Freemonts,
did you know that your family had an important role in the "Old
West?" Your grandmother used to tell me stories about growing up
in Arizona. One of the most infamous streets in one of the most infamous
towns in Arizona was named after her father: Freemont Street, where
the shootout at the OK Corral went down. Yes, indeedey - the Freemonts
were a "hearty stock" as they say. They carried a lot of weight
around the old cowboy towns and they owned a lot of cattle.
Some Freemonts
were in Tombstone - including Grandmother Freemont - on that fateful
day in October 1881. They'd united in town to celebrate a wedding and
enjoy some time getting to know the bride's family. But instead of throwing
bouquets and rice, shots were thrown. 25 shots in 30 seconds! Three
of the rowdy cowboys escaped the shootout and fled to an old boarding
house in an almost equally rowdy town nearby. There, they cavorted with
miners and such.
Each of
the men involved in the shootout had their own special weapon which
they would rotate towards a certain direction just before shooting,
for good luck. Some might call it a coincidence, but rotating each man's
pistol "just so" in its special lucky direction and lining
all of them up in 3 rows like back in Tombstone reveals where Billy
Claiborne, Wes Fuller, and Ike Clanton ran off to.
Little
did those cowboys know, but their refuge would soon become a dangerous
place as well, overrun by vengeful, psychotic murderers and embittered
ghosts.
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