Wyatt Earp: The Life Behind the Legend

by Casey Tefertiller

  Had Ike been in Kelly's saloon at about 10 A.M. before the gunfight? "I was."

  Didn't Ike say in the presence of Kelly and Joseph Stump something to the effect that "the Earp crowd and Holliday insulted me the night before when I was unarmed. I have fixed or heeled myself now, and they have got to fight on sight"? the defense asked.

  "I remember that there was very near that language used in Kelly's saloon. I think it was about the hour of 10 A.M.," Ike responded, admitting he had indeed threatened the Earps on the day of the shootout.23

  The defense then delved into the deal between Clanton and the Earps to deliver stage robbers Leonard, Head, and Crane to the law. Clanton said he had discussed it once with Wyatt Earp and had promised never to mention it again. He said he did not accept Earp's offer.

  Then Clanton came up with a most interesting version of the story: "I asked him why he was so anxious to capture these fellows. He said his business was such that he couldn't afford to capture them, that he would have to kill them or else leave the country, that he and his brother Morg had piped off to Doc Holliday and William Leonard the money that was going off on the stage. They [the robbers] were stopping around the country so damned long that he was afraid some of them would be caught and squeal on him. I then told him I would see him again before I left town. I never talked to Wyatt Earp any more about it." Ike used the colorful colloquialism "piped off" to mean the Earps had stolen the money and transferred it to Holliday before the stage left town.

  Clanton's statement would become the fulcrum of anti-Earp debate for a century. Could Wyatt Earp have been so foolish as to actually tell Ike Clanton he was involved in the stage robbery? Could Ike have been clever enough to make up the story on his own? Could Wyatt have purposely deceived Clanton to make him think the Earps were in league with the cowboys? And the biggest difficulty with the story is that no money was actually missing from the stage. Ike's courtroom testimony would divide Tombstone in 1881 and remain controversial for generations. - - - -- - - - - - - --

  Defense attorneys frantically tried to catch Clanton. They asked if Wyatt Earp had not called him into the yard behind the Oriental Saloon and told him of the plan to catch the robbers so Wyatt could have the glory to enhance his run for sheriff, while Clanton and his friends would receive the cash reward.

  "I never had no conversation with him in regard to that, in the back yard of the Oriental," Ike responded. "I never had no conversation with him in company with Virgil Earp, Frank McLaury and Joseph Hill. I never heard him say anything about running for sheriff. I never heard him say he wanted to catch them."

  Ike constantly denied he had agreed to any deal with the Earps, although during the coroner's inquest a few days earlier he had said: "They don't like me; we once had a transaction, myself and the Earps."

  The defense kept pounding away at Clanton, asking about the deal, asking about the purported telegram from Wells, Fargo saying they would indeed pay for the robbers, dead or alive. They even presented Clanton with a copy of the missive. Clanton steadfastly denied ever seeing such a telegram or being involved with such a plan. Then the defense brought up another telegram: Hadn't Ike wired to his brothers, Fin and Billy, in Charleston to come with help? Ike denied it. With that, testimony ended on Saturday afternoon, and Ike Clanton was allowed to go home and rest his aching head.

  Clanton returned to the witness stand Monday morning and was greeted by a series of questions about the gun battle. "When you took hold of Wyatt Earp's arm at some stage of the shooting, did he not say to you, 'This fight has commenced and you must either fight or get away'?" the attorneys asked.

  "He did not make any such remark. The only thing he said was 'Throw up your hands,' and cocked his pistol and stuck it at my belly," Clanton responded. He said no shots had been fired when Wyatt took aim at him, and that he grabbed Wyatt and pushed him around the building after about four or five blasts. By Ike's latest story, Wyatt could not have fired any shots in the first fusillade, while earlier he claimed Wyatt had fired.

  The defense teased Clanton, asking, "How many head of cattle have you secured by legitimate means?" Clanton said he and the McLaurys had been partners on seven hundred head, all of which he had acquired honestly, by raising or by purchasing.

  Then defense returned to the Boyle issue, and this time they got the bar- keep's name right. "Do you know a Ned Boyle, who is bartender at the Oriental?"

  "Yes, sir," Clanton answered.

