Once it was clear that Mallon was not going to claim the rewards promised to him by the Cochise County authorities, he decided to leave town. Before doing so, however, he borrowed two revolvers from a man named Kent and a third from another named Greenstreet, then borrowed $310 from Julius Schweighardt, one of the owners of the Great Western Hotel. He also borrowed another $130 from Charles Morgan, a friend of Schweighardt’s. Mallon had letters of introduction to Schweighardt from Los Angeles businessmen who may have been the object of a swindle from the beginning. At any rate, he told Schweighardt that he was en route to Kansas City to arrest a criminal and claim a reward of $1,500, and Mallon offered him a part of the reward in exchange for the loan. Schweighardt accompanied him to Kansas City, where they registered at the St. James Hotel and called on the chief of police. Then Mallon told Schweighardt that he was going to Wyandotte to make the arrest. After several days, Schweighardt realized he had been conned and returned to Denver, where he reported what had happened to the police. When Morgan learned that he had been conned, he boarded a train for Albuquerque pursuing a report that Mallon had gone to New Mexico.92
Mallon, a career thief and con man, was gone. He was born in Akron, Ohio, in 1855, and from the time he was admitted to the Lancaster Reformatory in Akron for “incorrigibility and vicious conduct,” he was an intelligent but troubled and troublesome person. He eventually made his way west to Nevada. He later turned up in Ogden, Utah, where in 1880 he abandoned a young wife and infant daughter. In January 1882, his wife divorced him for “unkind, harsh and cruel” behavior and “a roving disposition.” She had not seen him in more than a year, and the divorce was granted only two months before his encounter with Doc Holliday.93 Mallon was a small-time confidence man who was able to move at ease between his native Akron, Ohio, and the West Coast because he was also an employee of the Central Pacific Railroad for at least part of his career. Colorado would be glad he was gone.
Mallon left a trail, though. On May 29, the Cincinnati Enquirer published a sensational story about Doc that would have embarrassed Ned Buntline, the dime novelist. Datelined Denver and signed “Winston,” its beginning was enough to raise the most gullible eyebrow: “Now that Jesse James body lies slumbering in the grave, and the excitement of his death considerably subsided, one would naturally suppose that any incident, however sensational, would cause but a slight ripple of excitement in comparison. This is not true, however, for here in Denver, in a crowded thoroughfare at night, was made one of the most important captures the world ever saw, and one that will cause a fervent ‘Thank God’ to arise from the lips of all in this Southwestern country.”
The story went downhill from there. He was called “Doc,” so the story went, because of a “peculiar dexterity” he had in the care of gunshot wounds. He was described as “a tall, dark looking man of about forty years of age, with a form herculean in its activity and strength.” One could not look at him, “Winston” intoned, without feeling “that he is enjoying the society of a human tiger, only more fierce and relentless than that animal.” Doc started his outlaw career in Missouri because of his “socialistic ideas concerning the ownership of various cattle in that section[, which] caused a slight misunderstanding with the presumed owner.” Doc fled Missouri with a posse after him and landed in St. George, Utah, where he murdered George White, the “bosom friend” of Perry Mallon. Doc fired shot after shot into “poor White,” but Mallon could do nothing because Holliday was secure among his friends.
When Doc moved on to Fort Yuma and a lucrative career as a cattle rustler, Mallon took up his trail as part of a sheriff’s posse. Pursuing Doc’s gang into the Calico Range, the sheriff’s posse was defeated, with Holliday killing three men and severely wounding Mallon. Mallon did not give up, however, and pursued him through southern California, and from there to Fort Dodge, Kansas, where Doc murdered a judge. From there Holliday led the heroic Mallon into the Indian Territory, where he headed a gang of “thieves and cut-throats” until he followed the mining fever to Tucson, Arizona, in 1877, where he became the leader of “the murderous gang of cow-boys which has since proved the great terror of that country.” It was there that “he became a devil incarnate, and truly his horned godfather had no cause to feel ashamed of his namesake.” Shot six times by Holliday over the years, Mallon persisted and eventually caught him in Denver.
