A Hero in the Making

by Laurie Kingery

  They weren’t telling her everything, she was sure of that.

  “What aren’t you saying? Why won’t you tell me?” Her hands flew to her throat. “Is he dead?”

  The final question seemed to loosen the sheriff’s tongue at last. “No, ma’am, he’s not dead, don’t you worry. We captured Salali, and since Bohannan was w— That is, there’s going to be a trial, and...well, he’s going to have to stay in Lampasas awhile...hopefully not for very long...”

  Ella narrowed her eyes at him. Sam Bishop’s speech had always been direct and to the point, and now he seemed to be anything but.

  “But don’t you worry, Miss Ella,” Jack Collier said, “Nick and I are going to be there bright and early tomorrow to help build your café.”

  Brookfield said cheerfully, “Since our wives are in town, we’re taking a room at the hotel so we won’t have to ride in from our ranches in the morning. Sheriff Bishop will be there, too, won’t you, Sam?”

  Bishop nodded, looking less guarded now that the subject had changed.

  “That’s...that’s nice, gentlemen,” Ella said, determined to remember her manners even though she was sure these men weren’t telling her everything. “I appreciate it, especially as tired as you must be now.”

  “Nonsense. After a good night’s sleep at the hotel, we’ll be raring to go, Miss Ella,” Nick Brookfield insisted. “See you in the morning.”

  “Yes,” she managed to say. “Good night, gentlemen. Get some rest.”

  Ella supposed a normally curious individual would have inquired about Salali’s capture, but there’d be time to hear about it later. She didn’t want to detain the men further, for surely they were eager to get washed up and rest. It was sure to be the most popular subject talked about at the café raising tomorrow, and Faith’s father would make sure every facet of the expedition was covered in the Simpson Creek newspaper.

  She wished Lampasas wasn’t at least thirty-five miles or more away or she would have set out to see for herself why Nate Bohannan hadn’t returned with the rest of the posse.

  By the time she reached the boardinghouse, she was sure what they weren’t telling her was that Nate had decided to ride on to California as soon as they had placed Salali in the Lampasas sheriff’s custody.

  Why not? It would be easier than coming back and working on her café, then parting with her. Men always did what was easiest for them, didn’t they? If caring about a female became a burden, they just dropped it and moved on.

  Nate had very few belongings in his room over the saloon—perhaps a change of clothes or two—certainly nothing worth coming back for if he decided it was easier to go without telling her goodbye. What man wouldn’t avoid the disappointment in a woman’s eyes if he could?

  He had done all he had promised to originally—even more than what he had promised to, truth be told—and if the cabinets and countertops for her new café were left undone, she hardly had a right to complain.

  “That’s just nonsense,” Maude told her when Ella confided her fears to her friend back at the boardinghouse. “If Bishop told you Nate had to remain behind for a good reason, it’s the truth. He’ll be back as soon as he’s able.”

  “And you’ve known Nate for how long?” Ella retorted. “A few weeks?”

  “I think I know a trustworthy man when I see him,” Maude said with a stubborn edge to her voice. “You need to have more faith in Nate, Ella Justiss. Besides, Nate rode out on a borrowed horse, right? Unless Bishop just decided to give him that mount, which I doubt, he doesn’t have a horse to leave on.”

  Her last sentence was said triumphantly, as if Maude’s assertion defeated any further argument Ella could have made. “Now, stop being a nervous Nellie and take a look at this pie I made for tomorrow. I think it’s the prettiest piecrust I’ve ever made.”

  Ella sighed. She wanted to believe Maude was right. Oh, how she wanted to believe it. But every time her gut had warned her about someone, it had turned out to be reliable, and she didn’t think it’d be different this time.

  * * *

  Nate settled back on the cot in the Lampasas doctor’s spare room and wondered if he’d done the right thing. He knew Bishop wasn’t comfortable with not telling Ella that he’d been wounded, and that was why he hadn’t returned with the rest of them to Simpson Creek, but Nate had insisted, sure that the truth would have her imagining him at death’s door, or actually dead, instead of merely wounded in the leg and recuperating at the local sawbones’ office overnight.

