Nate raked a hand through his hair as he thought. Being the secretive sort, the one time Salali had gone back to his hideout to make more elixir since Nate had begun to work for him, he’d left Nate at the base of the winding trail up a hill a score of miles north of the Llano River.
“Yeah, I think I can find it, though there’s no guarantee that’s his only hidey-hole, you understand. But I don’t—”
“—have a horse. I know. I’ve taken care of that,” Bishop said. “That buckskin out at the hitching post is for your use, and my wife’s packed some sandwiches for you in the saddlebag. There’s a bedroll tied in back of the saddle for you, too.” He took a Winchester off the rack behind him and handed it to Nate, along with a pistol he pulled out of a drawer.
“Seems like you’ve thought of everything,” Nate commented. Except giving me a choice. He felt he was still expected to atone for Salali’s vandalism, if not his chicanery in selling the worthless elixir. And it would never stop if he stayed in Simpson Creek. Someone would always remember the wreckage of the saloon and café, and that he had been somehow associated with it.
But then he dismissed his resentment. There was never a convenient time to stop a lawbreaker, and Bishop and these other men were laying aside things they would rather be doing, too. Of all the men present, he was the only one with a real chance of finding the hideout.
“Consider yourself deputized. All right, men, mount up.”
He wanted to ask how long they expected to be gone but realized there was no way Bishop could answer the question yet. It all depended on Salali.
“The sooner we get going, the sooner we can capture that skunk and be back in Simpson Creek,” the sheriff said, as if guessing what Nate had been thinking.
“I—I need to let a couple of people know what I’m doing—Miss Ella and Detwiler,” Nate said. He couldn’t just disappear without telling Ella—Detwiler, too, for that matter, since he was using a room above the saloon. He wished he’d been able to finish that last chair before today—now it looked as if he’d be gone at least until the café raising, if not more. He hoped Ella wouldn’t be too disappointed at having one less chair—and probably several fewer workers at the café raising, for that matter. It was very likely they wouldn’t make it back in time.
Bishop narrowed his eyes. “Run ahead and let them know. We’ll follow and be waiting outside the saloon, since we’re heading down the south road out of Simpson Creek, anyway. You’ll have to be quick, Bohannan.”
“I will be.”
Heading around to the back entrance, Nate was dismayed to find the closed sign already hanging in the door window. He took a quick look into the dim interior, but he could see that she wasn’t still within washing up.
Frustrated that he wouldn’t get to see her personally, and would have to leave a message with Detwiler, he jogged around to the front and pushed through the batwing doors of the saloon.
The only person inside was Dolly, who stood behind the bar, washing glasses.
“Hey there, Nate,” she said with a lazy smile. “You get all them chairs an’ tables fixed up for Miss Ella?”
“Almost,” he said, smiling at her in a friendly but noncommittal way. Dolly had always been a little forward toward him, though he supposed once he would have welcomed her attention. “Where’s Detwiler?”
“Gone home to have dinner with his mother,” she said with a grin. “Anything I kin do for you meanwhile?” Her tone was rich with innuendo.
He gave her a short, cool smile. “No, unless you know where there’s some paper and a pencil so I can leave him a note?”
Dolly rummaged underneath the bar but came up empty. “I’m sure he has some upstairs in his office...” She nodded toward the stairway and gave him another of her sultry smiles. “Come with me, and I’m sure we can get you...what you need.”
“Thanks, but I’m sure I can find them,” he said, and thanked God under his breath when two cowboys ambled in right then and demanded drinks.
Sure enough, once he’d climbed the stairs and entered the office, he found plenty of paper and pencils, and he wrote Detwiler a quick note explaining that he’d be out of town with the posse, and to please let Ella know he’d be back as soon as he possibly could. When he finished, he descended the stairs again and handed Dolly the note.
“Would you see that your boss gets this, please? It’s very important,” he said, giving her what he hoped was a winning smile along with the folded note.
“You bet I will, Nate,” she cooed, giving him a look that would’ve melted a block of ice, if there’d been one in Simpson Creek.
