Wyatt Earp: The Life Behind the Legend

by Casey Tefertiller

  As further incitement, the Star ran a letter from mine owner J. S. Browder praising Cruz, his former employee. "I know the man Florentino Cruz.... We always found Cruz to be a harmless and inoffensive man." Browder further condemned punishment without observing the legal technicalities. "I very much question whether law abiding people sanction the kind of justice which is administered from the muzzle of guns in the hands of Doc Holliday and the Earp party. "26

  Florentino may have seemed harmless to Browder, but he had been arrested late in 1880 on charges of horse stealing, and Earp would forever believe that there was no question that Cruz was indeed Indian Charlie, the lookout who watched while the triggermen killed Morgan. No matter the justification, however, Wyatt Earp had stepped beyond the law.

  All this talk of vendetta grew a little too strong for even the most ardent boosters of vigilantism. The San Francisco Exchange hoped for a bloody end to the whole affair:

  The Earp vendetta still booms. The latest dispatch from the seat of war tells of another murder by the Earp party-a Mexican named Florentine, whom the Earps suspected of being concerned in Morgan's murder. The Sheriff has enlisted the cowboys under his banner, and he himself evidently has no stomach for the job. Still the outlook is hopeful for the people of the Territory. When the cowboys and the Earps meet a sanguinary conflict is inevitable. It may fortunately happen that the slaughter on both sides will leave but a few survivors, and a big funeral, with the Earps and cowboys to furnish the remains, would be the lifting of a great weight from the minds of the citizens of Tombstone.27

  Across the West, newspapers gave daily reports of Wyatt Earp's Vendetta, and it held fascination for a nation that romanticized its tough law enforcers. Many Americans could identify with a man avenging the death of a brother killed by assassins, and the image emerged of Wyatt Earp as a noble but rogue officer. The image would continue to grow for more than a century.

  Even as this noble image grew among some elements of the populace, press reports continued to criticize the rogue lawman. Back in San Francisco, top officials of Wells, Fargo & Co. made a most uncharacteristic move. The usually circumspect executives sat down for an interview with the Examiner to provide unqualified backing for Wyatt Earp, once a loyal and trusted employee.

  The officials were not identified, but it is likely that Jim Hume sat in for the little talk. They described the cowboys as a gang of about seventy-five, "some of whom own ranches and are engaged in the legitimate raising of cattle. Others of them are cattle thieves, and for a change will occasionally rob a stage. The gang are under the leadership of Ike Clanton, and they have a large number of adherents in Tombstone, through whose countenance they are able to terrorize the town. In fact, it is stated that a leading official stands in with them whenever occasion arises." The reference, of course, was to Behan.

  "The majority of the best citizens of Tombstone, however, are in favor of the Earps, who have incurred the enmity of the cowboys simply because they refused to allow them to have their own way when they came to town on a protracted spree, Virgil Earp being Marshal of the place. Wyatt Earp is represented to be the brains of the Earp confederacy, now consisting of James, Virgil, Wyatt and Warren, Morgan having been killed."

  The executives said it was untrue that Wyatt was a professional gambler, then cited the petitions from Dodge City and Wichita to support his character.

  "From the above it will be seen that up to the time that Wyatt Earp was engaged in the fight which resulted in the death of Billy Clanton, Tom McLowry and Frank McLowry, he bore an excellent reputation, and the statement that he and his brothers were ever concerned in any of the stage robberies is pronounced by the officials of Wells, Fargo to be absolutely untrue. Doc Holliday, although a man of dissipated habits and a gambler, has never been a thief and was never in any way connected with the attempted stage robbery when Philpot [dic], the stage driver, was killed. For three-quarters of an hour after the stage passed the Wells, two and a half miles from Tombstone, he was seen at the latter place, so drunk that he was helped upon his horse, and the robbery occurred thirteen miles from Tombstone, so it was utterly impossible for him to be there.

  "Neither did he form a part of agent Williams' and detective Paul's posse afterward. The statement that he was present on the occasion of that robbery was put forth by the cowboys and their friends to throw further discredit upon the Earp brothers and their friends."