  All he had to do was humor the crusty old fellow—who smelled faintly of whiskey and had none of Dr. Walker’s kind manner, dry Yankee humor or professional skill—by staying overnight in this spartan spare room that smelled of bleach, and he could leave by sunrise tomorrow. With any luck he’d make it back to Simpson Creek in time to help finish the café. There’d be a trial, but Sheriff Teague had no idea when the circuit judge would arrive. When he did, Nate would be notified and would return to testify.

  Now, though, Nate was becoming uncomfortably sure he should’ve allowed Bishop to tell Ella what had really happened, not just that he “had business to finish” in the matter of Salali’s capture and trial. A lie of omission was just as much a lie as any other kind, wasn’t it?

  He’d had the best of intentions in not telling Ella he’d been shot. There wasn’t any reason for her to spend one moment imagining his wound any worse than it was. The bullet had gone in the right side of his calf and right back out again—the optimum sort of wound, the old doctor had opined, because there was no pesky bit of lead to dig out.

  But good intentions didn’t excuse him, Nate realized now, for the more he thought about it, the more he realized that in sparing her one source of worry, he’d given her another—the fear that he wasn’t coming back to Simpson Creek and had taken this opportunity to leave without going through a painful parting with her.

  A woman who had grown up normally, with loving parents, would have believed Bishop’s assurances that Nate’s wound was minor, but Ella’s childhood had been the stuff of nightmares and she had difficulty trusting.

  He’d known that—so why had he thought for one minute it would be better to have Bishop tell her only part of the truth? She’d grown to believe in Nate over the past few weeks, but when she found out that he had actually been wounded and that Sheriff Bishop hadn’t told her at his request, she’d never trust Nate again. No claim of good intentions would excuse him in Ella’s eyes.

  He’d been a fool. There was nothing he could do about it tonight, though. He’d just have to hope she’d forgive him when he returned and explained his reasons for doing as he had.

  His mind drifted to Salali. With the advantage of only one narrow way into his hideout, the man had held the posse off with a seemingly inexhaustible amount of ammunition. He could have picked them off easily, one by one, if the posse had attempted to take the narrow-climbing deer track, since there was only room on the path for one horseman at a time. Bishop had naturally not wanted to make a foolhardy move that could have cost the lives of his entire posse. In the end, it had been necessary for Nate to use the secret second way into the stronghold, the one that had required him to clamber up the rocks behind Salali’s crude cabin and get the drop on him.

  Salali had pretended to surrender, even laying his rifle down until Nate descended to put the come-alongs on his wrists. Then, vicious as any cornered animal because he knew that a date with the gallows awaited him in Lampasas, he’d pulled pistols out of his back waistband and charged at Nate, guns blazing. It was deliberately suicidal, of course—he knew gunfire would bring the posse charging up into his hideout, but Salali preferred to force Nate to shoot him so he wouldn’t have to die dancing at the end of a rope.

  It would have been easy to grant Salali his wish to die here and now, for Nate was as competent with a pistol as he was with woodworking
tools, but he had no desire to give the murderer the easy death he wanted or burden his own conscience by being Salali’s executioner.

  Salali was no gunfighter, and his shots mostly went wide of the mark. But one bullet had found its way to Nate’s right leg before Nate managed to knock him out with the butt of his rifle. Salali had awakened to find himself trussed up and loaded on the back of the horse they’d brought for the purpose.

  “Good job, Bohannan,” Bishop said, ignoring Salali as the captured murderer alternately threatened the posse and tried to bribe them into letting him go. “If I ever need a new deputy, you’re the man I’m calling on first.”

  Nate knew the sheriff didn’t hand out praise lightly. “Thanks, but I think young Menendez will stick with you till it’s time for him to take over your job.”

  Bishop snorted and rolled his eyes. “Bite your tongue, Bohannan.”

  The pain in his leg brought him out of his reverie. Nate supposed he ought to try to get some sleep so he’d be fit to ride out of here in the morning. But his wounded right leg had commenced to thumping like thunder, and hurting worse than blue blazes. He should have let the old sawbones—what was his name, Gibson? Gilbert?—dose him with laudanum as he’d suggested, but Nate had taken laudanum once and he hated the weird dreams that came with the drug.

