Seth MacFarlane's A Million Ways to Die in the West(9)

Albert offered them a bloodless smile. “Hey, guys.”

“Albert, we just heard about Louise,” Edward said, climbing down from the buggy. “That’s horrible! How are you holding up?”

“We’re so sorry,” Ruth added, dismounting after him with what seemed to be a wince of pain. “Are you doing okay?”

“Not really, no,” Albert sighed, not having the energy to lie for their comfort. “You guys wanna sit down?”

“Yes, thanks,” Edward said, and pulled up a wooden stool.

“I’m okay standing,” said Ruth. “I had a long day at work.”

Albert turned his attention back to the pictures in his lap. “I was just looking at some old photographs of Louise and me.” He held them up for his friends to see. They gazed dutifully at the images, even though they had seen them many times. “This was from the carnival.… Here we are at the town picnic … Oh, and this was the square dance.” His face was an inexpressive mask, much like the faces in the pictures. “Y’know, I almost wish you could smile in photographs. Louise has such an incredible smile.”

“That’d be weird,” said Edward.

“Hm?” Albert answered, distracted.

Edward shrugged. “Have you ever smiled in a photograph?”

“No, have you?” asked Albert.

“Of course not.”

“No. You’d look like an insane person. But I mean that …” Albert paused, then spoke more to himself than to Edward and Ruth. “When she smiles it’s … I mean, even at the peak of our relationship—you know, that point when you’ve been with someone awhile, and you start taking it for granted, and it doesn’t even occur to you that there might be a chance you could lose her—it would still completely paralyze me every time she smiled.” His voice broke just a shred. “God, I love her so much.”

“Oh, now I feel like I’m gonna cry,” Ruth said, pulling out a lace-trimmed handkerchief Suddenly, Albert couldn’t sit there any longer.

“Let’s get fucked up,” he said.


The saloon was unbearably hot and stuffy, despite the fact that the night was relatively cool. It seemed as if every sweaty, foul-smelling cowboy living within ten miles of the little frontier town was packed into Old Stump’s utterly inadequate recreational facility. The tired-looking old piano player poked and stabbed gamely at the keys of his decaying instrument, plunking out “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair,” his efforts barely audible over the cacophonous roar of drunken voices. A tawny whore bent lazily over the top of the piano, watching the clumsy dance of his fingers.

While it was virtually impossible for any saloon patron to avoid the crush of bodies crammed into the room, Albert’s table in the far corner at least provided the relative relief of walls. It was the closest thing to privacy on offer at the only establishment in town.

Albert stared into his glass of whiskey, while Edward and Ruth watched with friendly concern. “So … what’re you gonna do?” asked Edward.

“I dunno,” Albert answered, not looking up. “Maybe I’ll kill myself. I could do it out in the pasture, so the sheep could eat me. They ate a dog that died out there.”

“Ew, I thought they just ate, like, grass and stuff.” Edward grimaced.

“Yeah, not these,” said Albert. “There’s something wrong with these sheep.”

Ruth put a comforting hand on Albert’s. He smiled, but he subtly pulled his hand away. Not because he didn’t appreciate Ruth’s attempt, but rather because he knew how many local rectums her fingers had been inside. Is it rectums or recta? he wondered. What’s the plural? Perhaps tomorrow he would ride over to the next town and see if they had a dictionary. He could look up the plural of rectum. That would be a fun day.

“Look,” Ruth said gently, “I know things seem hopeless right now, but I promise there’s a lot to live for.”

Albert drained his glass of whiskey and opened the floodgates.

“Oh, really? What, Ruth? What is there to live for on the American frontier in 1882? Let me tell you something. We live in a terrible place and time. The American West is a dirty, depressing, horrible, shitty place. Everything out here that’s not you wants to kill you. Outlaws. Angry drunks. Scorned hookers. Hungry animals. Diseases. Major injuries. Minor injuries. Indians. The weather. You know how Jim Wegman the blacksmith died? Wet socks.”

“Come on, you’re exaggerating,” said Edward.

“I really am not exaggerating at all,” Albert barreled on. “He went camping, he put his foot in the creek with his sock on, his foot slowly rotted, and he died. Jesus, you can get killed just by going to the bathroom! I take my life in my hands every time I walk to my outhouse! There’s fuckin’ rattlesnakes in the grass out there, and even if I make it, oh, hey—I can still die from cholera! You know cholera?”