A Hero in the Making

by Laurie Kingery

  Ella stared at her friend. “Sounds like he’s got you fooled, too.” Ella knew Maude had only seen Bohannan once, when he’d been assisting with the medicine show. She hadn’t even spoken to him, and she already believed he would do as he said he would. “Well, not me. I’ve already told him I don’t trust him.”

  “Ella, give the man a chance,” Maude said, her tone mild. “He sure didn’t have to offer to help. You’re always so suspicious of people. And you did admit he didn’t want to play piano in the saloon.”

  Ella set her jaw and said nothing. She knew she tended to be untrusting of people’s motives, but she had reason to be. Maude hadn’t been through what she had. Maude had grown up the treasured only daughter of the town doctor, not a frightened orphan constantly in danger from the adults around her.

  Maude may have had an easy childhood, but life hasn’t been so easy for her lately, Ella’s conscience reminded her. She’d seen her father cut down in the street by Comanche arrows, and she’d had to move to the boardinghouse when Dr. Walker became the doctor and moved into the attached house that went with the job, though she’d never complained.

  “I’ll give the man a chance,” Ella said at last. “But I’m going to watch him like a hawk.” She was aware she sounded grudging at best, but she wasn’t about to trust someone just because he had twinkling blue eyes that did something funny to her heart.

  * * *

  Nate Bohannan figured it was going to be a long evening. Not only was the old piano resistant to being tuned, but his stomach kept reminding him that he’d only eaten once today, and that had been many hours ago. He wasn’t about to seek Ella Justiss out and ask her for an advance on the “board” that was part of the deal. Something told him he was going to have to do something to prove himself, like providing Detwiler with a perfectly tuned piano, before the mistrustful miss with the dark eyes would ever smile at him the way she had when he’d rescued her from the lecherous saddle tramp. No, he was just going to have to wait until morning, when he hoped she would bring over breakfast.

  He was just beginning to make progress when an older man dressed in worn, threadbare clothes walked into the saloon, introduced himself as Delbert Perry and asked him if he had any more bottles of Cherokee Marvelous Medicine.

  “That sure was some great med’cine,” Perry said. “Did me a world a’ good.” But his eyes told a different story, red-rimmed and anxious, and his hands trembled slightly.

  “No, friend, I’m sorry, but we sold every bottle we had yesterday,” Nate told him.

  “Are you gonna make some more soon?” the other man asked hopefully.

  Nate shook his head. “I wasn’t the one who made the elixir—it was Mr. Salali, and he’s gone. You probably heard what he did here last night.”

  Perry nodded, looking around him at the unfamiliar benches and sawhorse tables. “Yeah, I don’t rightly understand that,” he mumbled, his shoulders sagging.

  Nate felt a renewed surge of guilt at being part of a shady enterprise. “You know, friend, I’m going to let you in on a little something,” he said, lowering his voice as if he were about to impart a valuable secret. “That stuff really didn’t do half of what it was supposed to do. You’re better off without it.”

  Perry nodded slowly. “I ’spose you’re right, mister. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask, though.” Without another word, he turned and trudged out of the saloon.

  Never again, Nate thought. Never again would he get himself involved in something he knew to be dishonest.

  Detwiler returned about an hour later, his buckboard loaded with several crates full of whiskey bottles. Nate had just finished tuning the piano, and ran his fingers over the keyboards to demonstrate.

  “Sounds mighty fine,” the saloonkeeper said. “I ran into a fella on the way back who might be able to come play most nights, so that’s taken care of. Now, if you’ll just help me carry these crates in, we’ll lock up and call it a day.”

  Just as they’d stashed the last crate in the storeroom behind the bar, Nate’s stomach rumbled so loudly that the other man couldn’t help hearing it.

  He chuckled. “Reckon you worked right on through supper, didn’t you? Miss Ella didn’t bring you any supper over from the boardinghouse?”

