The mood in Tombstone was grim, prompting Parsons to declare on January 21, “Town unsafe—some decisive steps should be taken.” In the aftermath of the Johnny-behind-the-Deuce affair, a citizens’ vigilance committee was established and matters settled down.
Tombstone was deceptively calm as February began, and Doc, who was also speculating in mining properties, joined a new partnership that focused on the important matter of water rights. Opportunity seemed to lie in the Huachuca Mountains west of the San Pedro River; at least claims in the area appeared to be worth the gamble. Besides Doc and Wyatt Earp, the unlikely business partnership included Dick Clark and Jim Leavy. Clark was the “boss gambler” of Tombstone and a partner in the Oriental’s gambling operation. He was also a man well known throughout the mountain West and “regarded as a professional man of high rank.” Jim Leavy, a gambler and gun handler, called “the top-notcher of them all except Wild Bill,” had respect as a deliberate and honest man, whether handling cards, money, or revolvers. Known far and wide as the man who had killed Charles Harrison in Cheyenne, Leavy was by far the best known of the quartet of investors who set out from Tombstone to stake water claims.37
On February 2, 1881, the four men staked out their first claim in Hayes and Turner’s Canyon (later renamed Garden Canyon), calling it the Wyatt Earp Water Right. The following day, they staked out the Clark Water Right in Mormon Canyon (later called Miller Canyon), and the Holliday Water Right about a mile and a half from the mouth of Ramsey Canyon. At each of the claims, the partners left a “board of location” nailed to a tree. They did not choose a fourth claim to bear Leavy’s name, but each of the staked locations was to be owned jointly by all four partners. Their work done, they headed back to Tombstone. En route, however, they encountered Sherman McMaster, a former Texas Ranger, a suspected horse thief, and a hanger-on with the San Simon crowd, who told them that a horse that had been stolen from Wyatt was at Charleston in the possession of eighteen-year-old Billy Clanton. Earp decided to go to Charleston to reclaim his property at once, and Doc—and possibly Leavy—went along. Clark returned to Tombstone to file the claims.38
Wyatt and Doc found the horse as reported, and Wyatt immediately wired his brother Jim in Tombstone to secure the appropriate papers to recover his property. When young Clanton learned of Earp’s presence, he attempted to remove the horse, but Earp would not let him do it. When Warren Earp arrived with the documents, young Clanton surrendered the horse without trouble but asked Earp sarcastically if he “had any more horses to lose.” Earp assured him that he would watch over his stock more carefully in the future and “give him no chance to steal them.”39
While Doc and Wyatt were in Charleston, Behan, Leslie Blackburn, and Lawrence Geary rode in from Tombstone looking for Ike Clanton to serve him a subpoena ordering him to appear in court in the sheriff’s election fraud case. Earp and Behan exchanged pleasantries, but Behan later claimed that when he met Ike Clanton afterward in Tucson, Clanton informed him that he had come near to getting “into a hell of a fuss.” Clanton claimed that Wyatt Earp had told him about the subpoena and that Behan was coming to his ranch with a posse of nine men to arrest him. “Then he told me that he had armed his crowd and was not going to stand for it,” Behan later maintained.40
Based on this unconfirmed exchange, Behan concluded—or later claimed that he concluded—that Earp had gone to Charleston to warn Clanton so that he would hide out and not testify in the fraud case. As Clanton was Shibell’s key witness, his failure to appear would doom Shibell’s case and make Bob Paul sheriff of Pima County. Earp would admit later that he had promised to testify favorably at Curly Bill Brocius’s trial for the murder of Fred White if Brocius convinced his cowboy friends to admit the San Simon election fraud.41 Apparently, Wyatt Earp had a political agenda as well.
On February 2, 1881, while Doc and his partners were claiming water rights, Tombstone became the county seat of the newly created Cochise County, and, as expected, on February 10, John Behan was appointed sheriff. At that point, Wyatt was still confident that Behan would appoint him undersheriff. On February 21, Tombstone was granted a city charter, and the city council abolished the office of town marshal and created a police department with Ben Sippy as the chief of police. These activities suggested that the town was growing up, and, appropriately, most of February passed without gunplay.42
Even the gamblers’ war seemed to have managed a cease-fire, although posturing and maneuvering continued. Leslie was still watching the bar and restaurant at the Oriental, and Luke Short was acting as lookout in the gambling room. Then, on February 8, 1881, Bat Masterson left Dodge City for a reunion with his Dodge City buddies at Tombstone, where he expected “to remain next summer.”43 On February 24, the Dodge City Times reported that Harris had written to Chalk Beeson, his old partner, that Masterson had arrived in Tombstone. Masterson’s reputation appeared to further stabilize the situation at the Oriental—but not for long.
