Wyatt Earp: The Life Behind the Legend

by Casey Tefertiller

  The Earp wives went about setting up house in the little cottages on Fremont. Allie Sullivan Earp, Virgil's third wife, claimed a distant relationship to prizefighter John L. Sullivan and by most descriptions was just about as pugnacious. The feisty little woman of Irish ancestry gave strong-willed support and absolute loyalty to her beloved Virgil. They would stand together as husband and wife, marriage ceremony or not, with a bond stronger than a wedding band. Bessie Earp came from the brothels and made certain Jim and her children had a home. Louisa, beautiful and delicate, stayed behind at the Earp family home in rural San Bernardino County, California, until late summer of 1880, when she joined Morgan. Mattie Earp, dark-haired, quiet, and unassuming, left little trace on the records.

  AS TOMBSTONE GREW INTO MORE OF A TOWN, a new breed of badmen in the Arizona backcountry grew into more of a problem. They started as a small collection of misfits, disenfranchised cowhands who drove the herds in from Texas, fighters from the Lincoln County wars in New Mexico, and sundry social castoffs fleeing the law from Wyoming or the Dakotas. They were an odd mixture of rabble bent on living by their own rules and prospering outside the boundaries of society. They were not all Texans, but they took on the appellation of "cowboys," a word that came into use in the Kansas cowtowns to describe the drovers. Gradually, the townsmen took to referring to all the backcountry troublemakers as cowboys, distinct from the ranchmen who raised cattle.

  Tom Thornton ran a hotel in Galeyville, near the New Mexico line. He knew the cowboys and lived with them. He said: "There are some who have followed the frisky longhorn herds over the Texas plains, but nine-tenths of them never saw Texas in their lives. They are wild, reckless men from all over the world. They do not claim a home, a business or close affiliation with civilization. Some are miners from Colorado, and the Black Hills, others are escaped criminals and refugees from all portions of the world. Some are mere reckless adventurers who have followed the line of new railroads since the first rail was laid from the Missouri River or in the Sacramento Valley. They do not work, and they are never without money. They live in a style that you city folks would despise no doubt, but still they are never actually without food, a good horse, arms, ammunition and blankets. They are not all brave, and often sneak away from danger, but in my twenty years' intercourse with them I never knew one of them to whine and squeal when he knew he had to die. They will run away from death, but when cornered will look into the muzzle of a six-shooter with defiant indifference." 7

  The cowboys created quite a scene in the southern Arizona mining camps. By late 1879 and early 1880 they had barely begun an activity that would lead to much greater trouble. Southern Arizona had been shaved off Mexico in the 1854 Gadsden Purchase, and the cowboys used the area as a base to ride across the border, rustle Mexican cows, and bring them back to sell to Arizona ranchers. Thornton explained, "Whenever a man wants a herd of cattle and notifies any of the leading spirits among them that he wants a bunch of stock, and a price is agreed upon, the cattle are forthcoming." The cowboys even did a little rustling on the northern side of the line, taking American cows from the big ranchers and selling them to friendly Mexicans.

  The rustling game became tiresome for the honest ranchers. T. W. Ayles wrote to the Epitaph that he often supplied beef to his neighbors, "and could do so always if I had not to divide with the unknown and irresponsible partners viz: 'Cow Boys,' or some other cattle thieves.... There seems to be an organized band, and their connections seem to extend to and over the Mexican border and to the borders of New Mexico and across both.... Honest dealers in stock must either have protection or join the band of robbers and their accessories, the purchasers and hiders."8 While the cowboys engaged primarily in rustling during the early days, other avenues to ill-gotten gains were being explored. The firstknown attempt at a stage robbery in the Tombstone area occurred nine miles east of San Simon in May of 1880, when two men leaped into the road in front of the coach and began firing, killing Silver City resident Antonio Chaves and wounding driver John Henry in the leg. The horses bolted, but Henry guided them to San Simon.9

  The cowboys had their defenders, however, and for good reason. Cowboy pal Thornton said they made mighty good Apache fighters at a time when the backcountry citizens were far more afraid of losing their lives than of seeing the big ranchers lose a few cows. In the early days, the cowboys pretty much confined their activities to rustling and looting in Mexico. By the morality of the day, many Arizona boomers did not consider this stealing, exactly. The Mexican War had ended only thirty years earlier, and hard feelings still lingered among a populace that not only remembered the Alamo but benefited from the reduced prices of beef that stealing cows made possible.

