth down. Unless…

  Unless what? he said.

  Unless, you know, some other cowgirl’s taking my place.

  Now, missy, you’re risking a swat on the behind for talking like that.

  What is it with my behind, mister? she said. You seem to have it on your mind.

  Because I haven’t seen it in too long, he said. He refilled the glasses and turned on the low fire under the elk steaks.

  He told her about his recent meeting with Leonard Cloud, Sam Maynard, and the council members and the scheme they had come up with to reorganize a coalition to get the Animas–La Plata finally constructed.

  She clapped her hands. I knew it. I knew it. I knew if you got into this that you’d figure it out. I knew it. She then asked a number of questions, including about the federal money for construction, repayment contracts for all the users, whether current feasibility studies could be used to avoid more delays, and a variety of other issues that revealed her considerable knowledge about the project. He emphasized that it was not a done deal, that concurrence would have to be established with the other users and political approval achieved in Denver and in Washington.

  During this discussion he finished cooking dinner and served it at the kitchen table. He opened the sensible red wine she had brought, noting with pleasure that there were two bottles.

  They were into the second bottle, and dishes of ice cream, when she asked, Did you see Two Hawks when you were down there…in case it’s any of my business?

  He nodded, slightly uncomfortable at the inquiry. For him, the visits with the ancient holy man were about as close to confession, therapy, and meditation as he would ever get. It was a measure of his trust in her that he even let her know of his friendship with the old man.

  I did, he said. As I’ve told you before, it always makes me feel better…cleaner, somehow. It’s a strange thing, but I gave up trying to figure it out a long time ago. He talked to me about the cougar up above—he gestured to the northeast and the Weminuche—and how the cat was thinking. He paused, then said, I don’t think any of us, white folks, non-Indians, whatever, will ever come close to the understanding of nature and the wild creature that the Indians have. It’s just so natural, I guess you’d have to say, for them. It’s their culture and their history and even their blood that gives them the wisdom they have about these things, things we either take for granted or try to use or kill.

  She held his hand as he talked. I’ll tell you something I’ve never told anyone else, he continued. After I’ve seen the holy man, I think a lot about what he says and about his prayers and it gets to me—he pointed to his heart—here. I came back that day and Toby and I walked up the trail to the cattle grazing meadow and I sat down there and I…I…I guess I cried.

  By now Caroline had tears in her eyes. She stood up, took his hand, and led him upstairs.

  37.

  She awoke before dawn that Saturday morning, before Sheridan for a change. She slipped from bed and smiled as he snored, then wrapped herself in his old robe.

  Downstairs, she let Toby out and put coffee on. She poured orange juice and lit the fire under a large skillet. She had put strips of bacon in the skillet and stirred up the eggs when he appeared on the stairs.

  Well, now, isn’t this something, he said. If it hadn’t been for the bacon smell I’d probably still be asleep. Did you slip something in my whiskey last night?

  The elixir of love, she said. Works every time.

  I’d have to say it works just about every time where you’re concerned, he said as he kissed the back of her neck.

  Where I’m concerned? she murmured. And what about those other cowgirls we were talking about last night? Works with them too? He started to smack her behind and she winced, There you go again. The old rump fixation.

  The sun was now emerging over the ridge line that divided the Sheridan land from the Waldron place. They finished the bacon and eggs and toast, and she poured a second cup of coffee.

  I had a glass of wine with Frances Farnsworth a couple of evenings ago, she said. She had some interesting information. Her enterprising reporter, young mister Carroll, tracked down my former husband.

  Sheridan’s jaw dropped, and he put his coffee cup down heavily. He did what? Why in hell would he go and do a thing like that?

  Well, he did. He’s obsessed with that business years ago, as you know. And he apparently had the notion he could unwrap the mystery and straighten things out by talking to what’s-his-name.

  Russell is his name, as I recall, Sheridan said evenly.

  I do recall that was his name. I guess it still is. Nevertheless, the young sleuth found him in Kansas City of all places and confronted him.

  That would have been worth the price of admission, Sheridan said.

  I suppose, Caroline said. In any case, Patrick Carroll trapped Russell into admitting—finally—that he wrote the letter.

  With all due respect, Sheridan said, if you don’t mind my saying so, my recollection of Russell was that he was not the sharpest tool in the box. But how in the world did the kid trap him, as you put it?

  According to what he told Frances, Patrick told him he knew the letter was handwritten and he’d verified that it was Russell’s handwriting.

  No one except the Farnsworths ever saw the letter, according to what I heard, Sheridan said. It was marked personal and Murray opened it, and they printed parts of it but never showed it to anyone else. How in God’s name would the kid have known it was handwritten?

  He didn’t, Caroline said. He was bluffing. Poor Russell bit and said he knew it wasn’t handwritten, that he wasn’t that dumb. Then he threw Patrick out.

