We haven’t read Curt Carroll’s 1952 western The Golden Herd and have no plans to, but this scene on the cover is irresistible for comment. It’s obviously a duel, and we’re going to guess that if one of the combatants unclenches his teeth and just stabs the shit out of the other he’ll have lost the fight, and his honor. Guess we aren’t terribly honorable—we’d unclench and start stabbing d-block style, as fast as we could, everywhere we could. But maybe afterward a bunch of outraged cowpokes would break out a noose. Maybe that’s what happened to this guy. Well, then we’d not fight and be shunned. Shunning we can handle. We’re a little shunned now anyway.
This idea may have originated in Max Kruger’s 1930 autobiography Pioneer Life in Texas, in which he says men were tied together by their left wrists. We’re not sure there are any corroborating accounts, but it’s certainly possible, since the realm of stupid shit men did is a virtual bottomless pit. We presume Carroll wanted to make the idea even more macho for his novel, except in the realm of stupid shit men did, this seems impossible. We feel like these guys’ half-rotten frontier teeth would be snatched out mere instants into this ill-considered duel. What we like, though, is the thought that the man more diligent about oral care had an advantage. Brush often. The art here is by George Mayers.