  The officials continued to detail incident by incident, pointing out that they had never telegraphed Wyatt about the reward for Crane, Leonard, and Head being "Dead or Alive"; such rewards are paid if the suspect is killed in the course of an arrest attempt. (They did not mention that the wire supposedly had gone to Marshall Williams.) They referred to the Nugget as "The Cowboy Organ," and decried the impact of the gang on southern Arizona.

  "These men have complete control of certain parts of the Territory, especially Tombstone and Cochise county, where one of the newspapers of the town, leased by a Deputy Sheriff until recently, was published in their interest."

  The officials detailed recent events, climaxing with Earp's repudiation of Behan in the streets of Tombstone. "Wyatt Earp has said that he would never surrender to Sheriff Behan, because he believed that if he was once in his power without arms, the Sheriff would allow the cowboys in the jail to murder him. Which party will come out victorious in the conflict it is difficult to tell, but that there will be more bloody work in Arizona from the well-known desperate tangle of the contending parties, there can be no doubt.""'

  For Wells, Fargo to come out with such an unqualified statement of support was unusual for the conservative company. It was certainly in response to newspaper editorials throughout the West condemning Wyatt Earp for becoming a law unto himself. Some element of public relations may have entered into the decision to present such a resounding show of support, but the company had little to gain by taking sides against an incumbent sheriff charged with protecting their shipments. Wells, Fargo definitely took a stand in voicing complete support for Deputy U.S. Marshal Wyatt S. Earp.

  Bob Paul apparently returned to Tombstone and refused to join Behan's cowboy band. Parsons, on March 23, seemed to have inside knowledge of the situation when he wrote: "Paul is here but will not take a hand. He is a true, brave man himself, and will not join the murderous posse here. If the truth were known, he would be glad to see the Earp party get away with all these murderous outfits.... Behan will get it yet." Paul returned to Tucson and said he did not pursue the Earps because the members of Behan's posse were mostly hostile to them, "and that a meeting meant bloodshed without any possibility of arrest." Paul said he expected the Earps to ride into Tombstone and surrender.

  Behan sought any means of striking at the Earps. On Thursday night he arrested Earp allies Dan Tipton and Charlie Smith for resisting a law officer and conspiracy. Bail was raised immediately, paid by Hatch and several others. A day later the two men were discharged because of a flaw in the arrest warrant.

  Behan quickly took to the saddle again, riding out with his posse. Yet they could not find Wyatt. Behan's actions grew suspect to some. Parsons wrote: "Mileage still counting up for our rascally Sheriff. He organizes posses, goes to within a mile of his prey and then returns. He's a good one." Behan and his posse were making a big dent in the budgets of Pima and Cochise counties.

  WITH INDIAN CHARLIE DEAD, the Earps began their ride back toward Tombstone. Still awaiting trial on the shooting of Morgan, Pete Spence sat in jail, armed and fearing retribution. The townsfolk were in a furor, hearing rumors that the Earp posse would ride in to kill Spence and hoping that there would not be some wild shootout on their streets.

  Reports told of two sheriffs' posses in pursuit of the Earps, one led by Behan and the other made up of Charleston cowboys, deputized for the chase. The Charleston posse rode into Contention on the 24th, and saloonkeeper George Hand recorded the incident in his diary: "The cowboys, 20 or more, have been prowling around all the morning. They are well mount
ed, well armed and seem intent on biz. They are in search for the Earp party who took breakfast two miles above here this morning."29 Curley Bill, the most notorious outlaw in the territory, led the posse and apparently represented himself as having been deputized by the sheriff -the Nugget identified him as a deputy. Although Behan would later deny that he had authorized Curley Bill to form his own posse, Behan had virtually given all the cowboys in the country a license to hunt Earps by deputizing the likes of Ringo and Fin Clanton.

  Wyatt needed money for his posse. He had the friends to deliver quick cash. Charlie Smith, freshly out of jail, met the Earp party outside Tombstone and Wyatt sent him back to town with a message to mine operator E. B. Gage asking for a thousand-dollar loan. Earp wanted it delivered the next day at a waterhole in the Whetstone Mountains known as Iron Springs.30 However, Smith made the mistake of stopping at the Alhambra to buy a bottle of whiskey, and Deputy Dave Neagle detained him again. Two other men were assigned to carry the cash to the little watering hole. Tony Kraker and Dick Wright-Whistling Dick-made the trip to Iron Springs on Friday morning, March 24, while the Earps were coming from another direction.