  Sheridan shook his head. Now what? What is Frances going to do now? If she brings all that old garbage up again, you might want to consider joining that art colony out in San Francisco.

  What about you? Caroline asked.

  Me? I’ll pack up what I need in the panniers and Red and Toby and me will head for the Weminuche and stay for a good long while.

  Daniel, wait a minute, she said. The fact that a jealous husband wrote an anonymous, libelous letter years ago will prove to the few remaining doubters in this town that you were wronged. It will set things right.

  Caroline, you don’t understand, he said. I don’t have to prove anything to anyone, especially not this many years later. I don’t care what people think. I found out a long time ago that people will believe what they want to regardless. So, the price required—digging up all the old garbage—is too high for the reward, some kind of reinstatement that I don’t need and don’t care about.

  She touched his unshaven face. Well, my dear cowboy, it may not be your decision, or our decision, to make. Young Carroll is hardly the soul of discretion, and our friend Frances is still
in the newspaper business, at least the last time I checked.

  38.

  Leonard Cloud and a delegation of the Southern Ute tribal council welcomed Patrick Carroll and former mayor Walter Hurley and thanked Daniel Sheridan for bringing them to the monthly council meeting. A number of tribal members were in attendance to see if any new tribal business would affect their livelihood. As usual, the setting was informal.

  Sheridan explained that the mayor, at Mr. Carroll’s urging, had offered their services to the Utes and the Durango community to try to resolve differences that were becoming sharper over the Animas–La Plata water project. He said that he knew the tribal elders remembered with fondness when Mr. Hurley had been mayor those years ago and how, like his friend Congressman Patrick Carroll Sr., this young man’s father, he had always supported efforts to develop water for the region.

  Sheridan did not say, nor did the tribe’s memory require it, that during those Hurley-Carroll years, the proposed dam and water project had been primarily for businesses and farms in the Durango area north of the tribe’s reservation.

  Patrick Carroll thanked the tribal leadership for the opportunity to express his interest in being of service in any way that would benefit them. He pointed out his position at the Durango Herald and how the newspaper over the years had both championed the water project, properly designed, and urged that the two Ute tribes should receive a fair share of the stored water in the reservoir to be built.

  Sheridan had explained to Leonard beforehand the clumsy behind-the-scenes maneuvering that had brought both the mayor and young Carroll to his doorstep. And this scene at the council meeting, therefore, was political theater on a small scale. After many decades, the Indians had become accustomed to accommodating the machinations of the white man’s politics. Sheridan had explained that the older man and the younger man had conspired to get him involved as a peacemaker, that he had demurred and urged them both, given their histories, to undertake the mission themselves, and that he had on his own already decided to try for a political solution to the dilemma that he had in fact discussed with Leonard and Sam a few days before.

  Leonard Cloud managed his role with considerable aplomb, applauding both Carroll and Hurley for their concern and their support. He reiterated the tribe’s position as one of accommodation and conciliation. He urged the two men and their friend Mr. Sheridan to do all they could in the Durango community to reawaken public support for construction of the Animas–La Plata facilities, despite the fact that it had metamorphosed into what was basically now a project designed to provide municipal and industrial water for the two Ute tribes.

  The former mayor responded for them both, in rotund oratory of a century before, promising utmost effort to heal the ancient wounds caused by contentious debate over the project over all these years and pointing out to one and all that a developing Southern Ute Tribe, particularly one developing needed energy supplies, was not only in the interest of Durango, but also in the interest of Colorado and the entire United States.

  Patrick Carroll concluded with his commitment to do his best to see that the Herald continued to provide public encouragement for water for the region and for tribal projects.

  Sheridan stayed behind to thank Leonard Cloud for managing the play so effectively. Leonard said, It is my pleasure. Part of modern-day politics. Thanks for bringing them around. Believe it or not, they can help out with the public relations with the old and with the young. It is funny, though, he continued, they thought they brought you here and you thought you brought them here. So now you are all happy.

  Sheridan thanked him again and said, Of course they don’t know I’ve been trying to work behind the scenes all along and as far as I’m concerned, we’ll leave it at that. The tribal chairman nodded in agreement.

  39.

  Sheridan and Red, with Toby’s help, were working his small cattle herd down from their high summer grazing area on the north end of the Sheridan ranch property, which bordered the southern end of the San Juan National Forest and on which the Sheridan family had had grazing rights for several decades.

  Sheridan had found it hard to get the cougar out of his mind. The previous night, and several nights before that, he had seen those wide yellow eyes, clear, unblinking, knowing, in his dreams. They were a profound mystery. How could a creature of nature, though a proud and noble one at that, possess a look so much more powerful than any human he knew?

