A Hero in the Making

by Laurie Kingery

  After promising she would, Maude bid him good-night in a lot more kindly manner than she’d used when she’d let him come in.

  * * *

  When Ella finally awoke, she was frantic when she found out she’d slept right through the supper hour.

  “How could you have let me sleep so long, Maude?” she cried after pelting down the stairs and checking the grandfather clock that sat by the front door. “You knew I had to fix supper! What about my customers? What about Nate?”

  Maude put firm hands on Ella’s shoulders. “I put a sign up that you were ill. It wasn’t far from the truth, you know—you were completely tuckered out after telling me all that, and you could very well have fallen ill if you’d tried to carry on as if nothing had happened. It won’t hurt your customers to learn you’re human like the rest of us—and look at it this way, you didn’t have to put up with Zeke Carter tonight.”

  A chuckle escaped Ella. “I’m sure he ambled over to the hotel restaurant instead, and grumbled about the higher prices.” But worry still clawed at her.

  “Mr. Bohannan called to inquire,” Maude said, looking like the proverbial cat that swallowed the canary.

  “He did?” She couldn’t quite suppress how much pleasure the idea gave her.

  Maude appeared pleased at the excited note in Ella’s voice. “He did, and I told him you had a sick headache. You did have one, didn’t you?”

  Slowly, Ella nodded. “It’s gone, now that I’ve slept.”

  “Good. And don’t fret that he’ll go hungry tonight. I sent him off with a sandwich.”

  * * *

  Nate had lain awake half the night worrying that Maude had underestimated the severity of Ella’s indisposition. What if Ella had taken a turn for the worse, he worried, and expired all alone in her boardinghouse room? But when he saw her in the café the next morning, there was nothing to suggest that her illness had been anything more than Maude had claimed. Only violet shadows underneath her eyes suggested she’d been as restless as he had been last night.

  “Perfectly fine,” she said when he asked how she was feeling. “Maude says you came to the boardinghouse to check on me—that was kind of you.”

  “I was worried,” he admitted, glad there was no one else in the café to interrupt their conversation.

  “I...took your advice,” she murmured.

  For a moment he was confused. He’d given her advice? What right had he to be advising anyone about anything? “You did?”

  “I did. And you were right. It was good to get it off my—” She floundered now, and her cheeks grew pink. “To unburden myself. And Maude understood, just as you said she would. She’s a good listener.”

  “Good.” He didn’t know what else to say about that. “I’ve just got one chair left to make,” he said when he couldn’t think of anything else.

  “Good,” she said, and looked as lost as he was in this conversation. Fortunately, the mayor and the bank president came in then, and spared Nate the effort of continuing.

  “So this is your café’s last week behind the saloon, isn’t it, Miss Ella?” Mayor Gilmore called out as Ella brought Nate his eggs, bacon and griddle cakes. “Are you getting excited about the new place?”

  “I certainly am, sir,” she responded, smiling.

  “Any idea when you’ll be up and running after that?” the bank president asked. “I confess, the day just doesn’t go right if I don’t start it with your coffee.”

  “You’re very kind, Mr. Avery. I expect early next week. It depends on when the interior work is completed. Mr. Bohannan, here, will be working on that.”

  The bank president turned and nodded at Nate. “Then it should look just fine. Dayton says you do good work.”

  Nate nearly choked on a bite of bacon, and took a sip of coffee to hide his surprise. The sour-faced mill owner didn’t seem the type to sing anyone’s praises.

  “He sure does, Mr. Avery. I’m very pleased with what he’s shown me so far,” Ella chimed in, giving him a smile.

  The warmth Nate felt within him now had nothing to do with the hot coffee. Bemused, he finished his breakfast and headed for the lumber mill.

  He’d miss the good people of this town when—if—he left, he thought as he walked down Main Street. Salt of the earth, they were. He’d make friends in San Francisco, he thought, but his cousin’s moneyed, powerful associates would be nothing like the citizens of Simpson Creek.

