A Hero in the Making

by Laurie Kingery

“In a couple of weeks, if I agree. They’d set a day when everyone could help—like a barn raising, she said.”

  “I think you ought to tell Miss Faith yes, before she changes her mind,” he said with a chuckle. “I can’t think of one good reason to turn down a deal like that.” He wondered why Ella would object. Had someone once convinced her she didn’t deserve good things?

  Ella’s eyes remained troubled. “She said to pray about it. I guess I should.”

  A couple of older men were sitting on the porch of the boardinghouse, whittling and talking, so by tacit agreement, Ella and Nate detoured around to the back door where they could not be overheard.

  “I reckon praying’s always good advice, Miss Ella.” She looked so pretty in the moonlight. If he’d known her longer, he would have kissed her. Too bad he’d be riding on before he could know her that long.

  She studied him again. “I enjoyed the singing. I’d better go inside.”

  “I enjoyed it, too.” He wanted to prolong the moment just a bit longer. “You know, the preacher told me I could come in and play the church piano anytime I wanted. Maybe we could do that some evening.”

  Ella blinked. “Perhaps. Good night, Nate.”

  “Good night, Miss Ella. See you in the morning.”

  He walked back to the saloon, hoping Ella wouldn’t let pride interfere with her accepting a wonderful gift. Those church folks were nice people, and he was glad they wanted to help Ella. She deserved something good happening to her.

  It would be nice to see her in her new place, he thought wistfully, but unless they set the date for the café raising soon, he’d probably be gone before it happened. There’d be no more reason to stay once he’d finished her furniture.

  Or was there? Her new place was apt to be a bit bigger than the little room behind the saloon. Ella might be needing more tables and chairs than she’d had before...

  Chapter Twelve

  Three days later, after she closed the café for the night, Ella told Nate she’d been praying about it and had decided she would accept the church’s offer to build her café. She’d given Faith her answer that very morning. “And thanks to the fund, everything’s included, from the foundation to the tin roof,” she told him. “And it’s going to be a little bigger than this place! Isn’t that wonderful?”

  “I thought you looked like you had a happy secret,” he said, grinning. “I’m right glad for you, Miss Ella. Did you tell Detwiler? What did he say? Bet he’s going to miss your meals.”

  She nodded. “Yes, but he was glad for me,” she told him. “He said it was better for a lady’s place of business not to be attached to a saloon, and I told him he could come eat three meals a day if he wanted, on the house. And he told me I could take the stove with me ’cause he wasn’t going to use it. Wasn’t that nice of him?”

  “George is a generous fellow,” he agreed. “Got a heart as soft as summer butter, as my pa used to say.”

  Ella would have liked to ask more about his father, but before she could form a question, Nate asked, “So when’s this café raising going to take place?”

  “Two weeks from Saturday.” She willed her expression not to change, not to betray the only cloud hanging over her joy, which was that the café raising could not take place as soon as she had hoped. Reverend Chadwick would be away for several days at a meeting of San Saba County preachers. He had wanted to be present, not only to bless the new building but to help erect it, too.

  But Nate Bohannan would be gone by then. He’d said he would be done with Detwiler’s tables and chairs by the end of this week, and that it would only take him a week to repair and rebuild the ones from her café.

  “It’s going to be a big event,” she went on, aware that she was chattering so he wouldn’t see that she wasn’t as completely happy as she ought to be. “All the men from church will help build it, and the women will cook the food for the noon meal. Of course, it will take me a couple of days after that to get everything set up and ready to go. I plan to have a grand opening...”

  She waited, but Bohannan said nothing more. His eyes got that unfocused look that made her think his mind was hundreds of miles away from Simpson Creek.

  Well, she couldn’t let his absence on her big day matter. She’d known from the start that Nate Bohannan’s time in Simpson Creek was temporary. Having her own café was the fulfillment of a dream, one that would benefit her long after Bohannan was only a memory. She would enjoy his friendship while he was here, and when he had gone, she would go on with her life—just as he would.

