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Not a question. The same inflection Marnie had used, the Silver Bend version of asking, which appeared to be not asking at all.

“I’m from Denver,” I said. “The ‘one’ part I can’t confirm.”

The man grinned. He had a face built for grinning — wide, ruddy, weathered in the pattern of someone who’d spent decades squinting at sun and wind and his own opinions. Sixties. Seed cap pulled low. A canvas coat he didn’t need indoors and clearly wasn’t removing.

“Earl Hansen,” he said, and tipped the cap without lifting it. “That’s my table. This is her table.” He pointed at Marnie. “You’re in her booth.”

“The booth doesn’t have a name on it,” I said.

“Everything in here’s got a name on it. You just haven’t learned them yet.”

One of the men at the table snorted into his coffee. Another shifted his seed cap lower and said nothing. The fourth — lean, quiet, a pencil behind his ear that he was using to stir something in a notebook — didn’t look up.

“Earl,” the man who’d snorted said, “let the woman eat.”

“She ate. I watched. She’s drinking now.”

“He watches everything,” the quiet man with the pencil said, without raising his head. “Don’t take it personally.”

“I don’t,” I said, which was true. I’d been watched by tougher audiences than a four-top in Silver Bend, Montana, though none of them had been this direct about it.

Earl leaned back in his chair, which creaked. “You’re producing Cash Calloway’s rodeo.”

The diner was small enough that this carried. The two women by the window glanced over. The man at the counter set his soup spoon down.

“I’m consulting on the event,” I said. “Nothing’s been agreed to.”

Earl’s eyebrows rose under the seed cap. “That’s not what I heard.”

“What did you hear?”

“I heard he’s putting on a rodeo and a woman from Denver drove up in a car that’s never been on gravel.”

The men at his table laughed. Not at me — with me, or around me, or in the general direction of the situation, which appeared to be community property.

“He tell you about the arena?” Earl asked.

“He showed me the arena.”

“Site’s got a seep.”

I looked at him.

He looked pleased with himself.

“South end,” I said.

“Told you,” Earl said to his table. “She’s been in the mud.”

“Everybody’s been in that mud,” the man who’d snorted said. “That field’s been wet since God’s birthday.”

“I told Cash the same thing,” Earl said. “Last week. He said he’d handle it. Boy’s been saying he’ll handle things since he was twelve.”

“He was handling things at twelve,” the pencil man said, still not looking up.

“He was getting in the way of things at twelve,” Earl corrected. “Different skill set.” Earl turned back to me. He settled into his chair. “Wyatt runs the ranch,” he said. “Boone runs the cattle. Cash runs the room.” He tapped the table with one finger. “Always has. Boy could talk the hind leg off a donkey and the front leg off the one behind it. He could sell you your own horse and have you thanking him for the discount.”

“Sounds like a producer’s dream,” I said awkwardly.