Winston then claimed an interview with Mallon in Denver, who treated him with “true border civility”:
“Who is this Doc Holladay?”
“Well, that’s hard to say,” said Mallen [sic] thoughtfully, “unless perhaps, that he is the greatest scoundrel that ever went unhung.”
“Precisely what they said of Jesse James. Which was the greatest villain of the two?”
“Why Doc Holladay [sic] of course….He has not one germ of true manhood; he is vain as vanity itself, and his heart is as a stone. No cry of anguish or suffering deterred him from his purpose, and like a savage wild he gloried in his deeds of blood!”
“How many lives has he taken?”
“That is a hard question to answer, but they approach close to fifty.”94
And so it went. The Denver Republican published this preposterous tale in full, with appropriate commentary, declaring that “[f]or a genuine romance of crime with detectives, bloody avengers, bulldogs, and dark lanterns thrown in, the country has never produced anything half as good as the Doc Holladay case.” Referencing the Enquirer’s piece, its editors added, “These facts round off the hideous tale with a burst of laughter and turns what was nearly a tragedy into a roaring farce.” The Republican summarized the case well: “The villain of the first act becomes the hero of the second, and the avenger and detective in one, the man who has devoted his life to his dead comrade, and has been shot so often that he has trouble in retaining his food, proves to be a petty swindler.”95
A copy of the Cincinnati Enquirer also reached Pueblo containing the “column of twaddle devoted to this case,” and the Chieftain observed, “The article in question has caused much amusement among Holladay’s [sic] friends.”96 That same bunch must have also enjoyed the Denver Republican’s note that Doc was “resting quietly at Pueblo in the bosom of his constituency; a hard lot, to be sure, but not half as bad as Mallen [sic].”97 On June 6, Mallon was reported to have been arrested in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, where he was expected to be held until a requisition from Colorado could be forwarded to Pennsylvania.98
Doc rested a few days at Pueblo, but after about ten days, he left for a reunion with Wyatt and Warren in Gunnison. He was quickly recognized on the streets of that mountain town, “dressed in a dark close fitting suit of black, and wore the latest style of round top hat. His hair was seen to be quite gray, his moustache sandy, and his eyes a piercing dark blue.” The reporter appreciated his “strong free and friendly grip of a hand, which said very plainly, ‘here is a man who, once a friend, is always a friend; once an enemy, is always an enemy.’” Doc, “half jokingly and half in seriousness, told the reporter, ‘I’m not traveling about the country in search of notoriety, and I think you newspaper fellows have already had a fair hack at me.’”
Doc gave a congenial, free, and open interview that revealed more about himself than he had ever told in any public forum, including details of his background, education, and travels. It was an interesting, if not entirely candid discourse that provided clues to his past and personality. Doc was asked about Mallon, and he said that Mallon left when he realized that Doc would be released. Asked if he would appear at Mallon’s trial, he responded, “No, that is not my way of doing. I avoid trouble. My father taught me when young to attend to my own business and let other people do the same. I shall let him alone if he does me.” He expressed the view that Mallon would be sent to prison “for a few years” because “the fraternity will spend a thousand dollars if necessary to send him there.”99
Mallon did not remain in custody in Pennsylvania, however. By the end of June, he was in Vienna, Michigan, where h
e represented himself as an heir to a fortune and married a young woman. He then announced that he had to leave to go to his mother’s deathbed in the West. He and his new wife showed up next in Toledo, Ohio, where he “cheekily entertained the police with great stories of himself and of what he was going to accomplish as a detective.” He represented himself as a U.S. marshal from California. The next day, he beat his new wife, threatened to kill her if she did not sign over to him property she owned, and found himself arrested after a disturbance at the Union Depot.
