Author's note: My father gave me the idea for this story. We were talking about how they coulld do a sequel for a Million Ways To Die In The West, and my dad suggested that Lewis could come back, and thought he could back wanting to get revenge on Albert for killing Clinch Leatherwood. It's not looking like a sequel could get made now, though, considering how it did at the box office and with the critics, but I had to write this story anyway. I couldn't get it out of my head. I hope you enjoy it.
PROLOGUE:
A Deal With A Devil
Albert Stark was going to die.
Or so Lewis thought when he woke up on the morning he had decided to set out to find some snake venom.
Blinking the grogginess out of his still-bleary eyes, he yawned, stretched, and sat up in his bed. Throwing his long, skinny legs over the mattress, he staggered to his feet, steadying himself. Once he had balanced himself , he stumbled to the kitchen, still a little disoriented.
When he got to the kitchen, he bent over the sink, where he had wrapped up the meat from the coyote he had killed last night and left it. He picked it up, layed it over on the counter to the side, and started to unwrap it. He tore a chunk of meat from it and threw it into the old fire place, in which he had already put logs in last night and built a fire this morning, knowing he was going to be setting out, turning it on to heat it. When it was done, he got it out, left it on the pan he had put it in before he had shoved it into the stove, and sat down at the kitchen table to eat it. He chewed on it for the next several minutes, savoring the flavor of it. Coyotes were annoying little bastards, and they were tough little shits to kill (Lewis, who wasn't a very strong man to begin with, had fought with the one he was eating now for long hours until the night before he had, at last, made it weak enough for him to kill), but they were good for one thing: they made a good meal for you when you when you most needed it.
Lewis ate in silence. He had waited five years for this day. He had spent, two, three years, almost, designing and building this pathetic little shack out in the middle of this miserable, godforsaken desert. He had spent the next three years plotting his revenge, biding his time, After Albert Stark had shot and killed Clinch Leatherwood, Lewis had left Old Stump for a few years in order to have a little more time to himself to think about what he was going to do next, deciding it would be best to wait until all the hubbub and brew haw surrounding Clinch's death settled down, anyway. He had known, that, if he had stayed in town a moment longer after Albert Stark had shot and killed Clinch, he would've been hauled off to jail, and without trial. There had been just too many witness who had seen him doing Clinch's dirty work. Anna, being Clinch's wife, had hung around with him and his men all the time and knew he had been Clinch's right hand man. Now she, Albert, and a handful of other Old Stump townspeople, had seen him fighting on Clinch's side during the brawl that had taken place in the streets of the town after Albert, with a newfound sense of courage Lewis thought he had never had, had returned from God knew where, his friends gaining up on Clinch's group during the fray. They weren't going to be about to let him run scot-free without a fight.
Lewis snarled. Anna, that treacherous bitch, he thought. She was going to get what she had coming to her too. She wasn't about to get away with betraying Clinch. She had had a hand in his death, too. She had been the one, after all, who had cheated on him and ran off with Albert. He had something special planned just for her.
After he had finished eating, Lewis licked his lips clean with his tongue, strengthened by the meal. Standing up from the table, he headed to the bathroom, which, consisting of a small, metal tub that he used to bathe in and a wooden bucket that he used to piss and shit in, must've been the smallest room in the house. Shaking his head at these pathetic living conditions he had somehow managed to found himself living in, he sighed, disgusted with himself. He had never thought he would be living in such a pitiful state, but, then again, did anybody? Didn't everybody picture themselves growing up in a big ass mansion with lots of cash, slaves, and a wealthy spouse?
Lewis, not for the first time, found himself longing for such a life. Stripping his clothes off, he poured some water from another bucket he kept nearby into the tub, sliding himself down into it. He stayed there for the next couple of hours in water he had gotten from an oasis that had at least been a three to four days ride away, shivering. The water, which had been in there for days (he had took it out of the box of ice he had saved up and had put it in the tub to take a bath with the other day, but he hadn't bothered to take it back out, and now the ice, which was already hard to come by, was melted anyway.), was now ice cold.
