Wyatt Earp: The Life Behind the Legend

by Casey Tefertiller

  Prostitutes' cribs still lined a block on Allen Street, and the San Jose House had its string of high-class women to entertain wealthier customers. Most of the principal saloons were also on Allen, and most had gambling rooms attached, filled with men intently making their wagers at keno, faro, or poker. The town boasted three major hotels; the Grand catered to transient travelers, while Brown's and the Cosmopolitan served more as rooming houses. By October of '81, Italian immigrants had arrived to open fruit markets, selling produce brought from Los Angeles. Just a year earlier, an apple would have been considered a delicacy. Several laundries opened, run by Chinese owners; about 150 Cornishmen worked the mines, which operated 24 hours a day. Brothels, bars, and gambling dens now shared the streets with fine restaurants and fairly elegant hotels. Well-made Eastern clothing could be purchased in the stores. By autumn of 1881, civilizing influences had hit town with force, bringing some trappings of city life and an air of refinement to at least a few locations.

  It was nearly a wonderful life. As the elite and working classes gathered, they shared a fear for survival from cowboy attacks and from Apache raids. Growing also was the realization that the lawmen were so busy battling each other they didn't always have time to battle the wrongdoers. Parsons received an invitation to a series of secret meetings in January and left only a cryptic record: "Town unsafe; some decisive steps should be taken."

  Two forces formed in town, the first the out-in-the-open Tombstone Rangers, an on-call band ready to ride out against Apache attacks. In whispers, most of the town knew of the second group, the one Parsons barely even discussed in his diary. They called it the Citizens Safety Committee. History gives them another name: vigilantes.

  "It is said that the committee is very strong and they propose to put an end to the nefarious business," the Tucson Journal reported. "No doubt if they carry their designs into execution there will be warm work for them, as this class of men are accustomed to danger and will not submit without a desperate struggle. It seems to us that the civil authorities of our sister county of Cachise ought to be able to enforce order and arrest criminals without necessity of resorting to mob law. It is better to suffer a temporary wrong than to bring measures outside the pale of all law and good government. It is true the provocation at times would seem to justify any action that will rid a section of the depredations of bad men, but mob law invariably causes suffering and loss to the innocent along with the guilty. It is better that ten bad men should escape than that one innocent person be sacrificed."

  The men who invested their money in Tombstone could not agree less. The San Francisco Exchange of October 8, 1881, carried the Journal story and responded: "The civil authorities, however, have shown themselves powerless to cope with those law-defying scoundrels. They are not able to enforce order and arrest criminals, and therefore the stranglers have become a necessity to that portion of Arizona Territory. Two or three prompt executions and the cowboy will become as meek as the product of the animal from which he takes his name. He is a bad canderon [blot] on Arizona, and nothing but the heroic treatment will eradicate him."

  It was this principle that would be debated in courtrooms and across gun barrels for the next year in Arizona and throughout the West. American justice believed in the concept of innocent until proven guilty and cherished the rights of the accused. In Tombstone, the rights of the accused did not matter nearly as much as the survival of the victims when much of the townsfolk saw themselves as potential victims.

  Cochise County's law-and-order advocates had grown sick of Behan's inaction. Parsons, the diminutive former bank teller, Mayor Clum, and many other top citizens vowed to back up the law if the lawless made their move to take over Tombstone. They swore in each member of the committee at a secret ceremony in which the inductee wore a black gown and mask, then kissed his six-shooter to complete the initiation.88 The vigilantes were the worst-kept secret in town. By September, even the Nugget would make brief mention of the committee, and Frank McLaury did not like the idea. He stopped Virgil Earp in the street to ask him about it.

  "I understand you are raising a vigilance committee to hang us boys," McLaury said, according to Virgil, who responded, "You boys?"

  "Yes, the McLaurys and Clantons and Hicks and Ringo and in fact all of us cowboys," McLaury said.

  "Frank, you remember the time that Curley Bill killed Fred White? Who guarded him that night, and run him to Tucson the next morning to keep the vigilance committee from hanging him?"

  "You boys," McLaury replied, according to Virgil.

  "Who saved Johnny-Behind-the-Deuce from being hung?"