  “Want to go down to the church and help me practice, like we talked about?” he suggested.

  Why not? Perhaps singing with him would lift her mood. And maybe she could get him to raise the mysterious curtain on his past life a little. It was a pleasant night for a walk—warm, but with just a hint of fall in the air.

  They had just reached Main Street, however, when a broad figure came bustling out of the gloom as if she had been waiting for them—or at least, for Ella.

  “You must think you’re the queen of Simpson Creek now,” Mrs. Powell snarled, advancing on them like a hen whose position at the top of the pecking order had been threatened. “Havin’ ’em build you your own restaurant like you was somethin’ special.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Ella saw Nate take a step forward as if to place himself between her and the cook, and she was touched by his protectiveness. But she laid a restraining hand on his arm and murmured, “I don’t feel special, Mrs. Powell, just very fortunate. And blessed.”

  “Don’t suppose you even care that your fancy café might put the hotel restaurant outta business,” Mrs. Powell huffed. “The hotel proprietor said if we don’t stop losin’ customers to your café, we might have to close. Don’t ’spose you worry about that one little bit, you selfish girl! You don’t have one ounce a’ gratitude for all I taught you.”

  Ella could have retorted that she’d learned nothing from her about cooking flavorful food, but she couldn’t bring herself to stoop to this woman’s level. “I think there’s plenty of room for two restaurants in Simpson Creek, Mrs. Powell. If anything, your restaurant’s business might be helped by mine being across the creek. I doubt those staying at the hotel are going to search out my café when the hotel restaurant is right in the lobby.”

  “But you’ll get all the folks ridin’ into town from the east, not t’ mention all the folks from church!” Mrs. Powell wailed, then clamped her jaws shut as if she thought she’d said too much. “Well, you’ll be sorry if you build that café, missy, you just wait and see.”

  Now Nate did interpose himself between the two women. “You’re not threatening Miss Ella, are you, Mrs. Powell?”

  “Never you mind, Mr. Snake-Oil Salesman!” the woman screeched at him, backing away. “It ain’t none a’ your concern, noways!”

  * * *

  Nate sighed as the woman scuttled away, reminding him of a great hulking spider retreating into the shadows of her web. He supposed if he were to stay in Simpson Creek, he’d still be “that snake-oil salesman” not only to Mrs. Powell and Zeke Carter, but to anyone in Simpson Creek with a memory

  It didn’t matter what they thought, he decided.

  “Let’s keep walking,” he whispered to Ella, offering her his arm. She took it.

  He felt her trembling, but her mouth was set in a firm line and her back was as erect as if she had a ruler for a spine. The moon hung overhead, a few days past full, and it was enough to illuminate the silent tears snaking down her cheeks.

  He didn’t mention the tears, knowing how difficult it was for Ella to hold on to her composure. Nor did he say a kind word to her. If he did so now, she’d shatter like fine crystal.

  They sat down on the church steps. He had a feeling they wouldn’t be making music tonight, but he didn’t care. He’
d only suggested it as an excuse to spend time with her.

  “I was real proud of you back there, Miss Ella. You could have been mean right back to that woman, but you responded like a lady, one with grace and dignity.”

  “But she’s right!” she cried, giving way to the sobs he’d known were multiplying within her. “What gives me the right to be given something as wonderful as that? I don’t deserve such a thing! What if my café does put the hotel restaurant out of business and her out of a job? What will happen to her? And what will folks think of me then?”

  You could always offer her a job scrubbing your dirty pots, he wanted to suggest, but he knew she wouldn’t find the image amusing. Instead, he pulled her into his arms, smoothing her hair back, soothing her the way one would a child. For several long moments she sobbed against his chest.

  He wasn’t even conscious of lowering his lips to kiss the top of Ella’s head, but he felt her stiffen, and realized what he’d done.

  She drew back.

  “I’m sorry,” he murmured, hoping she wouldn’t flee now like a frightened deer. “I didn’t even think...”