Soon after Masterson’s arrival, the Slopers imported their own new gun hand. Charles S. Storms was a well-known gambler and gunman in both Colorado and the Black Hills country. His family lived in California, but he came to Tombstone from El Paso, Texas. A contemporary paper said of him, “He was what the men of the West call ‘gritty,’ and had been in a number of shooting affairs where he showed plenty of nerve. He had great confidence in his ability to cope with any antagonist.”44 Upon arrival in Tombstone, he wasted little time.
On February 25, he got into a game at the Oriental. Rickabaugh was dealing; Storms—with too much liquor and fight on the brain—attempted to pick a quarrel. Luke Short, who was in the lookout chair, intervened, and Storms turned his wrath on Short. The situation was at flash point, but before they could draw their pistols, Bat Masterson, who knew Storms from Colorado and considered him a friend, stepped in and hustled Charlie off to his room at the San Jose House. Bat was still working to calm Short down outside the Oriental when Storms reappeared about noon.
Storms approached Short, demanding to know, “Are you as good a man as you were this morning?”
“Every bit as good,” Short calmly replied as he pulled his pistol.
Short shot Storms through the heart and once more before he hit the ground. According to George Parsons, Storms “was game to the last and by a desperate effort steadying revolver with both hands fired—four shots I believe.” Said the Santa Fe New Mexican, “self-reliance finally brought him to his grave.”45
The games at the Oriental “went on as if nothing had happened,” but two days later, on February 27, another incident took place that was apparently related. The Phoenix Herald described what happened: “A slight fracus occured [sic] in Tombstone, Sunday night last, owing to some misunderstanding between one Lyons (better known as Dublin) who was a partner with the late C. S. Storms in the gambling business, and Wyatt Earp. Dublin was ordered to leave town, which he did.” That same week, “Mr. Louis Rickabaugh, who has been running a faro game in Tombstone, in an altercation with a person whose name is not stated, hit his antagonist on the head with a pistol.”46
Then on March 1, still less than a week after Charlie Storms died, “a man named Al McAllister shot a one armed man named Kelly in Tombstone in self defense” at the Oriental. Alfred McAllister was a Galeyville butcher with a hard reputation. One-armed Kelly was a gambler known on the circuit, as described by a correspondent called “Cactus” in this commentary from the Las Vegas Optic: “One-armed Kelly, who was outlawed from Leadville six months ago and came to Vegas, shot the window out of Burton’s restaurant, was run in for three months, went to Tombstone, where it has been reported that he was handed down for the worms of that consecrated soil.”47
The Kelly incident proved to be too much. Milt Joyce closed the gaming room. “Oriental a regular slaughter house now,” wrote George Parsons.48 Just how long the Oriental remained closed is unclear from the record, but Short and Masterson had established a presence at the Oriental that changed the equation between the
Easterners and the Slopers, and while they could hardly be praised for maintaining order, the gamblers’ war did subside after a bloody last week in February. Johnny Tyler remained in Tombstone, but he stayed clear of the Oriental.
The most serious ill effect of the troubles appeared to be resentment on the part of Milt Joyce toward the Rickabaugh group, which he apparently blamed for the troubles. He already identified them with Holliday, even though Doc did not work at the Oriental. Over time this friction would deepen. Of course, Doc Holliday was only peripherally involved in most of these events, but his unfortunate encounter with Joyce would have effects far beyond the gamblers’ war—and sooner than he could have expected.
