Wyatt Earp: The Life Behind the Legend

by Casey Tefertiller

  Cochise County was distracted by another murder on Saturday, when Martin Ruter Peel took a bullet from two masked men at the Tombstone Milling and Mining Co. office near Charleston. Behan, busy with his Earp chase, left Billy Breakenridge to deal with the killing of Judge Bryant L. Peel's son.

  Newly appointed Territorial Governor Frederick A. Tritle arrived in Tombstone on Monday, and enjoyed a fine reception in the midst of the Arizona War. Tritle discussed the situation with local officials and stayed overnight with Milton Clapp, a member of the Citizens Safety Committee. Tritle had been a former partner of William Murray, who had offered Virgil Earp a vigilante force on the day of the gunfight in Tombstone and was clearly aligned with Clum's law-andorder faction. After Tritle left town, the Tucson Citizen reported on his observations:

  He found matters in a very chaotic condition. There is a general feeling of insecurity, owing to the evident powerlessness or unwillingness of the civil authorities to afford protection to life and property. The condition of affairs is insurrectionary and processes of law cannot be served without violence. A virtual reign of terror exists, which makes peaceable, law-abiding citizens unwilling to serve as posse and stifles a free expression of opinion upon the tragic occurrences of the past few weeks.

  Tritle took action, raising a posse to help deputy U.S. Marshal Jackson, recently appointed to the post. He also urged Tombstone citizens to set up their own defense fund to pay special deputies, then wired President Arthur to explain, "the utter failure of the civil authority and the anarchy prevailing; the international trouble likely to grow out of this cattle thieving along the border, the fact that business is paralyzed and the fairest valleys in the Territory are kept from occupation by the presence of the cowboys."39

  By this time, Wyatt Earp was not drawing too fine a point on the legalities of his actions. And while he would forever maintain he was functioning as a deputy marshal, hunting stage robbers and holding a warrant for Curley Bill, no evidence of such remains. Wyatt Earp was making his own law.

  Charlie Smith joined the little group outside Tombstone. The addition of Smith brought the total of Earp's posse to six, with the two Earps, Holliday, Texas Jack, and Turkey Creek Jack. The band left the Tombstone area and rode into the Dragoons, where they boarded a westbound passenger train and searched the cars, apparently expecting to find a friendly messenger delivering money to them.40 They continued on to a ranch owned by brothers Jim and Hugh Percy, where they hoped to find a meal and a place to sleep, but the Percy brothers obviously feared cowboy retribution if Wyatt Earp were found on the premises.

  "We're for you boys, all right, but if certain people knew you had stayed here, they'd give us the worst of it," one of the brothers said. The Earps would learn later that two of Behan's deputies, Barney Riggs and Frank Hereford, were hiding in the barn during the visit.41

  Earp's party napped, then rode on to the Hooker ranch for a little rest in a place that would offer sanctuary. Hit hard by rustler raids, Hooker supported Earp and sided with him against Behan. More important, Hooker was not intimidated by the threats of a cowboy gang coming to his Sierra Bonita Ranch. The Earp horses had grown fatigued from the long rides, and men and beasts needed time to rest.

  Back in Tombstone, Deputy Sheriff Breakenridge, left behind by Behan to run the office with two other deputies, learned that two wanted outlaws, Zwing Hunt and Arthur Boucher, alias Billy Grounds and nicknamed "Curley Bill's Kid," were staying at the Chandler Milk Ranch eight miles outside town. The Epitaph described the two as "notorious hard cases, the worst of the types of cowboy rustlers," and some suspected they had killed Peel.42 Breakenridge had warrants for their arrest on other charges, and he led his citizen posse to the dairy, ready for a fight. In the ensuing shootout, Deputy John Gillespie was killed, and deputies Edward Allen and Jack Young were wounded. Hunt and Grounds were badly wounded. Tombstone townsfolk again began fearing a cowboy vengeance raid.

  "Calky times, very," Parsons wrote. "14 murders and assassinations in ten days. More than one a day. A hanging bee anticipated tonight, but not carried out. Cowboy raid on town expected tonight. Things quiet thus far. The two cowboys shot, Hunt and Grounds, were taken first to undertakers and kept awhile, but not dying quick enough, were removed to hospital. A regular epidemic of murder is upon us. What and when the end will be, God only knows."