When he was done, he stepped out of the tub, dripping, and dried himself off with a towel he kept hanging above the tub on a nail. Putting an extra pair of clean clothes on, he walked through the house, and started to gather the things he knew he would need for his journey.
He packed the rest of the coyote meat, some extra food, his gun, a flask of water and a few more bottles of it for the road, shoving it all into a bag he had picked when he had made his way through the kitchen. When he thought he had all that he needed, he walked out the door, locking it behind him. Without looking back, he saddled his horse, threw what little of his provisions he had over it's back, and mounted it's back. He rode off toward the horizon, determined now, more then, ever to kill Albert Stark.
He had rode up behind the savages late at night, long after the sun had gone down and the moon had came up. Even though it was dark out, and it would've been cooler in most places at this time of night, the temperature in the desert was still pretty fucking high, and numerous times he found himself wiping his sweaty forehead with the bandana he always had wiped around his neck as he stared down on the savages, waiting for the right moment to ride down in on them.
Surrounded by their Teepees, they were camped out in the ravine under the cliff he was standing on, sitting around a campfire they had built. One of them, he assumed it was the Chief judging by the headdress he wore, was sitting at the head of the fire, telling a story with his hands and his deep, gravel-like voice. From the cliff he couldn't hear what he was saying, but he didn't really care. He had came here for one thing and one thing only.
He had seen the way Albert had shot and killed Clinch Leatherwood. The venom the sheep farmer had put in the bullet he had used to kill Clinch with had been no ordinary venom. No, it had been too strong. Clinch had been dead before he had even hit the ground. He thought it must've been some stronger, supernatural force in the venom that had killed Clinch Leatherwood, neither Albert nor the bullet, and to him, it had always seemed like, whenever there were supernatural forces included in the mix , there were always savages involved.
From what he had seen of him, Albert Stark was a coward, an innocent, naive sheep farmer who knew nothing about killing or guns. There was no way he would've been able to kill Clinch Leatherwood on his own. No, not in a million years. It wouldn't taken more than a bullet and a nerdy, scrawny farm boy to kill Clinch Leatherwood. He was sure of that. He had to have had some kind of help.
He had came to the conclusion that the savages had helped him.
He didn't know how he had done it, but somehow Albert Stark had gotten the savages to help. How he had even gathered up the courage to leave his precious, little town of Old Stump, a place he had never left in his whole, entire, pathetic existence, Lewis would never know, but he was determined to get the venom Stark had used to kill Clinch Leatherwood and shoot a couple of bullet loads of it into Stark.
In the dark, a twisted, benevolent grin stretched across his bearded, bony chin, and he stared down at the savages.
The Chief had stopped talking. The savages themselves were chattering amongst themselves in their own little language, which he had never understood and had never had the desire to understand, clapping their gnarled, withered hands. Once it was down to the Chief, he struggled to pull himself back up on his horse with great difficulty (he had been riding hard for days before he had found the savages hideout, and every aching bone in his body was creaking in protest), and rode down toward the encampment, despite his aching back.
The savages' fire had died down by the time he had rode into their camp. Even though the moon was full and hanging high in the clear, cloudless night sky, which was dark but full of stars, it was still pitch black under the cliff, and he couldn't see a thing. He had only been able to find the head savage because he had heard the old Indian's feet scraping against the rocks on the ground.
"How, Chief...Pow Pow..." he said, to make up a title for the Chief right on the fly, having no idea what his real name was. "... Bow...Wow... " After getting no reaction from the savage, he trailed off in defeat, throwing his right hand up in the gesture his people, the whites, had always thought the savages had used for greeting and were always imitating.
Startled, the Chief swerved around, blinking at him in surprise. "Who the hell are you, asshole?" he asked in his own language.
Lewis didn't understand him, of course, but he answered him the best way he could, making up his own language as he went. "I'm white man...white man...need poison..." he said, talking as slow as he could, making gestures with his hands. "...prefer...snake...venom..."
