The knock sounded again. He suppressed a growl of irritation. He was going to have to go to the door and send the fellow on his way. Taking up one of the lanterns, he went to the door and opened it.
No drunken cowboy was there, however. Unfortunately, neither was Ella Justiss. His lantern cast an eerie light on Mrs. Powell, standing there with a covered dish.
“Ma’am, Miss Ella’s is closed,” he said, not knowing what to make of this weird visit. “I’m just here working on her cabinets.”
The old woman peered at him through cloudy, pale eyes. “I know it’s closed, dear boy. This isn’t for Ella. You forgot to come for supper tonight, and I was worried that you might be hungry.” She held up the dish.
He took it, not knowing what else to do. Knowing Mrs. Powell had it out for Ella, he couldn’t very well tell the old woman he wasn’t about to eat what passed for a meal from her restaurant when he could have food cooked by Ella.
“But wait, I brought you silverware, too,” the old woman cooed, fishing in an apron pocket and bringing out a knife, fork and spoon, which she held out to him also.
Taking them required setting the dish down beside him, for he held the lantern with his free hand.
“That...that’s very thoughtful of you, ma’am...” he said. “You didn’t have to do that. I’m afraid I don’t have any money to pay you,” he added, patting his empty pockets, “but I’ll take it to the hotel later.” And he’d tell the hotel proprietor about her strange visit and tactfully suggest it wouldn’t be necessary for her to come again.
“Nonsense, you come on into my restaurant when you finish work and I’ll cook you breakfast,” Mrs. Powell said with a tremulous smile. “Doesn’t matter how early. I sleep in the kitchen, so you just knock on the back door anytime.”
Nate wasn’t about to encourage the woman, but he didn’t want to argue with her, either. The poor old thing wasn’t quite right in the head. “Yes, ma’am. You’d better go on back now. Why don’t I walk with you and make sure you get there all right,” he suggested. He was loath to leave his work, but it wasn’t gentlemanly to allow an addled old woman to wander in the dark. She hadn’t carried anything to light her way.
“No, thank you, dear,” she cooed. “I’ll be fine. I can see you’re busy.” Then she shambled away with surprising speed, and in a moment he heard the clump clump of her heavy shoes as she crossed the bridge.
Bemused, he uncovered the dish and lifted the lantern so he could see what was in it. It looked as if had started out as some sort of beef and mashed potato dish, but the beef had been cooked till it was nothing but a blackened lump.
He wouldn’t have been remotely tempted to try it, even if he hadn’t eaten Ella’s chicken and noodles just hours before. Perhaps the half-wild tomcat that had been hanging around the place would like it, if some other wild creature didn’t find it first. After checking to make sure the old cook hadn’t circled back, he dumped the mess out back and went back to work.
Should he speak to Bishop about the old lady, or Reverend Gil? Detwiler had already told him about Mrs. Powell’s strange appearance at the café raising. Someone needed to be aware that the old woman was falling further and further into some sort of demented state. He couldn’t imagine she’d be keeping her job at the hotel much longer if she was acting this strangely there.
* * *
Yet when he told Bishop about the strange visit, later in the day after he’d slept, the sheriff didn’t make too much of it. “I’ve been telling Mr. Kirkwell his cook was as crazy as a lizard with a sunstroke for a long time now,” he said. “I’ll take that dish back for you, if you’d rather not encourage her by showing up there,” he said, reaching for it. “Kirkwell knows he’d have to pay any other decent cook twice as much, so he lets Mrs. Powell stay,” he said. “By the way, I was going to come find you today anyway,” he said, reaching for a piece of paper on his desk. “Sheriff Teague says the circuit judge has arrived and they’ll be ready for your testimony Monday morning first thing. He’ll put you up at the hotel there, but he said you should only need to stay the one night, unless you want to stay to hear the verdict, of course.”
“No, thanks,” Nate replied. He didn’t need to hear the judge’s word to know that Salali was going to end his life at the end of a noose. “I reckon I’ll need to borrow that horse again.” He sighed. The news meant he’d have to spend Sunday riding back to Lampasas, rather than working at the café.