  Nate shook his head. “I reckon she thought my meals were supposed to start tomorrow,” he said. He didn’t want to admit he didn’t have even four bits to his name to go buy something to eat at the hotel. “Anyway, I don’t think Miss Ella likes me very much, so I didn’t want to ask.” Not liking him was one thing, but he didn’t want to tell the other man what the girl had actually said about not trusting him.

  “Shucks, just give her some time. Miss Ella’s a bit...shy, let’s say, around menfolk she doesn’t know, and she had a shock today, too, with what happened. Meanwhile, I’m headed home—Ma’s got supper waitin’ for me. She always makes plenty, so you come along with me and we’ll see you get fed right enough.”

  “Oh, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he murmured. Nate could imagine how unwelcome it would be to have a stranger show up for supper, especially a stranger associated with the man who had wrecked the saloon. Detwiler’s “Ma” had to be elderly, since the man himself looked to be forty or so.

  “Horsefeathers. My ma’s like the mother of this town, and she loves having folks to feed,” George said. “Come on an’ git in the wagon. Our house is just a hop an’ a skip down the road leadin’ south.”

  It felt good to be welcome, to belong. It had been a long time since Nate had felt that way.

  Chapter Six

  Nate was just descending the stairs into the saloon, intending to make an early start at fashioning new table and chair legs using the lathe at the lumber mill, when he heard a key being turned in the door inside the batwing doors. A few seconds later Ella entered, carrying a basket of eggs and a towel-covered bowl on top of a rectangular covered dish. The makings of breakfast, unless he missed his guess. His stomach rumbled in an eager response.

  “Good morning, Miss Ella. Can I help you carry those into the café?” He took in her no-nonsense navy skirt and waist, and her equally serious face framed by dark hair braided and caught up in a practical knot at the back of her neck. Inexplicably, he found himself wondering what her hair would look like spread over her shoulders.

  “Morning,” she said. “No, I’ve got them, but it would help if you would open the door to the café for me.”

  When he had let her into the café, she turned to him. “Give me a few minutes, and you can have your breakfast, Mr. Bohannan.”

  She was back to formality, he noted. “That would be very nice, Miss Ella. I wasn’t sure if ‘board’ included breakfast or not.” He wasn’t about to tell her that George’s mother had insisted he take a half-dozen leftover biscuits with him when he’d departed from the Detwiler house last night, and that he’d already devoured a couple of them this morning.

  He waited until the smells of bacon frying and biscuits baking wafted into the saloon, and returned to the café, taking a chair at one of the tables. While he waited, he watched her efficient movements as she cracked and scrambled the eggs and poured them into a waiting skillet, then set up the plates and silverware for easy serving. He noticed she had brought a towel-wrapped stack of tortillas also.

  “For the travelers and cowboys who pass who want something they can take with them and eat on the road,” she explained, following his gaze. Then she dished up a generous helping of bacon, eggs and biscuits, and placed them in front of him, along with a small jar of preserves.

  “Thank you, Miss Ella. It smells delicious.” He dipped his fork into the fluffy eggs, and found that his nose hadn’t deceived him. Silence descended as she stared out the window at the street behind the saloon.

  “I...I hope you slept well last night, in spite of all that happened yesterday,” he s
aid, determined to penetrate her coolness.

  Her reply was crisp. “As well as could be expected, under the circumstances.”

  They heard footsteps coming through the saloon and Detwiler appeared, and Ella dished out food for him, too.

  “Mornin’, Miss Ella. Ma said it did her heart good to watch you eat last night, Nate,” George said with a chuckle.

  Nate had been hoping George wouldn’t mention his supper at the Detwilers’ in front of Ella. It made him look as if he were going from person to person, mooching meals. He darted a quick glance at her, and sure enough, one eyebrow was raised as she poured George coffee. “It was mighty nice of her to invite me,” he told George. “Please thank her again.”

  And then customers started showing up, and Ella got busy serving them, and she didn’t appear to notice when Nate left to go to the lumber mill.

  He found the mill past the school, nestled on the creek bank, just as Detwiler had said it would be, and located its proprietor, Hank Dayton, as dour and paunchy a man as the saloonkeeper had predicted.