  The cowboys were romanticized, even then, and were occasionally seen as somewhat heroic for helping small ranchers by contributing a few head of cattle. John Pleasant Gray, son of Mike Gray of the Town Site Company, ran the family ranch and spent much time with the outlaws, a necessity in the backcountry where getting along meant survival. "Among the rustlers were undoubtedly some pretty tough characters-men who knew crime as a business, and being sought in other states had drifted to the southwest frontier as their last refuge," Gray wrote in his unpublished autobiography. "But such men most always had a strain of honor in their hearts which placed them several notches ahead of our present-day criminals. For one thing, they would not kill an unarmed person as so often occurs in our so-called civilized world of today; nor would they rob the hand that fed them. In short, the rustler was much of a gentleman even when playing the role of Robin Hood."10

  Estimates of their number varied from several dozen to upward of two hundred, and it is likely the totals fluctuated and grew notably as time passed. These cowboy-outlaws ranged from the southwestern New Mexico areas of Shakespeare and Silver City over through southeastern Arizona, moving into Tucson at times. They made their headquarters mostly in the smaller towns, away from the burgeoning population of citified newcomers. Shakespeare became a popular haunt, as was Galeyville, about seventy-five miles east of Tombstone, and the small town of Charleston about nine miles to the southwest of Tombstone, where a mill was established to turn silver ore into bullion.

  The cowboys made friends among the merchants and became enemies of much of the other citizenry. Deputy U.S. Marshal Virgil Earp said: "The most of them are what we call 'saddlers,' living almost wholly in the saddle, and largely engaged in raiding into Sonora and adjacent country and stealing cattle, which they sell in Tombstone . . . to some of the butchers practically in partnership with them, and I know of cases where the finest cattle in the country have been sold at a dollar a head. When cattle are not handy the cowboys rob stages and engage in similar enterprises to raise money. As soon as they are in funds they ride into town, drink, gamble, and fight. They spend their money as free as water in the saloons, dancehouses, or faro banks, and this is one reason they have so many friends in town. All that large class of degraded characters who gather the crumbs of such carouses stand ready to assist them out of any trouble or into any paying rascality. The saloons and gambling houses into whose treasuries most of the money is ultimately turned receive them cordially and must be called warm friends of the cowboys. A good many of the merchants fear to express themselves against the criminal element, because they want to keep the patronage of the cowboys' friends.""

  They were a rip-roarin', fun-lovin' bunch of boys when they had money to spend, and most of the saloonkeepers wanted the cowboys to spend it at their bars, even if they paid with Mexican pesos and dirty money. The citizenry had an even more difficult problem-they could not tell the cowboys from the honest ranchers. The two dressed about the same, and a few of the toughs had done stints as ranch hands on the spreads. Southern Arizona's sojourners could not distinguish between the ranchers who came by their herds honestly, and those who bought illegal Mexican beeves from the cowboys for resale, most notably two of the better-established families in the area, the Clantons and the McLaurys.

 
The Clantons reached Arizona in the mid-1870s, led by patriarch Newman Haynes Clanton or "Old Man," as just about everyone called him, and his sons, Joseph Isaac (known as Ike), Phineas, and Billy. The Clantons had ranged the West, coming most recently from California and settling in Arizona at Lewis Springs, about a mile south of Charleston. Ike even ran a restaurant in Tombstone for a short time. The McLaurys built a ranch on the Babacomari River, about fifteen miles west of Tombstone. They later moved another twenty miles east of Tombstone to the Sulphur Springs Valley. To most of the new townsfolk they seemed indistinguishable from the likes of Henry Hooker, T. W. Ayles, or dozens of others running legitimate cattle ranches, but the Clantons and McLaurys had a dirty little secret: they were cooperating with the backcountry rustlers on highly questionable cattle deals.

