CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
The train finally arrived in St Louis just before midday on Tuesday after a long wait in Kansas City. Hank was exhausted, having only dozed for short periods and he was longing for a bath and change of clothes after more than three days in the same shirt and suit. He left the station and decided to find an hotel first, guessing he wasn't fit to be seen. He was anxious enough about seeing Myra, without meeting her all scruffy and sweaty. He had spent much of the journey convincing himself that her reception wasn't likely to be particularly warm and almost got off the train in Kansas City in order to return to Denver.
He wandered along a street now, gazing around at the tall buildings and large stores, assuming there would be a number of hotels to choose from. He spotted one moments later, a large sign with 'Oaktree Hotel' printed on it protruding from the facade a hundred yards ahead.
A carriage drawn by four horses thundered by and he turned to look as it halted outside the bank on the opposite side of the street. The bank was immense, making Preston's establishment in Colorado Springs look like a shack. The gentleman in the carriage alighted and strode towards the door, then stood back to allow a lady to exit the bank first. She swept out, pausing a moment to adjust her hat, which perfectly matched her elegant rusty-red coloured gown. Hank's eyes widened and he halted suddenly and simply stared. It was Myra.
She looked so different, her hair pinned up under her hat in some fancy style with little curls escaping around her face. The gown was ruffled and flounced and trimmed with fancy stitching and what looked like a kind of velvet edging. In the few seconds that Hank stood staring, he became only more convinced that coming to St Louis had been a mistake. Myra looked so smart, so confident; she had obviously made a new life for herself. The last thing she would want would be to reminded of the old one; of someone who had spent years treating her like a slave, who she hadn't even wanted to say goodbye to. He wasn't good enough for her any more, if he ever had been. He sighed heavily, deciding to go to the hotel, clean up and rest and then think about going back home.
Just before he began to move again, Myra looked up and caught sight of him. Her mouth fell open and then she snapped it shut quickly and simply stared for another moment before she began to cross the street towards him.
"Hank? What are you doing here?" she asked as she reached him. Even her voice sounded different - more refined, no clipped words.
"I...umm..." Completely off guard, he couldn't think of a thing to say.
Myra smiled suddenly. "Cat got your tongue?" she teased.
"Yeah." He grinned foolishly. "I wasn't expectin' to see ya, lookin' so... elegant; like a lady."
Myra's eyebrows rose.
"I didn't mean that quite the way it sounded," added Hank, becoming even more aware of his dusty, wrinkled clothes and tangled hair as he looked at her, so neat and perfect.
She smiled again. "I wasn't expecting to see you at all," she said. "What are you doing here?"
"I was in Denver, seein' Zack. Train home derailed before it got in, so I took one here instead."
"You came all the way to St Louis, just on a whim?"
"A what? Look, Myra, I came to see you, alright?" he confessed. "I never even knew ya'd gone till Jake said. I wanted to see ya were alright, after what happened with Horace."
Myra's smile slipped a little. "I don't really want to talk about that," she said. "Not in the street anyway."
"Ya wanna go get a coffee or somethin'?" asked Hank, slightly encouraged. At least she hadn't told him to go to hell yet.
"I'm sorry, Hank, I have to pick up Samantha. I have a lady watch her while I'm working."
"Sure. I need to get cleaned up anyhow; been stuck on the train two days." He knew his disappointment was obvious, but he couldn't help it.
"I was going to take Samantha to the park, I suppose you could come with us, if you want to," Myra said then, much to his surprise. "If you still want to freshen up first, you could meet us there. It's off to the left at the end of the street." She indicated the corner just past the hotel he had spotted.
"Sure! I was gonna try that hotel, the Oaktree; ya know if it's any good?"
"I should think it is, it's very expensive," she said.
Hank shrugged. "Ain't got much else to spend my money on. I won't be long."
"Alright."
She turned away and he continued to the hotel, his heart thumping. He felt ridiculously excited that she apparently didn't mind spending some time with him, but at the same time he was surprisingly lacking in confidence. He was perfectly capable of wooing anyone, however fancy they were, he knew that, but this was Myra. She seemed to have changed so much and he was sure he would manage to do or say something that would annoy her. In addition, she was hardly likely to want to get involved with him again, on any level, but he had wanted it so much for so long, it seemed that he had nothing to lose.
He went and checked into the hotel, requesting two nights just in case and trying not to grimace at the price. He bathed and washed his hair quickly, put on clean underclothes and a shirt and then in the absence of a spare suit, brushed the dust off the one he had with the clothes brush in his room and did his best to shake the wrinkles out of it. By the time he went out and headed for the park an hour had passed and he began to worry that Myra would have left, but as soon as he turned off the street into the grassy area surrounded by trees, he spotted her sitting on a bench while Samantha crawled around at her feet, playing with a ball and a doll.
"Hey." He sat down beside her. "Sorry I was so long."
"It's alright, I'm not in any hurry." Myra looked up, eyeing his still damp hair. "How's the hotel?"
"Expensive," he grinned. "So how are ya? And Samantha?"
"Fine, we're both fine. We're staying with Suzannah and her husband. They have two children now too, so it's nice for Sam to have them to play with. I work in the bank, nine until noon."
"Sam's grown," Hank observed. "She's lookin' a lot like you."
"She's growing so fast, she has to have new clothes every two or three months," said Myra.
They continued to make smalltalk for a little while, Hank wanting to ask her about more personal things, but not quite knowing how to get from the subjects of Zack's drawing and her job in the bank to how she felt about everything that had happened. However, it was Myra who began to speak about it.
"How's everyone back home?" she asked suddenly. "I mean, in Colorado Springs."
"Ya still think of it as home?"
"No, it's a figure of speech. It was home for a long time."