  But what was here for him, though, once he finished Ella’s furniture, if nothing changed between himself and Ella? He liked the people of Simpson Creek, but if he stayed, she would be the reason. But he had no real place in the life of the town, no job. He didn’t even have a place to live.

  He’d repaired the saloon’s and the café’s furniture, and atoned for what Salali had done. Even his volunteer position as the piano player at church was temporary. Once the doctor’s wife gave birth, she would probably want to resume playing for the Sunday service. No, he’d better stick to his original plan and go to San Francisco. And ignore the aching hole he knew he would have in his heart.

  Perhaps he could go to California, make his fortune and come back for Ella? But that might take years, and it was an arduous, dangerous journey. In the meantime, they would have lost the best years of their lives, and why should she wait on the strength of a mere promise from him that he would return someday?

  * * *

  “I just saw Mr. Avery,” Nate told Dayton when he got to the lumber mill, “and he passed along your compliment. I appreciate what you said.”

  “It’s only the truth,” Dayton said. “I’ve been out to the shed lookin’ over what you made,” the mill owner said. “You do real fine work. I was thinkin’...you could make furniture as a business here, Bohannan. We ain’t got no furniture maker here in Simpson Creek, y’ know. Folks use what they’ve had in the family for years, and the new pieces they knock together, well, they’re crude, an’ not much t’ look at, as a rule. But you, you’re a craftsman. You an’ me, we could be partners—me supplyin’ the lumber, you makin’ the furniture. You could keep workin’ right here,” he said, indicating the lathe that Nate had spent so much time with.

  If Dayton had grown wings and a tail, Nate wouldn’t have been more surprised. “I thought you couldn’t wait to have your lathe back,” he said.

  Dayton looked sheepish. “I said that, all right, but I got t’ thinkin’. I could expand, if I had a partner. I could add on a room t’show the pieces you built for sale. What d’ya think?”

  Taken by surprise, Nate stared at him. “I—I hadn’t figured on staying,” he said, reluctant to let this man know about his ambivalent feelings. “I only stayed to fix the tables and chairs that Salali wrecked. There’s a partner waiting for me in San Francisco. I won’t have to work with my hands there,” he said, holding out his hands, callused and rough from so much time spent sanding and planing wood. “I’ll be a businessman. My cousin’s making money hand over fist there.”

  Dayton wrinkled his nose. “Well, if ya want t’ go be a swell, I guess there ain’t nothin’ here in little ol’ Simpson Creek t’ keep ya.” His face took on a shrewd cast. “But I reckon there ain’t no Miss Ella Justiss out in Californy.”

  Nate stiffened as the jab hit home. What could this grumpy fellow, who never came to church, never came to Ella’s café, know about his feelings for Ella Justiss? Did everyone know what he should do—but him?

  “Sorry, Bohannan,” Dayton mumbled. “I reckon it ain’t none of my business—Miss Ella an’ you, I mean. But you think about my offer, all right? You could do a lot worse, believe me.”

  “I’ll think about it.” He was glad Dayton’s apology had forestalled the temptation to tell the man to mind his own concerns.

  A cynical voice inside him said the smartest thing for him to do would be to finish Ella
’s tables and chairs, sell his watch and buy a horse quiet-like, keeping the rest of the money for his journey and light out for California in the middle of the night.

  Ella will get over it, won’t she?

  There would be no feeling that everybody’s business was everybody’s business where he was going. But apart from Cousin Russell, no one in San Francisco would care whether he lived or died, either—unless he was able to establish himself as his cousin had done. Maybe not even then.

  Dayton left the room and Nate tried to immerse himself in his work, but he kept finding himself staring straight into space, pondering what he should do. Then he got his hand too close to the drive center while turning the lathe, and it sliced the side of his index finger.

  Smothering a spate of nasty words, he told himself that was what he deserved for daydreaming when he should be paying attention. Grabbing a nearby rag to stem the flow of blood, he went to find Dayton to ask if he had a clean cloth he could use for a bandage.

  “Nope,” the man said. “You better go see Doc Walker, get him t’ clean it up proper.”

