A Hero in the Making

by Laurie Kingery

  The man’s skin had taken on a pasty tinge. He was afraid to die, and willing to offer anything for a chance to escape the noose, Nate realized.

  “Not interested, Salali,” Nate said, then made his tone kinder. “If I were you, I’d be thinking about making things right with the Lord. You can’t bargain with Him, but you can be forgiven.”

  But the only spark in the prisoner’s eyes was that of malice. “Found religion, did you?” he sneered. “You weren’t so righteous when you were helping me sell that ‘worthless swill,’ as you call it.”

  “I’m not righteous, Salali. Only the Lord is. But I am forgiven,” Nate said. “You can be, too, even after murdering that woman.”

  But he could see he was getting nowhere. Salali’s face remained hard and set.

  “Think about it,” he said to the prisoner, and turned on his heel. “I’ll be waiting outside,” he told Bishop, and found a bench outside the jail where he said a prayer for Robert Salali. As soon as he finished it, he was overwhelmed with the desire to see Ella again.

  Within half an hour they had rented a buckboard, harnessed Nate’s borrowed horse to pull it, with Bishop’s mount tied by a rope to the back, and were headed west to Simpson Creek.

  The first few miles passed in silence. Bishop probably had his own matters to think of, but finally Nate could stand it no longer. “Did...did the building get done all right for Miss Ella’s café?” Nate asked, carefully keeping his tone offhand, as if he was merely making conversation. He couldn’t ask what he wanted to—if Ella had missed him being there, and if she worried when he didn’t return with the rest of the posse.

  He could feel Bishop’s gaze on him. “It did,” the sheriff said, and maddeningly let it go at that.

  Which left Nate in something of a dilemma. He could either ask more questions and betray his interest, or let it go and be tormented by not knowing until he could talk to Ella. Maybe Bishop had no idea about such matters, anyway. Men didn’t pry into other men’s romantic interests, so perhaps Bishop didn’t even know of the feelings Nate had for Ella Justiss.

  Something about the sheriff’s manner made Nate suspect Sam Bishop was all too aware of Nate’s feelings, but whatever the truth of it was, Nate wasn’t about to show his hand to this man.

  “It’ll be good for Simpson Creek to have a nice café, right near the church,” Nate said, giving no more than he’d gotten.

  Bishop grunted a noncommittal reply. Silence resumed, broken only by the clip-clopping of the horses’ hooves as they trotted back toward Simpson Creek.

  It didn’t matter, Nate told himself. He didn’t need the sheriff to tell him what he’d learn for himself soon enough. After all, the road into Simpson Creek led right past the café site. With any luck, Ella would be there—doing what, he didn’t know, for surely she wouldn’t have opened for business yet—and he could tell her the truth about what had happened to prevent his return. She’d understand why he’d asked Bishop to give her that vague excuse about why he’d remained in Lampasas.

  “Don’t ever ask me to cover up the truth for you again,” Bishop said suddenly, as if the words had been pent up behind his lips for too long and couldn’t be contained any longer. “I shouldn’t have agreed not to tell Miss Ella you were wounded. None of us should. You shouldn’t have asked us to.”

  “I—I didn’t want her to worry about me,” Nate protested, though he’d already come to the same conclusion as Bishop. “She would have, you know that.” It sounded like a lame excuse even to him.

  “You sayin’ she didn’t have a right to worry?” Bishop almost shouted the question. “I reckon it was her right to fret about you if she chose to—or would her worry have been a burden to you ’cause you don’t care enough? If that’s the case, I can turn this wagon around and we can head back to Lampasas. Once the trial’s done, you can light out for anywhere you like but back to my town. None of us will stand for you breakin’ Miss Ella’s heart.”

  For half a mile Nate could only stare at the hard, set face of the man next to him who’d turned his gaze back to the road ahead.

