Then, as luck would have it, the outbreak of the Civil War provided him with an appropriate conductor for his electric temper. Clinch enlisted in the Confederate Army, where he wound up as part of a regiment stationed in northern Virginia, not far from Union lines. However, long stretches of inaction coupled with a shortage of supplies soon brought his barely controlled rage bubbling back to the surface. A quarrel erupted one night between Clinch and a fellow noncommissioned officer over a chunk of ham. The ham had been sent to the noncom as part of a care package from his family. Clinch wanted the ham for himself, but rather than ask the noncom if he would be willing to share it, Clinch attacked the man in his tent and beat him to death, using the ham as a blunt instrument. This time, however, there was no escaping awareness of his crime. It was a small camp, and there were witnesses who would testify to seeing Clinch emerging from the tent holding the bloody ham. Once again, Clinch fled. He made his way west, west, and farther west, until he reached the southern Arizona territory. Here, there was barely any law at all. Here, the toughest men forged the moral compass with their whims. This was where he belonged. And he had flourished, cutting a swath of terror and death through the region, creating a name for himself that struck fear into the hearts of everyone who heard it.
Clinch scanned the saloon. He took a few steps into the room. Three other rough-looking men followed, flanking him on either side. All were armed to the teeth, with two pistols apiece and fully loaded gun belts.
Everyone held their breath. Then finally, after several seconds of silent scrutiny, Clinch spoke in a low, deadly tone.
“Someone in this little shit-box town is gonna die. One of my boys saw a man kissing my wife last night. I want to know who it was.”
Edward whistled softly. “Jesus.”
Albert nodded. “Yeah, no shit. Someone’s gonna get fuuuucked uuuuup.”
Clinch offered the room a hideous, wraithlike approximation of a human smile. “You seem like good people,” he said. “And good people know better than to take what isn’t theirs. And this—this is mine.”
He reached out through the batwing doors and, with a hard yank, pulled a woman roughly inside by the elbow. Her head was down as she tried to avoid eye contact, but even before Clinch gripped her chin and thrust her face upward, Albert knew who the woman was. His heart stopped. It was Anna.
“Oh, my God …”
Edward and Ruth both turned to him in shock. Albert felt as though he were watching events play out from afar. He had known all along that Anna was protecting a secret of some kind, but he’d never fathomed it could possibly be something this dark. She’s married. To Clinch Leatherwood. The deadliest, most ruthless, most murderous outlaw in all the West.
“Now, I’m gonna ask again,” Clinch said quietly. His smile had vanished. “Who is it?”
No one answered. The move happened with blinding speed, and Clinch’s gun was suddenly in his hand. He pointed it at the head of one of the gamblers.
“Who?” he said.
The sound of pressurized liquid impacting fabric could be heard as the card-playing cowboy pissed himself in fear. “I … I dunno,” he managed to croak.
Clinch shot him in the head. The man slumped to the floor, blood slowly pooling outward from his ruined skull.
Clinch looked around at the terrified saloon patrons. “I’d very much like to be introduced to the man I’m looking for. So you all make sure he gets this message: Either he meets me in the thoroughfare at noon tomorrow—or I start killing more people.”
He turned to depart, pulling Anna forcefully along with him. With great shame in her eyes, she stole a furtive glance at Albert that lasted all of a half second before she was dragged away.
The room breathed a sigh of relief. Edward and Ruth stared at their friend.
“Albert, you gotta get outta here!” urged Edward with alarm.
How fleeting Albert’s dalliance with blissful clarity had been. He was devastated all over again.
The horses came to a halt in the middle of the prairie just north of Old Stump. Clinch dismounted and gave Anna a brutish yank, pulling her down from the saddle with him. Plugger moved anxiously nearby, whimpering as if he knew there was trouble afoot. Clinch thrust Anna against the side of a rock formation jutting up from the ground and made it clear with one sharp, deadly glance that any attempt to escape would be met with unchecked violence. He turned to Lewis. “There’s an abandoned sod house over around that bend. We’ll stash the gold there. Take the boys and set up camp. I need some alone time with my wife.”
Lewis flashed Anna a rat-faced smile of vindictive satisfaction. “Will do, Clinch. C’mon, boys!”
The rest of the gang galloped away with him as Clinch turned his full attention toward his immediate concern. He approached Anna, who looked at him with the revulsion most people would have reserved for a decaying corpse. He gently caressed her cheek with one hand, then swiftly backhanded her across the face, knocking her to the ground.
“Who is it, you whore?” he growled.
She pulled herself to her feet, never taking her eyes off him. “Mark Twain,” she said.
Clinch stared at her for a long moment before he finally spoke. “It is?”
“No! Jesus, how fucking stupid are you?”
His face twisted into a snarl, his eyes narrowing to razor-thin black slits. He drew his gun and pressed it into the center of her forehead. She pulled back slightly from the pressure but did not flinch.
“Who?” he said in his deadly soft tone.