Doc had settled in. He kept a low profile for a time, dabbled in mining properties and water rights, ran a regular faro bank at the Alhambra, and tried to restore his relationship with Kate Elder. Kate said later that she had opened a hotel in Globe and that she made two or three trips to Tombstone to try to patch up her relationship with Doc. The first of these trips was in late February or early March. Not much changed between them, however, and they were soon arguing again. On March 10, Doc was arrested. The Daily Epitaph told the story:
A “man about town” named “John Doc,” last night, while under the influence of too much family disturber, grew noisy and disorderly, and officers Ramsey and Kirkpatrick proceeded forthwith to take him in. While that transaction was in progress, the inevitable “gun” made it’s appearance, and in the melee was somehow discharged, the shot fortunately striking no one. The shootist was taken before Judge Wallace, and when that official got through with “Doc,” the latter was $25 poorer.49
From the flavor of the article and the reference to “too much family disturber,” the cause of Doc’s arrest was probably the renewed quarreling with Kate. And, from the tone of Kate’s memoirs, the source of the argument was almost certainly Doc’s relationship with the Earps and her desire to get him to leave Tombstone with her. She did not succeed, and at that point, at least, Doc made some effort to distance himself from her temporarily by seeking the company of friends.
John Henry was a man not likely to forget friendships even when they did not serve him well. One such “friend” was William Leonard, the jeweler he had known in Las Vegas. Leonard had arrived in Tombstone in time for the 1880 census, and at that time was living with Frank C. Marsh, a local jeweler. Time had not been kind to the consumptive Leonard. He was frail, weighed scarcely 120 pounds, and was addicted to morphine. To make matters worse, he soon fell in with a rough crowd. Wyatt Earp explained the circumstances of Doc and Leonard’s relationship to the writer Walter Noble Burns many years later:
Holiday [sic] was a friend of Lenard’s [sic], having known him in Las Vegas New Mexico where Lenard was established in the jewelry business. And was considered at that time a respectable citizen. And from Las Vegas he came to Tombstone and with Harry Head, Jim Crane, also Bill [Luther] King and himself all went batching in a house two miles north from town which was known as the Wells. And all three remained there for several months. Holiday would make them a visit now and then knowing Lenard so well, which many people knew how friendly they were.50
Perhaps their association was based more on their shared battle with consumption than on anything else. Whatever the case, the relationship would prove costly to Doc. Leonard and his companions all had hard reputations and ran with the Cow-Boys. Rumor had it that Leonard’s skills as a jeweler were put to use melting down gold and fencing stolen jewelry. Doc had lived on the edge for so long that he would have paid little attention to such matters. They were of no direct concern to him in March 1881, but things were about to change.
On March 15, 1881, Doc rented a horse at Dunbar’s stable and left Tombstone. He later claimed that he went to Charleston to join in a high-stakes poker game he had heard about, but he found that the game had broken up by the time he arrived. During his trip back to Tombstone, he came across Old Man Fuller, who was driving a water wagon, and rode with him back to Tombstone, where he stabled his horse, had dinner, and went to work operating his faro bank at the Alhambra. Wyatt Earp told the story somewhat differently to Burns, though with the same ending:
Holiday [sic] went to the livery stable on that day, hired a saddle horse which he did quite often to visit Lenard [sic] at the Wells. The horse came from Dunbar’s stable, and not Tribletts [sic], as Triblett did not have any stable in Tombstone. Holiday remained there until 4 P.M. Old Man Fuller was hauling water into Tombstone at that time and leaving the Wells with a load of water Holiday tied his horse behind the wagon and rode into town with Fuller. And which many people knew. After Holiday ate his dinner, he went to playing faro. And he was still playing when the word came to Tombstone from Bob Paul to me that there had been a hold up.51
The two stories were not incompatible. After leaving Charleston, Doc might well have stopped at Leonard’s place en route back to Tombstone, afterward joining Old Man Fuller at the Wells and riding with him into town. Earp would also insist that Doc was playing faro against Wyatt at the time of the crime, adding “that Holliday hocked his big watch chain for $40 to get faro money that evening.”52 All of this would be important later.
The regular run of the Kinnear & Company’s stagecoach from Tombstone to Benson departed as usual that evening for Benson with Eli “Bud” Philpott driving and Bob Paul riding shotgun for Wells, Fargo. The stage stopped at Watervale, two miles out of Tombstone, and picked up two additional passengers. The stage was loaded, so one of them, a young man named Peter Roerig, had to ride up top. Afterward, the coach proceeded toward Benson. At about ten o’clock under a bright moon, the stage horses slowed to a walk as they passed through a wash and mounted an incline near Drew’s Station beyond Contention. Close to the top, a man stepped onto the road from the east and shouted, “Hold!”
