A Hero in the Making

Chapter Five

“Why, sure, George can pay me later for the glassware,” Mrs. Patterson replied. “His mama would never speak to me again if I didn’t give him credit. How about you, Ella? Don’t you need some new plates and glasses? I heard that medicine-show man broke everything in your café, as well as the saloon.”

“Mrs. Gilmore was kind enough to give me some extra, thanks,” Ella said, and waved at her friend Kate, the proprietress’s niece, who was dusting shelves.

Mrs. Patterson lifted a crate of glasses and placed them on the counter. “A saloon never lacks for business, even if we Christian folk wish people wouldn’t spend their money on what they buy there,” she said. “You take care, Ella. You’re a hardworking girl.”

Ella thanked her again and picked up the crate, nodding at Kate, who held the door for her. But she had walked only a few feet down the boardwalk when her way was blocked by the rotund form of Mrs. Powell, the cook from the hotel restaurant.

Ella’s former boss narrowed her already beady eyes, making her cheeks look even fleshier than before. “Humph. It’s gonna take a whole lot more than some new glasses to get that saloon runnin’ again, and your café, too, from what I hear. You’ll be back whinin’ for your job any minute now, won’t you, Ella?”

“Nope.” She wouldn’t go back to this woman’s bullying if it was the last job in Texas. Mrs. Powell had made Ella’s life miserable, and it had given Ella the impetus to start her own establishment sooner than it had probably been wise.

“Well, it’s too late if you was to come beggin’,” Mrs. Powell cackled. “That Trudy came and pleaded for a job, and I already have Daisy Henderson, too. I wouldn’t hire you back anyway, the way you left us high and dry, with the clerk having to do double duty waiting on tables and registering hotel guests.”

Ella couldn’t imagine the lazy, free-and-easy Trudy in a gray waitress uniform, putting up with the cook’s rantings. She wouldn’t last till the end of the week, especially after she saw the saloon was back in business.

She tamped down her temper with difficulty. “The saloon and my café will be back open tomorrow. Now, if you don’t mind, this crate is heavy and I have to get back there.”

She had the satisfaction of seeing the woman’s jaw drop, and knew she was wondering how reopening tomorrow would be possible.

“You’re dreamin’—”

“I’ll help you carry that crate, Miss Ella,” interrupted a voice from the street.

She looked away from her tormentor to see Bohannan crossing toward her, reaching out for the crate.

“Why, thank you,” Ella murmured, but she made sure her voice was brisk and businesslike. She hoped to get away from Mrs. Powell before the woman realized who Bohannan was. Ella wasn’t sure if the cook had been among the throng flocking to the Cherokee Marvelous Medicine Show yesterday, but if she had been, Ella didn’t want Mrs. Powell to figure out the man who had helped Salali fleece the townspeople of their money was the same one helping Detwiler now. The woman loved to gossip more than she loved to breathe, and if her tongue got going, it might slash Detwiler—and her—to ribbons.

Mrs. Powell’s eyes narrowed again as Bohannan took the crate from Ella. “Say, ain’t you the—”

Nate favored the cook with a quick, dazzling smile. “Good day, ma’am.”

Together, they crossed the street to the saloon, with Ella sensing that Mrs. Powell still stared suspiciously at their backs. She knew she should be grateful that Bohannan had rescued her just now—the man had a positive habit of coming to the rescue, didn’t he? Instead, she said, “I thought you were supposed to be tuning the piano.”

Bohannan gave her a sideways glance. “I guess you’re not going to thank me for interrupting that dragon’s tirade,” he said, “but after George left with the wagon for San Saba, I realized he hadn’t told me just where in his office he kept the tuning tools. And I didn’t feel right about rummaging in there without him or you present. After all, both of you just met me yesterday, and a lot’s happened since then.”

How did he do that? Ella wondered. How did he have a knack for bringing another person’s fears out in the open like that so that the other person felt faintly foolish for having them? He was right—if she’d arrived back at the saloon and found Bohannan rifling through Detwiler’s desk in his upper-story office, she’d have been suspicious all over again.