“Thanks, Dolly,” he said, and saw through the dusty window that the posse was already outside waiting on him.
* * *
“Did you see Nate go upstairs?” Ella asked Detwiler that evening, when Nate had failed to show up for supper, even after she had purposely dawdled at washing the dishes and wiping down the tables.
“Nope, I haven’t,” Detwiler said. “I ain’t laid eyes on him since this morning when he left for the mill.”
Dolly stepped forward then, a knowing smile on her painted face. “I saw him early this afternoon. He came here looking for George, then I saw him riding out with the sheriff and some other men. Heard tell they’d formed a posse to go after some desperado. You mean he didn’t tell you he was leaving, Ella?”
“Nate’s part of a posse? Why? He’s not a lawman,” Ella protested, visions of Nate wounded—Nate killed—in a shoot-out with some outlaw tormenting her.
“That’s what a posse is made up of,” Detwiler explained, his tone kind. “Armed citizens riding with the sheriff to catch a criminal.”
“You wouldn’t want your Nate to shirk his civic duty, would you?” Dolly mocked.
Ella had had enough of Dolly’s sneering. “He’s not ‘my Nate,’” she snapped. “I was merely inquiring whether I needed to save his supper or not.” Turning on her heel, she retreated to the sanctuary of her café.
Detwiler came in a few minutes later. “Sorry about Dolly’s rudeness,” he said carefully. “After you left, she told me she’d put a note from Nate in my office. He says they’re after a crook who killed some poor lady in Lampasas. So I figure that’s why y—Nate,” he said, obviously correcting himself before calling him your Nate, “was invited along. Bishop must think he’ll give them an advantage in tracking down that no-good. He asked me to tell you he’d be back as soon as he could.”
“I—I see,” she said. So he had thought to ask Detwiler to let her know. But he could as easily have left you the note and asked you to tell Detwiler, a petty voice within her insisted. “Well, like I said, it’s no concern of mine what Nate Bohannan chooses to do with his time.”
But Detwiler saw through her cross words. “He’ll be all right, Ella. Nate Bohannan knows how to handle himself.”
Ella shrugged as if it didn’t matter to her. “You want an extra helping of ham and mashed potatoes, George?” she said, nodding toward the plate she’d kept covered and warm on top of the stove.
“Thanks. Don’t mind if I do.”
When he had gone, Ella stood there for a moment, staring unseeing out the back window.
Her first reaction had been concern—yes, and fear—for Nate’s safety, but now Dolly’s mocking words came back to taunt her. You mean he didn’t tell you he was leaving, Ella?
Men, she scoffed. There was no use caring about one, because when the next exciting thing came along, they flitted away without a thought.
* * *
As they rode southwest, the hills came more frequently and the gently rolling landscape gave way to steeper climbs and deeper valleys.
Because of their late start, they’d pushed the horses hard that day and the only time there’d been any talk was when they stopped to water their mounts. Nate learned that the ot
her two men on the posse were Hank Parker, whose ranch lay north of Simpson Creek, and one of his cowhands, Owen Sawyer. The other two men he knew from church, the Englishman Nick Brookfield, and Jack Collier, both ranchers and both married to ladies who had been in the Spinsters’ Club that Ella belonged to.
The sun was setting by the time Bishop gave the order to halt and make camp. Collier made a fire with some dried mesquite, and before long there was fresh Arbuckle’s coffee brewed.
The buckskin Nate had been loaned had carried him well that day, but he was more tired than he could remember being in a long time. It seemed everyone felt the same, for there was only mumbled conversation as they ate what they had packed in their saddlebags.
“We’ll get an early start tomorrow,” Bishop told them. “You think we can make it to that hideout of Salali’s by late afternoon tomorrow?”
“Possibly,” Nate said. He’d seen clouds off to the southwest before the sun had set, but often they blew away without dropping any rain. “But you don’t want to take Salali on at the end of a day’s ride—we’ll need to be fresh.”
