CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
With Myra gone, Hank did his best to convince himself she wouldn't be coming back. She needed to move on and so did he, as impossible as it seemed to be able to do that. Although he began writing to her on a number of occasions, he never sent the letters. If she wanted to keep in touch with him it would have to be down to her to let him know that.
Neither Loren nor Jake ever mentioned what Hank had said to them about Myra and surprisingly they didn't repeat it to anyone else either. Both apparently had more important things to occupy their thoughts and eventually so did Hank, at least for a while.
Jake continued longing for the Mexican widow, Teresa Morales, but never had the courage to do anything about it. Then at the end of the month Michaela's sister Marjorie returned to Colorado Springs and much to everyone's astonishment, she and Loren quickly fell into each other's arms.
Loren was head over heels in no time and proposed marriage, but Marjorie wouldn't hear of it. She was too concerned with pushing her views on women's rights onto anyone who would listen, four of these being Dotty, Melinda, Beth and one of the other three new girls Hank had taken on recently. He was infuriated when they took a day off without warning and then packed their belongings and left for Boston with Marjorie, who had promised to help them find alternative occupations and a better life.
Hank travelled to Manitou and Denver and found four new girls to replace those he had lost, his fury at the others leaving causing him to treat the new ones worse than the old.
A few weeks later, Sully once again got himself involved in helping the Indians which resulted in far more serious consequences than his previous escapades. He and a soldier fell off a cliff while fighting, causing Sully to be wanted for both treason and murder if he could ever be found alive.
Michaela, Matthew and several others searched for weeks, later helped by Sully's friend, Daniel, who arrived in town to lend a hand, but Sully wasn't found. Matthew even quit as sheriff during an altercation with the army over his duties. Then the Reverend arranged a memorial service for Sully as it was accepted that the fall from the cliff had killed him. Michaela was telling everyone he was gone, and yet a number of things didn't ring true.
Colleen and Brian were seen laughing together on the morning of the memorial service; Michaela still continued disappearing for long periods of time as if she were searching, or indeed spending time with Sully. Even the army were suspicious and Hank was sure she was hiding her husband.
Michaela had always been so honest, so straightforward, such an advocate of doing right by everyone, that Hank found himself shocked by her recent actions. She had always been one to point out his shortcomings and he had come to admire her, feeling that in some small way she had helped him to be a better person, at least in regard to Zack. Despite knowing it would hurt her, he wanted to punish her for lying, for covering up for Sully's wrong-doing, for continuing with her life as if she were the same whiter than white upholder of the law.
He stormed out into the town centre, rang the bell until he was surrounded by everyone within hearing distance and announced he was taking over as sheriff. The town no longer had any protection against the Indians, who had been setting fire to properties and shooting at people and it was time the townsfolk stood up for themselves. The army had no intention of helping so he would do it himself.
Michaela began to object of course, but with everyone except one or two supporting Hank's decision to make himself sheriff, there was nothing she could do, expecially when he announced to everyone that Sully was alive and that the first thing he intended to do was find and arrest him.
Hank rode out looking for Sully accompanied by Jake and found him and his Indian friends in just a few hours. However, they hadn't bargained on an ambush and found themselves surrounded by renegade Indians within seconds. Hank cursed himself silently as they headed back to town, relieved of both guns and horses. He had been so keen to prove Sully was a traitor and in addition, claim the thousand dollar reward for his capture, that he hadn't planned things properly, not even bothered to scout the area to see if they were likely to run into trouble. He had only himself to blame for the failure of the mission and Jake blamed him too, mostly for the loss of yet another horse to the Indians and the fact that he had to walk miles back to town with a bad-tempered Hank for company.
At the end of the summer, Hank's brief period as sheriff came to an end when several people encouraged Daniel to run against him for the position. Despite Daniel being a stranger to most of the town, he had somehow managed to ingratiate himself to the extent where he obtained more votes than Hank and proceeded to laud it over everyone with his shiny new sheriff's badge.