He’d still work tonight on the second cabinet. He could turn in early when he got to Lampasas, which would fill the empty hours better than sitting in his hotel room wondering how to make things right with Ella.
If the telegram hadn’t come, he had been thinking about showing up at the end of dinner Sunday. Ella would be in her glory after the full crowd she’d no doubt have after church, and maybe in more of a mood to be generous. Perhaps, if he found her alone or waited until she was, he could talk to her about how wrong he’d been.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Saturday when Ella arrived at the café, a sleepy Maude in tow, she found the second cabinet completed, but with the same sign on it advising her not to use it until the varnish was completely dry the next day. As with everything Nate had made for her, he’d done a painstaking, careful job, and the result was simple but beautiful.
Her lips curved, glad that she could return the mismatched tables, trunks and the hutch she had been loaned. Then her smile faded as she wondered again if Nate would be gone as soon as he had fulfilled his promise to her.
It wasn’t long before the customers started streaming in, and Ella had little time to think about Nate—or anything but the next order of bacon, eggs and grits or pancakes. Saturday was a big day in Simpson Creek, for ranchers and their families came into town for supplies or sent their foremen for them. Some would stay over for church on Sunday, but all of them now seemed to find Ella’s café a necessary stop either for breakfast, dinner or supper. Her restaurant was a success!
As evening drew close, she started thinking about the fact that the next day was Sunday. She would hold to her policy of not opening for breakfast so she could go to church, but what of Nate? He should be able to attend church, shouldn’t he? Wasn’t he needed to play piano? Surely if they worshipped together, a reconciliation between them would be that much easier.
Accordingly, when Detwiler stopped in for a piece of pie in midafternoon, she made it a point to suggest, oh so casually, that since tomorrow was the Sabbath, it would be all right with her if Nate skipped working on her cabinet tonight and came to the worship service Sunday morning instead.
Detwiler looked down at his plate. “I dunno if he plans to work on your cabinet tonight or not, Miss Ella, but I do know that he’s been notified that he’s to testify in Lampasas Monday morning, so he’s got to travel there Sunday.”
“I see.” Ella did her best to appear unaffected by the news, but her joyful anticipation of Sunday dimmed.
* * *
On Sunday, Ella hurried across the bridge to start Sunday dinner as soon as Reverend Gil said the final amen. Her second cabinet and a note were waiting for her: Will finish countertop and all final work when I come back from trial. I should be back sometime Tuesday at the latest.
“All final work,” she murmured aloud. It sounded so dreadfully...final. Like he couldn’t wait to have the project done so he could leave Simpson Creek—and her.
That was it, then. Ella wished he was already done and gone. Maybe once she knew for certain he had left the state, she would stop hoping every footstep at the door was his.
* * *
Having worked all night Saturday and setting out for Lampasas as the sun rose, Nate was exhausted by the time he reached it. Sheriff Teague directed him to the town’s one inn, the Burleson Hotel, a vastly inferior place compared to the one in Simpson Creek. It didn’t even have a restaurant, not t
hat it mattered. He found his room and fell asleep across his bed with his clothes still on.
He woke sometime in the middle of the night, muscles cramped from the awkward position in which he had slept. Further sleep would be impossible, he knew.
Having gone without supper, he devoured the sandwiches that Detwiler had sent along from Ella’s café. Now there was nothing to do but think about her and wait for the trial in the morning.
Nate wasn’t sure why his testimony was needed—the murder Salali had committed here was enough to send him to the gallows, and it didn’t matter how he had been captured or by whom. He was all for doing his civic duty, but he resented being called away from Simpson Creek just now simply because Teague wanted to make the case against Salali as airtight as possible.
He wasn’t looking forward to facing a doomed man across a courtroom—not because he was afraid of Salali, of course, but because he could imagine what it felt like to know that one’s days were limited, and would end at the end of a rope, without the surety of heaven as his home. Had Salali given thought to what he’d said about getting right with the Lord?