Anna waited just long enough to make the theatrics of the moment seem convincing, then averted her gaze to the ground with an expression of shamed resignation. “It’s Sheriff Arness,” she said at last, turning to Clinch with moistened eyes. “Please don’t hurt him, I’m begging you!” Part of her felt a pang of guilt for passing such a mortal buck to the sheriff, but he was the sheriff, after all. It was his job to deal with assholes like this.
Clinch made it a moot point, however. “After all these beautiful years together, you don’t think I know when you’re lying?” He cocked his pistol. Anna shut her eyes and prepared for the inevitable. Then, suddenly, the piercing sound of Plugger’s barking split the air as the nappy mutt bounded up, growling and baring his teeth at Clinch. The outlaw looked down, and that bloodless gash of a smile split his face open.
Anna felt the barrel of the gun pull away from her forehead, and she exhaled as she opened her eyes. Her relief quickly evaporated, however, as she saw that Clinch had aimed the gun at Plugger. “Either you tell me his name,” he said, “or ol’ Plugger here gets a plug in his head.”
She knew her options were exhausted. This time when she averted her gaze to the ground, there were no theatrics at play.
“Albert,” she whispered. “Albert Stark.”
Clinch lowered his gun. “There. That’s much better.”
For one horrifying instant Anna thought he was going to shoot Plugger anyway, but Clinch holstered his pistol.
He turned and strode back to his horse, removing his hat. “I’ve missed you, darling,” he said. without warmth or affection. “I’ve missed you a lot.” He removed his vest and his shirt and draped them over the saddle. His back was to her.
I’ll never get another chance, she realized.
Clinch went on, while undoing his trousers, “But now we got time. We got time to be husband and wife. The proper way.” His pants were only halfway down when the blow struck the back of his head. He fell to the ground, unconscious, as Anna stood over him holding the bloodied rock. His bare ass stared up at her in a most undignified way.
Anna went to mount his horse, then paused as she looked down at him again. “Ah, shit,” she said. “I can’t leave him like this.”
She approached the base of the stone formation, picked a small flower, and stuck it in Clinch’s ass crack with the bloom facing upward. “That’s better,” she said. She mounted his horse and raced back toward Old Stump.
Edward was one
of many local businessmen nailing signs to the front doors of their establishments reading CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. No one was taking any chances with the gang of outlaws in town.
Ruth approached him as he was pounding away at the final nail. “Eddie?” she said, her tone indicating a subject of importance.
“Yeah, sweetheart?”
“Eddie, I’ve been thinking. With Clinch Leatherwood in town, and with everyone so scared, I … it’s got me wondering.”
“What is it?” he said, giving her his full attention.
“Well, any of us could die tomorrow. I mean, we don’t know what’s gonna happen. And … I think we should have sex.”
His full attention doubled. “What?”
“I think we should have sex tonight.”
“Okay.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Let’s.”
“I mean, under the circumstances, God will forgive us,” she said, looking to him for affirmation.
He gave it to her. “I think so. We’ll make sure there’s a Bible in the room so God can watch. Then He can be a part of it. Ahhh, I’m getting excited now!”
Albert was hastily packing his bag when he heard the hoofbeats. His breath stopped as he hurried to the window, expecting to see Clinch and his gang descending on the farm. But when he peered out through the uneven ripples in the glass, he saw Anna galloping toward the cabin. He couldn’t decide whether that was better or worse. He did not want to see her, now or ever again.
Albert went back to packing. He heard her knock on the door, but he did not respond.
“Albert!” she called out, uncharacteristic alarm in her normally rock-steady voice. “Albert, are you in there?” When he still didn’t answer, she let herself in. “Albert! You’ve gotta get out of here!” she exclaimed.
He did not look up to make eye contact with her. “Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m doing.”
“No I mean, you have to leave now! Clinch is gonna be looking for you!”
Albert continued stuffing clothing, books, and cans of food into the bag. “Yeah, I’m leaving. I’m going to San Francisco. Which is what I should have done weeks ago.”
She looked at him mournfully. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, well, so am I.”
Anna floundered a bit as she searched for something to say next. “What about your dad?”
“I asked him if he wanted to come, and he said no. He’s up on the hill burying himself next to Mom.”
She waited a beat, then spoke again. “Look … I never meant to mislead y—”
“Oh, Anna, don’t even waste my time with that,” he shot back, whirling to face her directly. “You had a million opportunities to tell me. And you fucking lied.”
“I didn’t lie,” she insisted with a pleading tone. “I just made the choice to keep certain things to myself. I honestly, truly thought it was for the best. I would never lie to you.”
Albert was privately insulted by her attempt to sell such a Jesuitical interpretation of the word. A lie of omission remained a lie. Nonetheless, he chose not to engage. “I don’t care,” he said flatly, and went back to his packing.
“Look, I couldn’t tell you. It was for your own safety.”
“Oh, bullshit.”
“That, and … I liked you. A lot,” she said with undeniable sincerity. “I didn’t want to scare you away. I … never thought I’d meet someone like you.”
“Oh, what, someone who hasn’t killed people? Yeah, I guess that’s pretty hard to find. That’s why women are always saying, ‘Ugh, why are all the non-murderers taken?’ ”
“It’s not my fault, okay? We were married when I was nine!”
