Seth MacFarlane's A Million Ways to Die in the West(22)

Lewis looked down at the gray ash floating in the amber fluid, promptly drew his gun, and fired. The young cowboy was dead in seconds.

His friends wasted no time. One of the other men grabbed the nearest bottle off the bar and smashed it across Lewis’s head. Blood streamed from his face as he tore furiously at the shards of glass jutting out of his ruined flesh.

“That was my bottle, you son of a bitch!” somebody shouted, and in an instant, the entire saloon erupted like a volcano. Dirty, sweaty, drunk men began to indiscriminately swing roundhouse punches at one another, breaking chairs, glasses, bottles, and anything else they could get their hands on.

“Oh, shit!” Albert cried, bolting to his feet. “Why the fuck does this always have to happen?! Two guys get in a fight and then suddenly we all have to start fighting!”

“C’mon, hurry, get in position!” Edward exclaimed as he grabbed Albert and pulled him into the corner. They fell into it, as they had countless times before: an animated flurry of pretend punches thrown furiously at each other, while being very careful never to make contact. The idea was that, as long as they appeared to be brawling along with everyone else, neither one of them would make an easy target for any genuine violence.

“Ooh! Ow! We got our own thing going on over here!” shouted Edward.

“Yeah, and it’s really bad! Ouch, stop fighting me!” Albert hollered back.

“Ow, this is so intense over here!”

“Yeah, nobody needs to get in on this! We’re both getting hurt pretty bad!”

One of Edward’s punches accidentally connected.

“OW!” Albert yelped, with a sizable flinch.

“Oh, my God, I’m so sorry!” cried Edward.

“You actually hit me!”

“Albert, I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

“Do I have a mark?”

“Yeah, there’s a little redness there.”

“Yeah, it feels like it.”

“You want a moist rag?”

Before Albert could respond, something caught his eye across the room. On the upper level near the brothel, two cowboys were pummeling each other fiercely. One clearly had the advantage as he delivered blow after blow, sending his opponent crashing against the wooden railing. It began to crack. Albert could not have cared less about the destruction of saloon property, but what did concern him was Anna Barnes, the newcomer. She stood just below the upper level, surveying the fray with an oddly detached look in her eye, almost like a disapproving mother watching her children scuffling in the mud, ruining their Sunday clothes. The slugfest continued directly above her, and Albert watched with alarm as the railing began to collapse. Without thinking, he broke free of his make-believe fistfight with Edward and sprinted straight through the center of the mêlée toward the opposite end of the room.

Miraculously, all he got was a stray elbow in the ribs and a splash of beer in the eye before he reached Anna Barnes. He grabbed her arm and yanked her out of the way as hard as he could, just as the battered cowboy above came crashing down from the upper level, bringing a hailstorm of heavy wooden debris along with him.

Anna turned and looked at Albert with surprise. She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could say a word, a whiskey bottle flew past her face, shattering against the wall inches from her head.

“Come on!” Albert yelled, pulling her along with him by the wrist as he scurried out through the batwing doors. The two of them half-ran, half-stumbled out into the evening air and the relative safety of the dusty thoroughfare.

Anna turned to Albert. “Thank you,” she said.

It was the first time he’d heard her speak, he noted, and she had a pleasant alto quality to her voice. Even from two words, he was aware of her markedly undisturbed reaction to what had been a potentially traumatizing close call. She didn’t appear shaken or out of breath in any way whatsoever. Albert, for his part, was heaving with the aftershocks of panic as he bent over to brush the dust off his trousers.

BANG! BANG!

He jolted upright, just in time to see Sheriff Arness and his deputy racing into the saloon, guns blazing into the air.

“Let’s get the fuck outta here,” he said with a resurgence of agitation. The two of them made their way up the street, away from the chaos.

Neither said anything for a while. Albert was painfully aware that this woman was giving him time to collect himself before she struck up any kind of a conversation. He felt silly. She’d been the one in danger, and yet she seemed utterly at ease. Meanwhile, his hands were still shaking.

“Nice work back there,” she remarked at last. “I guess you’re a real hero, huh?”