  “I don’t have any intention of breaking Ella’s heart,” Nate said. “In fact, I’d like you to drop me right at the café when we get back to town. If she’s there, I’ll talk to her about what happened as soon as I lay eyes on her. If she’s not at the café, I’ll go to the boardinghouse and find her.”

  “I ought to refuse to drop you anyplace but at Dr. Walker’s so he can check you over, but it’s likely to be suppertime before we get there and I don’t want to call Nolan away from his meal. I expect that’ll keep till morning,” he said, nodding at Nate’s wounded leg.

  “I’ll have him check it first thing in the morning,” Nate promised, wishing he could sprout wings in order to get back to Ella sooner.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Ella wandered listlessly around the café, running a feather duster over the tables and chairs, although there’d hardly been time for them to gather dust since they’d been moved into the new building. She kept her back to the mismatched hodgepodge of furniture behind her—Faith’s hutch, the rough-hewn pair of tables others had offered that held her cooking utensils, pots and skillets, the steamer trunks that held her flour, meal and condiments.

  The loaners had brought their items of furniture at various times through the day, and Ella had spent her time arranging her equipment and supplies in them so she could open the café for business tomorrow. She was grateful that the townspeople had been so generous in loaning them, of course, but the total effect looked so...so haphazard, she thought, and detracted from the neat new perfection of the rest of the café, with its matched tables and chairs.

  Stop being so prideful about unimportant details, Ella Justiss. What you have here will have to do until Mr. Von Hesse can come and build your cabinets. As long as the food is delicious, that’s all your customers will care about.

  The letter she’d written to the German cabinetmaker who lived in Fredericksburg lay, ready to mail, on one of the tables. She had written it while waiting for the deliveries of the borrowed furniture, and she would mail it at the post office on the way back to the boardinghouse.

  Glancing out the window, she saw that the light was fading. Time to return to the boardinghouse and have supper. She hoped Maude had saved her a plateful of whatever Mrs. Meyer was serving that day, for the male inhabitants of the boardinghouse would cheerfully consume every last bite in the crockery bowls and platters without a thought for her.

  She heard the sound of hoofbeats and the creak of a wagon approaching from the east, and readied herself to explain to yet another would-be customer that the café wasn’t open until tomorrow, but supper could be purchased at the hotel. She’d had several inquiries throughout the day from folks passing through Simpson Creek—the townspeople already knew the grand opening was tomorrow, of course. It was gratifying to think that customers were so eager to patronize her new establishment.

  If only she could regain the joy she had once felt about the prospect of having her own café, separate from the saloon.

  She heard two men’s voices outside in the wagon, and then heard the wagon move on. Maybe they’d figured out for themselves that the place wasn’t open.

  She was just moving toward the door, intent on reaching for her shawl where it hung on a hook, when the door opened, and she stood face-to-face with Nate Bohannan.

  For a heartbeat she thought she had called up his image from the dreams that had plagued her ever since the posse had returned without him.

  “Hello, Ella.” He pulled his hat off.

  The voice sounded real enough. And the twinkling blue eyes and light brown hair with its tendency to curl were certainly his, as was the caressing Southern drawl.

  “You...you’re not here,” she murmured in confusion. “You’re on the way to California.”

>   Now he looked confused. “No, I’m not. I’m right here, Ella, and I need to explain what happened, why I didn’t come to the café raising. It looks real nice, by the way,” he said, gesturing around him.

  Despite the joy she felt at realizing it truly was him and not some figment of her imagination, her irritation at the hodgepodge of furnishings washed over her again.

  “This looks nice,” she said, waving a hand at the tables and chairs he’d made. “That—” she gestured at the borrowed furniture behind her with her pots and pans stacked on the long table and her cooking supplies overflowing from the trunk “—looks like a real sow’s nest.” She raised her chin. “Regardless, I shall open tomorrow with what I have, until a carpenter can come from Fredericksburg to build what I need.”

  He blinked. “From Fredericksburg? But I’m going to build your cabinets, Ella. I said I would, didn’t I?”

