Longarm and the Colorado gundown

_{“Whatever,” Leah said with another shrug of dismissal. Before Farmer had gotten two steps away she was telling Longarm, “I understand they have fresh roe today, dear. How would scrambled eggs and fried roe sound?” Longarm’s response was that it sounded quite frankly like shit. Except out loud he didn’t say it exactly that way. “Doesn’t quite do it for me today. But don’t you fret. I’ll think of something that sounds good.” He picked up a neatly lettered menu card and began looking it over. “What’s the deal with Farmer if you don’t mind me asking? I thought you’d decided you wouldn’t be doing business here.”}

_{“I won’t,” she said. “Mr. Farmer heard I plan to open several, um, business establishments in Glory and Silver Creek. He has an advertising scheme worked out and wants me to contract with him for it. Discreet newspaper ads, contract printing for handbills, things like that. I don’t know the details yet, of course. We hadn’t gone that far. He seems to think he can offer me bargain rates in exchange for a long-term contract commitment. Naturally I need to see some details before I can even consider his proposals.”}

_{She looked up from her menu card and frowned slightly. “Odd how he left like that, isn’t it? And he had seemed so anxious to talk to me. Oh, well.”}

_{“Why would you think about advertising here or passing circulars out in Snowshoe anyway?”}

_{“Why, I wouldn’t. Naturally not. There would be no point in it,” Leah said.}

_{“I’m confused.”}

_{“Mr. Farmer is going to be operating the newspapers in all the towns served by the Silver Creek, Tipson, and Glory Rail Road. Some sort of monopoly arrangement he worked out with Edgar Monroe.”}

_{“Pardon? I mean, who is Edgar Monroe and what does he have t’ do with anything?”}

_{“I’m sure you remember Mr. Monroe, Longarm. You got into a fistfight with him in defense of my honor.” She winked. “That was back when you still thought I might have some honor, if you recall.”}

_{Monroe, then, would be the railroad boss who had ridden from Silver Creek to Glory with them a few days earlier. Yeah, Longarm remembered the man, all right. “You say the newspaperman from here worked out an arrangement with Monroe about running papers down in those other towns too?”}

_{“Not in addition to the Snowshoe newspaper, I shouldn’t think,” Leah corrected. “After all, both those gentlemen assured me that Snowshoe is on the decline. They expect it to disappear altogether within the year.”}

_{“They do?”}

_{“Oh, yes. Didn’t I tell you all of this before?”}