“Yeah, well, I could’ve talked to her now if you two blabbermouths would ever let a man get a word in edgewise,” Wilbur muttered.
Sam chuckled. He hadn’t ruled out the possibility that these two had some sinister motive in befriending him, but it was becoming more and more difficult to remain suspicious of them.
They took the rear stairs and went out a door that led into the alley behind the saloon.
“Where are you headed now, Sam?” Stovepipe asked.
Sam looked at the sky. The afternoon was getting to be well advanced.
“I thought I’d go check on my horse at the livery stable, then head for the boardinghouse where I’m staying. The lady who runs the place told me that supper was at six o’clock, and I’ve got a hunch she wouldn’t look kindly on any of her boarders who were late.”
“You gonna be in town for a while?”
“I don’t know yet,” Sam answered honestly. “Probably.”
“Then I reckon we’ll be runnin’ into you again. And if you get into any more trouble, let out a holler. Wilbur and me are liable to be around somewhere close by. Flat Rock ain’t all that big of a place, after all.”
“I’ll remember that,” Sam promised. He lifted a hand in farewell as the two cowboys ambled off along the alley.
He wondered if Stovepipe’s comments meant that the two of them planned to keep an eye on him ... and if they did, why?
Pablo Garralaga at the livery stable wanted to know if Sam had found Mrs. McCormick’s boardinghouse. Sam said that he had and thanked the liveryman for directing him there.
“Looks like a comfortable place,” he said. “And as it turns out, the fella who has the room next to me is a man I met at the cafe earlier.”
“And who would that be?” Garralaga asked.
“Noah Reilly.”
Garralaga smiled.
“The little hombre from the general store?”
“You know him?”
“I buy goods there. And he comes by here every so often to rent a saddle horse from me.”
Sam said, “He didn’t strike me as the sort of fella to go riding around the countryside.”
Garralaga shook his head.
“No, no, he tries to ride, but the poor little mucha-cho always comes back in such pain. He told me once that he used to live somewhere back East, and he came out here to Arizona for his health. He thinks that he should learn to ride so he will fit in better. I try to show him how to sit so he won’t be so sore from the saddle, but it’s no use. Some people should never get on a horse.”
Sam supposed that was true, even though he had spent so much of his life on horseback it was hard to imagine that there were people who just couldn’t ride.
He looked in on his own horse, said so long to Garralaga, and then strolled toward the boardinghouse. Along the way he mulled over everything that had happened since he rode into Flat Rock. He had met some people, gotten into a brawl, and had a beautiful Englishwoman who just might be nobility point a shotgun at him. It had been an eventful afternoon, but not a particularly productive one. He didn’t feel like he was any closer to finding the bushwhackers than he had been before he arrived in town.
But they were still here somewhere, his instincts told him. It was just a matter of drawing them into the open and figuring out why they had tried to kill him and Matt. Once he had done that, he could decide on his next move.
At least he didn’t have to worry too much about Matt right now, he told himself. That was one thing to be thankful for, anyway.
Chapter 19
Juan Pablo hadn’t returned to the canyon by the next morning, and Matt wasn’t sure what that meant. He hoped Sam and the Navajo hadn’t run into trouble, such as another ambush attempt.
Elizabeth Fleming wasn’t in the hogan when Matt woke up. He didn’t see any point in asking the older woman about her, so he just kept quiet, ate the bowl of stew she gave him for breakfast, and sat motionless while she changed the poultices on his wounds.
He felt stronger now, and as a result he was even more restless than before. That afternoon it grew so warm and stuffy inside the hogan that Matt felt like he couldn’t get a breath of air.
Finally he got to his feet, went to the door of the hogan, and stepped out into the sunlight.
This was the first time he had felt the sun in a long time. A week, maybe? Matt wasn’t sure. Because of his injury, he had lost track of time. All he knew was that although the light was blinding to his eyes, the warmth of the sun on his skin felt wonderful and was very welcome.
He drew in a deep breath. As in any Indian encampment, the air was filled with the smells of smoke, grease, and human waste. Even that didn’t bother Matt right now. He had been in plenty of so-called “civilized” places that smelled worse.
“Matt,” a voice said behind him.
He turned and saw Elizabeth standing there. From the looks of it, she had been on her way around the hogan when she saw him and stopped short in surprise.
After a moment she took a step toward him and lifted a hand as if she intended to reach out and touch his bare chest. Other than the bandages wrapped around his midsection to hold the poultices in place, he was naked from
