“Well, Jesus, look where I live,” he grumbled. “Oh, hey, here’s a fun fact about the American West in 1882. You receive the same punishment whether you’re a horse thief or a retarded newborn.”
“They hang retarded newborns?”
“Yep, as a warning to others. I shit you not.” He sighed. “But none of it is my problem anymore. I’m leaving tomorrow.”
“Really? Where are you going?”
“San Francisco. You know, civilization. A place where you’re not taking your life in your hands in eight different ways just by walking to the outhouse to shit.”
“Well, you gotta do what makes you happy, I guess.” She shrugged.
“Happy is a tall order,” he said, staring off toward the moonlit mesas in the distance, “but at least this’ll make me not dead.”
She studied his face for a moment, and he became acutely aware of being sized up by an expert. “Could it be,” she asked with raised eyebrows, “that you are also a man with a broken heart?”
A man who’s been through a recent breakup will seize on any and every opportunity to relive his misery by telling his story to anyone who will listen, and Albert was no different. Perhaps it was because he secretly hoped that eventually, if he spread the word far and wide enough, someone would emerge with a magic bullet of sorts: that one piece of sage counsel, that one solution he hadn’t thought of, that one thing that could fix his life and get Louise back.
He grabbed ahold of the moment. “Since you brought it up, can I unload all my shit on you?”
She smiled. “Well, I do owe you one.”
From high up on the ridge, the lonely, ramshackle town of Old Stump appeared almost idyllic. It lay nestled below them, just a few soft orange lights glowing amidst the vast darkness of the cold desert night. Albert and Anna sat on a wide rocky outcropping, a spot that Albert had been coming to since he was a little boy. He called it the “swearing place.” When he was a child, his mother and father had been strict Puritans who would not tolerate any foul language inside the house. So Albert would save up his cuss words till the end of each week, write them all down on a sheet of paper, then climb to the top of the ridge and shout them across the plains as loud as he could. It was perfectly cathartic, and he always felt better after screaming a mouthful of obscenities out at the hot, depressing frontier he loathed so very much.
“I did everything in the world for her,” he said, picking absently at a handful of dead grass. “If she was happy, I was happy. That’s all I cared about. I was generally broke, but I’d save every scrap of extra income just to buy her gifts as often as I could: a bouquet of roses, a new bonnet, a bottle of perfume, anything to remind her as often as possible how important she was to me and how much I loved her. She was the one thing that made the shootings and the wild animals and the Indians and the disease and the general depressing awfulness of the West somehow bearable.”
“How did you and Louise meet?” asked Anna.
“We both had dysentery in the same hospital.”
“Oh.”
Albert allowed himself a sad smile at the tender recollection. “I was over in Sherman Creek for a few days buying sheep stuff, and that’s when the outbreak hit. Leveled me for a week straight. I checked in to the hospital, and when they assigned me to a bed, I found that I’d been placed next to the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen in my life. God, even in a sweaty, feverish diarrhetic state, Louise was an absolute vision. She’d lived in Sherman Creek her entire life, and somehow we’d never crossed paths. Well, we talked and talked for a week—there was nothing else to do—and after only a few days it seemed like we’d known each other our whole lives. And I’ll tell you, what’s really special about the whole thing is that … you know how when you’ve been in a relationship with someone for a while and you’re so comfortable that it doesn’t even matter if the other person sees you going to the bathroom? Well, this was the reverse, because our relationship started with us shitting blood in front of each other. And that bonds people. So she came back to Old Stump with me, I helped her get set up with a job as a schoolmarm, and she’s been here with me ever since.”
“She a good marm?”
“She can marm. She can definitely marm. And the whole time we were together, I thought, I’m so happy. How can I possibly be this happy? One of these days she’s gonna figure out she’s too good for me. And then … one day she did.” Albert let the dead grass fall from his hands. “I finally tricked one girl into falling in love with me, and I lost her.”
Anna regarded him as she digested the tale. The pain in his voice was unmistakable, and yet there was something missing from the equation.
