A Redbone & a White is Fightin’?…the heck you say

The usual Christmas Eve crowd was straggling in by the various other neighborhood roads and trails that led to the Hatch store. None came the way of Chinquapin Gulch. At the Hatch store a careless jovial crowd circulated. Of the high tension flowing under the surface of affairs no evidence was apparent; but human nerves never were strung more taught. As was their custom (1), but few Redbones came into the building. Preferring the open, most of them hung around the hitching racks, or leaned against the tall pines amidst which the store had been built. At intervals one of the Cherry Winche men would enter the store, make some purchase and return to his comrades outside. About ten o’clock I suppose, Gordon Musgrove drove up. He tied his team and sauntering up the steps of the wide store gallery, passed a cheery word of greeting to Buck Davis, who stood leaning against the outer post of the gallery, chewing a cud of tobacco. The talk between the two men turned to the horse race, and whether by design or by chance, it was just as Marion Perkins(2) stepped out of the store that Musgrove spoke the words which precipitated the inevitable battle. Marion Perkins was an older brother of the jockey whose horse had run the race, and he was a somewhat larger man. He held a new bull whip in his hands which he had just bought. “You won that race clean, Buck” Musgrove said, “and if I’d bin a ridin’ instid o’you, I’d er had the money or a whipped Henry Perkins.” It was a straight challenge to Marion Perkins’ hot Redbone blood, and he didn’t hesitate a moment. Tossing his new bull whip to the floor, he faced Musgrove arrogantly. “Mebby you wanta whap his brother now,” he roared. Without further word, and like a pair of old bucks, the men charged each other. The hatred of generations, now released, put force and fury into their rushes. Each man’s blows found solid target, for it was a backwoodsman’s fight without rule, science or quarter. With each man seeking to keep his back to the building and each instinctively circling when driven toward the open front of the gallery, the crafty crouching movements and catlike springs of the Redbone striking contrasted with the swift bold charges and more open attack of the hardy timber jack. The Redbone was employing the advantage of his greater weight and getting in a solid blow to Musgrove’s face, the latter was sent crashing against the wall of the building; but as if bouncing from the impact, the agile hard-knit form leaped into the air and launched a slashing kick which landed squarely on the Redbone’s unguarded jaw. Staggering from this driving crash, Perkins yielded himself to its impetus and dove toward the nearest gallery post as if to leap to the ground, but catching a brace, the man drove himself back toward his antagonist. Musgrove made a savage swing at the Redbone but Perkins ducked under it and grappling the timber man around the waist, he lifted Musgrove off his feet and hurled him to the floor, the Redbone driving his own head into the pit of the under man’s belly as he fell. With the breath knocked out of him by the fall, Musgrove was unable to retain the hold he had secured on Perkins who lost no time in taking full advantage of what he had gained by gripping his prostrate opponent between his knees, and driving his heavy fists into the unyielding face pillowed on the rough board floor. Just as Musgrove’s vicious kick had landed on Perkins’s chin, a rangy horse had trotted around the corner of the store and the steel gray eyes of the rider had taken in the situation at one flashing glance.

1 a habit that many Redbones unknowingly practice to this day
2 a very common name among Redbones