It was useless to fret about it. As soon as he testified, he could go home.
Home. He’d thought of Simpson Creek as home. But Simpson Creek would have been just another Hill Country Texas town without Ella Justiss in it.
I must find a way to make things right with her.
And then he thought of what he would do.
* * *
Despite her near certainty that Nate would soon be out of her life, he was on her mind as Ella went about her routine Monday, cooking meals, serving customers, cleaning up after the breakfasts, dinners and suppers. Would Nate be allowed to testify early so he could leave, or would he have to wait till the judge thought his testimony was needed? What would it be like to testify against a man he’d once trusted, she wondered, a man who had assaulted him and left him for dead, a man in whose capture he’d then played a decisive role?
“There are seats outside, sir, since the inside ones are full,” she told a customer. “You can place your order and Maude will bring it to you soon as it’s ready.”
All of the furniture that had been lent to her had been returned, and Mr. Dayton, the lumber mill owner, had constructed a pair of simple rectangular tables and benches for her overflow customers to sit at outside. They would have to be stored during the colder months, of course, and during the hottest parts of the summer she doubted anyone would want to use them, but for now customers were taking full advantage of the extra seating.
Tuesday afternoon, when Detwiler came down for a late-afternoon cup of coffee, he brought with him the news that Nate had returned from Lampasas in the middle of the night and planned to build her countertop that night. He was sleeping now.
“But what of the trial?” she asked. “How did that go? Is it over? Was that dreadful man convicted?”
“It was nearly over when Salali cheated the hangman. He had a heart seizure right in the courtroom and died,” Detwiler said.
Ella couldn’t suppress a shudder, remembering how amusing she had found the flamboyant Salali when he’d been hawking his useless elixir. She couldn’t have imagined him a potential murderer then.
There was no use thinking about it anymore.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Maude murmured sometime later.
“Hmm?”
“You’ve been kneading that bread dough like you’re trying to squeeze it out of existence, but then you went all still with the most faraway look in your eyes,” her friend said with a laugh.
“I’m going to do what you suggested,” Ella told her. “Tonight. I’ll come back later, once Nate’s working here. I’ll wear that dress you suggested, my hair down... Oh, Maude, are you sure this will work?” she asked in an agony of uncertainty. After tonight she’d be either the happiest woman in Simpson Creek or the most embarrassed.
Maude grinned. “If it doesn’t, Nate’s a fool. But it will,” she said. “Don’t forget the rosewater.”
With any luck, Ella thought, she could close early tonight, run back to the boardinghouse and commandeer the bathing room with its claw-foot bathtub, and have plenty of time to bathe, wash her hair and let it dry on her shoulders. Maude would be willing, she knew, to help her slip out the back door without any of the other boardinghouse inhabitants seeing her. It wouldn’t do for one of them to get the wrong idea and spread rumors about what Ella was doing, going out at such a late hour dressed in her best.
Luck was not with her, though. Tonight, one straggler after another showed up at the café just before she wanted to close, and dawdled endlessly over their meals. She began to consider the wisdom of leaving the dirty dishes to soak and coming in early to wash them the next day. But a mess of dirty dishes wouldn’t contribute to a romantic atmosphere.
Finally, as the last customers departed, Ella put the closed sign in the window. Checking the watch pinned to her bodice, she groaned. Eight o’clock already. That balding drummer who’d been staying in the boardinghouse the last few days was no doubt ensconced in the bathtub by now, and in any case there wasn’t time to heat enough water for a bath. Well, she could use the basin and ewer in her room, and dress quickly... But what if she encountered Nate on her way back to the boardinghouse, walking toward the café?
She began to wash the last of the dishes.
The knock on the door startled her so much she had to stifle a shriek. Good grief, is Nate already here? I look terrible, and probably smell of grease! And she didn’t want to appear at the door holding the carving knife she had been washing when the knock sounded. Absently, she dropped the carving knife into her apron pocket and went to the door.