Much to his surprise, the savage barred his teeth at him and hissed, curling his fingers into claws. "Snake venom dangerous," he said, making him shiver." What does asshole need with snake venom?"
Once he had regained his composure, he glared at the Chief. "So...all this time...you understood everything I was saying?" he asked feeling, angry, betrayed, and stupid all at the same.
The savage nodded, seeming amused by the whole conversation. "Yes, asshole, " he said, giving Lewis an unnerving, all-knowing toothy grin.
Lewis frowned, furrowing his brow in irritation."Then how come you're just waiting until now to tell me?" he asked.
"Because asshole look too stupid to know snake with venom if he saw one," the savage said. "Asshole would be dead by now if Cochise hadn't told him."
Ah, so this is the great Indian Chief Cochise, Lewis thought, not too impressed. He had heard horror stories of the old Indian Chief and his Apaches scalping cowboys, prospectors, and any other poor, unfortunate passersby who just happen to wander upon their camp , but he just looked just like any other frail, old man to Lewis, who didn't think he seemed like that big of a threat. It appeared to him that most of the legends about the old man had been nothing but fairy tales, bedtime stories parents told their children to scare them to sleep. In his opinion, the Indian Chief that all of the cowboys in town had been telling campfire stories about for the past several years didn't look as tough and fearless as their stories had made him out to be.
"Now why does asshole need snake venom?" Cochise asked after a few, drawn-out moments of awkward silence.
He made up one right then and there, fearing the savage wouldn't give him the venom if he told him the real reason why he wanted it. Everyone knew savages were tree hugging hippies in disguise, and frowned upon killing or violence of any kind, even if it was toward the lowest, most pathetic animals like insects.
So much happened afterwards, Lewis couldn't remember which story he cooked up for old Cochise , but, whichever one it was, didn't work, for the old Indian Chief didn't give him the snake venom.
Much to his dismay, the savage shook his head instead, dashing all of Lewis's ambitions. "Asshole don't understand language," he said, not looking as if he cared "Asshole can't be trusted. "
Lewis unhosltered his gun, switching the safety off if it with a flick of his finger "First of all, I have a name," he said, holding the gun to the savage's head. "It's Lewis, and you're going to show me where to find this snake venom, or I will blow your fucking brains out, do you understand?"
The savage stood, unwavering, his courage just as strong as ever. "Go fuck yourself, asshole."
Lewis refrained himself from pulling the trigger. "The only thing keeping you alive right now is the snake venom," he said, pressing the barrel of the gun harder against the savage's temple. "I don't want to kill you, because so far you're the only one around who knows where I can get it, but if you try my patience much longer, I can't say my finger won't slip on the trigger."
"NO! DON'T! STOP! PUT DOWN GUN! LEAVE FATHER ALONE! I'LL SHOW YOU SNAKE VENOM!"
Lewis looked up at the sound of the husky, rounded voice, which could've belonged to either a male or a female and he sighed when he saw that it belonged to the latter. The savage that was running up to them was indeed a , and she had lengthy, ebony hair that trailed all the way down to her sweet, swaying, little wriggling ass ,which, Lewis thought, was kind of sexy, if you had a thing for squaws. He had no doubt in his mind that this was the chief's daughter. She held herself with a proud, confident bearing that could've only been royal, and the beads she wore around her neck and arms were fancier then what he had seen the other female savages wearing. "Why I should I trust you, Princess?"
The Princess gave him a smoldering look that would've melted the hardest of men. "Because if you kill father, I kill you," she said, drawing a knife she had been hiding underneath her dress.
Lewis chuckled. "My, my, we got us a sassy little bitch here," he said, pulling the gun away from the Chief's head. "Better watch that mouth of yours, little girly." He holstered his gun, but he still clung to the chief's arm, refusing to let him go until the Princess showed him where the snake venom was. "It's going to get you into a lot of trouble one of these days."
The Princess snarled, flaring her nostrils. "Let father go, and I might let you live."
