Kit Carson’s Horseback Duel

August 1835 The large French-Canadian trapper Joseph Chouinard is roaring drunk and on a day-long rampage at the annual trapper’s rendezvous on the upper Green River in Wyoming. Chouinard, also known as the “Great Bully of the Mountains,” is abusing anyone and everyone he runs into in the sprawling camp. He picks fights and beats up two or three of his fellow Frenchmen. Late in the afternoon, the bully turns his attention to the Americans, blaring that he will “take a switch and switc