Without a Doubt, Without a Shot

This is a good reason for open carry.

Crow Killer

The warrior was larger than he had seemed from a distance; indeed he was huge, and no doubt powerful.  He came within a few feet of Johnson's hiding place, glanced at the horses, and turned again toward the camp.  He was barely four steps away when the Liver-Eater hurled the stone.

The missile was unromantic but effective.  Caught just beneath his lone eagle feather, the Crow fell without a sound except the hiss of his escaping breath; the stone itself was noisier.  Quickly Johnson seized the senseless Indian, lifting and carrying him to the scrub timber at the edge of the ravine.  A few seconds later he was back in the midst of the horses, grunting softly to reassure them as he pulled the picket pins.  Having freed them all, he scattered pebbles wide among them, at the same time whooping loudly.

As the dreaded yell of the Mountain Men rang out in the sheltered ravine, the camp of the Crows came instantly to life.  Their own fierce yells and the shrill neighing of the stampeding herd mingled, rebounded against the canyon walls in the chill predawn, then were drowned out by the thundering hooves of horses in a dead run northward.  Quickly the subchief shrilled his orders, and a dozen warriors set out after the maddened herd.  Back in the scrub timber the Crow Killer threw the body of the huge sentry over his shoulder and slipped through the trees.

Some half-hour later, his horse saddled and ready for the trail, Johnson bent over the unconscious warrior.  He seized the greased scalplock, ran the point of his Bowie around its base, placed his moccasined foot on the victim's head, and snapped off the scalp.  Observing that a tremor ran through the brave's body, he swiftly swept his blade across his throat.

As he pulled a bull-hide belt from around the waist of the Crow, Johnson saw that a long-dried scalp dangled from it, a scalp with a wealth of long black hair.  He imagined, for a moment, the ambushing of an emigrant wagon train, the crack of gunfire, the whoops of the Crows as they closed in after their victory, and the screams of the women.  Perhaps this warrior had procured both scalp and belt together; surely his carrying of just the one memento, instead of hanging it in his tepee, market its acquisition as notable.

But a second glance told Johnson that the trophy had not been torn from the head of a white woman.  He ran his fingers through the coarse black tresses.  As he looked closer, something familiar caught his experienced eye, and in that instant, in the clear light of dawn, the Liver-Eater knew certainly that in this, the beginning of his greatest effort against his enemies, he had met and killed the murderer of his wife.  Quickly he braided the hair of the scalps together, the new with the old.  Turning to his mount he looped the topknots through the headstall of his bridle; and it was not until he had one foot in the stirrup that he remembered his identity and his oath.

Drawing his Bowie knife from its sheath, the Liver-Eater stooped quickly, and made a deep incision beneath his slain foe's ribs.  Inserting his hand, he felt for the liver, grasped it, and wrenched it free.  Expertly he ran his thumb and forefinger along the blade of his knife and replaced it in its sheath.  Blood dripped from his beard as he rode away to the northwest, skirting the ravine.

He had had a vengeance, he had killed The Swan's killer; but more than one Crow had had a hand in her death.  Now, by having set a half-hundred Crows afoot, he had gained enough time to alert the Flatheads for their coming.  The Flatheads would agree that one scalp might be avenged by any number.  And they would welcome a share in such vengeance.

Raymond W. Thorp and Robert Bunker, Crow Killer: The Saga of Liver-Eating Johnson (Bloomington: Indiana University Press 2015), 40-42.

Byzantine Knockout Game

At first the great majority carried weapons at night quite openly, while in the daytime they concealed short two-edged swords along their thighs under their cloaks.  They used to collect in gangs at nightfall and rob members of the upper class in the open forum or in narrow alleys, despoiling any they met of cloaks, belts gold brooches and anything else they had with them.  Some they thought it better to murder as well as rob, since dead men told no tales.  These outrages caused universal indignation, especially among those Blues who were not militant factionalists, since they suffered as badly as the rest.  Consequently from then on most people wore belts and brooches of bronze, and cloaks of much poorer quality than their station warranted, for fear that their love of the beautiful would cost them their lives, and even before sunset they hurried back home and got under cover.  As this shocking state of affairs continued and no notice was taken of the offenders by the authorities in charge of the city, the audacity of these men increased by leaps and bounds.  For when nothing is done to discourage wrongdoing, there is of course not limit to its growth: even when punishment does follow offences it does not often put an end to them altogether: it is natural for most people to turn easily to wrongdoing.

This is how things went with the Blues.  Of their opponents some came over to their faction through a desire to join in their criminal activities without paying any penalty, others took flight and slipped away to other lands; many who were caught in the city were put out of the way by their opponents or executed by the authorities.  Many other young men poured into this organization: they had never before shown any interest in such things, but ambition for power and unrestrained license attracted them to it.  For there is not one revolting crime known to men which was not at that time committed and left unpunished.  They began by destroying the partisans of the opposite faction, then went on to murder those who had given them no provocation whatever.  Many also won them over with bribes, then implicated their own enemies; these the factionalists got rid of at once, labelling them Greens though they knew nothing at all about them.  All this went on no longer in darkness or out of sight but at any moment of the day and in every part of the city, and the most eminent citizens as often as not were eyewitnesses to what was happening.  There was no need to keep the crimes concealed, since the criminals were not troubled by any fear of punishment; in fact they were actually moved by a spirit of rivalry, so that they organized displays of brawn and toughness to show that with a single blow they could kill anyone they met unarmed, and no one now could expect to live much longer amid the dangers that daily threatened him.  Constant fear made everyone expect that death was just round the corner: no place seemed safe, no time could guarantee security, since even in the most revered sanctuaries and at public festivals people were being senselessly murdered, and confidence in kith and kin was a thing of the past.  For many perished through the machinations of their nearest relatives.

No inquiry, however, was held into the crimes committed: the blow invariably fell without warning, and the fallen had no one to avenge them.  No law or contract retained any force on the secure basis of the established order, but everything turned to growing violence and confusion, and the government was indistinguishable from a tyranny--not, however, a stable tyranny but one that changed every day and was forever starting afresh.  The decisions of the magistrates suggested the paralysis of fear--their minds were dominated by dread of a single man--and those who sat in judgment, when settling questions in dispute, based their verdicts no on heir notions of what was just and lawful but on the relations, hostile or friendly, which each of the disputants had with the partisans.  For any judge who disregarded their injunctions would pay the price with his life.

Procopius, The Secret History, Translated by G.A. Williamson and Peter Sarris (England: Penguin Books 2007),29-31.