  The end came quickly for Grounds. Hunt recovered sufficiently from his injuries to escape Behan's custody, as many did, when his uncle walked him out of the unguarded hospital.

  Martin Peel's murder a few days earlier would officially be listed as unsolved, and the dead man's father, Judge Bryant L. Peel, made an emotional call to the people of Cochise County to put down the lawlessness:

  To the People of Tomhetone: Perhaps I am not in a condition to express a clear, deliberate opinion, but I would say to the good citizens of Cochise county there is one of three things you have to do. There is a class of cut-throats among you and you can never convict them in court. You must combine and protect yourselves and wipe them out or you must give up the country to them, or you will be murdered one at a time, as my son has been.43

  Peel's grief-stricken cry crystallized the fear and feeling of the terrified town.

  WYATT EARP TRADED HIS FATIGUED HORSES for fresh mounts at Hooker's Sierra Bonita and languished over a long meal happily free of trail dust. Earp said he took his first drink of hard liquor in Arizona while he waited at the ranch. Off in the distance a brown cloud indicated that several riders were headed for the ranch, and both Earp and Hooker knew who was coming. Behan had left Tombstone Monday morning. One of his deputies had visited the Percy ranch earlier and discovered Earp's destination. Behan rode off toward Hooker's, and a confrontation seemed imminent. Earp decided to choose the battle site and led his band to a bluff a few miles from the ranch. There he waited, expecting the conflict to come at any moment.

  What followed would be reported very differently by Hooker's side and by Harry Woods in his comments to his old pals at the Nugget. By the Nugget version, Hooker refused to provide any information. He said he didn't know where the Earps were and wouldn't tell even if he did, concluding with "Damn the officers and damn the law." Hooker provided food but refused to supply horses. After breakfast, Behan and Woods went to Fort Grant, ten miles distant, with the intention of hiring government scouts to trail the Earps. However, the commander informed Behan that he had discharged the Apache scouts a few days earlier. Behan and Woods were unable to find the Earps' trail, so they rode off on another search, then returned to Hooker's, where Henry Hooker informed them that the Earp party had been better armed and would have their way with Behan's posse. According to Woods, Behan again bravely went off searching for the Earps, without finding a trace. The report concluded with an editorial comment: "Under-sheriff Woods speaks in the highest terms of the treatment of the posse by the citizens of both Cochise and Graham counties; with the single exception already noted, Mr. H. C. Hooker of the Sierra Bonita ranch, a man whom from the large property interest he has in the country, would naturally be supposed to be in favor of upholding the constituted authorities and the preservation of law and order."44

  Not surprisingly, Hooker and his ranch hands told a very different version. This time, Behan and Woods don't quite come out as noble heroes bravely searching for the cowering Earps. According to the Hooker version, Earp and his little band rode into the Sierra Bonita and were given food, fresh horses, and hospitality. After a meal, despite Hooker's invitation to make the fight at the ranch, Wyatt chose to make his defense elsewhere-the other location would provide a better battle site and would not involve Hooker in the affair. On the evening of March 27, they rode out and set up on the little bluff about three miles from the ranch, an ideal spot to await Behan because they could see riders approaching from all directions.

  A Hooker ranch hand told the Epitaph that "the next morning the sheriff and his posse rode up to the house of Mr. Hooker and DEMANDED refreshments for themselves and be
asts which was freely granted to them.... Sheriff Behan asked Mr. Hooker if he knew the whereabouts of the Earp party. Mr. Hooker replied that he did not know and that if he did he would not tell him. Sheriff Behan then said, 'You must be upholding murderers and outlaws then.'

  "'No sir, I am not. I know the Earps and I know you and I know they have always treated me like gentlemen; damn such laws and damn you and damn your posse. They are a set of horse thieves and outlaws,"' Hooker said, and told Behan he should be ashamed to be in such company.

  One of Behan's posse members took offense and said, "Damn the son of a bitch, he knows where they are and let us make him tell."

  Hooker was not armed, and Billy Whelen, the ranch foreman, stepped up beside his boss with a Winchester in his hand and said, "You can't come here into a gentleman's yard and call him a son of a bitch. Now you skin it back. Skin it back. If you are looking for a fight and come here to talk that way, you can get it before you find the Earps. You can get it right here."