By now Bohannan was backing his way through the saloon’s batwing doors, carrying the crate, with Ella following.

“All right, we’ll go up to Detwiler’s office and I’ll stand there while you look for them,” she said grudgingly. “Do you know what you’re looking for?” She’d never seen a piano tuned, and had no idea what tools he needed.

Bohannan set the crate down at the foot of the stairs. “Sure. I’m hoping he has a tuning fork, a tuning hammer and mutes, at the minimum,” he said, climbing the stairs alongside her. “What I furnish is this,” he added, tapping his ear.

They reached the top of the stairs. The first room was Detwiler’s office, and the two rooms at the other end of the hall were the ones Dolly and Trudy used. The room across the hall from the office was a spare room with a cot, and here was where Bohannan would sleep. How convenient—right across from the room where George Detwiler’s safe resided. She’d have to warn the saloonkeeper to start taking his profits home with him at night, for Nate Bohannan might number safecracking among his many skills.

Bohannan paused right outside the office and was looking thoughtfully at her.

“Go ahead,” she urged, pointing at the open room, wondering what he was thinking.

“Miss Ella, I’m aware you don’t like me,” Nate Bohannan said.

She blinked, astonished that he was exposing this feeling of hers, too. She was not going to allow him to make her feel guilty for being wary of him. Only a fool wouldn’t be.

“It’s not that I don’t like you, Mr. Bohannan,” she retorted crisply. “I don’t trust you. Not any farther than I could throw you.”

“Yet George Detwiler does,” he pointed out.

She gave a mirthless laugh. “So it’s up to me to stay on my guard, since Mr. Detwiler trusts way too soon.”

“What is he to you, anyway?” he asked. “You don’t call him uncle, or Pa—he’s not your beau, is he?”

The idea of George Detwiler being anyone’s beau, let alone hers, was so laughable she almost forgot how audacious the question was, coming from this relative stranger.

“You have a lot of nerve, Mr. Bohannan. What business is that of yours?”

Speaking of nerve, she thought, the intensity in those blue eyes was decidedly unnerving. She was suddenly aware she was alone in the building with a man she’d just admitted she didn’t trust.

He shrugged. “Just wondering, Miss Ella. Since we’re going to be working in the same place, more or less, I just thought I’d ask. I like to know what’s what.”

If the circumstances had been different, she’d have reiterated that it was none of his business and flounced off, but she knew she had a responsibility to Detwiler to watch Bohannan search his office.

She extended her arm, pointing at the office. “Fetch what you need to get in there, Mr. Bohannan, and do it quickly. I have other things to do.”

* * *

By the time Ella left Bohannan tuning the piano and returned to the boardinghouse, it was already almost suppertime. She would still have to get the ingredients organized for tomorrow’s café meals after supper—but considering what had happened today, it was a miracle that she would be able to serve customers tomorrow at all.

“I’ll set the table,” she told Mrs. Meyer, the boardinghouse proprietress, as the woman stood putting final touches on the beef roast.

“And Ella and I will do the dishes afterward, so you can put your feet up,” her fellow boarder Maude added, giving Ella a wink.

“Ach, you girls are so good to me,” Mrs. Meyer said, shooting each a grateful smile.

“Nonsense, you work too hard,” Ella said, but she admitted to herself she had an ulterior motive for taking over the after-supper cleanup. She and Maude could get it done much more quickly than the older woman would, enabling Ella to do her meal preparation for the next day sooner. Normally, she could do it at her café. And while she did the slicing, mixing, seasoning and preliminary cooking, she and Maude could talk about what had happened.