  “You’ll be Bohannan from the saloon, needin’ some two-by-twos and the use of the lathe. Sheriff told me you were comin’,” Dayton said as if his customer’s presence was something distasteful to be dealt with as soon as possible so he could be alone again. “You know how many you need, and how long to cut ’em?”

  “Thirty-two, thirty inches long, just like this one,” Nate said, holding out one table leg that had miraculously escaped the carnage. He was glad he’d done his figuring beforehand, for it didn’t seem the taciturn Dayton had much patience. Twelve of the table legs were for Ella’s tables, the rest for the saloon’s. “And I’ll need some planks I can trim and join into five sixty-inch round tabletops and four chair seats, but I’ll work on the legs first.”

  Dayton just grunted, wiped his hands on his heavy canvas apron and motioned Bohannan to follow him. “You might as well help me saw until you’ve got enough to start with.”

  Within the hour, Nate was hard at work in a little room off to the side of the main mill building, sanding lengths of wood and angling them at the end that would contact the floor so that the tables wouldn’t wobble. He was rusty at first, having used his silver tongue much more of late than he’d used his hands, but before long he discovered a remembered pleasure in turning the wood from rough two-by-twos into smooth pieces fit for table legs.

  The tables in the saloon, of course, would be fairly plain and utilitarian—the customers wouldn’t care how ornate the table legs were so long as their cards and bottles stayed steady on the tabletop. He was able to fashion those fairly quickly, he discovered, as his hands rediscovered a long-unused skill with the lathe. He thought he might spend a little more time on the tables and chairs he made for the café. The ones Ella had had that day he’d come in and bought the sandwiches had been as plain as those in the saloon—in fact, they probably had been borrowed from there—but the ones on loan from the preacher’s wife were full of fancy swirls and spindles and feet like talons clutching balls. Ladies, he knew, liked fancy details.

  He imagined presenting Ella with new tables and chair legs that were curved and tapered—cabriole legs, his father had called them. Did his hands still possess enough talent to make such things? And what will she say if I do? As he worked, he imagined various ways she might react, then wondered why it mattered to him. He’d be riding on as soon as he’d finished the job, after all.

  Nate worked steadily through the day, forgetting to go to the café for his meal at noon and ignoring his back’s protest at the long hours bent over the lathe, until he had finished most of the table and chair legs for the saloon. He was startled, therefore, when Dayton wheeled in a low cart laden with planking for him to shape and join into tabletops, and informed him he was ready to lock up and go home for supper.

  “Reckon I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” Nate told him. He would have asked if he could return after supper to work some more if he thought Dayton would trust him in the mill alone, but the man didn’t seem like the trusting sort.

  “Nope, you won’t. Tomorrow’s Sunday, and the mill’s closed. Reckon you might meet my missus at church, if you’re a churchgoin’ man—she’ll be there with the young’uns, but once she gets those squallin’ brats outta the house, that’s my time to get some extra shut-eye,” Dayton announced proudly, as if avoiding church was a virtue.

  Tomorrow is Sunday? Nate was surprised once again. He and Salali had kept track of Sundays only to avoid staging medicine shows on that day, for conducting business on the Sabbath was apt to offend decent folks. He couldn’t think when he’d last darkened the door of a church.

  But if he didn’t attend church, what would he do with himself all morning?

  Nate figured the noise from the saloon would keep him awake for a while tonight. He wasn’t sure how long Detwiler kept his establishment open—it probably depended on the thirst of the clientele on any given evening. Tonight the drinkers and gamblers would no doubt be celebrating the reopening of the saloon. And since it was Saturday, there’d be cowboys in from the ranches enjoying time away from their chores.

  No matter how late he went to bed, though, his lids just naturally tended to fly open at dawn. He wasn’t one to lie abed like the lumber mill owner.

  Did Ella attend church? Did she ever let herself rest that much, or would she be serving breakfast, then dinner, to travelers passing through town? If she was a churchgoing woman, what would she say if he were to show up there?

