have to use the back room of the saloon anymore. What do you care that she didn’t buy any elixir? We sold ’em all.”
He wished he could take back the words after he saw Salali’s eyes light up when he said “saloon.” Within days of their meeting, Nate had discovered his employer had two vices, gambling and whiskey. But what other choice had Nate had, on foot in the middle of nowhere after his horse had broken a leg and he’d had to put him down? Hot and sweaty from carrying his banjo, saddlebags and saddle, he’d come across the medicine-show wagon, broken down about five miles from where Nate’s horse had put his leg in a hole. Nate had repaired the broken axle for the medicine-show man, and regretted the deal he’d made with him ever since.
After Salali’s last drunken binge, he’d begged Nate to keep him from succumbing to his vices again.
Evidently he’d forgotten that now, however, for he said, “That saloon got poker? Faro? Why don’t I go make us a stake gambling while you see your sweetheart? I won’t drink, I promise. Or maybe just one whiskey, just to wet my whistle. What d’ya say, Nate-boy?”
It was a familiar wheedle, and one Nate had resolved to ignore forever more. When Salali gambled, he drank then lost every penny in his pockets. Then he’d lie around in a drunken stupor for the next day, and wake up cranky as a wet rattlesnake.
Sorrowful and repentant after his last binge, he’d agreed to let Nate hold on to their money after a show, so Nate resolved to stick to his guns and do just that. The money was safe in its secret hiding place on the wagon. Even if it meant neither he nor his employer had anything more to eat today than the last of the buffalo jerky, he wasn’t going to let Salali get close to temptation. If they went to town, Salali would have to agree to go into the café via the back entrance, not through the saloon. He figured the medicine-show man wouldn’t agree, but Nate would have liked to see Ella Justiss again, even for a brief time.
“I can’t let you do that, compadre,” Nate said firmly. “You told me not to let you gamble away the profits, or drink liquor, and I’m sticking to that.” He tried to ignore the way Salali’s eyes glared at him in thwarted anger. “If you won’t agree to only visit the café, we’ll stay right here. I’m just doing what you asked me to do, remember?”
Salali yawned widely, as if he didn’t care one way or the other. “Think I’ll take me a siesta,” he muttered.
Maybe he’d change his mind about supper when he woke up, Nate thought. “Think I’ll take a nap, too,” he said, but he was talking to empty air. The medicine-show man was already snoring.
His employer had once admitted to him while drunk that his lately adopted surname, Salali, meant “Squirrel” in the Cherokee tongue, not “Generous Heart.” But there was nothing of the industrious planning-for-winter rodent or of generosity in Robert Salali, and Nate had to wonder why the chief had given it to him—and what he’d really done for the Indian. He didn’t believe for a minute that story of Salali killing a bear—the man was much too indolent. As Nate spread his blanket under the wagon to take advantage of the shade, he wondered what the Cherokee word for “lazy” was.
Someday soon, he and Salali would have to part ways, he thought, settling himself on his blanket and listening to his employer snore. Their arrangement wasn’t working. At the speed they were meandering through Texas, it would take years for Nate to reach Iowa, and the business opportunity in San Francisco that had been promised to him would have vanished.
* * *
It was evening when Nate awoke. He saw that Salali was already stirring around, his turban back in place, his clothes brushed. Hope rose in Nate that his employer had seen the sense of what he’d said, and decided to accompany him to supper—if it wasn’t already too late, he thought, wondering what time the petite pretty woman closed her establishment.
“You going to Ella’s café with me?” Nate asked. “I’ll bet it’ll be the best supper we’ve had in a long time.” He stepped up to the cabinet on the side of the wagon and used the comb and mirror that he kept there to spruce up a little. Maybe he ought to give himself a quick shave, he thought, after glancing at his beard-shadowed face, and pulled out his razor and a bowl, which he’d fill with water from the burbling creek just a few feet away.
“No,” Salali said, a challenging note in his voice. “I’m going to go play faro and drink as much whiskey as I please, and don’t think you’re going to tell me different.”
Nate shrugged, trying to tamp down the anger that boiled within him. There was no arguing with Salali when he got this way, but he didn’t have to make it easy. Surely if he remained firm, his employer would thank him one day. “I don’t know how you’re going to do that,” he said, taking the bowl and striding toward the creek. “You don’t know where the money we made today is, and I’m not about to tell you.”
He heard Salali following him, and figured he was going to try to wheedle him into changing his mind. He never saw the other man raise his arm, but a second later, he felt a crushing blow to the back of his head and felt himself falling. The fading light of dusk went black.
* * *
Ella had just dressed and was heading out the back steps of the boardinghouse the next morning with a basket full of eggs to scramble and a covered dish of bacon to fry for her café’s breakfast offering when she saw Detwiler trudging across the street toward her, looking as if he’d lost his last friend. His normally hound dog–droopy features were saggier than usual, and his eyes red-rimmed, as if he’d just been weeping.
Unease gripped her. While not of an overly cheerful nature, he was normally an even-tempered man. She hurried forward, alarm clenching her insides. “George, what’s wrong?”
“They wrecked the place, Miss Ella, that d— ’scuse me, Miss Ella, them awful snake-oil salesmen.”
Ella froze. “W-wrecked it? What are you saying?”
“Tore it up. Ever’thing inside is all smashed, ’cludin’ your café. Sheriff noticed a broken front window, and found it all smashed up inside. He came out to the house and notified me, and I just came from seein’ the damage. I’m ruined, Miss Ella. We’re both ruined.”
Ella felt a coldness wash over her despite the early warmth of the morning. She set the covered dish down on the doorstep, afraid her trembling hands would drop it in the next second. What Detwiler was saying didn’t make sense.
“You’re saying they wrecked it, but the sheriff didn’t find it till this morning? How do you know both of those men did it?” And why am I already trying to protect them? she wondered, even as she began to run down the alley past the hotel toward the saloon. No, this couldn’t have happened. Not my café!
Detwiler followed her. “That medicine-show man, the one in the outlandish clothes, came into the saloon last night, set down at the faro table and proceeded to get booze-blind drunk. He got mad when he lost his money an’ I told him he had to leave. He told me he was gonna lay a Cherokee curse on me, mumbled some a’ that foreign gibberish an’ left.”
“He left? So why do you think he and the other man did the damage? Was the other man with him when he was gambling?” She looked behind her, and saw Detwiler shake his head.
“Nope, I didn’t see that other fella, but it had to have been both of ’em. Wait’ll you see it, Miss Ella. That Salali character couldn’t’ve done that much by hisself.”
They’d emerged onto Main Street, and
