CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
By the time the saloon got busy that evening, Hank had already made up contracts for Melinda and Dotty and the pair started work right away. Both proved extremely popular with the customers from the beginning and Jake was first in line for Melinda. The saloon was crowded with it being a Saturday and Lissy also found herself busier than usual. Myra served behind the bar for a time with Hank, until someone requested her company.
"She's tied up," grunted Hank. "Wait for one of the new girls."
"I like the look of her best."
"Too bad. Like I said, she ain't available," Hank repeated, eyeing Myra who was pouring out another shot of whiskey for Loren.
He wanted her for himself that night and had no intention of letting anyone else get their hands on her. When she finished serving and leaned on the bar, he reached out, grasped her wrist and drew her towards him, manoeuvring her in front of him and resting his hands on the counter either side of her. After a moment he put his hands on her instead, laying them on her shoulders, stroking the sides of her neck with his thumbs. She leaned back against him, moving only to pour out more drinks when requested.
"Huh, keepin' her for yerself, are ya?" the customer Hank had refused now grinned at him.
Hank cocked one eyebrow and sneered slightly, then reached around Myra to pour himself a drink, tossing it down his throat in one gulp. It was going to be a long night.
He kept Myra by him until most of the customers had filtered out into the night and then sent her to her room. Eventually the last few drinkers staggered out and he locked up. The other girls had already retired and he made his way to Myra's room, opening the door quietly without knocking. He found her wearing the new dress, turning around and around in front of her mirror admiring it.
"Looks good on ya," he said as she faced him, reddening slightly.
The dress fitted her perfectly, tight around her tiny waist, the bodice pushing her breasts upwards and showing the smallest hint of cleavage.
"I love it," Myra said. "I never had anythin' like this before."
Hank grinned and pulled her towards him. "Almost seems a shame to take it off."
He slid his arms around her and began unfastening the dozen fiddly little buttons on the back of the bodice. Not only were these fancy dresses damned expensive, but they made them impossible to get into. It took him several minutes to undo all the buttons and then Myra slipped the dress off and carefully placed it in the box. Hank scooped her up into his arms immediately and dropped her into the middle of the bed, wasting no time in ripping off his own clothes and carelessly scattering a few buttons from his shirt before he joined her.
It was almost dawn before they slept, arms and legs thrown loosely across each other, the sheet tangled in a heap and trailing on the floor.
When Hank opened his eyes Myra was still sleeping in his arms and he propped his head up with one hand and stared at her, thinking about the previous night and then back over the past few years since he first met her. She was the only person who had never let him down; always there when he needed her, always welcoming and warm when he took her to bed, always sweet and soft and gentle and caring. She did whatever he asked of her and the way she sometimes looked at him, like when he gave her the dress, he could almost believe if he were to rip up her contract and tell her he wanted her just for himself, she'd be happy about it.
He rolled away from her with a sigh, got up quietly and pulled his clothes on. He'd been so lonely without Clarice. In fact he had been lonely when he was with Clarice, the way she'd treated him most of the time, her moods so erratic. He had never known where he was with her, even when they were properly together. Myra was so completely different. What you saw was what you got.
He paused by the door and looked down at her again, still sleeping and with a slight smile on her lips. It would be so easy to fall for her, but then what? Things would change; they'd fight, she'd resent him, she'd start rejecting him in favour of fat old men who paid her. She was a whore just like Clarice and she'd always be one. He shoved the fleeting thought that she was only a whore because he'd made her one to the back of his mind. He slipped out of the room now and went into the bar, pouring himself a drink just as Lissy appeared.
"Mornin', Hank," she said, smiling and winking. "Have a good night?"
"Leave me alone," he growled, dropping onto a chair and placing both glass and bottle on the table. He lit up a cigar and went back to thinking.
Was it worth the risk? He'd already acknowledged Myra was nothing like Clarice, but that didn't mean she wouldn't change, get tired of him, long for something more. It was better the way it was. While she had a contract, she was his and she'd do as he wanted; he could just be with her when he felt like it, as often as that might be. There would be no complications, no feelings involved, no heartache when it went wrong.
"Hank?"
He looked up. She'd put on the pink nightgown and her hair was all tangled, her cheeks flushed. He pictured himself pulling her down onto his lap to kiss her and then quickly pushed the thought aside. Hadn't he just agreed it would be a bad idea?
"Ya better get dressed, there's clearin' up to do in here and the fellas'll all be headin' over after the picnic," he said gruffly.
"Sure. Alright." She backed away a few steps and then turned and went back to her room.
Hank drained his glass and went to his room to change, ruefully tossing his ruined shirt with its missing buttons to the floor in the corner of the room. It was a good thing he'd bought some new ones in Denver.
Sunday passed quietly, with less than half the number of customers than had been in on Saturday. The girls circulated the room, flirting and chatting, idling away the time. The man from the previous evening approached the bar and ordered a whiskey. He'd taken Melinda in the end, but it looked like he was back for more.
"Any of 'em busy tonight?" he asked with a grin.
"Nah. Take yer pick," drawled Hank.
"What about her? Ya musta been keepin' her for yerself for a reason," the man said, indicating Myra.
"Why don't ya see for yerself?" Hank deftly swiped the five dollars from the customer's fingers and pocketed it.
"Might just do that." The fellow drained his glass, walked across to Myra and grasped her arm.
Hank watched as they disappeared in the direction of her room, then stepped around the bar, pulling out a pack of cards.
"Any of you fellas want a game?" he offered.
There were four takers and he took a seat at the poker table, set a bottle in the middle of it and began to shuffle. He wouldn't even give Myra another thought.
