Sam smiled.
“Noah Reilly?”
“Oh, you know him?”
“We’ve met,” Sam said.
“Well, good. You won’t feel as much like you’re in a strange place, then. How long do you think you’ll be staying?”
“I don’t really know,” he said. “I’ll pay you for a week. Is that all right?”
“That’ll be fine.”
They concluded the arrangement, and Mrs. McCormick left the room. Sam put his saddlebags on the bed and leaned his rifle in the corner. He went to the window and pushed back the gauzy yellow curtain that hung over it.
The boardinghouse was on Flat Rock’s only street, and from here Sam could see part of the front of the Buckingham Palace Saloon.
A couple of benches were on the boardwalk in front of the saloon, and on one of them sat the two cowboys he had met earlier, evidently just watching the world go by.
The tall, skinny one had his knife out again and was using it to whittle something. The shorter one’s head drooped forward every now and then, as if he were having a hard time staying awake.
There was something about those two, Sam thought, something that bothered him.
Mrs. McCormick must have been elsewhere in the house, because he didn’t see her in the parlor or foyer as he left the house. The saloon was only a short distance away, and it was finally time he paid that visit to the place.
Sam had to walk right past the two cowboys to reach the batwinged door, and just as he expected, they grinned at him in recognition.
The tall one continued whittling without missing a beat as he asked, “How was the food at the cafe? Best you ever et, right?”
“I wouldn’t go quite that far,” Sam said, “but it was good.”
“Wait’ll you taste ol’ Harve’s Irish stew. It’s even better.”
“Pie ain’t bad, either,” the shorter cowboy put in.
“Goin’ to have a drink?” the tall one asked.
“More like a look around,” Sam said. “I’m not much for drinking.”
“Oh, yeah, because of the Injun blood, I reckon. The firewater don’t agree with you.” The man folded his knife and put it away. He held up what he’d been working on. It was a little whistle. “What do you think?”
“Looks good,” Sam said. “Can you play it?”
“Not worth a lick,” the tall cowboy said with a grin. He tossed it to a boy passing by in the street and added, “Here you go, son. Enjoy yourself.”
The boy caught the whistle and said, “Gee, thanks, mister!”
He went on his way, tooting tunelessly on it.
The cowboy put his hands on his knees and pushed himself to his feet in a loose-jointed fashion.
“Come on, Wilbur,” he said to his shorter companion. “We’ll join this here fella.”
Sam didn’t recall inviting them along, but that didn’t seem to matter. As the three of them walked toward the saloon’s entrance, the tall cowboy went on, “They call me Stovepipe Stewart.”
“On account of he’s so tall and skinny,” his redheaded friend put in.
“And this is my pard Wilbur Coleman,” Stovepipe completed the introductions.
There didn’t seem to be anything Sam could do but give them his name. “I’m Sam Two Wolves.”
“Pleased to meet you, Sam. I figure it’s sorta our duty to take you under our wing and show you around, you bein’ new in town and all and us bein’ old-timers.”
Sam almost said something about how he thought they had only been in Flat Rock for a week, but he caught himself in time. He didn’t want them knowing that he’d been asking questions about them.
Anyway, it didn’t matter, because redheaded Wilbur Coleman laughed and said, “Yeah, real old-timers, that’s us. We been in this burg all of a week.”
“That’s seven times as long as Sam here,” Stovepipe pointed out.
“I suppose if you want to look at it that way ...”
Sam pushed the batwings aside and stepped into the Buckingham Palace. He saw right away that it was an impressive place, with a long, mahogany bar on the right side of the room, cut-glass chandeliers that must have been freighted all the way up here from Phoenix, plenty of tables for drinking, and a large area of poker tables, roulette wheels, and faro layouts in the back of the room. There was a piano, too, but no one was playing it at the moment.
Even though it was the middle of the afternoon, the saloon was busy. Men stood at the bar, where a couple of drink jugglers waited on them. Several of the tables were occupied, too. Young women in short, low-cut, spangled dresses circulated among them, delivering drinks and smiles to the customers and ignoring hands that got a little