  She was going to run, he decided, or slap him—he wasn’t sure which. If he was going to keep her here, he knew he’d better distract her with a question, and quick. “Miss Ella, who was it that made you think you don’t deserve anything nice?”

  She blinked, then swiped a hand over a wet cheek. He wished he’d had a handkerchief to hand her.

  “Wh-what makes you think someone d-did that?” she asked in a quavering voice.

  She wasn’t outright denying it, he noticed. “Because you keep saying you don’t ‘deserve’ this,” he said. “If any one of us deserves something nice to happen to them, it’s you,” he said gently. “Was it your mother or father who made you feel that way?” His father had never done that, and his mother had died before he could remember her, but it was a logical place to start with Ella.

  She looked startled, as if that was the very last thing she expected him to say. “It couldn’t have been Mama,” she said quickly.

  “Why is that?”

  She hesitated like one being ordered to jump into an icy stream. “Because she died when I was about five,” she said. She looked him right in the eye, and then she looked away, as if she dreaded the questions that must follow.

  “So your father raised you, then?” he probed.

  She shook her head, more tears escaping from tightly clenched lids.

  “H-he was having trouble taking care of me and making a living, too, so he put me in the c-county asylum. He said he was c-coming back...b-but he never did,” she stammered in a voice so soft he could hardly hear it.

  He stared at her, hardly able to believe his ears. “Your father left you in an asylum?” he echoed. Had there been no aunts, uncles, grandparents? No neighbor who’d take in a motherless girl while her father found his footing? Then the full implication of “county asylum” hit him. “There were adults in that place, too?”

  She nodded. “All ages of people, from babies to elderly folks...some of them merely destitute, some—” she took a deep breath and shuddered “—not in their right minds.”

  “Lord have mercy,” he breathed. She had been a little girl growing up in the company of lunatics. He’d heard of such places, a single institution in a county taking in everyone who had nowhere to go, no one to care if they lived or died. All of them living together in crowded rooms... Those who were able were forced to work to repay what it cost to feed them.

  He’d thought he’d had it tough, losing his mother early on, and being raised by an itinerant father who never put down roots for long, but clearly he’d had no idea what true misery was. He would have wept tears of repentance, but he was afraid doing so would frighten her. He felt as if he could barely breathe.

  “You...you won’t t-tell anyone, will you?” Ella asked, halting over the words. “No one in Simpson Creek knows....that I came from such a place.” She faced him again, eyes glittering in the moonlight, brimming with unshed tears. “I’ve never told anyone. I—I made up something about who raised me...”

  She’d never told anyone she’d been raised in an asylum because everyone knew what kind of people inhabited such places, and it would be assumed that after growing up with the insane, Ella herself might not be too sound of mind.

  And she’d told him because, as he’d pointed out, he was safe to confide in, because he’d soon be gone.

  “I won’t tell a soul,” he promised her. “Your secret is safe with me, Ella.”

  It was as if the floodgates had been opened, and now she couldn’t stem the rush of words. “I was there so long no one could remember where my father had moved to, after he left me there. They didn’t keep the best records, and if he ever contacted them about me, they didn’t say.”

  “Did you have some sort of schooling there?” he asked. Ella always used good grammar, and he’d seen her read the words from the hymnal. And she had to be able to do some ciphering, didn’t she, to add up costs and amounts of ingredients in recipes?

  “Yes, when we weren’t needed to do work, like tending the superintendent’s wife’s garden. I was luckier than most—I worked in the kitchen, so I always had something to eat.” Her gaze grew distant then, as if she was lost in remembrance.

  So that was how she had learned to cook—probably taught by another tyrant like Mrs. Powell.

  “When did you leave there?” he asked, keeping his voice even and matter-of-fact, as if what she had been saying hadn’t horrified him. “Did they help those who had grown up to gain employment and a place to stay?” He was afraid he would not like her answer.

