Free Durango by Gary Hart Page A

if I could help.
    Sheridan said, Leonard, I guess I’m not surprised. If anyone around here had thought something along those lines, it would’ve been you. He looked his friend in the eye and said, I greatly appreciate it.
    Way I see it, Cloud said, you’ve been accused and convicted of something you didn’t do. It’s not right. You’ve protected us—this tribe—as well as anyone around here. We’ve known each other since we were both boys, me younger than you, and there isn’t a crooked bone in your body. Those two guys on the council are going to resign, whether they realize it yet or not, and if I have anything to do with it, they’ll admit that they’re thieves and liars. They got some money alright, but it wasn’t from you.
    Let it go, Leonard, Sheridan said. I don’t want to cause anyone else any trouble. They did what they did, and we have to let it go. Everyone involved just followed the usual script: financial types, newspapers, politicians, people with old grudges, anyone with a Sheridan ax to grind, everyone was just playin’ their role. Almost everyone.
    Cloud studied him. I don’t know Mrs. Chandler very well. But what I do know, I like. She is a real lady. She’s spent a lot of time down here doing her painting. What Durango people don’t know, maybe even you don’t know, is that she has also spent a lot of time volunteering in the grade school and the medical clinic. Many hours, in fact. Many days.
    Sheridan swallowed hard. I didn’t know it. She’s never said. He paused. But I’m not surprised.
    It’s none of my business, Dan, Cloud said, but I want to help out. You had some legal bills, I know. And you couldn’t get your cows to market while all this stuff was going on. We Southern Utes are going to earn a lot of money, and I’d be honored if you’d be a kind of advisor or counselor to the tribal council.
    Sheridan shook his head vigorously. Can’t do it, Leonard. It wouldn’t look right. And it would undoubtedly cause you more controversy and trouble. The press would want to look into it again and some in the tribe and the public would think there was something suspicious. He looked out the window for a time. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it, though, he said. It’s a real gesture of friendship.
    I’m not surprised, Cloud said. I pretty much suspected what you’d say. But I felt honor-bound to offer.
    15.
    The long stalemate over the Animas–La Plata project drove already bitter feelings even deeper throughout southwestern Colorado. Instead of seeking compromise, the positions of advocates and opponents alike hardened. Political leaders, long accustomed to addressing the matter with an “on the one hand we need the water, but on the other hand we can’t keep building dams everywhere” approach, now found themselves with little if any middle ground to occupy. You were either with the advocates or with the opponents.
    Calls for study didn’t work anymore, either. The project had been studied to death, almost literally. Pro-development studies were denounced by environmental opponents as biased, and anti-development studies proved many times over that the project could not pay for itself, at least in terms of increased agricultural production.
    Being civilized, the people of Durango, especially those who had taken hard stands on this divisive issue, by and large managed their relationships by agreeing to disagree. But from time to time bitterness would emerge, and the forums for this were both the regular city council and county commission meetings. Like the ancient Greek and Roman public forums from which they derived, these public meetings began to move from being a place for civil debate to a venue for airing personal and group grievances. As is usually the case, the most vocal were also the most hard-headed and illogical.
    The Animas–La Plata water