  His leg hadn’t hurt this bad earlier. The doc had said to ring the bell on his bedside table if he needed anything, but by Nate’s reckoning, it was after midnight. If he took laudanum now he’d probably oversleep in the morning, and he needed to get going early. The old codger was probably deeply asleep, anyway. If Nate could just drift into sleep, he’d be better by morning.

  It hadn’t been chilly when he lay down, but all at once it seemed like a blue norther had blown in. He pulled up the scratchy old wool blanket. But it wasn’t enough.

  He felt sleep claiming him then, even as his teeth began to chatter.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Nate’s leg was not better by morning.

  He was vaguely aware of someone probing at his wound at some point, sending pain racing up his leg. Involuntarily, he groaned and swiped at the intrusive hand.

  “Easy, now, son, you’ve got a fever, and this leg doesn’t look at all good. I could fry an egg on it, it’s so hot.”

  “I thought you said it was an easy, entrance-and-exit pair of wounds, the best kind of gunshot wounds to have,” he retorted, but even to his own ears his resentful words came out like gibberish.

  “Gonna hafta flush this out with whiskey, I reckon, after I give it a good scrub with lye soap,” he heard the old man mutter.

  From the fellow’s tone, it sounded as if he regretted the waste of good whiskey. Then Nate drifted off and didn’t know anything more until he felt something like a thousand stinging scorpions on his leg. He tried to swing his fists at whoever had let the vicious little critters loose on him, only to feel a pair or more of strong arms holding him down.

  “That’s right, hold him, boys, till I get done. I sure don’t want to have to amputate this fellow’s limb.”

  Those words sent Nate into a frenzy of struggling. He wasn’t about to lie here and let someone cut off a part of him!

  Ella, fetch Dr. Walker and get this quack doctor off of me!

  One of his captors suggested using a hot branding iron against the wound. “That’s what Pardee said he had to do with one of his hands on a trail drive when he got all gashed up. He’s got a big ol’ scar, but at least the wounds stopped bleeding.”

  “In the medical field we call that cautery, gentlemen,” the doctor said, “and I sincerely hope we don’t have to resort to it. But I may have to consider it if this leg doesn’t get better.”

  Like thunder you will, Nate thought, but he couldn’t seem to utter the sentiment as a coherent thought. He felt as if he’d been left staked out in the midst of a desert at high noon. Couldn’t the fool see he needed a drink of water?

  All at once the scorpions stopped stinging and he was left to float in oblivion for a while.

  * * *

  “I don’t think we could have asked for better weather for our building day,” Maude said to Ella as they each carried a basket full of fried chicken they’d cooked early that morning at the boardinghouse.

  She didn’t seem to require an answer, so Ella kept walking, but what Maude had said was true. It was as perfect as only an early fall day in the Hill Country could be—not a cloud in the sky, crisp and with a hint of a chill that heralded cooler weather to come, but that would burn off quickly as the sun rose.

  It seemed as if the entire population of the town had gathered in the grassy field across Simpson Creek to build Ella’s café. Nick Brookfield, Jack Collier and Sheriff Sam Bishop, looking much improved for a good night’s sleep, were already wielding hammers and saws by the time Ella and the other Spinsters’ Club members crossed the bridge over the creek carrying hampers and baskets full of food. Ella spotted Raleigh Masterson and Reverend Gil—the latter looking most unreverend-like in an old shirt and denim pants—and George Detwiler and Luis Menendez, all carrying boards, sawing them and nailing them in place. Faith’s father, Mr. Bennett, stood in the shade of a live oak, taking notes on the scene before them, obviously intending to make the new café a front-page story in his newspaper. Mayor Gilmore was there, too, along with a fellow setting up a camera on a tripod. He had told her he would have pictures made to hang in the social hall that would record the event for posterity.

  “Quite a big day for Simpson Creek, as well as for yourself, Miss Ella,” Mayor Gilmore crowed. “Just think, we’ll be a legitimate two-restaurant town now. Before long they’ll be calling this a city not a town.”