There would be eight at dinner this evening; besides Mrs. Meyer, Maude and Ella, there were the other boarders—Mr. Dixon, the undertaker, a pair of drummers, a stagecoach driver and Delbert Perry—if he showed up. No one had seen him since he’d gone strolling down the street the day before with his bottle of Cherokee Marvelous Medicine, and Mrs. Meyer, Maude and Ella were beginning to worry about what had happened to him. They planned to ask Mr. Dixon to look for him after supper if he didn’t make an appearance.

But when Mr. Dixon arrived and sat himself down at his customary place at the foot of the table, he mentioned seeing Delbert shambling into the saloon.

Mrs. Meyer pursed her lips and tsk-tsked. “So he’s drinking again. He’d better not think he will keep his place in my boardinghouse if he’s going to be a drunkard again. I keep a decent establishment.”

Another thing to blame Bohannan and Salali for, Ella thought grimly. Bohannan would see firsthand how his phony elixir affected one of his customers, assuming he was still there working on the piano. Not that he would be able to do anything about it. Perry would have to start that long road back to sobriety all over again.

* * *

“You’ve had quite a busy day, from what I hear,” Maude said later, after the boardinghouse residents had left the table and Mrs. Meyer had gone out onto the porch to put her feet up.

Ella rolled her eyes. “That’s the understatement of the year.” She gave Maude a summary of the day’s events, ending with Bohannan’s being released from jail and agreeing to help repair the furniture and tune the saloon piano.

“Well, that was decent of him to stay and help like that,” Maude said. “I guess he has a conscience along with that handsome face.”

Ella stared at her friend. “Sounds like he’s got you fooled, too.” Ella knew Maude had only seen Bohannan once, when he’d been assisting with the medicine show. She hadn’t even spoken to him, and she already believed he would do as he said he would. “Well, not me. I’ve already told him I don’t trust him.”

“Ella, give the man a chance,” Maude said, her tone mild. “He sure didn’t have to offer to help. You’re always so suspicious of people. And you did admit he didn’t want to play piano in the saloon.”

Ella set her jaw and said nothing. She knew she tended to be untrusting of people’s motives, but she had reason to be. Maude hadn’t been through what she had. Maude had grown up the treasured only daughter of the town doctor, not a frightened orphan constantly in danger from the adults around her.

Maude may have had an easy childhood, but life hasn’t been so easy for her lately, Ella’s conscience reminded her. She’d seen her father cut down in the street by Comanche arrows, and she’d had to move to the boardinghouse when Dr. Walker became the doctor and moved into the attached house that went with the job, though she’d never complained.

“I’ll give the man a chance,” Ella said at last. “But I’m going to watch him like a hawk.” She was aware she sounded grudging at best, but she wasn’t about to trust someone just because he had twinkling blue eyes that did something funny to her heart.

* * *

Nate Bohannan figured it was going to be a long evening. Not only was the old piano resistant to being tuned, but his stomach kept reminding him that he’d only eaten once today, and that had been many hours ago. He wasn’t about to seek Ella Justiss out and ask her for an advance on the “board” that was part of the deal. Something told him he was going to have to do something to prove himself, like providing Detwiler with a perfectly tuned piano, before the mistrustful miss with the dark eyes would ever smile at him the way she had when he’d rescued her from the lecherous saddle tramp. No, he was just going to have to wait until morning, when he hoped she would bring over breakfast.

He was just beginning to make progress when an older man dressed in worn, threadbare clothes walked into the saloon, introduced himself as Delbert Perry and asked him if he had any more bottles of Cherokee Marvelous Medicine.

“That sure was some great med’cine,” Perry said. “Did me a world a’ good.” But his eyes told a different story, red-rimmed and anxious, and his hands trembled slightly.

“No, friend, I’m sorry, but we sold every bottle we had yesterday,” Nate told him.

“Are you gonna make some more soon?” the other man asked hopefully.

Nate shook his head. “I wasn’t the one who made the elixir—it was Mr. Salali, and he’s gone. You probably heard what he did here last night.”

Perry nodded, looking around him at the unfamiliar benches and sawhorse tables. “Yeah, I don’t rightly understand that,” he mumbled, his shoulders sagging.