“Look, obviously I don’t know all the details,” she said, “but from what you’ve told me … I think you got this whole thing upside down. I mean, it sounds like you’ve had this girl on a pedestal and treated her like a queen. You’ve clearly bent over backward for her, but what’s she given you back?”
Albert seemed baffled by the question. “I told you, she made me happy in an otherwise rotten world. I mean, if someone can do that … well, they deserve to be on a pedestal.”
“Do you really want to go to San Francisco?”
“Yes, I—no. I don’t know,” he said. “I guess I don’t. I want … I just want Louise.” His voice broke ever so slightly on the last word.
“Uh-huh.” Anna nodded, accepting the shape of his predicament at face value for the moment. “Well, if this Foy guy is that much of a douche, she’ll figure it out if she’s smart. Sometimes a girl has to get a few assholes out of her system before she realizes what a good guy looks like.” She patted him gently on the arm.
And then they heard the rattle.
Albert froze. The sound had come from his left. He slowly looked down and saw it slithering between his foot and Anna’s. It was practically touching his shoe. “Oh, fuck,” he said softly.
“That’s a diamondback, isn’t it?” she said in an equally hushed tone, but with a surprising degree of calmness.
“Yeah, it is.”
“Well, fuck.”
“If we hold still, we’ll be fine.”
The snake slid across the tip of Albert’s foot. He held his breath. Deadly poisonous snakes were naturally to be feared out here on the frontier, but there was also something about them that Albert found infuriatingly arrogant. The way they showed up out of nowhere and put everyone’s whole goddamn life on hold for minutes at a time, striking mortal terror into the hearts of people who were just minding their own business. A man would stand, immobile as a statue, in fear for his life while the snake writhed around aimlessly, taking its sweet time, and not giving a fuck about anybody but itself.
“Asshole,” Albert muttered.
“Huh?” said Anna.
“Nothing.” At last, the diamondback wound its way past their little outcropping and slithered off into the darkness. Albert and Anna exhaled with relief.
“So, you’re really leaving tomorrow, huh?” she asked, casually picking up where they’d left off.
“Yeah. Tomorrow.”
“Why don’t you at least stay through the weekend? Isn’t the fair on Saturday?”
“Oh, fuck that,” Albert snorted. “Louise is gonna be there, and she’s gonna be with Foy. No way. I’m not putting myself through that.”
“Well, then, I’ll go with you,” she offered. “I haven’t really made any other friends since I’ve been in town, and I could sure use some fun. Besides, there’s no better way to make your ex-girlfriend want you back than to have her see you with another girl.”
Albert silently acknowledged the truth of that statement. He sighed. “Maybe.”
“Especially a smokin’-hot girl.” She grinned. “She sees me, she’ll be intimidated as fuck.”
“Oh, you’re very modest, I see,” said Albert, warming up a bit.
“Yes, I’m a little cocky, but with these tits I can afford to be.”
For the first time in weeks, Albert Stark l
aughed.
BAR BRAWLER ARRESTED FOR MURDER, the headline read. Not that the toothless old man was interested in the story. The newspaper lay draped across his upper body and face, shielding him from the vicious morning sun as he snored peacefully in front of the sheriff’s office. He didn’t notice the slender shadow that glided over him as Anna passed through the doorway.
Sheriff Arness sat at his desk, whittling some sort of unidentifiable animal out of a small block of wood. Whether it was a horse or a duck, Anna couldn’t tell. The sheriff stopped his whittling and looked up as she approached.
“Can I help you, ma’am?”
“Yes, I’m here to see my brother,” she said, her words heavily weighted with a tone of disgust.
“Oh, yeah, the Barnes boy,” the sheriff said, putting aside his feeble attempt at sculpture and rising from his seat. “You know, he’s in a lotta trouble.”
“I know.” She rolled her eyes. “He’s an idiot who can’t control his temper, and I apologize for that. Seems like every town we visit, he winds up behind bars over some brawl or other.”