"Well, the folks're no different than before, I guess."
"What about...?" She stopped and bit her lip.
"Horace? Ain't seen much of him. He seems mad at everythin'. Ya left pretty sudden."
"It wasn't really that sudden. You know we were fighting. He hated me working for Preston; in fact he hated me doing anything other than being a wife and mother."
"I thought that was what ya wanted when ya left m- ...the saloon," Hank said.
"I thought so too, but it turned out not to be enough. I suppose I was bored. That's why I took the job."
"What're ya gonna do now? You ever gonna come back?"
"I don't know. I have a life here now."
"Not thinkin' of goin' back to Horace, then?" he pressed, hoping to get an idea of whether there was any chance at all that she could think of him the way he wanted her to.
"Hank, I don't know what I want," she said. "It's only been a few months."
"Ya left him, didn't ya?"
"But we're still married."
"Ya gonna stay that way?"
"It's something I have to think about." She looked away from him, turning her attention to Samantha. "It really was meant to only be a visit to my sister. Then I just...stayed." She smiled a little ruefully now. "I can't really believe I'm telling you all this."
"Ya know, you were always there for me whenever I needed somebody," he said. "However bad I treated ya. I guess it's long overdue I did the same for you."
"Thank you, Hank." She bent now as Samantha abandoned her toys and scrambled to her feet, tugging at Myra's skirt. Myra picked her up and settled the little girl on her lap, stroking a hand over her blonde hair. "Are you planning on staying here long?" she asked.
"I never planned on comin' here to begin with," he smiled. "The train was just sittin' there, seemed like I was supposed to get on it. Never really thought about what I was gonna do when I got here. I guess it depends on you."
"What do you mean?" Myra's smile vanished and she eyed him suspiciously.
"I thought ya mightn't want to see me; if ya hadn't I woulda just gone straight back."
"But what do you want from me, Hank?" Myra persisted. "You didn't come eight hundred miles just to see if I'm alright."
He was a little taken aback. She had always been honest before, but hadn't usually been quite so direct. Her new life seemed to have given her great confidence and he wasn't sure how to respond to her question. Complete honesty didn't seem the wisest course; she would probably tell him to go home.
"I just wanted to see ya," he said eventually. "We've known each other a long time. I guess I missed ya."
She smiled again now, looking a little thoughtful, and he plunged ahead. "Will ya have dinner with me later?"
"Dinner? I'm not sure, Hank." She frowned slightly now. "I have Samantha."
"Can't yer sister watch her? Or you could bring her with ya."
"She's too little for a restaurant yet."
"My hotel ain't bad. There was a couple in there with kids when I checked in."
"Hank, I'm not coming to your hotel," Myra said firmly.
"It's just dinner."
"Well, I don't feel right about it." She was looking at him warily now and it seemed things weren't going to go the way he hoped.
"You pick somewhere, then," he suggested and then added what he imagined would be reassurance. "I ain't gonna do nothin' improper."
"Improper?" repeated Myra. "That's a word I never thought I'd hear you use." Much to his surprise she began to giggle, covering her mouth with a dainty gloved hand.
He grinned back at her. "Look, I just wanna spend some time with ya, is all."
"Hank, I'm not going to have dinner with you, it's too much. I'll have lunch, tomorrow after work, if you like. I'll ask Mrs Withers to watch Samantha a little longer," Myra said.
"Alright, lunch," agreed Hank at once. "Where d'ya wanna go?"
"There's a place on the street which turns off to the left by the bank I work at," Myra said. "It's called Juniper Cafe."
"Think I can run to more than a cafe," said Hank.
"Well, it's not like any cafe we've been to before," Myra said. Smirking slightly she added, "You might want to ask your hotel to press the creases out of your suit."
Hank snorted. "Ain't been out of it in three days. Four actually, if ya count the one I spent with Zack."
"I should be going now," Myra said then. "You can meet me at twelve outside the bank if you want to."
She began to get to her feet, struggling slightly with the weight of Samantha. Hank leapt up at once and took her arm to steady her, then bent and picked up Samantha's toys from the grass and handed them to her.
"Ya want any help?" he asked. "I'll carry her if ya like."
"I'm fine, Hank," she said. "Thanks anyway. I'll see you tomorrow."
He stayed where he was and watched as she walked out of the park and disappeared in the opposite direction to the road leading to the centre of the city. Then he walked back himself, first looking for the cafe she had described, wondering exactly what sort of a place it was.
Juniper Cafe turned out to be the fanciest cafe he'd ever seen, with tables covered in white cloths, fine silver cutlery, little vases of flowers and waitresses wearing smart black frocks and white aprons. Whilst looking, Hank caught a glimpse of his reflection in the window and grimaced. His suit looked much worse than he thought, almost as if he'd slept in it for a week. He left the cafe and continued down the street, looking for a tailor. There was only one thing for it - a new suit.
By the time he returned to the hotel he was well over a hundred dollars poorer and carrying a new dark grey suit, a pair of smart shiny shoes, three shirts, a couple of neckties, socks and another set of underwear. It was turning into a very expensive trip.
He changed into some of the new clothes immediately and sent the crumpled suit and the other items from the journey to the hotel laundry. It was still only four o'clock and he went down to the lounge, ordered a large whiskey from the bar and sat down to smoke a cigar and read one of the newspapers lying on a nearby table, killing a few hours until the restaurant opened for dinner.
When he returned to his room at nine, he simply stripped off his clothes and fell into bed. After several days with virtually no sleep, he doubted he could keep his eyes open for even another ten minutes. As he began to doze off he hoped, prayed almost, that somehow Myra would come around to feeling the same for him as he did for her. He didn't think it was likely, but there was no harm in hoping; the only one it could hurt was himself.