Mallon pled guilty to being a suspicious person and creating a disturbance on July 30, 1882. He was fined $65. He did not have the money, so he served four months in jail at hard labor, while the father of his bride tried to have him charged with assault and battery. His exploits in Toledo won him mention in the National Police Gazette, along with a portrait. While he was incarcerated, authorities in Indiana contacted the police in Toledo and requested his photograph concerning a case arising from Mallon’s marriage to a woman in that state.100
Doc remained in Gunnison for the rest of June. The rift with Wyatt seemed resolved, and the men enjoyed the time together. Judd Riley, who was on the police force at Gunnison, later recalled:
The bunch was well heeled and went armed. Earp was a fine looking man, tall with a drooping mustache that curled at the ends. He was quiet in manner and never created a bit of trouble here, in fact, he told us boys on the police force we could call on him if we needed help at any time. He was a dead shot, I guess, always wore two guns high up under his arms, but he never used them here. Doc Holliday was the only one of the gang that seemed to drink much, and the minute he got hilarious, the others promptly took him in charge and he just disappeared.101
Doc was still in Gunnison on July 1, but he soon parted company with the Earps to make his court date in Pueblo. The Salida Mail recorded on July 8 that “‘Doc. Holliday,’ late of Arizona is in town with Osgood and Robinson. They will remain several days. The Arizona authorities tried to get Holiday [sic] back to that territory on a charge of murder but Governor Pitkin refused to honor the requisition.”102
On July 11, the grand jury indicted Doc on a charge of larceny, whereupon the judge issued a capias for Doc and advised the sheriff that he could admit Doc to bail in the amount of $500. At that point the district attorney “and the said defendant in his own proper person as well as his counsel, W. G. Hollings, Esq., also came and being ready to plead to the indictment said defendant says that he is not guilty in manner and form as charged in said indictment, and puts himself upon the county, and the said people, by their said attorney, say they do the like.”103 On July 18, the case was continued, and, on the very same day, the Leadville Daily Herald announced that “Doc Holliday is visiting Leadville.”
Chapter 11
A LIVING-AND DYING-LEGEND
This is funny.
—Doc Holliday, November 8, 1887,
Walter Noble Burns, Tombstone
The Tombstone experience was the defining moment of John Henry Holliday’s life. Everything before it was prologue; everything after, postscript. It was at Tombstone that Doc found a purpose greater than himself. Loyalty to a friend was part of it, and the part most remembered at that, but loyalty, though a character trait he embodied, was not the greater part of it. He saw what he did at the street fight and afterward as a duty, and he never once described what happened as anything less than service to the community. Doubtlessly, such sentiment curled the lips of many who knew him into cynical smiles, as the notion would for many who studied his life later. But honor mattered to him at a level few realized. He needed to be doing more than simply dying. He had lived for so long without hope or purpose that when he took a stand with the Earps against the Cow-Boys, he came to believe that he was doing something right and good. Perhaps it was a delusion, but there was little doubt that he believed it. And when the vendetta was over, he found his sense of purpose atrophying as surely as his lungs.
Yet his Denver ordeal made him something more than a gambler, or even a gunfighter. In a way that was much less satisfying personally, the publicity surrounding the extradition effort finally made Doc Holliday a “legend in his own time.” Before that he had enjoyed something of a reputation on the gamblers’ circuit as a “well-known sport.” The O.K. Corral fight and subsequent events raised his stock as a “bad man to tangle with.” He was notorious in Arizona by the spring of 1882, but the publicity he received during the extradition proceedings did more than spread his notoriety to Colorado, it ensured that his name would spread across the country. For the first time in his life, the mere mention of his name created an image in men’s minds, and the sight of him caused men to stare and whisper. Stories of all kinds—good and bad—proliferated. They were not satisfying to him in the way the experiences in Arizona had been, but they helped him rationalize, justify, and conclude that he had been right, after all.