  Ella’s laugh was bitter. “The girls, yes—but rumors reached those of us still there as to what sort of employment it was, and I wanted no part of it. So I escaped one night...and walked until I came to a town.” She avoided looking at him then, and Nate was sure there was much more that she wasn’t saying.

  For a moment he could say nothing, so lost was he in sorrow for the horror she had experienced because of a father who hadn’t lived up to his responsibility. No wonder Ella never thought she deserved anything. She and every one of the other children at that place had probably been made to feel like a charity case, an object of pious scorn or, at best, condescending pity. How far Ella Justiss had come from that, though. She’d made her own way, asking only for a chance. What a fighter she was!

  “I think you’re a remarkable woman,” he murmured, taking Ella’s hand. “Don’t you think you could trust Maude with a secret like this? She seems like a good friend to you.” Most young ladies had confidantes, a sister or a best friend, didn’t they? He didn’t like to think that when he left, Ella would be back to having no one who really knew her.

  She shrugged. “Maybe, but I’d already told her a made-up story when I first met her. She’d be angry that I lied to her.”

  “Not if you told her what you told me,” he said, but he guessed from the defiant, proud lift of her chin that she didn’t want anyone, not even a friend, to pity her, either. “But of course that’s up to you,” he added. “At least promise me you won’t let bullies like Mrs. Powell push you around now that you’re a successful businesswoman about to have her own independent establishment. You know that woman’s just jealous ’cause you’re young and doing this all on your own.”

  Ella gave him a watery smile. “Perhaps you’re right,” she said.

  “That’s m—” he began, then hastily amended it to “that’s the spirit.” He’d been about to say, “that’s my girl,” which of course were words he had no right to utter.

  “It’s getting late. I’d better be going home now.”

  He stood up and held out a hand to her to help her rise.

  * * *

  “Come here, charity girl...let me show you the secret ingredients that make Mister Antoi
ne’s biscuits the flakiest in all the South. Why, I once served them to Beauregard himself...” the Cajun-accented voice purred. “The superintendent and his wife will be quite pleased when I bring them to the table at supper. But I will save the best ones for you, my sweet little girl...” Then she felt that familiar heated, fleshy touch of his hands on her shoulder...

  She woke to a pounding on her door, and heard a man calling, “Miss Ella! Miss Ella! You all right?” Then the sound changed direction, as if the man had turned to call down the hall. “Mrs. Meyer, Miss Ella’s screamin’ somethin’ fierce. You reckon some Comanche’s climbed in her winder, or one a’ them drunken drummers? Reckon I oughta fetch that shotgun.”

  “Don’t be silly, Delbert.” Then Ella heard the proprietress’s calmer, no-nonsense voice against the door. “Miss Ella? Open the door if you’re all right, otherwise I’m going to use my key...”

  Heart pounding, Ella stared at the knob rattling in the door, conscious of the chill of a cold sweat beading her arms, shoulders and neck, and the hair that clung damply to her forehead.

  “I—I’m all right, Mrs. Meyer,” she called out. “J-just had a nightmare, that’s all. Sorry I disturbed you.” She tried to sound as if she was merely embarrassed and laughing at herself, but while the vestiges of the dream still clung to her with icy tentacles, it was hard to even formulate the words, let alone convince anyone, especially herself.

  “What in tarnation—?” she heard another male voice inquire from down the hall, and heavy footsteps coming closer.

  Good heavens, she must have awakened the whole house. Waves of humiliation swept over her. She heard the floorboards creak as if the bodies outside shifted position.

  “Ella, it’s me, Maude. I’m going to warm some milk and bring it up to you. Let me in when I come back, okay?”

  She heard murmuring and footsteps as the inhabitants of the boardinghouse dispersed from their post outside her room.

  It had been foolish to think that discussing her dreadful childhood with Bohannan wouldn’t resurrect her familiar nightmare, Ella thought as she waited for Maude to return. Should she confide in Maude, as Bohannan had urged? Maude would be willing to listen, she knew.