“Well, he picked the wrong town and the wrong brawl,” the sheriff said gravely. “The man he killed is Pastor Wilson’s son. Pastor Wilson’s a popular man around these parts, but that ain’t the half of it. His cousin is married to one of them congressmen back east. If I had to bet on it, I’d say there’s gonna be a hangin’.”
Anna took a moment to process this. I’m not certain I could feel sorry for him even if he were actually my brother, she thought. “Can I speak with him?” she asked. Sheriff Arness nodded and got up from his chair. He led her over to a row of three cells lined with brown, rusty bars. In the middle one, Lewis lay sleeping on a small yellowed cot. The sheriff rattled the creaky bars. “Barnes! Wake up; you got a visitor.”
Lewis’s eyes fluttered open. When he saw Anna, he slowly rose to his feet with a scowl. His face was still a mess from the broken bottle. Clearly the doctor had paid him a visit, but the wound dressings looked somewhat inadequate.
Anna turned back to the sheriff. “Do you mind if I have a moment alone with him?” she asked.
“Go right ahead,” he replied, seemingly eager to return to his whittling.
Anna stared at Lewis. “You dumb asshole,” she said softly.
“Shut up,” he barked. “I didn’t know who he was. And besides, he was all up in my face, you saw—”
“You shot the pastor’s son. You realize they’re probably gonna hang you.”
Lewis moved closer to the bars and lowered his own voice. “Oh, is that what they’re sayin’? Well, who gives a fuck? When Clinch gets in to town, it’s not gonna matter what they do. He’ll bust me out, and anyone who tries to stop him is gonna be a dead man.”
“You know something?” she said, starring him down with conviction. “One of these days there’s gonna be a man who’s faster than Clinch. And stronger. And smarter. And then Clinch is gonna be the dead man. And I’m gonna smoke a big, fat fucking cigar to celebrate.”
Lewis took another step closer to the bars. Anna did not step back. “I don’t think Clinch would like you talkin’ about him that way,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “Not a nice thing for a man’s wife to say about her husband.”
“Well, we’ll see if he gets here in time, huh?” she said, a hint of a smile creeping into her expression. “Tick tock.”
His hand lashed out at her, but she moved swiftly out of its reach with a ballerina’s grace. She whirled around and was gone.
The fairgrounds bustled and buzzed with the once-a-year gathering of visitors from three different towns: Sherman Creek, Bullhead, and Old Stump. The result of the aggregation was a crowd of a size rarely seen in these sparsely populated regions of the frontier. Merchants cried their wares, bakers and cooks displayed all manner of elaborate confections, and barkers hollered and gesticulated as they attempted to lure passersby toward the games, contests, magicians, and exotic animals that peppered the normally barren desert landscape. It was an uncomfortably hot day as usual, and Albert wiped his soaking-wet forehead with his sleeve as he rode up to the entrance. As he reined in and dismounted, he heard a familiar shuffling sound behind him.
Baaa! Baaaa!
He turned around just in time to see two of his sheep hurrying to catch up.
“Oh, Jesus,” he muttered. “Did you guys follow me all the way from home? No! Get outta here! Go home! Jonathan! Andrew! Go!” The sheep stared at him with puzzled looks on their fluffy faces, before reluctantly turning and awkwardly shuffling back in the other direction. Albert sighed as he tethered Curtis to a wooden hitching post.
“Hey, sheepboy!” a familiar voice called out.
Albert turned to see Anna trotting up on a brown horse that almost matched the color of her hair. She wore a light-green dress with a white flower pattern, and her hair was down, the curly locks spilling over her shoulders in a carefree yet elegant fashion. She’d worn it up the night of the saloon brawl, and Albert observed that she looked decidedly more feminine today. She greeted him with a broad smile.
“Hey.” He waved to her, wondering how anyone with a sibling who had recently been arrested for murder could be in such apparent high spirits. “Jesus, I heard about your brother,” he said. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she answered, dismounting from her horse. “And, Albert, do not worry about Lewis. Anything that happens to him right now is his own fault. Got it?” The lightness in her tone was undeniable. She really didn’t seem to be bothered at all.
Albert shrugged, deciding not to press the matter. “Yeah, sure,” he said.