  “You did. But how was I supposed to know what had happened to you, when you didn’t come back with the others? As I said, I figured you had gone on to California. I waited, Nate—and during that time, I haven’t been able to conduct my business because everything had been moved here, including the stove—so it wasn’t as if I could just keep serving meals behind the saloon until you decided to waltz back into town.” Her words had erupted from her in a bitter flood, but she couldn’t have halted them, even though she saw anger kindling in his eyes.

  “‘Waltz back into town?’” he repeated in disbelief. “I don’t think I’ll be ‘waltzing’ anytime soon.”

  They glared at one another, and then he surprised her by saying, “I need to sit down for a minute.” He pointed to the nearest chair.

  “Why not? You built them, after all,” she retorted waspishly. As he did so, a last shaft of western sunlight illuminated his face, and she saw the tinge of paleness under his tan and the faint sheen of sweat on his forehead.

  “Nate...” she began, uneasily aware that something was wrong. “Are you all right?”

  “No, but I will be,” he said. “Now, I hope I don’t offend your maidenly sensibilities, Ella, but I want you to see why I didn’t come ‘waltzing back into town’ in time for your café raising, despite my promise.” He pulled his right boot off, then pushed his denim trouser leg up until his calf was visible—with a hideous red-rimmed blackened scar right along the side of it.

  Ella gave a shriek and looked away, then sank into the chair opposite him, her face covered with her hands lest she see the terrifying sight again. “Nate, what on earth—”

  “You can open your eyes, I’ve covered it again,” he growled.

  She saw that he’d shoved his pants leg back down again and was pulling his boot back on.

  “I took a bullet in the course of helping to capture Salali,” he said. “I’ve spent the last few days at the doctor’s in Lampasas, fighting to keep my leg. The doc finally laid a red-hot knife blade to it to kill the infection. I was out of my head a good bit of the time, so that’s why I didn’t send word.”

  Ella trembled as she raised her gaze to his, and shivered as she saw the chill in his eyes. “I—I’m sorry, Nate. I had no idea,” she said. “Wh-why didn’t Bishop tell me? I would’ve come to Lampasas and nursed you myself.”

  “He told you what I asked him to, Ella.”

  “Why?”

  Ella shut her mouth as the sudden sickening realization hit her. “You didn’t want me there,” she murmured as a tear trickled down her cheek. Agitated, she swiped at her eyes to prevent the other tears that stung her eyes and threatened to spill over and join the first one. “That’s the truth of it, isn’t it? You didn’t want me coming to Lampasas fussing over you, worrying about you... You didn’t want to be bothered with me.”

  He rubbed his eyes wearily, and then focused on her again. “The only lick of truth in what you just said, Ella Justiss, is that I didn’t want you worried about me, or to miss your café raising because you came to Lampasas to nurse me. Yes, I should’ve had them tell you the truth, I know that now, but at the time we all thought it would be a simple matter of having my wound cleaned by the sawbones there. I thought I might even make it back in time to help finish the building.”

  She didn’t dare look at him, so she kept her eyes downcast. “I knew they were acting funny,” she murmured. “Sam, Nick and Jack, I mean. They wouldn’t look me in the eye. I should’ve kept after them till they told me the truth.”

  “What you should’ve done was trust me,” he said, that frosty edge still in his voice. “But you didn’t. You jumped to the first conclusion you always jump to, that you’re being abandoned.”

  “That’s not fair,” Ella protested as his words ricocheted around her soul. “I...”

  She had been about to snap, I’ve certainly got reason not to trust, haven’t I? But she was as tired of that excuse as he apparently was, from what he’d said. “Nate, I—”

  “I am probably going to have to testify,” he said, interrupting her without apology, “but it’ll likely be a while till they can get the circuit judge to Lampasas. In the meantime, I’m going to build your cabinets and countertop, Miss Ella.”

  It was the second time he’d resorted to the formality of calling her "Miss” Ella, and it didn’t bode well, despite the fact that he was going to do as he’d promised.

