Sam took a bite of the food while the counterman poured coffee in a cup for him.
“That is good,” he said. “Mr. Reilly told me it would be. He was right.”
The counterman chuckled.
“Ol’ Noah likes to talk, that’s for sure. Hope he didn’t bend your ear too much.”
“Not at all,” Sam said. “Everybody in town seems pretty friendly. I ran into a couple of cowboys just outside who talked to me, too.”
“Tall, skinny fella and a little redheaded gink?” When Sam nodded, the counterman went on, “Yeah, they’ve been hangin’ around town for a week or so. Don’t know where they get their money, but they seem pretty flush. Maybe they’ve been lucky at the tables over in Lady Augusta’s place.”
Sam’s interest had perked up at the counterman’s mention of how the two cowboys had been in Flat Rock only for a week or so. Of course, that timing didn’t have to mean a thing ...
But it was an indication that the two men had shown up in this area about the same time as he and Matt had been ambushed. The fact that they had money but didn’t seem to be working for it was intriguing, too.
But before Sam pursued that angle, he satisfied his curiosity on another matter.
“Lady Augusta?” he repeated.
“You haven’t heard of the Buckingham Palace Saloon?”
Sam shook his head.
“Woman came into town about a year ago,” the counterman explained. “Said her name was Lady Augusta Winslow. She let it be known that she was some sort of English nobility. I couldn’t say one way or the other about that. Whole thing could be just a crock of buffalo chips. But she talks like an Englisher, I’ll give her that. And she had enough money to start the Buckingham, which is what most folks around here call the place. Biggest and best saloon and poker parlor in Flat Rock, which means it’s the biggest and best in the whole Four Corners. You should check it out.”
“They let half-breeds in there?” Sam asked.
“Mister, they’d let a dang Rooshian cossack in if he had money to buy booze or gamble.”
“I just thought since Mr. Reilly said folks around here are still a little nervous about the Navajo ...”
“Well, that’s true,” Harvey said with a nod. “But you look as much like a white man as an Indian, so I don’t reckon you’d have any problems.” He rubbed his jaw and frowned in thought. “Except maybe with John Henry Boyd.”
“Who’s that?”
Before Harvey could answer, the teamster sitting next to Sam suddenly turned toward him and said, “By God, mister, are you gonna sit there flappin’ your gums all day? Your food’s gettin’ cold!”
“Take it easy, Jase,” the counterman said. “Nothin’ wrong with a little conversation.”
“There is when it’s gettin’ on my nerves!”
Sam said, “Take it easy, friend. No one meant to cause a problem here.”
The teamster muttered something under his breath, shoved his stool back, and stood up. He tossed a coin on the counter and stalked out of the café.
“Don’t mind him,” Harvey said as he scooped up the coin. “He’s like a surly old bull buffalo pawin’ the ground. He don’t mean nothin’ by it.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Sam said. “Now, you were sayin’ about this John Henry Boyd fella ...”
“He owns the Devil’s Pitchfork ranch, south of here,” the counterman explained. “Has a powerful hate for Indians of all kinds. I don’t know for sure why he feels that way, but I’ve heard it said that his whole family, except for him, was wiped out when Indians attacked the wagon train they were traveling with, twenty years or more ago.”
Sam nodded. It was an old, familiar story. There had been plenty of senseless bloodshed on both sides during the long clash between red men and white on the frontier, and it had left a lot of hatred behind it. He wished things could have been otherwise, but no one could change history.
“If you’re just passin’ through, though, you shouldn’t have to worry about John Henry,” the counterman went on. “He don’t come into town much. He’s almost always out at the ranch.” He lowered his voice. “Which, to hear some folks tell it, is as much of a way station for hombres on the dodge as it is a real ranch.”
That was interesting, too, Sam thought. If outlaws frequented Boyd’s ranch, that could have some connection to the attack on him and Matt.
“I’m obliged to you for telling me.”
Harvey grinned.
“Just lookin’ out for my customers. It ain’t like I’ve got all that many of ’em. Tell you what, Jase was right about one thing ... that food’s gettin’ cold.”
“Wouldn’t want that,” Sam said. He dug into the chicken and dumplings.
As he ate, he mulled over everything he had learned so far, which on the surface didn’t amount to a blasted thing. He had some minor suspicions about the two garrulous cowboys he had met outside but nothing really to tie them to the bushwhackers, and what he had heard about the Devil’s Pitchfork Ranch was intriguing.
Other than that, nothing.
Or maybe not quite nothing, he corrected himself. He had learned that the Buckingham Palace was the biggest and most popular saloon in Flat Rock, so that meant most of the people around here would pass through its batwings at one time or another.
If the bushwhackers were still around and on the lookout for him, that would be a good place for them to spot him.
And he wanted them to spot him, no doubt about that. The odds of him being able to find the men he was looking for were slim, so it made more sense to let them find him. Maybe then he could figure out what it was all about.
That amounted to just about the same thing as painting a target on his back, Sam realized ... but this wouldn’t be the first time he had done that.
Usually, though, he had Matt with him. This time he was alone in a strange town that might be full of enemies, for all he knew.
Didn’t matter. When he got through here, he told himself as he ate the chicken and dumplings, it would be time to pay a visit to Buckingham Palace.
The one in Flat Rock, Arizona Territory, not London.
Chapter 14
When he had finished the food and downed the last of the coffee, Sam paid Harvey for the meal, said so long, and left the café.
He looked along the street and spotted the saloon a couple of blocks up. It was a two-story adobe building that actually had two floors, not one and a false front. A narrow balcony ran along the front of the second floor.
The entrance was at the near corner. The sign that read BUCKINGHAM PALACE SALOON—BEER—LIQUOR—GAMES OF CHANCE—ENTERTAINMENT was so long it took up the front of the building and ran down the side, too.
Before heading for the saloon, Sam looked around for a livery stable. He found one on a side street and turned his horse over to a friendly, middle-aged Mexican who introduced himself as Pablo Garralaga.
“This is a fine horse, señor,” the stableman said. “I will take good care of him.”
“I’m sure you will,” Sam said. “How much?”
“Fifty cents per night, señor. This includes feed and the finest care. And I will repair that damage to your saddle for free. I am skilled at such things.”
Sam handed him two silver dollars, grateful that Garralaga hadn’t asked how his saddle had gotten shot up.
“I’m not sure how long I’ll be in town, but that’ll get us started.”
“Gracias, señor.”
On the off chance that he might find out something else, Sam said, “Do you happen to know a couple of cowboys who’ve been in town about a week? One of them is tall and has a mustache, the other is shorter and has red hair.”
Garralaga rolled his eyes.
“Those two! The little one, he is not so bad, but the tall one, he never stops talking! Always with the questions, questions, questions! He makes me tired just to listen to him.”