Durango by Gary Hart Read Free Book Online

hand on his arm. Including you here tonight, she said. He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. Me too, he said softly.
    Early the next morning, she awoke with a start. The bedroom was cold, the windows customarily open. Though she knew what she would not find, she reached across the bed. His place was still warm. She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. She turned over and slept until the sun came through the window to wake her again.
    She went downstairs and foggily started to make coffee. Then she realized he had started it before leaving. She smiled and shook her head. She watched jays razzing each other over the bird feeder outside the kitchen window. Then she poured the strong coffee into a thick, worn mug and went to the table.
    There sat an object wrapped in plain brown paper. It was a foot or so tall, and she knew immediately what it was. She held the object and hesitated. Finally, she tore away the string and paper. It was another carving for her collection. She probably had a half dozen or more. This was an Indian figure holding what appeared to be a bird, a raptor, probably a hawk, to his chest.
    She held it against her breast. A single tear made its way down her cheek.
    9.
    A few evenings later, another dinner took place on the outskirts of Durango. After the dessert dishes were cleared, Mrs. Farnsworth took her young guest into the comfortable sitting room.
    Patrick, she began, I’ll tell you most of what I know. It is certainly not everything that happened. Probably no more than two people know all that happened then. And I’m not one of them. But as a newspaperwoman, I’m going to do so on ground rules I don’t like and I’d advise you never to use. When you interview someone, particularly a public official, they should always be on the record. Don’t let anyone give you this “off the record” stuff.
    Patrick Carroll said, But Mrs. Farnsworth, this is about a public official. So, shouldn’t even what you say be quotable?
    No, she insisted, it shouldn’t. At least not in this case. Most of what I’ll tell you is already public record. Whether it is accurate public record is another matter, and you’ll have to decide that. He nodded.
    But there is one other thing, Patrick, she continued. Even if you solve the mystery, as you see it, I cannot guarantee I’ll run your profile. That’s for me, and me alone, to decide. In fact, I’ll tell you right now, I probably won’t run it.
    He frowned. Then he said, Could we leave that decision until you see what I come up with?
    She didn’t respond. Here’s what happened, at least as I remember it, she said. Fifteen or more years ago, there was a terrific struggle going on over the degree to which the Indian tribes had the legal right to develop their own resources. The Southern Utes were in some respects in the lead. Up to that point, the Bureau of Indian Affairs negotiated leases with major energy companies and paid the tribes a pretty small royalty. Certainly nothing like what the resources were worth. The matter was brought to a head both by the foreign oil embargoes in the 1970s and, consequently, by the sharp rise in oil prices. Suddenly lots of money was at stake, and several lawsuits were filed against the US government and the oil companies to test the issue of whether the natural resources on tribal lands—reservations—belonged to the US government or to the respective tribes.
    Patrick was writing all this down, or trying to. She waved a hand at him. You can find all this on the Internet and in quite a number of books and articles from that period. Ultimately, one of the cases—not the Southern Utes’ case—got to the Supreme Court, as it was almost bound to. This was a landmark issue. When the tribes got parked on reservations after the Civil War, everyone just took for granted that they were poor and would always stay poor. And likewise that anything valuable on