Unlike my post yesterday about the Ghost Dog, the following possibly might not be true. You can judge for yourself, but it’s one of the tales I heard up there a long time ago.
Back in the late 1800s in Montana, there was a young fellow named Hardscrabble who was pretty tough. Big, strong and mean, he often picked fights in bars. When he realized that he always won, he started challenging other guys and making bets that he could win. After nobody in his town would fight him any more, he moved to Great Falls and prospered there in bar and street fights.
Eventually he had to move on to other states to get challengers and ended up in Washington State. After again running out of any people willing to fight him, he was in a bar lamenting this when the bartender suggested he move up to Alaska, where there was an abundance of tough guys.
He took a ship up to Seward, fought there, through Juneau, Anchorage and Fairbanks, amassing a goodly amount of gold dust winnings. Same problem in Fairbanks when there were no more men willing to fight, when somebody at the bar told him he ought to go to a famous small town further north. There, his informant related, there were some of the toughest hombres in the entire Territory.
So, he hitched up his dog team and mushed to this town. As he rode in, he saw that a large number of people were leaving town. He tried to talk to some, but they were all in such a rush that nobody would answer his questions. Most of the stores and bars where shut down, but finally he found a barber shop that was still open, and asked the barber what was going on.
“Can’t talk much, gotta shut up and leave soon,” the barber said. “This is the day that Badass Bob comes to town, and it ain’t safe to be here. You got any sense, you’ll leave too.”
Hardscrabble figured, “Hey, this is what I’ve been waiting for, a real challenge.” He continued on through the town, and several people gave him the same warning, “Hey stranger, this is the day Badass Bob’s coming to town. You got any sense, you’ll get the hell out of here in a hurry.” But he ignored them and kept going.
Finally, at the end of town, he spied a saloon that was till open. He walked in and ordered a whiskey. The bartender poured it out, but said to drink it fast, as he was closing soon, “because this was the day that Badass Bob was coming to town.”
Hardscrabble was drinking his whiskey when he heard a strange noise outside. He walked to the window and lookout to see an incredibly huge guy riding full speed into town atop of a grizzly bear, digging in his spurs and beating the bear with a rattlesnake. He pulled up at the bar in a cloud of dust, jumped off the bear and shouted, “Down, you hairy bastard!” The bear dropped to the ground and cringed and whimpered piteously. The guy then slammed the rattlesnake on the ground and it too cringed, coiled up and didn’t move a muscle.
The guy, who was about seven feet tall and weighed about 300 pounds, slammed through the swinging doors, breaking them both off the hinges, strode over to the bar shouting, “Whiskey!” He slammed his ham-sized fist on the top of the two-inch thick oak plank that was the bar, breaking it in two.
The bartender put down a bottle of whiskey, the guy picked it up, bit the top of the bottle off, tipped it up, and chug-a-lugged the whole thing down.
Now Hardscrabble was no coward, but he was no fool either. He decided to try to make peace, so he turned to this guy and said, “Hey, pardner, can I buy you another drink’”
“Hell no,” the guy answered, “I’ve got to get out of here right now. This is the day that Badass Bob comes to town.”