A Million Ways to Die in the West

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Albert Stark was a coward. Not a quivering, jittery, weak-kneed sort of a coward, but the kind who viewed his cowardice as an act of sensibility: a coward in the name of pragmatism. To Albert, his cowardice functioned as a shield that existed to service the very sensible goal of self-preservation. In the West, brave men got killed. Cowards stayed alive.

Death was everywhere on the frontier.

“Everything that’s not you wants you dead,” Albert would often say. “Outlaws, Indians, angry gamblers, disgruntled prostitutes, wild animals, the weather, disease—hell, even a trip to the dentist means taking your fucking life in your hands.”

One needed only to glance at the front page of any local newspaper to see the truth in such a point of view:

Yes, it seemed to Albert that fear was a very useful thing for a man living in the southern Arizona territory.

So on this blistering hot day he was quite content to once again allow cowardice to insulate him from an early demise.

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