Hank fumed over the defeat, but it wasn't long before he had something else to be angry over. Marjorie descended on Colorado Springs again with some elderly ladies from the Women's Temperance Movement and after unsuccessfully - obviously - trying to convince Hank and Jake to stop serving alcohol and girls in the Gold Nugget, they began smashing the place up with axes. To Marjorie's credit she didn't join in with that part, but the old women did sufficient damage on their own to cost hundreds of dollars in repairs.
The women left town shortly after, but Marjorie stayed to be with Loren. Meanwhile Jake finally plucked up the courage to speak to Teresa and began courting her, leaving Hank as the only batchelor of the three, which he didn't think would ever change.
It was impossible for him not to think about Myra. Six months had passed since she left and he wondered what she was doing; whether she ever thought about him; whether she would ever contact him again. Although the longing to see her only increased, he continued to restrain himself from getting in touch with her. She clearly didn't want to be reminded of her last visit to Colorado Springs and was no doubt getting on with her life in St Louis without having to worry about him and everyone else in town.
Loren's romance with Marjorie was sadly short-lived. A diphtheria epidemic began wiping out a number of the townsfolk and Marjorie, who had helped care for some of the sick, contracted it and died. Loren was devastated - even more so, if that were possible, than when he lost Maude. Nothing seemed to help him and after some time drowning his sorrows in whiskey, he decided to leave town for a while and try to recover.
As December began, Jake and Teresa's romance progressed and Hank, watching from the sidelines, spent more of his time drinking and subsequently fighting with everyone; the townsfolk, guests of the hotel, even Jake. It was almost Christmas; everyone had plans and all he wanted was for his heartache to go away. He intended to visit Zack, but knew he wasn't going to be good company and therefore didn't much look forward to the visit. He was dreading having to put on a happy face for his son who always had an uncanny way of seeing right through him.
"Hank, there's a letter for ya." Jake came in with several pieces of mail in his hand and tossed one onto the bar where Hank stood, leaning on the counter with a glass of whiskey in one hand and a cigar in the other. "From Lissy. What's she doin' writin' to ya?"
The glass banged down onto the bar and Hank dropped the remains of his cigar into it, straightening up and staring down at the letter, the sound of his heart thudding almost deafening him.
"Ain't from Lissy," he said.
"It says Lissy Grant," Jake said with a frown.
Hank grinned now. "It's from Myra." He ripped open the seal and unfolded the letter, scanning the words quickly before he returned to the top and read the whole thing properly.
"Dear Hank," it began. "I'm sorry this has taken me so long. I want to say thank you for what you did for me when I was in Colorado Springs before. I know it must have been hard for you.
"The bank were happy to give me my job back and have since made me an assistant manager. I intended to find a home for Samantha and I, but as yet I haven't got around to it. She and Suzannah's children are so close and my sister is happy for me to stay as long as I want to.
"You were right; it was the best thing for me to come back here. I needed the time to think about everything and to put things behind me. I haven't heard from you, so I guess that's because you knew I had to do something for myself, to stop feeling guilty.
"I haven't heard from anyone in Colorado Springs - Horace sent money for Samantha, but he doesn't write me letters. So I don't know what everyone is doing; what you're doing. Perhaps you could visit me some time, if you can get away from the hotel. I guess it must keep you pretty busy. If you don't have the time to visit St Louis, maybe you could reply to this letter and let me know how everyone is."
She signed it simply 'Myra'.
"What's she say?" asked Jake.
Too stunned and delighted to reply immediately, Hank snatched up the whiskey glass and poured the contents into his mouth, then grimaced and turned to make use of the nearest spittoon as he found an inch long piece of soggy cigar sticking to his tongue. Grimacing at the foul taste and texture, he grabbed a bottle quickly and took several gulps without bothering to use a glass again.
"Well?" prompted Jake, his face a combination of amusement and curiosity.
"Mind yer own business," Hank grunted.
"Fine." Jake shrugged and poured a drink for himself. "I'm guessin' it ain't bad though, from the look on yer face."
"I'm gonna need ya to run the place for a while," said Hank.
"Aha! Ya goin' to see her?"
"I'm goin' to see Zack, I told ya that last week." Hank shoved the letter into his pocket now and turned away to disguise the fact that he couldn't keep the grin off his face any longer.