  As he worked Red behind the herd, he wondered what the cat had been thinking and reflected on Two Hawks’ remarks. He had been in the creature’s territory. Quite possibly it had considered the area of the hidden lake part of its hunting range for some time. And quite possibly it had observed him on more than one occasion, including when he had taken Caroline with him, on his trips to the lake.

  Though no philosopher, Sheridan had considered man’s role in nature more than once. In his youth it had occupied him little. But as the years went on and he considered instruction he had received from grandfather and father alike concerning respect for the land and nature’s creatures, he grew more and more—and without much reflection—to a familiarity and acquaintance with his surroundings that seemed, for lack of a better word, natural. Increasingly with age, he wanted to fit in to his surroundings, not to be separate and apart from them.

  A year or two before, he had instructed Sam Maynard to draw up a will leaving his place to Caroline and asking that his ashes be scattered along the edge of his hidden lake in the Weminuche. She would know where that was and how to get there.

  He now supposed that was why he was preoccupied by the cougar. He wondered, if it had come down to it, whether he would have put his blade into the great creature’s heart and, if he had, would it have seemed unworthy of him to have killed such a wonder of nature for simply protecting its own territory. For Sheridan, that confrontation had become what a literary person like Caroline would have called a metaphor. If the cougar represented nature and was playing its role in that context, what were his rights and what were his responsibilities?

  Sheridan slapped a recalcitrant heifer with his lariat rope, and it jumped and bellowed. The cat had rights. It had a right to be itself and to play out its purpose. Sheridan recalled a church service his father had taken him to as a boy and the sermon about man having dominion over the earth and all the creatures on it. It didn’t sound right then and it sounded even less right as time went on. Man may have a right to grow crops and herd cows and make a living. But he didn’t have the right to kill one of nature’s works of art, such as a cougar, out of thrill or sport or territory.

  The herd made its way slowly down the slopes, stopping from time to time to pull up some particularly tasty grass, with Toby crouched to nip a heel here or there at Sheridan’s command. He was in no hurry. Early fall and this minor version of the old cattle drives were his favorite times. Now, in early September, he could tell by sniffing the air that the first snow would not be long off. And the first one, for some reason, was often a big one. So the sun felt good, the cattle were healthy, and he was with his horse and dog.

  He thought of Caroline. Try as he might, he had not been able to keep her at arm’s distance. He smiled to himself at how shrewd she was in managing him and at how her company pleased him so much. He went out of his way to keep his emotions in check around her. But he knew she had, in that mystery of the ages, got herself into his heart. He hadn’t expected it, but he knew now he would be somewhere between lonely and lost without her. He marveled at her cleverness with finance, yet her sensitivity with her portrayal of nature.

  Which brought him back to the cougar. He somehow wanted to reach a basic truth about himself and the cougar, himself representing mankind and the cougar representing nature. He wasn’t smart enough, he concluded, to achieve what many of the great philosophers throughout history had failed to achieve. The easy solutions were that old preacher’s notion years before about man’s dominion over
the earth, or the other notion of not chopping down a tree or eating a steak.

  The Sheridan heritage had always been to clean up after yourself and not hurt anyone downstream. They had kept their herds in check, kept animal waste and herbicides out of the Florida River, and refused to sell off their timber to the logging companies that continued to beseech them with dollars. It was nothing they prided themselves in. It was just their way and their practice.

  The herd was now approaching the low pasture lands where it would winter. Some would go to market and provide enough in the bank to make it until next spring. Sheridan wondered if Caroline would like to go someplace warm, maybe down to Mexico, for a week or two when it got coldest. He hadn’t done anything like that for quite a while, and she would probably never bring it up herself. But it might be nice for a change. She’s probably tired of that Jameson and ready for some tequila, he thought.

  Sheridan closed the gate to the high country trail, patted Toby and praised him, then gave him a fresh bone for his reward. Red got an extra helping of oats for his good work.

  Sheridan shook his head. He still didn’t know what to think about the cougar. It would continue to be a mystery and a haunter of dreams. Maybe that’s why he was put here, he thought. Maybe his real purpose is to tell us with those luminous big yellow eyes to be careful, not of him, the creature, but to be careful how we live, what we chop down, what we eat, what we destroy so needlessly.

  40.

  I’ve finished my piece, Mrs. Farnsworth, Patrick said. It’s just under five thousand words.

  My God, she exclaimed. What in the world do you think you’re going to do with something like that?

  I was hoping you might take a look at it and consider running it as a series, the young reporter said.

  She laughed. A series? Patrick, the Durango Herald is not The New York Times. We don’t do “series.” Besides, I’ve told you more than once I’m not going to print a history no one wants to read, least of all Daniel Sheridan’s. It would be cruel and unnecessary. People around here—she circled her hand above her head—including particularly your generation, would think I had gone completely insane. And my late dear Murray would absolutely turn over in his grave.