  "You boys."

  "Now do you believe we belong to it?"

  "I can't help but believe the man that told me," McLaury replied. Virgil asked who that man was.

  "Johnny Behan. I'll tell you, it makes no difference what I do, I will never surrender my arms to you. I had rather die a-fighting than to be strangled."89

  Virgil Earp would tell the story in November, when McLaury would not be alive to respond. The mere formation of a vigilance committee proved a threat to the lawless element of Cochise County. By the late summer of 1881, the legal principles of due process under law seemed far less important than simply preserving order.

  With Commandant Felipe Neri and his troops on the Mexican border, Mexican targets became far more risky and the cowboys hit harder against the big American ranchers, such as the likes of T. W. Ayles, Charles Veil, and Henry Hooker. Hooker's extensive Sierra Bonita spread was the largest in the area. The Cattlegrowers Association apparently even put an illegal $1,000 bounty on Curley Bill's head.90 The rustlers still had their friends among the small ranchers, the butchers, and the saloon owners who profited from their deeds, but they were making more enemies than friends.

  The problem in Arizona was twofold. The cowboys held some degree of power by building at least a loose political alliance with Behan and other Democratic leaders, as shown by the voter fraud in the Paul-Shibell election and Ringo serving as a county delegate. More complicated, however, was that no one really quite understood whether or not the cowboys were organized or knew who served as their real leaders. At various times, Old Man Clanton, George Turner, Ike Clanton, John Ringo, and Curley Bill were all identified as the leaders. Wells, Fargo officials said in March of 1882 that the cowboys were a gang of about seventy-five under the leadership of Ike Clanton.91 At about the same time, Virgil Earp told the Examiner that there had been about two hundred cowboys, but about fifty had been killed, and they were under Ringo's leadership. Thornton, the Galeyville hotel manager and friend of Curley Bill, probably had the best understanding of the group when he said: "The cowboys have no chief, nor do they run in gangs, as is generally supposed. Curly Bill ... has no gang, and since his last partner shot him . . . Bill don't take well to partners. No, sir, the 'cowboys' don't herd together in droves, but come and go about their own personal business wherever they desire to go."92

  Acting Governor John Gosper even came to Tombstone for a firsthand evaluation. He spoke with Virgil Earp and Behan in September and filed a startling report to the secretary of state. It read in part:

  In Galeyville, San Simon and other points isolated from large places, the cow-boy element at times very fully predominates, and the officers of the law are at times either unable or unwilling to control this class of out-laws, sometimes being governed by fear, at other times by a hope of reward. At Tombstone ... I conferred with the Sheriff ... upon the subject of breaking up these bands of out-laws, and I am sorry to say he gave me but little hope of being able in his department to cope with the power of the cow-boys. He represented to me that the Deputy U.S. Marshal, resident of Tombstone, and the city Marshal for the same, and those who aided him (the Deputy Marshal) seemed unwilling to heartily co-operate with him (the Sheriff) in capturing and bringing to justice these out-laws.

  In conversation with Deputy U.S. Marshal, Mr. Earp, I found precisely the same spirit of complaint existing against Mr. Beha
n (the Sheriff) and his deputies.

  And back of this unfortunate fact-rivalry between the civil authorities, or an unwillingness to work together in full accord in keeping the peace-I found the two daily newspapers published in the city taking sides with the Deputy Marshal [Virgil Earp] and Sheriff [Behan] respectively; each paper backing its civil clique and condemning the other. And still back of all this, the unfortunate fact that many of the very beet law-abiding peace loving citizens have no confidence in the willingness of the civil officers to pursue and bring to justice that element of out-lawry so largely disturbing the sense of security, and so often committing highway robbery and smaller thefts.

  The opinion in Tombstone and elsewhere in that part of the Territory is quite prevalent that the civil officers are quite largely in league with the leaders of this disturbing and dangerous element.

  In the light of the few facts above given connected with the greatly unsettled state of affairs (and I have only touched the border) one of two results is sure to follow in our time. The cow-boys will come to control and "run" that part of our Territory with terror and destruction, and probably cause serious complications with our sister Republic Mexico, with which we are now in fullest peace; or the law-abiding citizens of that county will be compelled to organize vigilante committees to protect their persons and property. I am secretly informed that a movement of that kind is now on foot in that county.