  Hooker turned to Behan and said, "These are a pretty set of fellows you have got with you; a set of horse thieves and cut-throats."

  Behan and Woods responded quickly. "They are not our associates, they are only here on this occasion with us."

  "Well, if they are not your associates I will set an extra table for you and set them by themselves," Hooker responded. He fed the posse, with Behan and Woods at one table and Clanton and the rest at another. After breakfast, Behan went to the stable and told Whelen, "Don't say anything about this," and pulled a diamond stud from his shirt to present to the foreman. "Take this. It cost a hundred dollars, but don't say anything about what occurred here."

  Behan then told Hooker, "If I can catch the Earp party it will help me at the next election."

  By the Hooker version, Behan then went to Fort Grant, where he tried to acquire Indian scouts to track the Earps. However, Colonel James Biddle was not accommodating. "Hooker said he didn't know and would not tell you if he did? Hooker said that, did he? Well if he did, you can't get any scouts here."

  At some point, Hooker pinpointed the location of the Earp party for Behan and told the sheriff he would not need scouts now to find Wyatt Earp. Behan ate, then rode off in another direction. Henry Hooker said that Behan's posse was "willing to ride any direction in Arizona except where [the Earps] were waiting for them. They came back here the next day, but didn't stay long. Behan said he was going back to Tombstone as expenses of the trip were running pretty high, and he had a bill against the county for thirteen thousand dollars for ten days riding after [the Earps]. He didn't stay very long after I told him what I thought about that expense bill."45

  Out on the hill three miles away, Wyatt Earp and his friends watched the clouds of dust coming in and out of the Hooker ranch, never heading off to the direction where they waited. Finally a big cloud indicated that Behan and the full posse had left the ranch, and Earp and his little group returned to the Sierra Bonita to hear the story of Behan's farcical and expensive romp through the Arizona outback.

  Wyatt's band rested several days at the ranch. According to the Hooker version, he offered to pay Earp the $1,000 reward for the killing of Curley Bill, which had been put up by the Cattlegrowers Association. Earp refused, saying, "I don't want any reward for carrying out my promise to Morgan. If the Cattlegrowers Association feel they owe me anything, let them pay you for the horses you have given us."

  While Earp relaxed at the Sierra Bonita, Dan Tipton arrived at the ranch with the $1,000 from Gage, the same money Kraker and Wright had carried into Curley Bill's camp, and Lou Cooley brought an extra $1,000 from Wells, Fargo.46 Cooley had worked as stage driver in Tombstone and had friends in Wells, Fargo management.

  While the Earps rested, one of the band wrote a letter to the Epitaph. The Star would disparage it as a fraud, but the details appear so accurate that it is almost certainly from the posse. The letter was written in response to Woods's account in the Nugget. A century later, one can only imagine Wyatt, Texas Jack, and the rest of the group sitting around Hooker's ranch house and helping one of their more educated members-it has all the wit and puckishness of Hollidayprepare the letter that would be their parting statement to the citizens of Arizona.

  In Camp, April 4, 1882

  Editor Epitaph: -In reply to the article in the Nugget of March 31, relating to the Earp party and some of the citizens of Graham and Cochise counties, I would like to give you the facts in this case during our trip in Cochise and Graham counties. Leaving Tombstone Saturday evening, March 25, we went into camp six miles north of town. Next morning we were overtaken by three prospectors on the road from Tombstone to Winchester district, who asked us to partake of a frugal meal, which we ate with relish, after which we traveled in company with them on the main road to Summit station where we had dinner and awaited the arrival of the passenger train from the west expecting a friendly messenger.

  From here we continued our journey on the wagon road to Henderson's ranch where we had refreshments for ourselves and horses. Here we were informed that a gentlemanly deputy sheriff of Cochise county, Mr. Frank Hereford (for whom we have the greatest respect as a gentleman and officer) was at the ranch at the time of our arrival and departure, and have since learned the reason for not presenting himself, was fears for his safety, which we assure him were groundless. Leaving this ranch we went into camp on good grass one mile north. At seven next morning, we saddled and went north to Mr. H. C. Hooker's ranch, in Graham county, where we met Mr. Hooker, and asked for refreshments for ourselves and stock, which he kindly granted us with the same hospitality that was tendered us by the ranchers of Cochise county.

