Twenty minutes afterward, Ruth was still dabbing at the sizable gash on Albert’s forehead, which he had gotten when the sweaty cowboy flung him through the saloon window. Edward watched with concern as she dipped the already bloodied cloth back into the horse trough to moisten it. As for Albert, he was currently slumped forward in a most undignified fashion, allowing the massive amount of whiskey he’d consumed in the past ten minutes to do its holy work of spreading throughout his bloodstream and obliterating both the physical and emotional pain of the day.
“Stop it,” he slurred as he swatted at Ruth’s hand, knocking the reddened cloth to the dusty ground.
“Okay,” she said, “But, you know, you should probably have Doctor Harper take a look at that.”
Albert glared at her with undisguised derision. “Ruth, you’re very sweet, but have you been listening to a goddamn thing I’ve been saying? You know what Doctor Harper’ll say? He’ll say, ‘Oh, let me put a blue jay on that to peck out the blood.’ Hey, wait, y’know what? You guys should have a drink with me. Let’s all have a drink,” he said, his bearing now flush with the confidence of a shit-faced man.
“Maybe some other time,” Ruth said gently.
“I can’t drink,” said Edward. “When I drink, I get really vivid nightmares. I have a glass of whiskey, I fall asleep, and then within twenty minutes I dream somebody shot me in the face.”
But Albert had already forgotten his own suggestion. His face was buried in his hands. “God, my life sucks,” he moaned. “I miss Louise.”
“Well,” Ruth offered, “I don’t know, maybe… maybe you could try talking things over with her.”
Albert’s head snapped upward, giving the illusion of sudden sobriety. “That’s a good idea,” he said. He staggered to his feet with all the stability of a sailor on the deck of a hurricane-stricken vessel.
“Wait, I didn’t mean right now,” Ruth said, grabbing his elbow to steady him.
Albert shook her off brusquely. “No, right now. That’s the best time ever,” he slurred.
He shuffled over to his horse, taking a roundabout figure-eight route. Curtis snorted but stood calmly and patiently as Albert made a valiant effort to get mounted. After three or four attempts, he lost his balance and thudded to the ground with one foot still tangled in a stirrup.
“Listen, Al, why don’t you let us take you home,” Edward said, stepping toward his struggling friend.
“No,” Albert answered firmly. “No, it’s okay, I just need a running start.”
He ambled unevenly away from Curtis, then turned around to face the horse again. He steadied himself and barreled forward once more. He got his foot in the stirrup, leapt up over Curtis’ back… and slid right down the other side, once again crashing into the dirt.
“Oh, God.” Edward flinched. “Hey, Al, come on, you really shouldn’t drink and horse.”
“IgotitIgotitIgotit,” Albert said. And, true to his intention, he finally managed to pull himself up onto his horse’s back, where he lay on his stomach, his arms and legs dangling limply over the side. “Okay, go,” he commanded listlessly, his boots spurring the animal with scant vigor. Curtis, however, knew his owner well enough to take the cue and moved off at a slow trot. Edward and Ruth could hear the receding sound of Albert’s snoring as he disappeared into the night.
With a heavy heart and a heavy liver, Albert ambled toward Louise’s modest white-trimmed cottage. He forced his uncooperative limbs to dismount from Curtis’s back and landed unsteadily, though on his feet this time. “Okay, I’ll be right back, Curtis,” he slurred. “Or not, right? No, no, that’s being too ambitious,” he added, the liquor enabling him to skillfully dodge every consonant of the last word. He hugged Curtis’s long equine nose with both arms. “Y’know, Curtis, we don’t talk enough. We should—let’s fix that. Let’s fix that for sure. I love you, Curtis. I love you so much.” Albert rested his head affectionately on his friend’s furry muzzle…
… and woke up five minutes later in the same position, with a dribble of vomit running from the side of his mouth down toward Curtis’s nostril. He straightened up with a start and wiped off the puke with his sleeve. “Oh, God, Curtis, I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry! There we go. All clean. Okay… here we go.” Albert stumbled across the yard to the front door and gave a loud knock. He waited. There was no answer. He knocked again, even louder. After a moment, a light came on somewhere in the back of the house. He heard the padding of approaching footsteps, and Louise opened the door holding a lamp. She blinked, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.
“Albert?”
Even unkempt and disheveled with fatigue, she was perfect. The errant strands of hair, the tangled lashes, and the reddened cheek where her head had been resting on her pillow all only served to accentuate her natural beauty. “What the hell are you doing here? It’s almost 1:30,” she rasped.
“Louise, we need to talk,” Albert said, his consonants slippery as a wet porch.
Louise sniffed the air. “Are you drunk?” she asked.
“Oh. Yeah, well—a little. It’s Curtis’s birthday, so we all took him out, and… surprised him.”
“Look, I don’t know what you want from me, but it’s late and I’m going back to bed.” She started to close the door, but Albert thrust out an arm to stop her.
“Louise, I love you,” he said. “And I know we can work this out. I know it. Just—I can be cooler. You’ll see.”
“Albert, no,” she said sternly. “I already told you, it’s over. Now—”
“I’ll fight Charlie Blanche. I’ll do it,” he interrupted.
“I don’t care about that,” she sighed, losing patience.
“Can I come in?” he asked, his body swaying with intoxication. “I’m really drunk, so I’m not gonna be able to get a boner, but I want us to talk.”
“Albert, get out of here,” she shot back brusquely. “I don’t have anything else to say to you. Listen, I’m sure you’re right for somebody else, just not for me. Now, good night.”
“Louise…” The drunken confidence in his expression fell away, leaving in its wake a pleading look of desperation. “What am I supposed to do without you?”
She regarded him silently for all of three seconds, then closed the door firmly.
He stood by himself, feeling like a wounded animal. “You heartless fuckin’ jerk!” he shouted at the closed door, then immediately covered his bases with a heartfelt “I still love you, though!” He knew the importance of ending on a positive note.
The old prospector looked as if he’d been born a century ago. Although he was barely sixty-five, the hardship of frontier life had put its dusty, rocky foot up his ass over and over, physically aging him far beyond his actual years. His grayish-white beard was scraggly and ill-maintained, and his face was cracked and reddened from years of sun damage, with a side order of alcohol abuse. He traveled with two companions, each one seemingly as old as he was. One was his horse, a solitary old gray who dutifully pulled the little wagon with a comfortable laziness, appearing to admire the landscape as if out for a casual stroll with a favorite gal. The other was a mangy dog of no particular breed that sat next to the old man, panting and swaying back and forth in rhythm with the movement of the wagon. The dog had unkempt floppy ears and a smelly brown matting of fur, patchy and uneven courtesy of innumerable desert battles with fellow furred adversaries.
The only thing that stood out amidst this drab tableau was the object that the prospector held in his hand. It was no bigger than a golf ball, but it screamed out its presence with larger-than-life luster. It was a real, honest-to-God nugget, the first one the prospector had found in all his fifty years of scratching and pawing at the land.