  “I don’t have time for that. It’s not that big a cut. I need to finish the piece I’m working on.”

  Dayton made shooing motions. “Go on, now. You don’t wanna get lockjaw from that there cut. That chair leg’ll keep till you get back.”

  Who’d have ever thought Dayton would suddenly turn into a solicitous fussbudget? Surely the next thing he’d see were pigs flying through the air over Simpson Creek.

  He didn’t want to go see Dr. Walker; he wanted to go see Ella. Surely she’d have a clean handkerchief, or something, and could bind his wound as easily as a sawbones would. And it wouldn’t cost any of his dwindling cash. But then he remembered Ella had mentioned something about having to go to the butcher and the mercantile this morning. He didn’t want to spend a lot of time looking for her, and delay her when she was busy, so he obediently turned in at the doctor’s office across from the church.

  To his surprise, he found Reverend Gil sitting in the doctor’s waiting room, an open Bible in his lap.

  “Hello, Nate,” the preacher said, a smile creasing the face that had looked so studious before he’d looked up. He pointed to the bloody rag Nate held pressed to his finger. “Got a cut, have you?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid the lathe bit me,” Nate admitted ruefully. “I hope Mrs. Chadwick hasn’t taken ill?” he asked, glancing at the doctor’s closed examination room door.

  “No, nothing like that, thankfully. My father, the old reverend, is in there. Dr. Walker likes to look him over from time to time. He had an apoplexy a while back before you came, and he’s going on seventy now, so Walker keeps a close eye on him. He’s a good man, our doctor.”

  Nate hadn’t known what ailed the elderly preacher, just that he was always in a wheeled chair at Sunday services, and his speech was garbled and hesitant.

  “I imagine the doc will be done with his inspection in a few minutes,” Reverend Gil said. “Then he can see to your finger.”

  “That’s fine, I’m not in a big hurry,” Nate said, though a moment ago, he had been. He looked down at the open Bible on the preacher’s lap. “Are you working on your Sunday sermon?”

  Chadwick smiled. “I was, as a matter of fact. But there’s plenty of time before Sunday,” he said, an obvious invitation to talk, if Nate wanted to.

  Nate suddenly remembered the “fleece” he’d been trying to lay out. Last week’s sermon hadn’t seemed to point in any particular way. Was seeing the preacher here a heaven-sent opportunity, so he didn’t have to wait till next Sunday?

  “What Bible verse are you using for your sermon this week?” Nate said, hoping he didn’t sound desperately eager for the answer. He wanted it to seem as if he was just making conversation while they waited.

  Reverend Chadwick beamed at the question. It probably wasn’t often one of his congregation showed an advance interest in his sermons.

  “I’ll be citing a couple of passages in the New Testament,” he said. “One in Luke, chapter twelve, about the ‘rich fool.’ Maybe you’re familiar with that story? The one where the rich man has so many possessions he decides to build new barns to hold it all, and thinks he’s going to live for many years, so he can eat, drink and be merry?”

  Nate had to admit he wasn’t familiar with it.

  “Well, he wasn’t taking into account that no one is promised tomorrow in this life, and he died that night. And then what good did all his possessions do him?”

  It was a sobering thought. “And the other text?”

  The answer came promptly. “Mark, chapter eight, where it talks about denying oneself, taking up one’s cross and following Jesus. Verse thirty-four always resonates so deeply—‘For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?’”

  The hairs at the back of Nate’s neck prickled and stood on end. “Th-that’ll be a real powerful sermon, Reverend,” he managed to say. Has the Lord been looking into my very soul? That was him the scriptures were describing, wasn’t it? Or at least, the man he was aiming to be in California. He’d been planning to gain what he saw as his share of “the whole world,” hadn’t he?

  “Thank you, Nate. I hope so. I don’t know why, but the Lord seemed to keep bringing those verses to my notice the last few days.”

  Gil Chadwick might not know why, but he knew, Nate thought. He’d never expected the answer to be so clear.

  “By the way, how are you coming on that decision you need to make?” the preacher asked him.

