“I know, right?!” Albert said giddily.
“He’s smiling! In the picture!”
“I know! I bought it off a peddler who was coming through town a few days ago.”
“This is the guy I heard about! I can’t even believe this exists!”
“Yeah, and apparently he’s not insane.”
“Bullshit.”
“That’s what the guy told me.”
“It takes thirty seconds to take a photograph. He would’ve had to smile for thirty sustained seconds.”
“I know. I’ve never been happy for thirty seconds in a row in my life.”
“It’s the West—no one has. He’s gotta be insane.”
“Yeah, probably.”
She turned to him with a look of enormous gratitude. “Albert, this was really kind of you.”
“Oh, please, I owe you. A lot more than this, actually.”
She kissed him on the cheek. Her touch was warm, and her scent was a fragrant sweetness that stood in glaring incongruity with the malodorous stink of the surrounding frontier.
Albert kissed her.
She did not pull away. For several moments, they both allowed the world around them to melt into nonexistence.
When the kiss ended, Albert was acutely aware that his cheeks were bright red. He felt stimulated, alive, and supremely confused. He opened his mouth to speak, with no clue as to what was going to come out. “Oh,” he said.
She looked at him with seemingly new eyes. “What?” she said softly.
“I’m… I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“It’s okay.”
“I—you’ve just… you’ve been a good friend to me, that’s all.”
“It’s really okay,” she said, putting a gentle hand on his.
“Plus, I’ve had a shitload of whiskey.”
She laughed. “Me too. I know, it’s fine. I should probably go anyway.”
Albert looked down self-consciously at his shoes. “I’ll take you home.”
The desert night had chilled somewhat as they walked side by side up to the door of the Old Stump Hotel. They paused in the entryway.
“Good luck tomorrow,” she said with warm reassurance. “I’ll be there.”
“Thanks,” he said. They stood there under the lamplight for what seemed like an eternity, and then she kissed him back.
Where their first encounter had been sweet, gentle, and delicate, this one was passionate. He returned it in kind. What the hell am I doing? he thought. I’m about to risk my life to win back the woman I love. I love Louise.
But he stayed.
For several minutes they allowed the moment to take its own shape as they held each other, relishing the shared body heat that warmed them in the brisk air.
Then at last Albert stepped back and released his hands from hers. He could feel his smile touching his eyes, something he had not felt in a conspicuously long time. “Good night,” he said, and turned to walk away. He strode off toward the hitching post as Anna closed the hotel door behind her.
Neither of them noticed the murky figure of Lewis watching from the shadows of the alley across the street.
“You can’t call it off?” Louise asked Foy, making a swirling motion against his bare chest with her pale, petite finger.
“Of course not!” he said sharply. “I’d be branded a coward.”
“But, baby, if you fight him tomorrow, you’re gonna kill him.”
“Yes, that’s what happens in a gunfight,” he said with condescension.
They lay side by side in Foy’s generously proportioned brass bed. His home was easily the most well appointed in Old Stump and the only house that contained any polished wood.
“Look, he’s not a bad guy, Foy. I mean, yeah, he’s kind of a loser and he always smells like sheep, but he doesn’t deserve to be shot.”
“Louise, my decision is final. Now do it.”
She pouted. “But I’m tired.”
“Louise,” he said sternly. She sighed, leaned in toward his face, and began to dutifully suck on one tip of his moustache.
He closed his eyes as he shifted his body in arousal. “Mmm…” he moaned, his brow moist and his lips parted. “My social stature is significant. I’m an important man. I have my own business. People envy me.” Then suddenly his eyes snapped open. He sat up rigidly, leapt out of bed, and dashed out of the room.
“Foy?” Louise called after him. “What’s wrong? Foy?”
She heard him race out the front door. She opened the window and looked out. It was dark, but she could make out his bare-assed naked form sprinting across the yard to the outhouse. He slammed the wooden door with the crescent moon carved in its surface and swore loudly as explosive diarrhea claimed him for the next half hour.
The morning of the gunfight was bright and clear, the air mild. Anna brushed her hair in preparation as she stared at herself in the hotel room’s full-length mirror. She had more on her mind than she cared to contend with, as she had not expected events to play out the way they had. Albert had been a project: a fun sort of diversion while she bided her time in the sleepy town of Old Stump, pending the inevitable return of Clinch. Albert had been a toy, one she’d become extremely fond of. But now things had changed. She had changed.
Anna wasn’t worried about the gunfight. Albert would be fine. He would never be a crack shot, of course, but he wouldn’t need to be. Foy would be too sick to hold a gun, let alone shoot straight, assuming he showed up at all. But she was worried about herself. What had happened could not be undone. And yet how could it be faced, given what her life was?
Her thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door. She set her hairbrush down on the side table and went to answer it. It was probably Albert, wanting a last-minute pep talk before he went out to confront his opponent. But when she opened the door, the eyes that greeted her were cold and reptilian.
“Hi, sweetheart,” said Clinch.
Albert stood at one end of the thoroughfare, overcome by déjà vu. This was precisely where he’d stood not so long ago as he prepared to face off against Charlie Blanche. The crowd lined both edges of the thoroughfare, just as they had for every gunfight since Old Stump’s birth. Edward and Ruth gave Albert supportive looks as they watched from one side of the street, squeezing each other’s hands. And there, looking on from the rows of assembled townsfolk, in almost the exact same spot she’d occupied on the day of the Charlie Blanche encounter, was Louise. On that day she’d been part of his life—an extension of himself that he’d considered as constant as the seasons, as vital as a limb.
And now? She was somebody else’s constant. But as much as that hurt, it was a very different strain of hurt than it had been before. It cut deep, to be sure, but the pain was dull, the wound scabbing.
With Charlie Blanche, Albert had faced an opponent who was sharp, tough, and ready for action. However, the man who stumbled into position at the other end of the street today looked ready for nothing short of the grave. The crowd murmured with uncertainty as Foy shuffled out into the street, looking sweaty and sunken-eyed. Nonetheless, he managed to muster up a passably cocky grin. “Well, now. I didn’t think you’d show, sheepie.”
Albert sized him up as he tried to determine exactly what was happening with the man. It didn’t matter, he supposed. “Um, yeah,” he said. “Listen, Foy, you—”
Albert was cut short by a sharp hand gesture with clear meaning: Dear God, hold on a second. Foy clutched his stomach in obvious pain and staggered over to the edge of the street, grasping the top of a hitching post to steady himself. Suddenly his eyes widened as a look of panic crossed his face. One arm reached out feebly for a black bowler hat sitting atop the head of a very surprised-looking bearded man observing from the street’s periphery. Foy snatched the hat off the man’s head, threw it on the ground with the inside facing upward, yanked down his trousers, and squatted on top of it. A blast of diarrhea issued forth with the pressure of a burst steam engine, completely filling the hat. Foy straightened and started to pull up his trousers in a pitiful attempt to salvage some measure of dignity. But before he could get the trousers to his waistline, a second wave overtook him. He turned to the opposite side of the thoroughfare and reached flaccidly for another man’s hat. The second man flinched and backed away, having no desire to submit his hat to the fate that would surely befall it should he relinquish possession. Foy persisted, matching the man’s retreat with weak, stumbling advances. With a final burst of energy, Foy’s arm struck out and seized the hat, throwing it to the ground as before. He unloaded a second shipment of watery shit.