I got to tell this story: In 1961 I worked for the park service in the tetons. Jackson was about 25 miles south of moose, our camp, and we would go there often. (Drinking & illegal blackjack in the bars.)
The town had a skit several times a day. A stagecoach would haul ass through town and be held up by Clover the killer. Clover was a old one eyed colorfull character. They would have a trial and hang clover. It was quite a tourist draw for the town and sometimes maybe 1,500 tourists would watch on the square.
This one day I came out of a establishment and beheld one hell of a fight. I thought these boys are good! The town was ropped off for the skit and traffic was stopped and four guys were doing their best to kill each other with at least a 1,000 people watching.
It soon dawned on me that this wasnt the regular event and this was real blood. One guy was knocked cold. A girlfriend of his was crying over him and asking people to throw him in her car. It seemed everyone was dumbfounded and wouldnt move. I went over, picked him up and threw him over my shoulder and as she started to lead me to her car, he come to, thought I was his antagonist, and bit my ear good! Well, he soon was out again, I threw him in the car and went back to watch the action with the other two. The fight had broke out with a local indian, the guy I threw in the car, (turned out that one was a marine deserter) those two against a pair of rodeo riders that was passing through. All were drunk or in their cups. Why it wasnt broke up by local LEO, I can only speculate.
I never in my life seen a man take as bad a beating as that drunk indian was getting, he was dieing on his knees, it looked to me. The cowboy was about 6ft 4"s, skinny as a rail. He had wore himself out beating on the indian but somehow couldnt knock him out. The indian was bleeding out of his ears, nose and elsewhere. He couldnt stand but would crawl on his knees after the cowboy and try to put his arms around the cowboys legs as the cowboy tried to walk off!
Since no one else would stop it, I did. (It wasnt hard). I got to know all participants as the summer wore on. The incident did make me fairly popular with some of the business owners in jackson, and I had a good time of it when I would come to town rest of the summer.
That same night after the fight I and 3 or 4 co-workers of mine went into the silver dollar bar, I belive. The owner came up to me and said, are these boys at least as old as you? I said yes. It was funny because I was just 20, and the youngest of them! We had it made for the rest of the season! Unfortunately, thats when I learned blackjack, and that seemed to keep me mostly broke untill now!