  The greatest difficulty now in the way, perhaps of enforcing the law and bringing to justice these reckless spirits is the inability or indisposition of the civil officers of that particular county to do their duty.

  Something must be done, and that right early, or very grave results will follow. It is an open disgrace to the very name of American liberty and the peace and security of her citizens, that such a state of affairs should exist ... as is cursing certain portions of this frontier county. 93

  The situation had grown in dimension, and from all directions lawlessness became rampant. The Nugget on October 24 would editorialize strongly in favor of capital punishment, condemn the citizenry that opposed it, and demand stricter gun laws. "The arming of oneself in a peaceful community, as every well organized community is supposed to be, and walking about like a moving arsenal, is highly ridiculous and, as events demonstrate, exceedingly dangerous. Boys and men of all ages and conditions are armed, and at the first flash of anger the pistol is drawn and somebody shot down." Copies of the newspaper would probably still be sitting in a few barrooms two days later when the McLaury brothers rode into Tombstone.

  To compound the problem, most residents had trouble distinguishing the lawless from the lawful. Frank Stilwell, a deputy sheriff, seemed an unlikely candidate for a stage robber. Behan spun stories, told jokes, and charmed just about everyone in town. The McLaury brothers were well-liked, and most townsmen believed they were honest ranchers just making a living on the frontier. Weeks later, Examiner correspondent Ridgely Tilden still could not believe that seemingly honest ranchers were dangerous men. He wrote: "The McLowerys [sic] and Clantons were never, in any sense of the word, 'rustlers."'94

  Further complicating the problem were the persistent rumors that Holliday and perhaps even the Earps had been involved in stage robberies. In addition, a newspaper story tied Morgan Earp to a con game in Benson, most likely an inaccurate report but enough to further tarnish the Earps' reputation.95 Tombstone had fallen into one grand state of confusion, and most of the townsmen just wanted to avoid problems and get on with their own business.

  A MARCH TO DESTINY

  IKE CLANTON HAD SPENT FIVE MONTHS living in terror. The Earps possessed a weapon potentially more dangerous to Clanton than any pistol-they knew his secret; they knew that Ike and Frank McLaury had negotiated to turn over stage robbers Leonard, Head, and Crane for a reward. The Earps knew that Ike's life would be in jeopardy if word ever got back to Curley Bill and the most dangerous outlaws. Clanton and McLaury grew angry and came to Virgil Earp. "They said they could not live in this country an hour if Leonard's friends learned that they had plotted against him," Virgil told the San Francisco Examiner.'

  Fear continued to fester in Ike Clanton and the McLaurys as the summer moved into fall. Through July, August, September, and early October, word had not leaked out about the failed secret deal, but, by the Earp version, Ike always feared that one of the Earps would slip: Wyatt perhaps could confirm it to Marshall Williams or Morgan might tell their pal Holliday.

  At about 5 P.M. on October 24, Sheriff Behan's jailer, Billy Soule, went uptown on business, leaving assistant Charles Mason in charge of the prisoners, including Jim Sharp, Charles "Yank" Thompson, and Milt Hicks. Sharp was awaiting trial for killing a Mexican in Charleston, Thompson had 80 days left on a 150-day sentence for grand larceny, and Hicks was charged with rustling. A few moments later a boy delivered dinners for the prisoners, who had an appetite only for freedom. Mason unlocked the cell and Sharp stood near the door as the boy entered. Sharp turned quickly, catching Mason by the coat and pulling him into the cell. "We have been in here for some time. Come in and try it yourself a while," Sharp said as he pitched Mason in. Hicks darted out and ran for freedom while Thompson and Sharp began pushing the door against Mason's arm. Jerry Barton, another prisoner, stepped from inside the cell to push against the door and prevent Mason's arm from being broken. Mason threw a padlock at Thompson, hitting him on the cheek and drawing blood, before the prisoners locked the cell and raced out. Mason called frantically for help and finally drew the attention of a Chinese neighbor, who retrieved Soule.

