Durango by Gary Hart Read Free Book Online Page B

Durango almost forty years before. They were both from prominent New York families but decided the haute society was not for them. They bought the Durango Herald —they had always wanted to run a newspaper—and raised their children in southwestern Colorado. “Pillars of the community” was, in their case, an apt description. They were sophisticated easterners who very shortly let their hair down and became down-to-earth fixtures in the community, on a first-name basis with all. Though old-style moderate Republicans, they pitched their editorials, each taking turns, right down the middle, which was where most southwestern Coloradans liked their political pitches. Anyone who felt the need or had the use for a firearm should be able to own one, or several. And most did. But any woman in need of an abortion should be able to have one also. And occasionally, she chuckled to herself, they even weighed in on the need for arms control agreements between the US and the Soviet Union in the old Cold War days, giving vent to what the Farnsworths called, between themselves, the Republic of Durango’s foreign policy.
    Patrick brought her back from her memories. So, he said, Mr. Sheridan was maneuvering—
    Being maneuvered, she corrected.
    â€”being maneuvered into a candidacy for governor, the vultures were circling—
    And some of them landing, she added.
    â€”and some of them landing. And then the roof fell in on Sheridan.
    As our paper reported, she said, he was accused of accepting payment, taking bribes, for using his county commission office—by then he was chairman of the commission—for arranging financial contracts with the Southern Ute Tribe. Naturally, he denied it and opened his account at the Bank of Durango to prove it. His accusers promptly responded that there were other banks, including in Switzerland or the Cayman Islands, where money could be readily deposited.
    That means he had to prove a negative, Patrick exclaimed.
    Exactly, she responded.
    They must have had some other evidence.
    There were two members of the tribal council who offered to testify that he had given them money to support a bid by a large and powerful investment fund to manage the tribe’s resource development projects. They opened their bank accounts, new ones, and there the money was in the amount they claimed he gave them.
    That’s not enough evidence to convict him, Patrick nearly shouted.
    Ah, Patrick. Young man. You don’t know our man Mr. Sheridan. He was—he is—an old-fashioned man of honor. His honor is more important to him than that land he got from his father, or his horse, or his dog, or his pickup truck, or just about anything else. He did not intend to have his honor besmirched. He resigned from the La Plata County Commission and ordered his friends to close down the blossoming political campaign. He simply went back up to the top of Florida Road, and that’s where he’s been ever since.
    Patrick shook his head. I don’t know, Mrs. Farnsworth, there’s something else here. There were all kinds of other dark insinuations around this time, including in the Herald. There seemed to be other things going on as well. That’s what I’m trying to find out about. No one wants to talk about it.
    Almost exactly at this time, she said, studying him directly, we received a letter—Murray and I—at the paper. It alleged in considerable detail that Mr. Sheridan had accepted the payments, and distributed them, because he needed the money to pay blackmail.
    Blackmail! Patrick’s eyes widened.
    You are not going to write this, Patrick. At least you are not going to write it for my newspaper, she said.
    Blackmail for what? he stammered.
    The letter said that he was having an affair with the wife of a prominent man. A very prominent man. And that Mr. Sheridan needed the payoff money to keep the blackmailer from disclosing this.
    That’s crazy, Patrick said.