<div class="floatleft">(https://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/f/f2/Beardycox.jpg)</div><br/><strong>Name:</strong>Avery Burnham<br/><strong>Faction:</strong>Law Dogs (1)<br/><strong>Date:</strong>May 14th, 1876<br/><strong>Time of Day:</strong>Morning<br/><strong>Location:</strong>Burnham Detective Agency<br/><strong>Tagged:</strong>Letty<br/><hr/><br/>Hands folded atop his desk and sporting the same sort of polite patient smile he might -- theoretically -- offer a nervous client, Avery listened while Letty talked.  Well, of course, he listened.  It would have been awfully rude to simply resume reading the paper, after all.  To his mild surprise, he found himself genuinely interested though, which wasn’t always the case when it came to hearing other people’s problems.  Admittedly, at first, it sounded much like he’d already suspected.  Letty had made the long trek to Gomorra after answering an ad in the newspaper, only to find her long distance courter dead by the time she arrived.  It was not as uncommon a story as one might think.  Avery had seen the mail order bride listings in the back of the Sears Roebuck catalogs and heard tales of women traveling hundreds of miles from back east, leaving friends and family, only to find their suitor gone when they arrived, either from natural causes or cold feet.  The cathouses would often prey upon them, offering free lodgings to the bewildered new arrival and then…<br/><br/>Of course that wasn’t quite Letty’s situation but close enough to be familiar to him.  It was the second half of her story that peeked his interest, the reason for her distress the other night that had stoked his sudden gallantry.  Reclining back in his chair, Avery’s smile widened, finding this all rather a welcome distraction from his current ‘case’ anyways.  “I must say this does amuse me, Ms. Sanchez.”  It did actually but realizing belatedly just  how callous that might sound, he dropped the smile and leaned forward again with a more serious expression.  “Not to say I find anything at all amusing about your situation, of course.  I can only imagine how distressing it would be to come all the way out to a place such as this one, only to be greeted with such disappointment.  And then to discover that you’d been deceived all the while…”  He made a ‘tch‘-ing with his tongue, shaking his head sympathetically.  “No I don’t think anyone could blame you for being upset, Ms. Sanchez.”<br/><br/>Which was basically true.  Avery found Gomorra depressing enough without having been tricked into coming here.  It had at least been his own choice.  He had made the decision to try his luck in this violent ugly town and whether his business succeeded or failed, it would be on him.  Letty had nothing but broken promises though.  He almost wondered why she’d even stayed here.  Too embarrassed to return home perhaps?   “No, no, I am merely amused at the thought this town has its very own Cyrano.  I might suggest you look for a man with a very large nose…”  He smiled, before dismissing his own bemused words with a wave of his hand, assuming the reference might be lost.  “I take it the sister had no knowledge of who was helping her brother compose these letters?  No, obviously not…or she would have told you, I suppose.  That makes it rather more curious though, doesn’t it?  How is it rancher counts a man of letters a close enough friend that he’s willing to go to such lengths for him.  Where does he even<em>find</em>a man of letters hereabouts…”  The edge of Avery’s lip quirked up at that, imagining the incongruous image of one of the local ghost rock miners, layered in weeks of accumulated filth, composing poetry to a far off Mexican maiden in between drunken revels at local saloons.  Unlikely somehow.<br/><br/>Turning back to Letty and softening at the expression of sadness in her deep brown eyes -- it was troubling actually how quickly and easily she kept catching his sympathy; he did not normally consider himself such a soft touch, it being a dangerous thing hereabouts, or anywhere really -- and brought his lips together tightly in a look of thought, before nodding.  “May I ask how you learned the letters had another author?  I have to admit the whole…predicament has captured my interest.  I have something of a taste for puzzles and this seems an intriguing one.  Are you wanting to find him or ‘let sleeping dogs lie?’ as they say?  If the former, it is possible I might be able to help you.  This is the very sort of thing I do actually…or hope to do once I become better established in Gomorra.”  Once an actual customer showed up, not counting a certain local busybody looking to grind an axe for some poor, and perfectly charming in his opinion, saloon singer.<br/><br/>“Of course I don’t work for free…but perhaps we could arrange something?  I also consider myself a bit of an amateur linguist.  I know a touch of French and some Latin from my study of the law.  I can speak Chinese quite fluently.”  Or one of the dialects at least, but why go into all that, especially when he wasn’t at all certain what he driving at here anyways.  It was all acting on a whim essentially, much like their previous meeting.  “I’m afraid I know very little Spanish though, which strikes me as a possible hindrance in this part of the country.  So perhaps we might barter one for the other and so help each other?”  Did he really wish to learn Spanish so badly, he wondered.  It did seem a useful skill to have in this part of the country, but was it worth the distraction of taking on a non-paying case?  Or was it merely an excuse meet with Ms. Sanchez on a more regular basis?<br/><br/>He wasn’t entirely sure…and that surprised him as much as anything.<br/>