  Defense asked if Clanton recalled saying to Boyle, "As soon as the Earps show themselves on the street, they had to fight." And was Ike holding a pistol when he made this comment?

  "I don't remember talking to Ned Boyle about it. I think I saw him that morning. I did not make the remark stated. I don't think I said that the Earps had to fight, for the reason that there were three of them that I never had an unpleasant word with in my life. I don't remember having a pistol in my hands."z4 Boyle would have a much different recollection when he finally came to the stand two weeks later.

  In redirect questioning by the prosecution, Ike told the remarkable story of how Doc Holliday, too, had confided in him his greatest secret. "Doc Holliday asked me if I had seen William Leonard and his party. I told him I had seen them the day before, and they told me to tell Doc Holliday that they were going to the San Jose mountains. He then asked me if I had had a talk with them. I told him, 'only for a moment or two.' He told me that he would see me later in the evening. This was in front of the Cosmopolitan Hotel. Later I met him at Jim Vogan's place and after talking with him awhile, he asked me if Leonard had told me how he [Holliday] came to kill Bud Philpott. I told him that Leonard had told me nothing about it. He [Holliday] told me that Bob Paul, the messenger, had the lines and Bud Philpott had the shotgun, and Philpott made a fight and got left. About that time someone came along and the conversation ended. I told Doc Holliday not to take me into his confidence, that I did not wish to know any more about it. Doc Holliday told me he was there at the killing of Bud Philpott. He told me that he shot Philpott through the heart."

  Ike turned to the court and said, "Scratch that out and put it down just as Doc Holliday said." Then he resumed: "He said he saw 'Bud Philpott, the damn son of a bitch tumble off the cart.' That is the last conversation that I ever had with Holliday in connection with the affair. He has often told me to tell Leonard, Head, and Crane if I saw them, that he was all right."

  Without being questioned, Ike gave his version of his conversation with Wyatt Earp, saying he had been promised $6,000 for helping capture Leonard, Head, and Crane, then telling of a meeting with Morgan: "The next morning after my conversation with Wyatt Earp I met Morg Earp in the Alhambra Saloon. He asked me what conclusion I had come to in regard to my conversation with Wyatt. I told him I would let him know before I left town. He approached me again in the same place, about four or five days after this. We had considerable talk about it then at that time, but I only remember that he told me that 10 or 12 days before Bud Philpott was killed that he had piped off $1,400 to Doc Holliday and Bill Leonard, and that Wyatt Earp had given away a number of thousand dollars, I think $29,000, the day Bud Philpott was killed-which sum was going off on the train that night. We talked a while longer, but I don't remember what was said, only I told him I was not going to have anything to do with it. I meant I would have nothing to do helping to capture Crane, Leonard, and Head." Ike quickly corrected himself from "capture" to "kill." The defense asked that the change be noted, and Judge Spicer agreed before Ike continued.25

  "Virg Earp told me to tell Billy Leonard at one time not to think he was trying to catch him when they were running him, and he told me to tell Billy that he had thrown Paul and the posse that was after him off his track at the time they left Helms' ranch, at the foot of the Dragoon Mountains, and that he had taken them on to a trail that went down into New Mexico, and that he had done all he could for him, and he wanted Billy Leonard to get Head and Crane out of the country, for he was afraid that one of them might be
captured and get all his friends into trouble."

  When asked why he had kept this stunning information a secret, Ike valiantly replied, "I made a solemn promise to them never to tell. I would not have told had I not been put on the stand. I found out from Wyatt Earp's conversation that he was offering money to get men killed that were his confederates for fear that Leonard, Crane and Head would get captured and tell on him. I knew after Leonard and Head were killed that some of them would murder me for what they had told me."26

  Ike Clanton left the stand that Monday afternoon portraying himself as the man who, unarmed, bravely tried to tackle Wyatt Earp and honorably kept his promise to the villains who killed his brother. It was, simply, too much for Judge Spicer to believe.

  Apparently after leaving the witness stand on Monday, Ike and Behan jointly took out a $500 loan. While the reasons for such a strange action are subject to speculation, it seems plausible that an immediate cash influx was needed to fund the prosecution. In this whole unlikely series of events, one of the strangest occurences is that the county sheriff would help Ike Clanton secure a loan.27

  Ike returned to the stand Tuesday morning to face Fitch and Drum and a few unsettling questions. Ike swore he had never told the secret before stepping on the stand, but, the defense asked, didn't he confide it to the prosecution attorneys?

