Blood Bond: Arizona Ambush

“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 cafe 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.

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 cafe.

“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 ...”