  As regards to Mr. Hooker outfitting us with supplies and fresh horses, as mentioned in the Nugget, it is false and without foundation, as we are riding the same horses we left Tombstone on, with the exception of Texas Jack's horse, which was killed in the fight with Curly Bill and posse, which we replaced by hiring a horse on the San Pedro river. In relation to the reward offered by the Stock Association, which the Nugget claims Mr. Hooker paid to Wyatt Earp for the killing of Curly Bill, it is also false, as no reward has been asked for or tendered.

  Leaving Hooker's ranch on the evening of that day, we journeyed north to within five miles of Eureka Springs. There we camped with a freighter and was cheerfully furnished the best his camp afforded. Next morning, not being in a hurry to break camp, our stay was long enough to notice the movements of Sheriff Behan and his posse of honest ranchers, with whom, had they possessed the trailing abilities of the average Arizona ranchman, we might have had trouble, which we are not seeking. Neither are we avoiding these honest ranchers as we thoroughly understand their designs.

  At Cottonwood we remained overnight, and here picked up the trail of the lost Charlie Ross, "and a hot one." We are confident that our trailing abilities will soon enable us to turn over to the "gentlemen" the fruit of our efforts, so they may not again return to Tombstone empty-handed. Yours respectfully,

  One of Them47

  One of Them's letter obviously protected Hooker and the Percy brothers and confused a few details to prevent cowboy revenge. It was designed to show that the little band had been well received during the ride and to lampoon Behan's posse, which the Nugget had called "honest ranchmen" and "honest farmers" in earlier stories. It also indicated that the Earps had plans of continuing the search, to what degree is uncertain. In 1896 Wyatt himself said that there were some other skirmishes, and by many accounts a number of rustlers left for Mexico, California, or other less dangerous sites. It is not likely that any of the skirmishes led to killing, although Warren Earp may have taken a leg wound during the Vendetta ride.

  The possemen reclaimed their original horses, now rested, at the Sierra Bonita and remained close to the Hooker ranch. Wyatt Earp told one visitor that if the sheriff of Cochise County wanted him, he could always find him at his camp 48 Apparently in mid-April the Earp band entered Fort Grant to do a little business. Henry Morgan was in the fort's st
ore when Wyatt came in seeking a notary public. Morgan said Earp deeded his property to his sister, then dropped the documents into the mail.49 The Earp posse then met with Colonel James Biddle, according to Hildreth Halliwell, repeating a story she said she heard from Wyatt. At the meeting, Biddle said, "Wyatt, I'm going to have to hold you here. They're looking for you and there are warrants out for your arrest. We're going to have to hold you. But come in and have something to eat first." The Earps ate dinner while expecting arrest. Biddle called for an orderly and told him to prepare fresh mounts and leave them at a certain gate. A short time later, Biddle rose and excused himself. Earp and the others finished dinner and rode out on the rested horses.50

  Rumors of Earp's location were noted almost daily in the newspapers, and resident wits at the San Francisco Exchange began to spoof the whole situation:

  It was rumored that the Earp brothers would arrive in Oakland and the Light Cavalry was immediately put under arms. That gallant and well-trained body resolved that if the two Earps came to Oakland and showed the least disposition to attack them, every man would bite the dust before those redoubtable bandits were allowed to run the town.

  Fortunately the men were mistaken for the Earps proved to be the Earl brothers, on their way to this city. The joyful news spread like wildfire, and the meeting between the calvarymen and their wives was affecting in the extreme. Many of those gentler creatures, when they learned that this fine company had been turned out to meet the two Earp brothers, set to work preparing lint and bandages, and arranging cots for the wounded. Happily, there was no necessity for this forethought. Everything is quiet in Oakland now.51

  The Nugget and the Epitaph debated the truth of Curley Bill's death, with the Nugget offering a $1,000 reward for proof that the outlaw had become a corpse. The Epitaph followed with a reward of $2,000, to be paid to any worthy charity, if Curley Bill would appear at the paper's office.52 Neither a live body nor a dead one ever showed up in Tombstone. The reports of Curley Bill's survival came from questionable sources, and he never again appeared in public although there were no warrants for his arrest.