Albert lowered his wall just enough to release a momentary burst of genuine astonishment. “What? Nine? Jesus Christ, how does that even happen? Was there a ceremony?”
“Yeah, my parents were there, a couple of neighbors. I didn’t wanna wind up one of those fifteen-year-old spinsters.”
“Well, you know … I shouldn’t be surprised,” he said, more to himself than to her. “Every girl I fall in love with ends up disappointing me.” He finished his packing and closed the bag.
“You … you love me?”
“Don’t worry, I’m over it. You can go now.”
For the first time since Albert had met her, Anna lost her shit. “All right! Yes, I lied! Fine! What should I have said? Oh hi, I’m Anna—I’ve been fucking a killer since I was ten!”
“Oh, he waited a year. What a gentleman.”
“Well, late nine, I rounded up. Look, I’m done with him! I knocked him out and stuck a daisy in his asshole.”
“What?”
“That’s how much you mean to me.”
Albert slung his bag over his shoulder. He was tired. Tired of the conversation, and tired of inviting pain into his life. “You know what? I loved a girl who doesn’t even exist. I loved Anna Barnes, not Anna Leatherwood. Hell, is your name even Anna? Or is it something terrible like Gwendolyn?”
“No. It’s Anna. I’m the girl you loved. That was the real me—possibly for the first time in my life. I suppose, when I really think about it, you’re the first person I haven’t lied to. Look, I never thought I deserved a good guy. But I do. I love you. Just give me one more chance. Please. We can get out of here—we’ll go to San Francisco together. Start a life. All I want is to be with you.”
Albert said nothing as he looked into her eyes, searching for some clue to whether she could be trusted. She was as beautiful as ever, and he wanted very much to say yes, to run off with her that very instant. But he remembered the pain of losing Louise. He’d trusted a woman with his heart, and she had betrayed that trust when he was at his most exposed. He never wanted to feel that kind of raw, numbing misery again. And if that meant never again opening his heart to love, well, then, that was a price he was willing to pay. He deflected her hazel-eyed gaze back at her with a hardened look of his own. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m not gonna get fucked over again.”
Before she could respond, however, the sheep began to bleat loudly from the corral. Albert went to the window and looked out. He couldn’t see anything at first, but when he squinted he could make out a dust cloud in the distance, indicating the approach of a group of horses. “Someone’s coming,” he said.
“It’s Clinch.” Anna knew.
They both knew. And this time there would surely be no talk. He would kill them on sight.
Albert grabbed her by the arm and pulled her toward the door. “Go on, get out of here. There’s a trail out back that leads to the ridge. Go.”
“What are you gonna do? Albert, he’ll kill you!”
“Don’t worry about me, just go! Now!” He pushed her roughly but not unkindly through the doorway and out into the yard. She quickly mounted her horse, then hesitated, staring back at him. They shared a momentary glance, both realizing that this could be the last time they would ever see each other. Anna kicked her horse, spurring him into an immediate hard gallop. And then she was gone.
Clinch and his men roared like thunder onto Albert’s farm. The already disorganized sheep flock scattered even more as they fled the onslaught of outlaw hooves. The men dismounted and burst into the cabin, ransacking everything in sight as they searched for their quarry.
After several fruitless moments, Lewis turned to his boss. “He’s not here, Clinch.”
They were about to look elsewhere when Clinch noticed something. A bag resting in the corner. He picked it up and opened it. It was fully packed with clothing and food. His bloodless smile made its latest appearance as he slowly drew his gun.
Albert crouched low on all fours, hoping for all the world that he wasn’t visible. In each hand, he clutched a fistful of white wool, courtesy of the two sheep on either side of him. He pulled hard, making sure they didn’t drift. The flock was made up of approximately sixty sheep, and Albert had concealed himself smack in the center. He knew that as long as the sheep remained grouped together, he should be able t
o wait out Clinch’s search without being discovered.
They would turn the house upside down, find it empty, and deduce that Albert had fled. After that they would probably head back to town and scour every nook and cranny there too. By the time they realized that he had escaped, he would have such a lead that, even if they guessed which direction he’d gone, they’d never catch up.
He listened intently until finally he detected the outlaws emerging from the cabin. He waited for the sound of horses being mounted. Surely Clinch would give up the search now. But what Albert heard next reined his heartbeat to a screeching halt.
“I know you’re here, Stark.”
Albert noted the sinister pleasure in Clinch’s voice. It chilled him to the bone. He heard the men slowly, methodically walking the premises as they searched for him. How the fuck did he know? And then he realized the idiocy of his mistake. The bag. Clinch had found the bag, opened it up, and seen the supplies. Since only a fool would leave food, water, and supplies behind when riding off into the desert, Clinch would recognize that Albert must still be here.
Albert began to panic. All that stood between him and certain death was a flock of sheep. And Clinch Leatherwood was not the type of man to leave a stone unturned. Albert would be found. And then he would be killed. There would be no explaining the situation, no pleas for mercy. He would die.
Seth MacFarlane's A Million Ways to Die in the West: A Novel Page 12