  Brothers Frank and Tom McLaury served almost as middlemen between the cowboys and the community. The rustlers stole cows in Mexico, then drove them to the McLaury ranch on the Babacomari River for sale and rebranding. The McLaurys were the fences of the frontier, taking "hot" cows for resale at big profits. The stolen beeves would then be driven into Tombstone. The McLaurys enjoyed a certain veneer of respectability as honest ranchers by the community, which was mostly unaware of their activities. Many of the townsmen who did know the truth cared little about an activity that profited most of those concerned and usually hurt only a few Mexicans. 12

  "These boys were plain, good-hearted, industrious fellows," John Pleasant Gray wrote of the McLaurys in his memoirs. "They may have harbored passing rustlers at their ranch, but what rancher did not? and it would have been little of a man who would have turned away any traveler in that land of long trails and hard going." Being uncooperative would have meant courting danger from the rustlers.

  The cowboys did get out of control on occasion. In mid-July, Ike Clanton apparently caused problems when he, Joe Hill, and a German cowboy tried to sell cattle, believed stolen, to the San Carlos Apache reservation. When the purchasing officer hesitated to make the buy, Ike and his companions got mad and moved on to Maxey, down the road from the mill town of Safford, and fired a few random shots into the houses. Mill supervisor Jerome B. Collins took away Ike's pistol and told him he would shotgun them if they caused further trouble. Moving on to Safford, Ike and his pals started by shooting out the lights in a saloon. Then they shot into a house. Continuing their rollicking good time, they broke into a store and used the merchandise for target practice. They went to a nearby saloon and stirred their drinks with the barrels of their pistols before turning the guns on a man and commanding him to dance. Then they fired off random shots into the Safford mill, while forcing the workers to provide the cartridges. The angry Collins tried to assemble a posse to arrest the troublemakers, but found not a single man willing to join him in the effort. Collins finished his report on the incident with the words, "It will be a God's blessing for this valley to get rid of them."13

  In 1880, such troublemaking was rare. The cowboys were more often involved in rustling than rowdyism, and few of the first-wave boomers paid much attention to them. But the cowboys just could not confine themselves to looting the Mexican herds. A few of them decided to take on the U.S. Army. In late July, Wyatt was recruited along with Virgil, Morgan, and Wells, Fargo agent Marshall Williams by Lt. J. H. Hurst to join an army search party for six mules that had been stolen from Camp Rucker, seventy-five miles east of Tombstone. They rode with four soldiers to the McLaury ranch on the Babacomari River on July 25. Virgil Earp, as a deputy U.S. marshal, held the position of authority. A cowboy told Virgil the theft had been carried out by the McLaurys, Billy Clanton, and Pony Deal, another known rustler. When the posse arrived at the McLaury ranch, they found the mules. The thieves were in the act of changing the "U.S." brand to "D.8." A rancher named Frank Patterson seemed to be overseeing the operation. Lieutenant Hurst conducted the negotiations, and Patterson stipulated he would return the mules if no arrests were made. Patterson told Hurst bloodshed was certain if the posse tried to take the mules, so he would deliver them to Charleston the next day. Hurst accepted the compromise and went to Charleston. He waited two days before the McLaurys, Billy Clanton, and Patterson rode into town and laughed at him, saying they had offered the compromise only to get clear of the Earp party. According to Virgil Earp's story, the mules were never returned. Hurst reacted angrily. Notices he posted describing the stolen mules identified the thieves as Pony Deal, A. T. Hansbrough, and Mac Demasters, and charged that Patterson and Frank McLaury were among those helping to hide the mules.14

  An irate McLaury came to town and responded to Hurst with a paid advertisement in the August 5, 1880 Nugget in which he gave his side of the story, saying he was not involved in any mule stealing and had at Hurst's request tried to find the missing beasts. "The next thing I heard of was the placard ... wherein my name is spoken of as a thief. If J. H. Hurst was a gentleman, or if I could appeal to the courts for protection, I would proceed differently in this matter. But Hurst is irresponsible and I have but one course to pursue, and that is to publish to the world that J. H. Hurst ... is a coward, a vagabond, a rascal, and a malicious liar. This base and unmanly action is the result of cowardice, for instead of hunting the stock himself he tried to get others to do it, and when they could not find it, in order to cover up his own wrong acts, he attempted to traduce the character and reputation of honest men. My name is well known in Arizona, and thank God this is the first time in my life that the name of dishonesty was ever attached to me. Perhaps when the matter is ventilated it will be found that the Hon. Lieut. Hurst has stolen those mules and sold them, for a coward will steal, and a man who can publish the placard that bears his name is a coward. I am willing to let the people of Arizona decide who is right." McLaury had cleverly tried to blame the army officer for stealing his own mules, a strategy of misinformation that would appear again.

