Contents (35)
Bo is standing at the edge of the dancefloor, likewise watching them while she gulps down half her beer. Her eyes are narrowed and two bright spots of color flame in her cheeks.
Duke is not paying much attention to the redhead. He keeps glancing back at Bo. He looks defiant, but also slightly uncomfortable, like he’s regretting his strategy.
As the song winds down, the redhead reaches up to tuck a lock of hair behind his ear.
Seeing that, Bo whirls around and starts to push her way through the crowd, heading toward the exit. Duke abandons the redhead on the dance floor so he can chase after her. He catches up to Bo about five feet away from where I’m standing, so I have a full view of what happens next, though I can’t hear what they’re saying over the noise of the music and the crowd.
Duke grabs Bo’s arm. She shakes him off angrily. He shouts something at her, waving his hands in frustration. She rolls her eyes and tries to turn away from him again. He grabs her shoulder and spins her around. Then she flings the remains of her beer in his face.
This has an effect similar to throwing a match in the middle of a pool of gasoline. Duke looks ready to strangle her, his face so full of fury that even Bo looks slightly abashed.
But the beer didn’t confine itself to drenching Duke. It splashed the back of the necks of the two men standing behind him. The two cowboys whirl around, fists already raised.
The cowboys don’t seem to care that Duke got hit with more beer than they did. They’re looking for somebody to blame, and he’s the obvious culprit. After a brief exchange of insults, the bigger of the two cowboys throws a haymaker right at Duke’s face. He ducks under the punch with a speed and fluidity that shocks me, and shocks the cowboy too. The cowboy looks baffled, like he just witnessed a magic trick. His buddy reacts a little quicker, hitting Duke from the side with a sucker punch.
Even though she’d been fighting with Duke five seconds earlier, Bo shrieks with rage and runs at the two cowboys. She kicks cowboy number two right in the gut with the heel of her boot, then cracks him across the jaw with a right cross. The bigger cowboy seizes her from behind, pinning her arms to her sides, and she kicks both legs out in front of her, hitting his friend again.
Now Duke is properly pissed, and he throws his arm around the big cowboy’s neck, choking him until he releases Bo. But the cowboys apparently didn’t come alone—at least six other guys are joining the fight from all sides.
I’m frozen in place, not knowing what the fuck to do. It’s a melee of people, and I’m not entirely sure who’s on which side. Especially once Raylan and Grady jump into the fray. Raylan rips one of the cowboys off Bo and flings him over the wooden railing into the dance floor. Grady is throwing punches left and right, taking a hit to the face that would knock out a grizzly bear, but simply shaking his head and coming back for more.