Had a couple changes to make on this issue's Classic Gunfight which features, for the first time to my knowledge, the gunfight between Tap Duncan and William Hayes in Bruneau, Idaho. Although I was able to locate Mr. Hayes' kin, they have no surviving photo of the bad man. So, that's what I specialize in. Went home for lunch and channeled Bill Hayes and came up with this:
Daily Whipouts #31, "Bad Man Bill Hayes"
What's interesting is my source in Bruneau—Mary Hall-Baker— is related to Bill Hayes, and when I talk to her, she invariably has the flip side to all of our contentions. For example, the Duncans claim the deceased Hayes had a young son who was being groomed to kill Tap and this is why Duncan decamped for Arizona. Mary's kin point out that the boy was only eight-years-old at the time of the shooting and was not being groomed for killing anyone. Meanwhile the Duncans declare that when Tap Duncan left Bruneau he bought a new wagon and brought with him his best string of horses. The Hayes side claims Duncan stole those horses from a local woman! Interesting how family folklore gets appropriated and bent to suite the uses of the descendants. I would include myself in that broadside.
Meanwhile, here's another little dust up that always gets the juices flowing on this site:
Daily Whipouts #32, "O.K. Billy Goes Down"
And finally, here's another Old West icon who almost got into a gunfight just south of the border down Mexico way. When U.S. troops were escorting Geronimo back to the States in 1886 they were intercepted by Mexican troops. The commander of the Sonoran group recognized G-Man, and threatened him. Goyathla, put his hand on his pistol and the two were about to go at it when a north of the border officer intervened.
Daily Whipouts #33, "Geronimo Draws Leather"
"Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility."
—Dietrich Bonhoeffer