  It might go a long way to allay her suspicion of him, to see him warming a pew.

  On the other hand, though, would the Lord think him a hypocrite, going to church after living a lie for so long?

  * * *

  Ella just happened to be bringing Detwiler’s supper in to him in the saloon—a favor she did so he could continue to be available to any early-evening customers—when Bohannan entered carrying a tied stack of newly turned table and chair legs with him over one shoulder as if he were a conqueror laden with booty. She noted he also carried a brown-paper–wrapped parcel as if he’d made a stop at the mercantile.

  Detwiler whistled. “You’ve been busy,” he said admiringly.

  Bohannan grinned. “That I have. I’ll take them back with me in the morning since I’ll need to join them to the tabletops and chair seats when those are done, but I thought I’d make sure you approve of how I’m doing them before they’re varnished.”

  As if Bohannan thought there was anything to disapprove of, Ella thought waspishly, seeing the saloonkeeper run a hand over the even, sanded surfaces of a couple of chair legs.

  “Whoo-ee, these are smooth as a baby’s—” Detwiler darted a hasty glance at Ella “—um, cheek. The only problem with these is they’re too good for my customers,” he added with a chuckle, keeping his voice low so it didn’t carry to a couple of cowboys lounging at one of the long tables.

  Ella managed to stifle an unladylike snort at the fulsome compliments, but she could see that Bohannan had done quality work.

  “Dare I hope there’s some of that for me?” Bohannan asked, with a nod toward the plate of roast beef and mashed potatoes she was still holding.

  Ella set it down on the bar. “You should have had to eat the cold chicken I kept by for you at noontime,” she told him tartly. “But you never showed up. I finally ate it myself.”

  He had the grace to look abashed. “I’m sorry about that, Miss Ella. I got caught up in what I was doing, once I got started at the lathe. Next time, I’ll either come back at noon, or maybe take some extra breakfast with me, all right?”

  Who could stay irritated at a man who could smile like that? His smile seemed to know the path straight to her heart, unfortunately for her.

  “Come on back to the café after you wash up,” she said, turning on her heel. Over her shoulder, she added, “By the way, you might wan
t to rinse the sawdust out of your hair while you’re at it.”

  * * *

  Ten minutes later, freshly shaved, his damp hair curling, he entered the café and sat down at one of the tables. He was wearing a new white shirt, she noted, one that looked like the ready-made ones sold at the mercantile, along with the silver brocade vest he’d had on the first day he came to town. The shirt was what had been in the package he’d been carrying, she realized, remembering that Salali had robbed him of everything but the clothes he’d been wearing. She thought he must have sweet-talked Mrs. Patterson into advancing him the cost of it, since he’d said the medicine-show man had picked his pockets, too.

  She managed to refrain from telling him he cleaned up well by busying herself with dishing up his food.

  “This is delicious, Miss Ella,” he said, looking up from his supper. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” she murmured automatically, but she avoided his eyes. Just then a trio of cowboys came in and sat down at the other table, so she was spared the necessity of making polite conversation with him. But she could feel his gaze on her as she waited on the other men, and he lingered over his meal and a second cup of coffee until the three had finished and left.

  But it didn’t seem as though he’d been waiting to talk with her, for as soon as her other customers had gone out the door, he arose.

  “Reckon I’ll go take a walk before I turn in,” he said. He paused as if about to say something, then turned and walked out her door.

  Had he remained at his table to protect her while the cowboys had been there, since he’d had to rescue her from the saddle tramp the day they’d met? The idea touched her in a way she didn’t want to admit.

  Half a dozen more diners came in before she was ready to close, and while she served them, the sounds of clinking glasses and rough laughter, as well as the stench of cigar smoke, drifted back into the café. For the thousandth time she wished she had been able to open her café elsewhere. She’d asked Mrs. Patterson, for the mercantile had a back room, and Detwiler had been willing to sell her his stove, but Mrs. Patterson had claimed she planned on expanding the mercantile and couldn’t spare the space.