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