It wasn’t Nate who stood on the café threshold however, but Mrs. Powell, leaning heavily on her cane. If Robert E. Lee himself had chosen this time to visit her establishment, she could not have been more surprised. Or dismayed.
“Mrs. Powell... I was just leaving. I’m sorry, but the café’s closed,” she said, wondering why the old woman was here.
“Nice establishment you have here,” her former bully murmured, as if Ella hadn’t spoken. Her avid gaze wandered the room. “Very nice. I heard your pecan pie was exceptionally tasty tonight, and I thought maybe you might have a last piece to spare for me? Normally I treat myself to a piece of cake at the hotel restaurant of an evening, but when we closed tonight there wasn’t a morsel left. So I just thought I’d pay you a visit and see the inside of your place and ask if you had a bit of pie left to satisfy my sweet tooth. You remember, I have a sweet tooth.” She laughed as if her taste for sweets had always been a subject of amusement between them.
“I... Sure, I have a piece of pie left,” Ella said, thinking quickly. She had been saving it for Nate, but if dessert was the price of getting this woman out of her café, she’d sacrifice it gladly. “I’ll have to wrap it up for you to take with you, though—it’s getting late.”
“Of course, of course,” Mrs. Powell agreed. “I don’t mean to delay you, dear...”
Dear? Ella would have laughed at the endearment as well as the false courtesy coming from this woman, but she didn’t want to prolong the conversation any more than she had to. “I hope you like it,” she said, going over to where she had left a plate over the last piece of pie.
To Ella’s annoyance, the woman followed her. Maybe she wouldn’t have taken the liberty if the new countertop had been in place, dividing the public area from her work area, but Ella doubted it.
“Nice cabinets,” the woman said, following her and peering at them with the inquisitive eye of a rival cook. “Did your fella build them for you?”
How infuriating of the woman to speak to her as if she and Ella had always been confidantes. “Nate Bohannan built them, if that’s who you meant,” she said levelly. She wasn’t about to discuss her private business with this wo
man.
Mrs. Powell looked hurt. Perhaps she was being too harsh, Ella thought. What if the batty old lady had only been seeking a private time to try to repair their relationship? It wasn’t a convenient time for Ella, of course, but she should be willing to forgive, shouldn’t she?
“This is on the house, Mrs. Powell,” she said, turning away from the woman as she wrapped up the pie, “to thank you for all you taught m—”
She never saw the blow coming, but suddenly there was a crashing pain in her head and a black crepe curtain fell over everything.
* * *
Carrying a lantern to augment the faint light of the quarter moon, Nate headed for the café. The countertop was the last piece he had to construct to fulfill his promise to Ella, and then he would be free of any obligation to her. If he stayed, it would be because they had made things right between them. He’d prayed hard about the matter, and the peace he’d felt encouraged him to think that God would bless his efforts.
If she wouldn’t listen to him, he would travel on, and this time he wouldn’t depend on anyone but himself to get to California.
Perhaps, if the project took him till dawn, he’d just wait until she arrived to start preparing breakfast and say his piece. But maybe that wasn’t the best idea—Detwiler had told him that Maude was helping Ella at the café, so Ella might not be alone then. She might not think it fair to leave breakfast preparations to her friend while he took her aside for a heart-to-heart talk. No, better to leave before she came, sleep awhile, then go to the café at its closing time. He’d be rested then, and less apt to state his case clumsily.
He’d have to take the borrowed tools back to Dayton when he left the café in the morning, he thought as he crossed the bridge over the creek. It was fortunate that the lumber mill owner had been willing to lend him the necessary hammer, brace and bit drill, chisel, rasp, plane and saw. He hadn’t known the man that long, of course, but from what Detwiler had told him of Dayton’s character, the man must be mellowing not to charge him for the use of the tools. And Dayton had thrown in a selection of nails, wrought-iron drawer pulls and buckets of whitewash, to boot, in addition to making the crude benches and chairs for Ella’s outdoor customers.
A Hero in the Making (Brides of Simpson Creek Book 7) Page 22
