Sam dismounted and wrapped his horse’s reins around the rail. As he stepped toward the open door, two men in dusty, well-worn range garb came out of the building. Heavy revolvers rode in holsters on their hips.
One of the men was tall and thin, with a hawk-like face and a drooping black mustache. He had an open-clasp knife in his hand and was using the point of the blade to worry at a piece of food stuck in his teeth. That seemed to Sam like a fairly dangerous method for a man to pick his teeth.
The other hombre was shorter and considerably stockier than his companion, though not actually fat. His battered old brown Stetson was thumbed back on a thatch of rusty red hair. He had an open, honest face with a slight scattering of freckles across his nose and cheeks.
The tall man folded his knife and slipped it into a pocket as he gave Sam a smile and a friendly nod.
“Howdy,” he said.
“Good morning,” Sam replied. “Or good afternoon. I’m not sure exactly which it is.”
The short man pulled a big railroad watch attached to a thick chain from his pocket and flipped it open.
“Seventeen minutes after twelve,” he announced. “So it’s afternoon.”
“Well, then, good afternoon,” Sam said.
“Are you new in town?” the tall man asked. “Don’t recollect seein’ you around Flat Rock before.”
“This is the first time I’ve been here,” Sam replied.
“Just passin’ through?” the shorter man asked.
Sam was puzzled by the questions, but then he remembered how much interest strangers sometimes drew in frontier towns. Anything to break the monotony of a sometimes drab existence was welcome.
And surrounded by such a rugged, arid landscape, life in Flat Rock would certainly be drab.
Sam had no real idea what the men he was searching for looked like, but the bushwhackers might have studied him and Matt through field glasses before they opened fire.
So for all he knew, these two apparent grub-line riders could be part of the gang.
Which meant they could know who he was, too.
But without any way of being sure about that, all he could do for the moment was play along.
“That’s right, just passing through,” he said.
“If you’re lookin’ for a ridin’ job, there ain’t many to be had hereabouts,” the tall cowboy told him. “We ain’t lookin’, in particular, ’cause our dinero ain’t run out yet. But Flat Rock’s a good place to be if you’re aimin’ to make some money. It just looks like a sleepy little burg. Lots of excitin’ things goin’ on in this town, yes, sir.”
“Well, that’s good to know,” Sam said. He was about to decide that these two men were just the pair of harmless cowpokes they appeared to be, although he couldn’t rule out anything else. He nodded toward the door of the café. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m a mite hungry ...”
“Then you’ve come to the right place,” the shorter man said. “Best chow in town.”
“I’m obliged,” Sam said. He took a step toward the door.
“Say,” the tall man spoke up, “I don’t mean no offense, but you look like you got some Injun blood in you.”
Sam stopped.
“I’m half Cheyenne,” he said. He had never denied or been ashamed of his heritage.
The tall man grinned.
“I’m an eighth Cherokee, myself. Like I said, no offense meant, just curious. Only way a fella really finds out anything is by askin’ questions.”
“I suppose that’s true.” Sam grasped the doorknob and nodded to the two men. “So long.”
He opened the door and went inside before the talkative cowboys could say anything else.
Sleepy little burg or not, the café was doing good business in this noon hour. Half a dozen tables covered with blue-checked tablecloths were occupied, and the stools along the counter were almost all full.
Sam took one that wasn’t and sat down between a burly man who looked like a freighter and a smaller gent in a suit and rimless spectacles.
The freighter, if that’s what he was, ignored Sam, but the other man nodded and said, “Hello.” His formerly stiff collar had wilted in the heat.
Sam returned the nod.
“Afternoon.”
The man held out his hand.
“Noah Reilly.”
Sam shook the townsman’s hand and introduced himself.
“I’m Sam Two Wolves.”
“That’s certainly a colorful and unusual name.”
Sam shrugged.
“Not where I come from.”
“Where’s that?”
“Montana,” Sam said without going into any more details. Folks in Flat Rock seemed to be a friendly, inquisitive bunch.
“I’ve never been to Montana. From everything I’ve heard, I’m sure it’s beautiful up there. More beautiful than this part of Arizona, anyway.”
A middle-aged counterman with gray hair and a white apron came over and said, “Noah, quit yam-merin’ at this fella. He probably came in for something to eat, not a lot of talk.”
“No, that’s all right, really,” Sam said as he saw the contrite expression that appeared on the bespectacled man’s face. “I don’t mind talking. But I would like something to eat.”
“Lunch special’s chicken and dumplin’s,” the counterman told him.
Sam nodded and said, “That’ll be fine, thanks.”
“Comin’ up.”
As the counterman turned to the pass-through window that led to the kitchen, Noah Reilly pointed to the empty bowl in front of him and told Sam, “I had the chicken and dumplings. Delicious. You’ll enjoy it.”
“I’m sure I will. What do you do for a living, Mr. Reilly?”
“You can call me Noah. I work at the general store.”
Sam had taken the man for a clerk of some sort, so he wasn’t surprised by Reilly’s answer.
“I’ll bet you know everybody in town, then.”
Reilly grinned.
“All the ones who have any money to spend, anyway.” He laughed at his own mild wit.
“You probably don’t get a lot of strangers riding through Flat Rock.”
“No, not as out of the way as we are here. Most people have to have a good reason to come to Flat Rock, or they’d never even hear of it. But people always need supplies, and this is the only place in fifty or sixty miles to get them.”
“That’s true,” Sam admitted. He didn’t see how talking to Noah Reilly was going to help him find the men who tried to kill him and Matt, but he didn’t have anything better to do at the moment, he supposed.
“Are you a full-blooded Indian, Sam?” Reilly went on.
The blunt question made Sam raise his eyebrows a little.
“Half Cheyenne,” he explained, just as he had told the tall cowboy outside.
“Most of the Indians in these parts were Navajo. This is part of their reservation, you know.”
Sam nodded and said, “So I’ve heard. They’re peaceful, though, aren’t they?”
“For the most part. Some of the people around here still get nervous about the Navajo, even though all the trouble with them seems to have been over for fifteen years. But for all we know, some of them may have long memories.”
“Could be,” Sam said. Caballo Rojo was old enough to have taken part in the Navajo wars back in the Sixties.
“Well, no standing in the way of progress, eh?” Reilly scraped his stool back. “Here comes Harvey with your food, and I have to get back to work. It was a pleasure to meet you, Sam.”
“Likewise,” Sam said with a nod.
Reilly reached down to the floor, picked up a black hat, and put it on. He placed some coins on the counter to pay for his meal and left the café as the counterman put a big bowl of chicken and dumplings in front of Sam.
“Want some coffee or a cup of buttermilk?”
“Coffee will be fine,” Sam said.
“Comin’ up,” the man replied. That seemed to be a habitual response with him.