“Good!” She playfully tipped his hat forward over his eyes. “ ’Cause you know what I wanna do?”
“Um … eat hot food in hundred-degree weather?”
“No.” She laughed. “Get my picture taken. I’ve never done it before.”
“That’s horseshit.”
“It’s the truth.”
“No, I mean, that’s horseshit. Be careful.”
They sidestepped the mound of equine leavings.
“Come on, let’s go!” Anna grabbed his hand, and he almost face-planted in the dirt as she broke into a run, pulling him toward the busy fairground.
They made their way through the excited, perspiring throng toward a painted wooden sign reading PHOTOGRAPHS! MADE BY LIGHTNING AND GOD HIMSELF! Albert had had his photograph taken only a few times in his life, but the technology always intrigued him. He watched as a family of six clustered together in front of the large wooden camera.
The photographer huddled under the black covering. “Okay, everybody hold still!” he instructed. The family stood expressionless as the photographer held up the flashlamp. After a beat, there was a loud pop as the fuse ignited the explosive magnesium powder, momentarily illuminating the rigid, stone-faced subjects. Albert watched the wisps of residual smoke dissipate in the air.
Anna turned to him. “Y’know, supposedly there’s some guy in Texas who smiled one time while he was getting his picture taken.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Albert blurted with excitement. “I was talking about that just the other day! Are you serious?”
“I think. I mean, I heard it somewhere. I dunno if it’s true.”
“Yeah, that sounds like the kinda bullshit somebody would make up.” They took their place in line as a dirt farmer and his wife stepped in front of the photographer’s camera. A vendor walked past, selling some sort of snack that looked like barbecued meat on a stick. Realizing he was hungry, Albert fished a penny out of his pocket and bought one.
“So.” Anna smiled. “We know what kind of girl you like. What kind of girl do you not like?”
“Huh?”
“Like, what’s the worst quality for you in another person?”
“Oh, that’s an interesting question.” Albert smiled as he bit into the meat. He chewed twice, immediately registered that it tasted like fermented dog shit, and spat it onto the ground.
Anna continued
. “That deal-breaker thing that you absolutely cannot tolerate. For me it’s tobacco-chewing. I don’t care how much a guy smokes, but if he chews, forget it. There’s no way I’m kissing that. And he’s definitely not going down on me.”
“Wow, that’s beautiful,” said Albert. “You should stitch that into a pillow.”
“Oh, I have. It’s embroidered all fancy and it says, Don’t go snackin’ if you been tobaccin’.”
Albert couldn’t help but laugh.
Anna smiled and continued to press him. “What about you?”
He debated whether to be honest about this one, but there was something about Anna that made him feel like he could let his guard down a bit. “Um … well, you’re gonna think this is fucked up, because it is, but … I really can’t handle it when a girl looks like her dad.”
“Okay, that’s bizarre. Why?”
“Well … I mean, if I’m dating a girl, and then I meet her mom and dad, and it turns out she looks like him, and I see all the matching facial features and the bone structure and whatnot, from then on every time I kiss her, I’m very aware that I’m kissing the dad’s facial geography.”
“I see.”
“Yeah,” he continued. “I was dating this girl about ten years ago, and she and her family and I all went down to the creek for a swim one day, and her dad took his shirt off, and he had the exact same nipples as she did. I had to move to a different town for a while.”
She took a beat. “I’m surprised your girlfriend left you.”
Albert took the jab with a laugh.
By now they were next in line for a photograph, following a young couple in their early twenties. “Okay, hold still,” the photographer called out. He pushed the electric fuse, and the magnesium flash powder exploded. The young couple and the photographer were all killed instantly, their bodies blown to pieces and charred beyond recognition.
Albert and Anna quickly scurried backward and away from the calamity as clusters of fairgoers scrambled to retrieve buckets of water. “Jesus Christ!” Albert exclaimed. “This fucking fair! Every year something happens and, boom! People die.”
“Really?” Anna said, sounding almost as shaken as Albert.
Seth MacFarlane's A Million Ways to Die in the West: A Novel Page 7