Mostly it worked, convincing himself that she was his because of the contract. As time went on, he buried his head in the sand and didn't question why he never slept with the other three girls; why it was always Myra he took with him if there was something on which required his attendance such as the Thanksgiving dinner or the Christmas gathering or the Fourth of July celebrations. He even told himself that she needed the other dresses and shoes he bought her so as she wouldn't have to always be wearing the same thing, making him look like a miser when he took her somewhere on his arm.
It was always Myra who rode out to Ruby Johnson's place each month to pay her, because he trusted her not to steal the money and the horse and knew she would come back and tell him how Zack was getting on. It was always Myra whom he leapt over the counter to defend from rough customers in an instant, rather than wait to see if she could handle it or not as he did with the other girls.
It wasn't until three years later that he was forced to acknowledge he'd been fooling himself. Suzannah, who had been attending a fine college in St Louis, had graduated and then written to the Bartons to tell them she was getting married. George Barton called in at the saloon to tell Myra and later, she asked Hank for time off to take the stagecoach to St Louis for the wedding. He hesitated before answering and rather than wait for him to speak, she begged.
"Please, Hank. I haven't seen her in over a year since she last visited. I really want to be there for her. Please let me go."
"Sure, of course," he said at once. "I'll get yer ticket."
"Ya don't have to do that," Myra protested.
He shrugged. "Might as well save yer money."
She left on the stage twelve days before the wedding, to allow sufficient time to reach St Louis, which was over eight hundred miles away, and then help her sister prepare over the last day or two before her big day.
Hank found himself behaving like a bear with a sore head while she was gone. He drank, he barked at the other girls, he dished out several black eyes and split lips to customers who barely did more than look at him wrong and he tossed and turned in bed every night, convinced she wouldn't come back.
St Louis was a big city, full of opportunities for anyone who was looking for them. What if she found something, or someone that suited her better? Suzannah could introduce her to all kinds of people; rich men who didn't know what she did for a living. Men who might offer her a better life - marriage, children, a nice home. Hank had no idea if marriage and children was something Myra might dream of having some day, but he figured she'd think it a better option than entertaining half the men of Colorado Springs.
The wedding was to take place on the Sunday and Myra's plan was to take the stage out of St Louis the following day, due to arrive back in Colorado Springs the next Tuesday. Hank had no way of knowing if she'd got on it or not and constantly cursed himself for making such a big deal out of it. If she didn't come back, she didn't come back; he couldn't do much about it other than go to St Louis and drag her home with him.
The days crawled by and eventually Tuesday arrived and with it, heavy rain. Myra had been away three weeks in all and Hank was sick of telling curious customers where she was. The most common response to him telling them that she had gone to her sister's wedding in St Louis was, 'Are ya sure she ain't run off to get married herself?'
Hank stood outside the saloon smoking a cigar and watching the rain bucketing down, the street outside rapidly turning to a sea of mud. The hours passed and the saloon opened, although few people ventured out into the storm for a drink. There was no sign of the stagecoach which should have arrived in the late morning and Hank began to think it must have holed up somewhere to wait out the bad weather. Sometimes part of the route was washed away in heavy rain, making it impassable for the coach.
However, somehow the vehicle made it through. Just before six o'clock the team of horses came stamping and splashing through the mud, the drivers wearing wide-brimmed hats and holding a tarp draped around them to keep the worst of the wet off.
"Hey, Hank!" Jake exclaimed from where he sat drinking by the window. "Stage is in. Ain't Myra comin' back today?"
"Yeah," Hank grunted.
"What's the matter? Don't ya want her back, or somethin'? Send her my way if ya like." Jake grinned at Hank's sour expression.
Hank scowled and strode towards the door, disconcerted and annoyed by the way his heart had leapt into his mouth when the stage pulled up. So much for keeping his feelings out of it.
He shoved the swing doors open and stepped out onto the porch. One of the drivers was passing luggage down from the roof of the coach to a male passenger who had already alighted. Two other men climbed out now, immediately sinking ankle deep in mud and becoming drenched in seconds. Myra peered out of the window, looking down at the muddy street in dismay.
Hank stepped off the porch into the rain and squelched across to the stage, snatching Myra's bag from one of the men a second before he dropped it into the sludge.
"Hank!" Myra edged to the open door and onto the top step, holding up the moss green dress she was wearing - one of those he had bought her.
"Here." He thrust the bag into her hands and plucked her out of the vehicle, holding her up as high as he could manage to prevent her skirt trailing around his legs and getting dirt on it. She hung onto the bag with one arm and his neck with the other, squealing as he ploughed through the mud to the saloon porch, the pair of them no less wet when they reached it than if they had been plunged into a water trough.
Hank lowered her to her feet on the porch and took a step back.
"Thanks!" she gasped. "I thought we'd never make it. They were gonna wait it out at the last stage, but two of the fellas travellin' were in a rush and paid 'em extra."
Hank grinned now and ushered her into the saloon. "Go get some dry things on before ya catch the grip again," he said and then followed her through the bar, thinking it wise to get a change of clothes himself.
"How was the weddin'?" he asked before heading into his room.
"It was lovely. Suzannah met a wonderful man; he's a banker. They have a beautiful house too."
"Sounds like ya wish you were gonna live there," Hank said. "I thought maybe ya wouldn't wanna come back."
"My home's here," said Myra. "Of course I wanted to come back."
"I missed ya," Hank confessed.
Myra smiled, stood on tiptoe and gave him a light kiss on the cheek, then hurried, shivering into her room. Hank heaved a sigh of relief. She was back. He guessed he could live with having feelings for her, he just wasn't about to go blurting them out to her; that would just be asking for trouble.