  Quickly, Behan, Deputy Breakenridge, Frank Leslie, Morgan Earp, Wyatt Earp, and city marshal Virgil Earp were in the saddle to chase the escapees, only to be turned back by darkness. At eleven that night, Behan outfitted a posse with Virgil Earp and sheriff's deputies Dave Neagle and Breakenridge to visit the outlying ranches. They found no trace of the escapees. Behan and Virgil returned to town, while Neagle and Breakenridge continued the search.2 With the public already jarred by stage robberies and problems with the Apaches and the cowboys, the escape of three dangerous criminals exacerbated a tense situation. Between dances, sing-alongs, and fancy dinners, the new breed of Tombstoner had grown to believe that criminals could rarely be captured and even more rarely held for justice.

  Shortly after Virgil returned from the night search and went to sleep, Ike and Tom McLaury rode into town, still fretting that the Earps might reveal their past deal. Fifteen years later Wyatt would say, "Clanton was terrified at the thought of any third person knowing our bargain."3 Marshall Williams had made his drunken guess months earlier, and now Ike and Tom feared that the Earps had told Holliday, a one-time friend of Leonard who had at least a speaking acquaintance with the more notorious outlaws. Wyatt continued to deny that any of the Earps had revealed the deal, and finally he dispatched Morgan to Tucson to bring Doc Holliday back to Tombstone, apparently to satisfy Ike that no one had been blabbing.

  Morgan found Doc playing faro at the San Augustin Feast and Fair in Tucson's Levin's Park. Big-Nose Kate was behind Doc when Morgan arrived, and later wrote: "Morgan Earp came to the park, tapped Doc on the shoulder & said, Doc, we want you in Tombstone tomorrow, better go up this evening. Neither of them wanted me to go with them, Doc wanted to take me back to the hotel. I insisted on going back with them." Q

  Holliday returned on Saturday night, October 22, and Earp said he asked the dentist if he knew anything about Ike's accusation. Holliday said he did not. The next Tuesday night, Holliday found Ike in the lunchroom of the Alhambra Saloon and told him "he was a damned liar if he said so," according to Earp. Holliday continued to berate Clanton for several minutes.

  Wyatt sat at the counter munching on lunch while Morgan chatted up the bartender. Wyatt called to Morgan, who served as Virgil's special deputy, and told him to go stop the quarrel: "You're an officer-you should do something about that." Morgan climbed over the lunch counter and entered the room, snagging Doc by the arm and leading him into the street wit
h Ike following behind. Wyatt finished eating and stepped through the door to hear them still arguing outside.

  Virgil arrived to quell the conflict by threatening to arrest them if they didn't stop quarreling, Wyatt said later. The combatants separated, with Morgan returning home, Ike going off to the Grand Hotel, Virgil going across the street to the Occidental, and Holliday heading to the Oriental. Wyatt said he walked into the Eagle Brewery, where he had a faro game going that he had not closed. He remained in the Eagle for a few minutes and walked into the street, where he met Ike. "He asked me if I would take a walk with him, he wanted to have a talk with me. I told him I would if he did not go too far, that I was waiting for my game in the Brewery to close, as I had to take care of the money. We walked about halfway down the side of the brewery building on Fifth Street and stopped.

  "He told me when Holliday approached him in the lunch room that he was not fixed just right. He said that in the morning he would have a man-for-man, that this fighting talk had been going on for a long time, and he guessed it was about time to fetch it to a close. I told him I would fight no one if I could get away from it, because there was no money in it. He walked off and left me, saying, 'I will be ready for all of you in the morning.' I walked over to the Oriental. He come in, followed me in rather, and took a drink, having his six-shooter on and playing fight and saying, 'You must not think I won't be after you all in the morning.' He said he would like to make a fight with Holliday now. I told him Holliday did not want to fight, but only to satisfy him that this talk had not been made. About that time the man that is dealing my game closed it and brought the money to me. I locked it in the safe and started home. I met Holliday on the street between the Oriental and Alhambra. Myself and Holliday walked down Allen Street, he going to his room and I to my house, going to bed."'