Nate felt a renewed surge of guilt at being part of a shady enterprise. “You know, friend, I’m going to let you in on a little something,” he said, lowering his voice as if he were about to impart a valuable secret. “That stuff really didn’t do half of what it was supposed to do. You’re better off without it.”

Perry nodded slowly. “I ’spose you’re right, mister. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask, though.” Without another word, he turned and trudged out of the saloon.

Never again, Nate thought. Never again would he get himself involved in something he knew to be dishonest.

Detwiler returned about an hour later, his buckboard loaded with several crates full of whiskey bottles. Nate had just finished tuning the piano, and ran his fingers over the keyboards to demonstrate.

“Sounds mighty fine,” the saloonkeeper said. “I ran into a fella on the way back who might be able to come play most nights, so that’s taken care of. Now, if you’ll just help me carry these crates in, we’ll lock up and call it a day.”

Just as they’d stashed the last crate in the storeroom behind the bar, Nate’s stomach rumbled so loudly that the other man couldn’t help hearing it.

He chuckled. “Reckon you worked right on through supper, didn’t you? Miss Ella didn’t bring you any supper over from the boardinghouse?”

Nate shook his head. “I reckon she thought my meals were supposed to start tomorrow,” he said. He didn’t want to admit he didn’t have even four bits to his name to go buy something to eat at the hotel. “Anyway, I don’t think Miss Ella likes me very much, so I didn’t want to ask.” Not liking him was one thing, but he didn’t want to tell the other man what the girl had actually said about not trusting him.

“Shucks, just give her some time. Miss Ella’s a bit...shy, let’s say, around menfolk she doesn’t know, and she had a shock today, too, with what happened. Meanwhile, I’m headed home—Ma’s got supper waitin’ for me. She always makes plenty, so you come along with me and we’ll see you get fed right enough.”

“Oh, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he murmured. Nate could imagine how unwelcome it would be to have a stranger show up for supper, especially a stranger associated with the man who had wrecked the saloon. Detwiler’s “Ma” had to be elderly, since the man himself looked to be forty or so.

“Horsefeathers. My ma’s like the mother of this town, and she loves having folks to feed,” George said. “Come on an’ git in the wagon. Our house is just a hop an’ a skip down the road leadin’ south.”

It felt good to be welcome, to belong. It had been a long time since Nate had felt that way.

Chapter Six

Nate was just descending the stairs into the saloon, intending to make an early start at fashioning new table and chair legs using the lathe at the lumber mill, when he heard a key being turned in the door inside the batwing doors. A few seconds later Ella entered, carrying a basket of eggs and a towel-covered bowl on top of a rectangular covered dish. The makings of breakfast, unless he missed his guess. His stomach rumbled in an eager response.

“Good morning, Miss Ella. Can I help you carry those into the café?” He took in her no-nonsense navy skirt and waist, and her equally serious face framed by dark hair braided and caught up in a practical knot at the back of her neck. Inexplicably, he found himself wondering what her hair would look like spread over her shoulders.

“Morning,” she said. “No, I’ve got them, but it would help if you would open the door to the café for me.”

When he had let her into the café, she turned to him. “Give me a few minutes, and you can have your breakfast, Mr. Bohannan.”

She was back to formality, he noted. “That would be very nice, Miss Ella. I wasn’t sure if ‘board’ included breakfast or not.” He wasn’t about to tell her that George’s mother had insisted he take a half-dozen leftover biscuits with him when he’d departed from the Detwiler house last night, and that he’d already devoured a couple of them this morning.

He waited until the smells of bacon frying and biscuits baking wafted into the saloon, and returned to the café, taking a chair at one of the tables. While he waited, he watched her efficient movements as she cracked and scrambled the eggs and poured them into a waiting skillet, then set up the plates and silverware for easy serving. He noticed she had brought a towel-wrapped stack of tortillas also.