Back home in Georgia, Lee Smith was cornered by reporters suddenly interested in these tales of a native son. The reporter for the Atlanta Constitution found Smith at the Markham House on one of his visits home. Smith painted a dramatic portrait of the quiet “Georgia boy” who became “a terror to evil doers” in Arizona. His description of the street fight, which he described as “one of the most remarkable pieces of fighting that I have ever heard of,” quickly parted company with the facts, pitting Doc Holliday (armed with “a double barreled, breach-loading shotgun”) and the “four Earps” against the “McLowry crowd,” consisting of six men. Smith went on:
I don’t know exactly how the fight first arose, but I know that the marshal and his deputies demanded a surrender which was answered by a volley. The fire was returned, and almost before you could think the McLowrys [sic] were wiped out. Doc Holliday shot four times and killed four men. He never missed a single shot. All the six were killed, four of them died instantaneously and two subsequent to the affray. The McLowry party was absolutely wiped out, and strange to say, not a man of the marshal’s party was hurt.
Smith then described the retaliation of the Cow-Boys that led to an attempted assassination of Virgil and the assassination of Morgan Earp. He declined to blame Doc for the killing of Frank Stilwell, saying only that Stilwell was a deputy sheriff who “was known to have been one of the men who assassinated the Earps.” He recounted the fight at Iron Springs and the melee in which Curly Bill Brocius was killed. He would say only, “It was supposed that Wyatt Earp killed Curly Bill.” He went on then to describe the arrest of Doc by Perry Mallon and the peril Doc faced as a result. Finally, the reporter asked, “Does Holliday ever speak of coming back to Georgia?”
“He would be back here today were it not for the fear that he would be turned over to the authorities of Arizona and Tombstone.”1
The story was appealing if not accurate. Smith also spoke with the Atlanta Post-Appeal, where he tried to provide a more personal touch. “Well, I guess I do know ‘Dock’ Holliday,” he told the reporter:
I know the whole Holliday family, father, mother and son, and a finer family never grew up on Georgia soil and “Dock” Holliday is one of the best boys that ever lived, if he is left alone, but you mustn’t impose on him or you will smell powder burning. I’ve a letter in my pocket now from “Dock” that I expect to answer to-day, and only a few days since gave Dr. J.H. [sic] Holliday, an uncle of “Dock” a paper containing an article about his nephew.
Smith then recounted Doc’s career in even more detail than he had for the Constitution, with the same errors of fact. If anything, he was consistent. He claimed that Wyatt, “Dock,” and “Johnson” were escorting Morgan (confused with Virgil) through Tucson when Stilwell was killed. “The fact that Holliday was known to be in the vicinity when the crime was committed, together with the fact that Stilwell was killed with a shot gun was circumstantial evidence enough to convince Stilwell’s friends that Holliday killed him,” Smith advised, concluding that Holliday “will be credited with the killing of every man in that section so long as
he lives there, who dies from being shot down with a shot gun.”2
Later in July, Sam Purdy’s Epitaph published a response to the Denver Republican’s interview with “the now notorious Doc Holliday,” which had finally made its way to Tombstone. “If the statement before us is a specimen of Doc’s veracity,” Purdy intoned, “there is no questioning the strength and power of his imagination.” Purdy then reviewed several “lies” from the interview, including the statement that Doc was an “honest, peaceful citizen while in Arizona and contributed more than any other one towards preventing stage robberies and outrages of all kinds.” Purdy also objected to the suggestion that when John H. Behan was nominated for sheriff, the Cow-Boys “packed the convention” and with “a flourish of revolvers and bowie knives forced his nomination.” The editor was especially peeved by the statement that the Cow-Boys had forced with a “revolver argument” change in the editorial policies of the Epitaph to make it a “cowboy organ” and that they forced the departure of Charles D. Reppy, the former editor, from the country.
The Epitaph took special exception to claims that it was the tool of the Cow-Boys or that Reppy had been intimidated in any way by Cow-Boy threats. The paper published a curious report that contradicted the accounts provided to the Denver papers by Reppy’s brother, who had defended Doc using letters from his brother, Charles:
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