  The Earp party rode on to Iron Springs, leaving Warren behind to watch for a messenger with money. On that hot spring day, Wyatt loosened his cartridge belt and let it sag down at the side. The party rode toward the little mudhole of Iron Springs and began to descend a sloping trail. When the waterhole came into sight, the riders found a surprise.

  "As we got near the place I had a presentiment that something was wrong, and unlimbered my shotgun," Earp said. "Sure enough, nine cowboys sprang up from the bank where the spring was and began firing at us." One of them was Curley Bill. A bullet hit Vermillion's horse and the animal fell atop Texas Jack's leg.

  Earp leaped off his horse and threw the bridle over his arm. "I expected Holliday and my companions to do the same thing and make a fight," he said. "I was surprised when I looked around to see them disappearing in a cloud of dust as fast as their horses could carry them. My horse reared and tugged at the bridle in such a wild fashion that I could not regain the saddle. I reckoned that my time had come. But if I was to die, I proposed that Curley Bill at least should die with me."

  The rustler fired rapidly with his shotgun, tearing into the skirts of Earp's long coat. Earp brought his own shotgun to his shoulder and pointed directly at Curley Bill's heart, then fired both barrels. "His chest was torn open by the big charge of buckshot. He yelled like a demon as he went down," Earp said.31

  This became one of the great images of the Earp legend -Wyatt leaping off his horse with gunfire blasting around him, his friends retreating, and bullets tearing through his clothes.

  With his shotgun empty, Earp reached for the rifle in the scabbard on his saddle as the outlaws fired from the thicket. The firing so frightened his horse that it reared repeatedly, keeping the Winchester beyond Earp's reach. Earp reached for his six-shooter, only to find the cartridge belt had slipped down around his thighs, and the guns had worked their way to his back. He pulled a pistol and fired into the thicket of cottonwoods, wounding outlaw Johnny Barnes. Wyatt then tried to mount his horse.

  "When I tried to get astride I found that [the belt] had fallen down over my thighs, keeping my legs together," Earp said. "I was perched up there, trying to pull my belt higher with one hand."

  It became a strange, almost comical, sight as Wyatt tried to balance in one stirrup as the horse twisted. He grasped the saddle with one hand and tugged his cartridge belt with the other, his nose almost against the horn. His peculiar gyrations would have made Earp a most difficult target to hit. One of the rustlers' bullets knocked the saddle horn loose, striking between Earp's hand and nose, and he nearly fell off the horse. Another bullet hit the heel of his boot with such force he believed he had been shot. Finally, he pulled up the cartridge belt and mounted the horse. With bullets flying around him, he stopped long enough to pick up Vermillion, then galloped back to join his party.

  Earp said his left foot and leg went numb, and he rode back believing he had been shot in his heel. It was not until he pulled off his boot that he realized he had not been touched by a bullet. "When I got to the ground, I found that the skirts of my coat, which had been held out at my sides by my leather holsters, had been riddled into shreds." When Earp rode up, Holliday grabbed him gently by the arm and said, "You must be shot all to pieces." The party was stunned to find he was untouched. Holliday wanted to mount a charge against the cowboys. Earp said he had had enough. "If you fellows are hungry for a fight you can go on and get your fill," he said and turned his horse in the other direction.

  "Our escape was miraculous," Holliday said.32 "The shots cut our clothes and saddles and killed one horse, but did not hit us. I think we would have been all killed if God Almighty wasn't on our side."

  Wright and Kraker, carrying Wyatt's loan money, rode up to Iron Springs but failed to find Warren. Instead, they discovered several cowboys in the camp where they expected to find the Earps. The outlaws pointed their guns at the pair, and Kraker yelled, "What are you doing here, you lop-eared Missourian?" in his Austrian accent. Wright whistled up a phony story about hunting for lost mules, then they joined the rustlers for a meal and rode out without revealing they were carrying funds for Wyatt Earp's posse.33 At the outlaw camp, Kraker and Wright learned the amazing story of the shotgun duel between Wyatt and Curley Bill. Without yet delivering the thousand dollars to Earp, they returned to Tombstone and met with a Nugget reporter who printed an account of the battle from an unnamed source almost exactly as Earp would tell it in coming years.34

  Word of the gunfight filtered quickly back to Tombstone, with details reported inaccurately. The Epitaph placed the battle at Burleigh Springs, miles away from the actual site, apparently in an attempt to cloak the real location of the Earp band. The Nugget printed a report that Wyatt Earp had been killed or badly wounded.