  “Thank you,” she began, knowing this would mean a certain amount of pounding and sawing in the background while she served her customers, but that was a temporary inconvenience. She could feed him at noon and at suppertime, and surely that and spending time with each other again would help erase the chill from his tone. He was just tired from the trip back, and probably that dreadful wound still smarted considerably and was making him cross. “I—”

  “Don’t worry that I’ll be underfoot and bothering your customers with the noise and mess, Miss Ella. I intend to work at night, after you’ve closed up. It’ll only take a few days, and you’ll never have to lay eyes on me. And then you’ll have your cabinets and countertop.” He was still watching her, but his eyes hadn’t warmed one little bit.

  “And then we...” She wasn’t even sure how she was going to finish her sentence, but he didn’t give her a chance to figure it out.

  “And then I’ll be leaving,” he said, finality vibrating in the air between them. “I said I should’ve had them tell you the truth, but my truth is I didn’t want you to have to worry. But it’s obvious you don’t trust me, and you never will. So once I’m done here—” he waved a hand at the back of the restaurant, where he’d build her cabinets “—I’ll be gone, and you can tell yourself you were right about me all along.”

  He stood up, which cost him some pain, she saw, and clapped the hat back on his head.

  Ella whirled away from him, unwilling to let him see the tears streaming down her face. He was not a man to be moved by tears, and she was not about to beg.

  He kept on moving and let the door slam behind him. He was disgusted with her, she realized.

  * * *

  Nate was disgusted with himself. He had no idea why the quack doctor in Lampasas had thought riding in the buckboard would be any easier on his still-painful wound than riding a horse. It had been last night since the doctor had dosed him with laudanum, and now his leg pained him like a herd of red ants hid inside it.

  And now, because the pain had made him cranky, he’d lashed out at Ella, when all he’d wanted to do on the way back from Lampasas was to take her in his arms and tell her he’d never leave her again. Instead, he’d reacted to her understandable irritation at being lied to and verbally painted himself into a corner. Now he’d have no choice but to leave after he’d built her cabinets and countertop, for that’s what he’d said he was going to do. She wouldn’t beg him to stay, not after the way he’d talked to her.

  He well deserved the lonely years that lay ahead for him.

  Ha
d he expected her to fall at his feet, kissing his boots when he entered her café, after not having any real idea where he’d been? How had he gotten the tomfool notion that it was better to leave her in ignorance, unable to do the very thing that earned her own food and lodging?

  If he’d let Bishop tell her what had happened, she could have postponed moving the stove and her supplies into the new building and left the café open behind the saloon till he could come back. What a selfish idiot he’d been!

  And now she must hate him, he thought, remembering his last sight of her rigid back. How he wished he could erase the past few minutes and start over.

  What was done was done, he thought, climbing into the buckboard. He’d told Bishop he would take care of leaving the buckboard and the loaned horse at the livery until someone could return the wagon to Lampasas so that the sheriff could go on home to his family.

  He sat on the driver’s seat for a moment, irresolute. He wanted to go back into the café and try to apologize, but he was afraid of the scorn Ella would heap on his head. He wanted to go to Dr. Walker’s and ask for some willow-bark tea to take the edge off of his pain.

  But perhaps the pain was his just deserts for the way he’d talked to Ella. He’d endure his punishment, he thought. He clucked to the horse and headed for the livery. Once he’d turned the horse and wagon over to Calhoun at the livery, he’d go tell Detwiler he’d only be using the room above the saloon for a few more days, then climb the stairs and go to bed.

  * * *

  Everyone in Simpson Creek made a point of stopping in at the café the next day, whether they stayed for a full meal or merely stopped for a cup of coffee while they congratulated Ella on her grand opening. Her tables were continually occupied, and folks insisted that her chicken fricassee tasted even better in her brand-new building with the birds chirping in the trees outside and the sound of the creek babbling on the breeze.