  Nate searched the other man’s face, but there was no knowing look in his eyes, just honest interest. “It...it’s getting clearer all the time, Reverend.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Excellent, Nate, excellent,” Chadwick said, looking genuinely pleased.

  Just then, the door to the exam room opened, and the old preacher came out in his wheeled chair, pushed by the doctor.

  “He seems fit as a fiddle for a man his age, Reverend,” Dr. Walker said. Then, as both preachers murmured their thanks, the doctor’s gaze lit on Nate and his bloody rag-covered finger.

  “What’d you do to yourself, Bohannan?”

  By the time Dr. Walker was done cleaning and stitching his finger wound, it was past the time Ella stopped serving the midday meal, but Nate thought it likely Ella would still be at her café cleaning up and would have something put by for him. That might even be better—if they were alone, they might finally have a chance to discuss what had happened the other night when he kissed her.

  He’d just stepped out into the street, however, when someone hailed him from behind. Looking around, he saw Sheriff Bishop trotting toward him on his horse.

  “Dayton told me I’d find you at the doctor’s, Bohannan.” He nodded at Nate’s bandaged finger. “Has he got you all fixed up?”

  Nate nodded, wondering why the sheriff was looking for him. “What can I do for you, Sheriff?”

  “We’re forming a posse, and I want you to take part. Come on over to the jail and I’ll explain everything.” Without waiting for an answer, he turned his horse and headed for the jail himself.

  Now Nate saw the unusual number of horses tied up at the hitching rail in front of and near the jail. With all these men, why did Bishop want him in the posse?

  When he entered the office, he saw a handful of men gathered around Bishop, who was sitting on top of his desk.

  “Ah, Bohannan. Join us,” Bishop said, gesturing him in. “Now we’re all here.”

  The others—Deputy Menendez, Jack Collier and Nick Brookfield, as well as a couple of others he didn’t know—parted to let him into the circle, murmuring greetings.

  “What’s this about a posse?” Nate asked Bishop. “I don’t even have a horse. And why did you say you wanted me, particularly?�
�

  Bishop’s face was grim. “I want you to come along because it’s your old compadre Robert Salali we’re after.”

  Nate stiffened. “I told you the morning after he wrecked the saloon he wasn’t my compadre,” he said, irritated that the scoundrel was causing him trouble again, weeks after he’d fled town, leaving Nate to face the consequences. “Just my boss—and one I was about to leave, anyway.”

  “Sorry, I knew that,” Bishop said, waving a hand as if to dismiss Nate’s objections. “But this time he’s killed someone, and I need you to help us track him down.”

  “Killed someone?” Nate echoed.

  “That’s correct. Got word from Sheriff Teague this morning, over in Lampasas. I’d already warned him to look out for Salali, so when he showed up with his medicine-show wagon there, Teague was quick to send him packing—but not before he’d sold a bottle to a well-to-do widow he’d made eyes at. Teague thought he’d left town, but when no one saw the widow for a few days, he went to check and found her dead, her throat cut and a couple of empty bottles of the elixir he’d been peddling on the table. The house had been ransacked, and everything valuable had been taken. Then he was sighted heading southwest.”

  Nate closed his eyes as the sheriff’s words sank in. So Salali had gone from being a scoundrel prone to rages to being a murderer. He should have known it could come to this. Men like Salali, unless checked, eventually became like rabid dogs that had to be put down for the good of society. Nate sighed.

  He rubbed a hand over his forehead and eyes. “I don’t suppose there’s any doubt Salali killed her?”

  “The woman reportedly didn’t have an enemy in the world. Salali will get a trial in Lampasas,” Bishop promised, his face as somber as his tone. “But first he’s got to be caught. Teague’s out after him, and I promised we’d do our part, too. That’s where you come in,” he said, leveling his gaze at Nate.

  Nate waited, fairly certain of what was coming.

  “My deputy was never able to find that hideout you said he had in the hills of southwest Mason County, so now I need you to show us to it, if you can. You think you can find it?”