“By God, I hold for nobody!” Paul thundered as he lowered his shotgun to fire. By then more men were on both sides of the road. Paul fired, wounding one of the would-be robbers, as the group opened fire on the stage. Philpott was hit at the first fire and toppled dead from the seat into the traces, carrying the reins with him as the horses bolted into a run. The stage careered past Drew’s Station pell-mell for nearly a mile as Paul tried to gain control of the team. He managed to slide into Philpott’s seat and apply the brake, gradually slowing the horses to a walk. He then dropped to the ground and recovered the reins. Once he had the stage stopped, he discovered that Roerig was badly wounded. Paul drove as rapidly as possible to Benson. There, he telegraphed Tombstone, learned that Roerig was fatally wounded, and started at once back to the scene of the attempted robbery.53
When the stage passed Drew’s Station out of control, the men there rushed outside in time to see the would-be robbers riding away at a dead run and Philpott’s lifeless body on the road. As soon as word reached Tombstone, Marshall Williams, the Wells, Fargo agent, Sheriff John Behan, Virgil Earp (as deputy U.S. marshal), and his brothers, Wyatt and Morgan, started for the scene. Others offered their services, but Behan declined them all and requested only the Earps. Bat Masterson, who was one of the passengers on the stage, according to Paul, had manhunting experience and joined the posse at Wyatt Earp’s insistence. At the scene, the posse found fifteen shell casings, three wigs, and a beard of rope yarn. The bandits tried to cover their trail, but the pursuers were dogged. The evidence indicated that there were four robbers, and spots of blood suggested that Paul’s shotgun blasts had taken a toll.54
The posse pursued the outlaws for nearly three days before approaching the ranch of Len Redfield, who was known to be sympathetic to the Cow-Boys. There, Wyatt spotted a man milking a cow while armed with two revolvers, a gunbelt, and a rifle. He and Morgan quickly arrested him. Wyatt then insisted that Sheriff Behan not allow the prisoner, who turned out to be Luther King, to talk with either Len Redfield or his brother, Hank. While Earp conferred with Paul, however, King talked freely with the Redfields, and one of them quickly saddled up and rode off, presumab
ly to warn King’s associates. Under interrogation, though, King confessed to holding the horses for the robbers at Drew’s Station. At that juncture, the posse decided that Behan and Williams would return to Tombstone with the prisoner, while the rest would pursue the other fugitives.55
The posse was close behind the fugitives. They found a campfire nearby, but the fugitives had apparently acquired fresh mounts from the Redfields and had struck east once they were warned of the posse’s approach. Paul, the Earp brothers, and Masterson continued the hunt for six more days before their horses were so worn out that Paul’s mount died and Wyatt and Masterson were forced to walk back to Tombstone from a distance of eighteen miles. On March 21, Virgil wired Sheriff Behan from Tres Alamos to bring fresh horses. He also telegraphed U.S. Marshal Crawley P. Dake at Tucson: “I left the night the stage was stopped with two of my brothers and Bill [sic] Masterson. Have not lost a foot print. Have caught one. Will follow as long as I can find a track.”56
Behan left Tombstone on the afternoon of March 20 with Marshall Williams, Buckskin Frank Leslie (who had a reputation as a tracker), William M. Breakenridge, and Ed Gorman, which meant that the horses Virgil had requested arrived after they left town. Behan’s group rejoined Virgil at Helm’s Ranch on the south side of the Dragoons on March 24. By then, Wyatt and Bat had returned to Tombstone.57
Tombstone was already full of rumors about the outlaws. On March 20, George Parsons had noted in his diary, “Marshall Williams in from hunting stage robbers. Told me at ball that they would have them and who they are. Know one of them—Leonard—very well by sight and have had business with him. Know him to be a hard case.”58 Others doubtless knew as well. On March 23, the night Wyatt returned from the hunt, he wasted no time. Though it was late, he sent for Doc Holliday. Kate recalled what happened:
One night after we had retired, Warren Earp came after Doc and said that Wyatt wanted to see him at his house. He was gone one hour and a half. I could see that he was very much put out about something. He kept saying “the damned fool. I did not think that of him.” Then he said, “I have to get up early in the morning, but I will think about it.” This was after the stage holdup. He did not get up until 9:00 A.M., when we went to breakfast. “Well, I don’t know what I am going to stack up against today. I am getting tired of it all.”59
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