  According to Virgil Earp, McLaury did more than take out his ad. Both McLaury brothers came to Virgil and asked if he had anything to do with placing the newspaper notice. When Virgil said he did not, Frank McLaury spoke threateningly: "If you ever again follow us as close as you did, then you will have to fight anyway."

  "I answered that if ever any warrant for his arrest were put into my hands I would endeavor to catch him, and no compromise would be made on my part to let him go. He replied that I would have to fight, and that I would never take him alive," Virgil said. "And he said that he had only come in to find out if I had anything to do with the notices, and if I had, to kill me. But they were satisfied that I had not."

  The stolen mules were only a small matter in the course of daily life in Tombstone, but the confrontation between Virgil Earp and Frank McLaury marked the beginning of the animosity between the Earps and the cowboys. Now, the situation had changed, and Wyatt Earp was ready to make wages. In late July he received a serious job offer. Charlie Shibell, the sheriff of Pima County, wanted to make him a deputy for the area around Tombstone. Since Shibell would be based in Tucson, Wyatt and another deputy could pretty much run their own show in the area, receiving a cut of the taxes and a regular salary. It was a good job, and Wyatt Earp needed something steadier than turning cards in other men's faro banks. The offer came at a time when the cowboys were just beginning to grow into a threat, both to the Earps and to the community at large. The Earps never much liked being threatened and forced to take guff, and Wyatt may well have believed he was ready to become part of the action.

  The Epitaph lauded the decision: "The appointment of Wyatt Earp as Deputy Sheriff by Sheriff Shibell, is an eminently proper one, and we in common with the citizens generally congratulate the latter on his selection. Wyatt has filled various positions in which bravery and determination were requisites, and in every instance proved himself the right man in the right place."15

  But nothing was ever quite that simple in the complexities of southern Pima County. Almost from the time Wyatt Earp pinned on his new badge, he was in the midst of controversy.

  TOM
BSTONE SEEMED TO CHANGE DAILY. By mid-1880, wooden and adobe buildings replaced the tents that had lined the main business streets of Toughnut, Allen, and Fremont. Restaurants, saloons, butcher shops, and many types of mercantile stores moved into the newly crafted buildings that sprouted in the business district. The Bilicke family opened a premier hotel in September of 1879, starting small and adding rooms. By the time the Cosmopolitan was completed in 1880, the two-story brick building had fifty guest rooms, all furnished with bedroom sets of black walnut and rosewood. The Grand Hotel sprang up in mid-1880, its sixteen rooms fitted with walnut furniture. Around the perimeter, cabins were built to house miners and merchandisers who would call them home, at least for a time. Burgeoning Tombstone offered an odd combination of grandeur and grit. Dust and garbage blew through the streets in front of fine hotels and new shops, always with more buildings under construction. Mining engineers from San Francisco bumped shoulders with Texas cowhands on the streets of the village on the hill above the grama grass.

  It was from this wicked, dirty town that deputy sheriffs Wyatt Earp and Newton Babcock were charged with trying to control crime in the area, a challenge beyond realistic expectations. Earp assisted city marshal Fred White in keeping the town somewhat peaceful, but there were problems. As with most frontier towns, whiskey primed the order of things. In hard-drinking times, Tombstone was a hard-drinking town, and miners took their liquor stiff. Drunks caused constant problems, some minor, some murderous.

  Death came for the strangest reasons in Tombstone. One July day in 1880, Tom Waters purchased a blue-and-black-checked shirt and proudly wore it into the saloon, where he quickly received a heavy dose of ribbing for the unusual garment. Soured by the criticism and bolstered by a few shots of whiskey, Waters vowed revenge on the next man who jested about his new shirt. "Now, if anyone don't like what I've said let him get up, God damn him, I'm chief, I'm boss. I'll knock the first son of a bitch down that says anything about my shirt again."