  "I did communicate it to my counsel before yesterday noon, but not until I was put on the stand as a witness here; I have never told it to any other person," Ike replied.

  But, the defense queried, hadn't he told the same story to county recorder Al Jones and his deputy three days earlier?

  "I did," Ike answered, making his vow of silence no longer seem so solemn.

  And had Leonard, Head, or Crane ever said Holliday was part of the stage robbery?

  "Bill Leonard afterward told me that if Doc Holliday had not been there and drunk, that Philpott would not have been killed."

  The defense pressed on, inducing Clanton to detail his meetings with Holliday and Wyatt, Virgil, and Morgan Earp to discuss their roles in the stage robbery. Then, in a flight of sarcasm, the defense asked, "Did not Marshall Williams, the agent of the Express company at Tombstone, state to you ... that he was personally concerned in the attempted stage robbery and the murder of Philpott?"

  Spicer sustained the quick objection, but the sarcasm continued.

  "Did not James Earp, a brother of Virgil, Morgan, and Wyatt, also confess to you that he was [a] murderer and stage robber?"

  Objection sustained. But the defense had made its point: Why, on earth, would all the Earps have chosen to take Ike Clanton into their confidence on an issue so sensitive when they knew he could become their personal hangman? The Earps-all the Earps, not just the impetuous Morgan-must be absolute fools to do such a thing. Either that, or Ike Clanton had just told a series of lies so enormous that nothing he said could be believed. The prosecution case that seemed so sure after the seemingly credible testimony of Behan unraveled with Ike on the stand.

  Years later, Fitch would confirm this when he told Colorado journalist E. D. Cowen: "The witnesses for the prosecution were the best witnesses for the defense. "28

  Before Ike Clanton took the stand, the prosecution had presented enough testimony to have the Earps and Holliday bound over for trial. When Clanton walked off Tuesday afternoon, the entire prosecution case had become suspect. The man who had provoked the fight, then run away, had undermined the effort to hang Wyatt Earp.

  The defense still had a difficult decision ahead-whether to parade witnesses at this preliminary hearing or wait to give the whole show at a court trial. In Tombstone's tense atmosphere, this was not so simple a choice as it seemed. Both sides apparently feared their witnesses could be murdered if they came to testify, and for the defense to put on a complete case would amount to giving the cowboys a hit list if Clanton and his cronies were so inclined.

  Fitch and his associates determined to try their case before Spicer, an attempt to prevent the Earps and Holliday from facing the uncertainties of appearing before an Arizona jury. The first man on the stand would be Wyatt Earp, following an unusual plan set out by his attorneys. Earp answered a few preliminary questions-his name, age, length of stay in Tombstone-then gave his occupation as saloonkeeper. He began reading from a long prepared statement, a surprise to the prosecution.

  The objections began, with Price and associates charging misuse of a statute. Arizona's territorial laws allowed a defendant in a preliminary hearing to make a statement in his behalf without facing cross-examination. The prosecution said this skirted the intent of the statute, contending the law meant an oral statement, not a carefully prepared statement read before the court.

  Spicer ruled that the statute "was very broad, and under it he felt that the accused could make any statement he pleased whether previously prepared or not," the Nugget reported. Earp then read from the manuscript, and he would not face cross-examination from prosecution attorneys.29

  Wyatt Earp outlined a history of confrontations between the law and the Clantons and McLaurys. He told of the army mule theft that led to the McLaurys' earliest threats against the Earps. He spoke of the ill-fated deal to enlist Ike Clanton's and Frank McLaury's help in catching the stage robbers, a plan he said leaked out only because the drunken Marshall Williams sent the telegram and then guessed at Clanton's and McLaury's involvement. Ike Clanton and Frank McLaury believed the Earps had given them away. He said the animosity grew after the arrests of Spencer and Stilwell for stage robbery.