“Of course not. Do you take me for a greenhorn?” Bishop snapped, then rubbed the back of his neck, fatigue evident in his movements. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to bite your head off, Bohannan. I feel like I’ve been run over by a freight wagon.”
“Don’t give it another thought,” Nate said. They’d covered a lot of ground since afternoon, and he knew Bishop wanted to bring Salali in to help his fellow sheriff—and to ensure no more innocent folks were victimized by the murdering charlatan. Nate wanted him captured for the same reasons. He only hoped that when he led them to Salali’s hideout, they didn’t come up empty.
Bishop flashed him a grateful look. “All right then,” he said to all of them. “We’ll aim to ride as close as we can to where the hideout is tomorrow, and make a cold camp so Salali doesn’t get wind that we’re on his tail. Eat up, men, then let’s get some shut-eye.”
Within minutes, everyone was curled up in their bedrolls around the fire. Soon, snores alternated with occasional crackles from the campfire, but Nate lay wakeful, thinking about both Ella and Salali.
He knew he could count on Detwiler to tell her where he had gone, but how would she react if he didn’t make it back in time for the café raising? Tomorrow was Tuesday, and it would be at least Wednesday morning before they could attempt to capture the wily criminal. If they were successful, they’d have to escort him to Lampasas to stand trial.
Perhaps Bishop would let him head straight back to Simpson Creek. The remaining men should be enough to assure Salali got to Lampasas—if they all survived.
It was entirely possible that they might scale the hill and find him gone. But if Salali was there, he’d have the advantage, for the path to his cabin was steep and winding and only wide enough to allow one horseman at a time. Salali could easily pick them off as they rode upward, one by one. They might end up having to surround the hill and wait him out—which could take days.
Nate knew another way up to the hideout, but it was a path only a man on foot could take—and only if he was as agile as a mountain goat. He prayed he wouldn’t have to use it, for Salali probably knew of it, too, and he might be covering it as well as the narrow horse path.
There was no guarantee their quarry would be alone. As much as Salali hated sharing, if it made him feel safer, he might have picked up a dangerous partner or two.
He hoped Ella would understand that he felt a deep obligation to help Bishop do this. He wouldn’t have been able to respect himself if he’d refused and stayed safe in town.
But once this was over, he was going to do whatever it took to win the heart of his dark-eyed beauty back in Simpson Creek, and if he succeeded, he’d never leave her side again.
Chapter Eighteen
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday—the three days were endless for Ella since she knew nothing of what was happening with Nate.
She encountered Milly Brookfield at the mercantile Tuesday, and learned that the desperado the posse pursued was none other than Robert Salali himself, the same mischief-maker who’d wrecked the saloon and her café. But Salali had gone far past mischief and mayhem and had graduated to murder, Milly told her, for he had killed a woman in Lampasas.
Now Ella understood why Nate had felt obligated to join the posse. As illogical as it was to her, it seemed Nate still felt guilty by association for being in Salali’s company when he’d first arrived in Simpson Creek. He’d long since atoned for that, Ella thought indignantly, by repairing and remaking the furniture that had been damaged, yet it seemed to her that the sheriff had shamelessly exploited Nate’s guilt to draft him into the posse. The idea made her so cross it was hard to be civil to Bishop’s wife, Prissy, when she passed her in the street later that day.
Wednesday evening, Ella fretted aloud to Maude in the boardinghouse. “What if there’s gunplay, and Nate’s wounded, or worse yet, killed by Salali? What if Salali ambushes them and the entire posse is killed? And why are Simpson Creek men chasing after Salali anyway? Didn’t the crime take place in Lampasas?”
“Easy, Ella,” Maude soothed. “Sheriff Bishop knows what he’s doing, and he won’t let the men go blindly into danger. Besides, it’s far more likely they won’t see hide nor hair of that slimy scoundrel anyway. He’s probably across the Rio Grande into Mexico by now. Sheriff Teague’s backed up our sheriff before—I suppose Sheriff Bishop wanted to return the favor.”