Lewis shook his head. "Not until you show me where I can find some snake venom."
The Princess looked skeptical, as well she should. Lewis would've been skeptical of himself if he had been in her situation. He didn't know how he always somehow managed to talk himself into these same types of predicaments over and over again. "Why asshole like you need snake venom?"
Lewis let out a despairing cry of frustration, throwing his hands up in the air. "Does it matter?" He sighed "Look, if you don't show me where the venom is, your father gets it, do you understand?"
The Princess didn't look too proud of herself, but she nodded. "Yes," she said, sliding the knife back under her dress. "I understand."
"Good," Lewis said ."Now show me where the damn snake venom is."
Looking disgusted by the way things were going, the Princess motioned for him to follow her with a wave of her hand, going further into the darkness of the ravine. "This way," she said, without looking back at him.
That was fine with him. Lewis didn't want to look at her face anyway, no matter how sexy he thought she was. She would just annoy him. Still, without a word, he followed her, dragging the Chief along with him.
The Princess had lead them to the farthest, deepest reaches of the ravine, where she stopped at last, gesturing for them all to sit down. "Be very still," she said, her voice a low, whisper. "Make any sudden noise, snake will strike."
Nodding, Lewis sat down on a rock beside the Princess, taking the Chief down with him. Lewis had to hand it to the old man. He hadn't complained not one bit since their journey here. Not many old farts his age would've been able to make such a claim.
"Ssshhh..." the Princess said, looking over at Lewis. She held a finger over her mouth. "Hear snake coming now." She slid her knife out from underneath her dress again, crouching into an attack position.
Lewis went still. Indeed, he could hear hissing from somewhere nearby, and a rattling from a snake's tail. He shuddered. He had never liked snakes. He didn't know anybody who did. Any sane person would be wise enough to stay away from the treacherous things. Or, at least, Lewis hoped they would.
The snake slithered around their feet. The Princess stared down at it, unafraid. Without a word or a sound, she lunged at the serpent, plunging her dagger into its twisting, convulsing body. In what Lewis was sure was the first of it's death throes, the reptile struggled to free itself from the knife, but without much success. Lewis backed away from it, repulsed.
"Now," the Princess said, tightening her grip on the hilt of the knife, which she plunged deeper into the snake. "Give me something to pour in snake venom."
Lewis dug around in his pants pocket, hoping to find something but not knowing what. At the time he couldn't think of any items that he would have in his possession that he could use. After few seconds of fruitless searching he was about to give up hope when his fingers brushed the cold, metal surface of his flask. Sighing with relief, he pulled it out of his pocket, took the cap off, and drunk what little was left in it, handing it to the Princess. Still pinning the snake down to the ground with the knife, she pulled it's mouth open with her fingers, hovering the flask over it's mouth. Awed and horrified at the same time, Lewis watched, fascinated by the bravery of the Princess. He didn't know a girl in Old Stump who would've dared do something so dangerous, except, Anna, perhaps. How Albert had ever scored a woman like that Lewis would never know, but he was about to take him away from her.
"There, take snake venom," the Princess, said, shoving the flask at Lewis. Stumbling, Lewis caught the flask in his fumbling hands, almost falling over backward. "Now give me father."
Holding it to his lips, Lewis sniffed the top of the flask, making a face. It sure smelled rotten enough to be poison. Satisfied, he twisted the cap back on it, and shoved the Chief at his daughter. She caught him without the slightest stagger. Lewis might've despised them, but, he had to admit, these savages were tough sons of a bitches.
The Princess stared at him over her Father's shoulder, her eyes widening in uncertainty perhaps, but not fear."Will you let us go now?"
Lewis shrugged. "Sure, what the hell," he said, another wide, malicious grin coming across his face again. "I've got what I came here for."
For the first time, Lewis saw a flicker of fear and uncertainty ripple across the savages' faces.
They might've been wondering what kind of devil they had been dealing with, Lewis thought.
He would've told them the worst kind.