  The Spinsters started to carry the long benches and tables borrowed from the church across the bridge themselves, but a number of young boys gallantly took over the job. Mrs. Detwiler stood there in all her glory, directing how they should be placed, and when that had been done, took over laying out each covered dish, basket of food, and jug of cold tea and lemonade.

  All these people had assembled to make Ella’s dream become a reality today. It was very humbling, and Ella knew she should be happy as a colt in clover. And she would have been, too—if Nate Bohannan had been working with the rest of the men.

  Where is Nate, really? Fool, to base your happiness on what a man does or doesn’t do, she lectured herself. Never again.

  Her café would be square, thirty feet by thirty feet, and use the stone foundation of the old house that had stood there before, since it was still perfectly sound. As she watched the men hammer the floor joists into place, she pictured the café’s interior with the tables and chairs in the front two-thirds, her work area in the rear. Perhaps in time, if her business prospered, she could put a table or two outside under the live oak trees for those spring and fall days when it was pleasant enough to dine outside.

  “Mrs. Masterson, it looks like marriage agrees with you,” Maude said, turning to greet a newcomer.

  Ella looked up to see an approaching tall blonde woman carrying a covered dish—Violet Masterson, the most recent Spinsters’ Club member, and also the newest bride, having married rancher Raleigh Masterson late last year.

  “Indeed it does,” Violet said in her charming English accent, color pinkening her cheeks. She was Nick Brookfield’s sister and had met her husband when she’d come from England to visit her brother and his family on their ranch. “Hello, Ella. How exciting that you will soon have your own café! I’m so happy for you.”

  “Thanks, Violet. It’s good to see you,” Ella said, and meant it. She was glad to be distracted from her bitter, anxious thoughts, as well as genuinely pleased to see the Englishwoman. She hadn’t liked Violet when they’d first met, due to Ella’s misunderstanding a chance remark she’d overheard Violet make, but Violet had made the effort to bridge the gap between them. The
y’d been friends ever since, though now that Violet and Raleigh had moved to their ranch, Ella didn’t see her as often.

  “Violet, you look as if you’re feeling better,” Sarah Walker, Milly’s sister and the doctor’s wife, commented as she joined the group. “No more trouble with sickness in the mornings?”

  Ella was startled, and looked closer. Was Violet with child?

  Sarah must have noticed Ella’s surprise, for she said quickly, “Oh, I’m sorry, Violet. Forgive my foolish chattering, please, if you weren’t ready to make an announcement. Not exactly a discreet physician’s wife, am I?”

  Violet blushed again like the perfect English rose—transplanted to Texas—that she was. “Oh, it’s quite all right, Sarah. I was actually just about to tell Ella myself. Raleigh and I are expecting a blessed event next spring, Ella. And yes, thanks for asking, Sarah, I am feeling quite well now.”

  “It’s my turn to be happy for you, Violet,” Ella said. “You’ll make wonderful parents, you and Raleigh.” She wondered which one of them the baby would look like, Violet with her blond hair and blue eyes, or her handsome husband, Raleigh, who was as dark-haired and dark-eyed as his wife was fair. She firmly squelched the wistful voice within her that doubted she would ever be a mother.

  “Thank you. I’ll just put my dish over there with the rest. I made tarts with the strawberries I put up in the spring.” There was a touch of pride in her voice.

  “Mmm. So you’ve become very domestic,” Ella teased as she followed her to the long bench under the trees, recalling that Violet had come from English nobility. The daughter of an earl, she’d never done any cooking until coming to Texas.

  “Quite, though not all of my attempts in the kitchen have come out so well,” Violet said, giving a rueful laugh. “I had no idea how much work it was, keeping a house, even such a little one as we have now.”

  By the time the sun was high overhead and the men broke off working to enjoy the potluck dinner, they had a puncheon floor installed over the joists, the four frames for the walls built and the first two in place and joined together. Ella and the ladies served the men first, keeping them supplied with drinks and biscuits while the platters heaped with fried chicken, cold ham and beef were passed up and down the long tables.