“I know what you’re saying makes sense,” Ella admitted, “but I feel so helpless. There’s nothing I can do.”
“Nonsense,” Maude said. “You can pray, can’t you?”
Of course, her friend was right, and Ella was ashamed that she hadn’t thought of it. But she had prayed before—back in the asylum—and heard only silence from heaven. Who knew if prayer would help this time?
It couldn’t hurt to try. Lord, please protect Nate! And the rest of the posse, she added quickly. They had wives and families who worried about them, too.
* * *
By Friday morning she was beside herself. The posse hadn’t returned or sent word, but it seemed there would be enough men to build Ella’s café without them. The ladies of the town, many of whom were Spinsters’ Club members, had planned the menu for the noon meal with the same enthusiasm they always exhibited, whether the event was a matchmaking one or not. Mrs. Detwiler had promised to bake several of her famous chocolate cakes, and George Detwiler would furnish bottles of sarsaparilla for the kids.
Milly Brookfield and Caroline Collier had come in via buckboard and were staying with Milly’s sister, Sarah, the doctor’s wife. If either of them were anxious about their husbands’ continuing absence, they concealed it well.
Hank Dayton came into the café to report that he’d delivered the lumber to the site, all ready to be used tomorrow. “Finest hardwood my mill ever produced,” he boasted, proud as if he’d grown the trees from saplings himself. Then he just stood there as if he was waiting for something.
“How about a piece of pie and a cup of coffee?” she asked finally.
“On the house?”
“Of course.” Worry over Nate had quite robbed her of her manners.
“Don’t mind if I do,” he said, then set about gobbling down the pecan pie as if it might evaporate if not consumed quickly. “Did your friend Nate tell you afore he left that I offered to go into business with him?” he asked, watching her with a knowing look in his eye.
Ella wondered how many times she’d uttered the phrase “He’s not ‘my’ friend Nate.” She certainly wasn’t going to explain the nature of her friendship with Nate to the likes of Dayton, who’d never bothered to speak to her before.
“Mr. Bohannan and I didn’t discuss his plans,” she said coolly, trying to appear as disinterested as possible, though she wanted desperately to know that Na
te had made a plan to stay.
“Yeah, did my best to interest him in selling his furniture outta my shop,” Dayton said.
Ella shrugged, hoping it looked to the lumberman that what Nate did mattered not in the least to her.
“Sounds like he’s still got itchy feet to go out to Californy, though.”
Her heart sank at the remark. If Nate Bohannan returned with the posse, he still wouldn’t be staying.
By the time Ella served the last midday meal behind the saloon Friday, she felt ready to explode if one more well-meaning customer asked her if she was excited about having her café built tomorrow or when it would be open for business.
That evening, after serving the last supper she would make there, she was crossing the street when she heard the sound of hoofbeats coming from the south road. She changed course and started walking in that direction. Could it be the posse at last?
It grew dark early now that September was drawing to a close, and she could not make out the identities of the horsemen, but eventually they drew near enough. Sheriff Bishop rode in the lead, with Nick Brookfield and Jack Collier flanking him and Hank Parker and Owen Sawyer bringing up the rear. They looked dusty, tired and travel-weary, but satisfied.
Where is Nate?
Before she even made a conscious decision, she found herself running across the road, waving her hands, calling, “Sheriff Bishop! Sheriff Bishop!”
The men drew rein as they spotted her and exchanged glances. She saw the sheriff straighten in the saddle as if girding himself for an unpleasant duty. Her heart suddenly felt heavy in her chest.
“Where’s Nate Bohannan?” she demanded as her limbs started to shake. “Why isn’t he with you? Was he— Did he—” She couldn’t finish the sentence, for it would make the worst news real and final.
Bishop seemed to pick a place somewhere above her head to focus before he spoke. “Bohannan had to...to take care of some business in Lampasas, Miss Ella. He’ll be along as soon as he can.”
A Hero in the Making Page 17