  "The McLaurys and Clantons have always been friends of Stilwell and Spencer, and they laid the whole blame for their arrest on us, though the fact is we only went as a sheriff's posse," Earp told the court. "After we got in town with Spencer and Stilwell, Ike Clanton and Frank McLaury came in. Frank McLaury took Morgan Earp into the street in front of the Alhambra, where John Ringo, Ike Clanton and the two Hicks boys were also standing by, when Frank McLaury commenced to abuse Morgan Earp for going after Spencer and Stilwell. Frank McLaury said he would never speak to Spencer again for being arrested by us. He said to Morgan: 'If you ever come after me, you will never take me.' Morgan replied if he ever had the occasion to go after him, he would arrest him. Frank McLaury then said to Morgan, 'I have threatened you boys' lives, and a few days ago had taken it back, but since this arrest it now goes.' Morgan made no reply and walked off."

  Wyatt Earp continued to relate a trail of misdeeds by the men he had faced across the barrel of a gun. The McLaurys, the Clantons, Joe Hill, and Ringo had threatened to kill the Earps, he said. Marshall Williams and a half-dozen others had told him of the death threats.30 "I knew all those men were desperate and dangerous men, that they were connected with outlaws, cattle thieves, robbers and murderers," Wyatt Earp said. "I knew of the McLaurys stealing six government mules and also cattle, and when owners [sic] went after them - finding his stock on the McLaury boys' ranch-that he was driven off, and told that if he ever said anything about it they would kill him, and he has kept his mouth shut until several days ago for fear of being killed.... I heard of Ringo shooting a man down in cold blood near Camp Thomas. I was satisfied Frank and Tom McLaury killed and robbed Mexicans in Skeleton Canyon two or three months ago, and I naturally kept my eyes open, and I did not intend that any of the gang should get the drop on me if I could help it."

  He told his version of what had happened the night before the shootout when Holliday and Clanton quarreled at the Alhambra, with Morgan Earp escorting Holliday from the saloon. According to Wyatt's testimony, Ike Clanton was wearing his six-shooter when he followed him to the Oriental and said, "You must not think I won't be after you all in the morning." Clanton wanted to fight Holliday immediately, but Earp said Holliday wanted no fight. Wyatt left and walked Holliday, "who was pretty tight," to Fly's boardinghouse, next to the lot that would soon become the site of the gun battle.31

  Earp told his version of the events of the next day; of Ike's threats in Judge Wallace's court a few hours b
efore the gunfight, and of the confrontation with Tom McLaury. By Earp's account, McLaury said, "If you want to make a fight, I will make a fight with you anywhere," before Wyatt slapped McLaury and drew his pistol. "I said, 'Jerk your gun and use it.' He made no reply and I hit him over the head with my six-shooter and walked away down to Hafford's Corner ... and got a cigar," Earp said.

  Wyatt told of meeting Behan on his march down Fremont Street. "I heard Behan say to Virgil, 'Earp, for God's sake don't go down there for you will get murdered.' Virgil replied, 'I am going to disarm them,' he being in the lead. When Morgan and I came up to Behan, he said 'I have disarmed them.' When he said this, I took my pistol which I had in my hand under my coat, and put it in my overcoat pocket."

  Wyatt said the McLaurys and Billy Clanton were standing in a row against Harwood's house, with Ike Clanton, Billy Claiborne, and a man he did not know-probably West Fuller-in the middle of the lot. "I saw that Billy Clanton, Frank and Tom McLaury had their hands by their sides. Frank McLaury's and Billy Clanton's six-shooters were in plain sight. Virgil said, 'Throw up your hands, I have come to disarm you.' Billy Clanton and Frank McLaury commenced to draw their pistols. At the same time Tom McLaury threw his hand to his right hip, throwing his coat open like that." Wyatt displayed the motion.

  "I had my pistol in my overcoat pocket, where I put it when Behan told us he had disarmed the other parties. When I saw Billy Clanton and Frank McLaury draw their pistols, I drew my pistol. Billy Clanton leveled his pistol on me, but I did not aim at him. I knew that Frank McLaury had the reputation of being a good shot and a dangerous man and I aimed at Frank McLaury. The first two shots which were fired were fired by Billy Clanton and myself, he shooting at me and I at Frank McLaury. I do not know which shot was fired first, we fired almost together. The fight then became general.