  Parsons heard his news from other sources and wrote: "Rumors of battle and four of Earp party killed received this a.m. Discredited. I got strictly private news though later that 'Curly Bill' has been killed at last by the Earp party, and none of the latter hurt. Sheriff Behan has turned all of the cowboys loose against the Earps and, with this lawless element, is trying to do his worst. I am heartily glad at this repulse, and hope the killing is not stopped with the cutthroat named. Feeling is growing here against the ring, sheriff, etc., and it would not surprise me to know of a necktie party some fine morning. Things seem to be coming to this pass. Then let it come. The time is ripe and rotten ripe for change."

  The "Battle of Burleigh" drew headlines throughout the West, with newspapers from San Francisco to San Diego printing one set of false rumors one day, another the next. The Epitaph had the first report of the event, with this description of the Earp charge into the cowboy fusillade: "Like a thunderbolt from the hand of Jove, the six desperate men charged up on their assailants like the light brigade at Balaklava and, within easy reach, returned the fire, under which one man went down never to rise again. The remaining eight fled to the brush and regained their horses, when they rode away toward Charleston as if the King of Terrors was at their heels in hot pursuit." The report, mixed images and all, went out on the Associated Press wires and received wide play through the country. Some papers condemned Wyatt's direct but questionable style. Others celebrated it.35

  "So Curly Bill has at last been gathered in," the San Francisco Exchange wrote. "Arizona tourists will miss the cheerful presence of Bill when they stop over night at Tombstone or Tucson. His merry pranks were the talk of the town and the newspapers. His playful exhibition of his skill with the pistol never failed to delight those communities which the peripatetic William favored with his presence. . . . This makes the fourth [actually third] the Earp party has scored to the cowboys' one. We are beginning to doubt the courage and invincibility of that much-talked-of class, and are willing to give long odds on the murderous superiority of the Earp crowd."36

  After the
fight, the cowboy survivors quickly took away Curley Bill's body and buried it, probably at the nearby Patterson ranch.37 They then began a campaign of misinformation that denied the outlaw leader's death. This could have been done to prevent the Earp band from collecting a rumored $1,000 bounty placed on Curley Bill's head by Henry Clay Hooker and other members of the Cattlegrowers Association, or to keep Wyatt Earp from receiving public acclaim for shotgunning the toughest and most desperate villain in Cochise County. The cowboys and the Nugget would consistently deny Curley Bill's death, reporting he had actually been miles away from Iron Springs at the time. They also said he used the rumor of his murder as an opportunity to move to Texas or Colorado for a new start on a clean life.

  In reality, there is little doubt that Earp actually killed Curley Bill. Outlaw Johnny Barnes, wounded at the scene, would confirm it to Fred Dodge. Wyatt Earp repeatedly told the same story, and both Doc Holliday and Warren Earp were quoted in newspaper interviews repeating Earp's story. And while several Curley Bill sightings were made around the West-he got around then nearly as much as Elvis does now-none could be confirmed beyond what one old-timer told another. For the outlaw to disappear and leave Earp claiming the kill simply does not make sense.

  After the gunfight, Wyatt and his band remained in the hills on Friday night, then came to the outskirts of Tombstone long enough for a Saturday evening meal. Parsons made note of the strange sounds: "Some long and continued firing right by the house Saturday evening, so that the whistling bullets were heard, is now accounted for. It was signalling going on between the Earps' friends and themselves undoubtedly. I went out several times to see what was up. Discovered nothing." According to one report, some of the cowboys left Iron Springs and stole four mules from a Mexican near Calabasas then robbed two Chinese restaurateurs of $200 and their clothes before sending the cooks on a naked scamper as the cowboys fired their guns.38