"Yeah, pull the other one. You can get to Denver and back in a day. It don't take ya a while to give yer kid his Christmas present."
"Shut up, Jake, ya got yer own affairs to worry about." Hank straightened his face with difficulty and turned around again.
"I ain't gonna say nothin'," Jake said. "Didn't before, did I? When ya goin'?"
It briefly crossed Hank's mind that there was a train leaving for Denver in less than an hour and if he hurried he could be on it, then in St Louis by Saturday. But then he would be ill-prepared, not to mention seeming desperate to both Jake and Myra. She had suggested he visit, but she hadn't indicated what would be waiting for him when he got there. She might just want news of Colorado Springs; a friend to talk to. But if that were the case, wouldn't she have just asked him to write again, rather than go to see her?
"Next week," he said shortly.
"Gonna be back in time for Christmas?"
"Christmas is nearly three weeks away, sure I'll be back." He doubted Myra would want him hanging around in St Louis that long, but all he could do was wait and see what happened.
The next Thursday, Hank took the morning train to Denver and went straight to Zack's school. He spent the rest of the day with the boy, giving him a Christmas gift of money now that he was older and liked to choose his own art supplies and books. Each time Hank saw him, he grew prouder of the way his son was turning out.
When the day came to an end, Hank checked into a nearby hotel and spent the night wide awake, going over and over every possible outcome of his visit to St Louis in his mind. Telling himself repeatedly that nothing would come of it and that Myra only wanted his friendship didn't stop him hoping. He tossed and turned, his heart thumping and his stomach in a knot, watching the hands on the clock in the room crawling around through the small hours of the next day, finally bringing dawn.
He didn't even bother entering the dining room for breakfast, deciding there was no point sitting at a table watching the other hotel guests eat. He took a bath, got dressed and ordered a cup of coffee be brought to his room. Then as early as was reasonable he set off for the railway station, bought a ticket to St Louis and then paced the platform smoking a cigar while he waited another hour for the train.
The journey seemed never-ending. A crowd of other passengers boarded at the same time as Hank and he found himself having to share a compartment with a very noisy family of five, all excited about visiting relatives in Kansas City. They chattered, laughed, sang and got up and down constantly while Hank sat staring out of the window, doing his best to ignore them.
After Kansas City, where the train waited for four hours, he had the compartment to himself and now lit up another cigar and opened out the newspaper the family had forgotten to take with them when they disembarked. He read the same article over and over and couldn't remember a single word of it when he finally tossed the paper to one side and closed his eyes.
By the time he arrived in St Louis it was Sunday morning and he realised with disappointment that there would be little point heading straight for Honeysuckle Drive. Myra would probably have gone to church and he ought to make some effort to clean up after the long journey before descending on her anyway. He went looking for an hotel, avoiding the Oaktree as he remembered punching the manager at the end of his previous stay and doubted he would be made welcome.
After a few minutes he found a much less expensive establishment than the Oaktree - a smaller building off the main street named simply St Louis Guest House. It was not much more than a boarding house, run by a lady similar to Mrs Brady in Denver and he paid for two nights, advising he may stay longer, but would let the hostess know later.
He freshened up in the room, put on a clean shirt and accepted a cup of coffee and some cookies from Mrs Claybourne, the hostess, realising he was at last hungry. Then finally at two o'clock he set off to look for Honeysuckle Drive. He knew roughly which direction it was in and began walking, his heart in his mouth, wondering what kind of a reception he was going to get.
Number twelve Honeysuckle Drive was a large house set back from the road between others of similar style. There were trees in the front and a cobbled driveway leading from the street to the door. He walked up the drive, hesitated a moment to roughly comb his hair with his fingers and then rang the bell. He expected it to be opened by a servant, but after a long moment it swung back to reveal Myra, wearing a fine striped green dress covered by a frilly white apron.
"Hank!" Her face showed astonishment, but then after a second her lips parted in a wide smile and her eyes seemed to light up.
Hank grinned back. He had a feeling this visit was going to be very different from the last.