Doc Holliday

by Gary L Roberts

  William J. “Billy” Allen, saloonman and former police officer, who was shot by Doc Holliday at Hyman’s Saloon over a five-dollar debt. Allen recovered and had a long career as fire chief, peace officer, and saloonkeeper.

  At any rate, Doc did borrow the money. He said later that he told Allen he would repay him “in five or six days or a week.” He explained to Allen, “There is a young man owing me money, and when he pays me I will pay you.” Unfortunately, Doc’s friend, who was at Sowbelly Gulch, a camp outside Leadville, gambled away the money and could not pay Doc, so when the time came for him to repay Allen, he did not have the five dollars. He insisted to Allen that he intended to pay as soon as he had the funds. Allen was not happy, but he could not do anything about it.68 When Doc continued to make excuses during the weeks that followed, however, Allen began making very public demands that Doc pay up. Doc did go to Sam Houston, John Morgan’s manager at the Board of Trade, and asked him for a loan. Hous- ton refused to give him the money.69 At that point, Doc’s pride took over, and he refused to go through the humiliation of being turned down again.

  Allen was persistent and increasingly belligerent. The tension in the air prompted the Democrat to question a local police officer about the enforcement of the local ordinance concerning concealed weapons and asked him specifically what he would do if he saw someone carrying guns. “I wouldn’t do anything as long as the man is sober and doesn’t draw it,” the officer replied. “[T]his country’s like Texas, a man may go a long time without needing a revolver, but when he does want it, he wants it at once and damned bad. I don’t know why he should not have the right to carry it.”70 His bluntness was far from comforting.

  After the July incident at Hyman’s—if not sooner—Doc believed that Allen was part of the Tyler crowd and that the debt had become a pretext to get him. On August 15, Doc went to the Monarch. Why he did so was never explained, but he clearly never avoided the place. Given his nature, he most likely wanted everyone to know that he was not intimidated by either Allen or Tyler and his cronies. When he was leaving, Allen came out from behind the bar and approached him. Holliday would later testify that he was wearing an apron and had his hand under the apron as if holding a gun. Doc stopped, and Allen told him, “Holliday, I’ll give you til Tuesday to pay this money, and if you don’t pay it, I’ll lick you, you son of a bitch.”

  Doc replied simply, “My jewelry is in the soak and as soon as I get the money, I’ll give it to you.”71

  Allen gave Doc until noon of Tuesday, August 19, to pay up “or else.” Doc’s physical condition, his obvious hard luck, and the relatively small amount of money involved made Allen’s threat seem to Doc’s friends to be calculated to provoke a fight rather than to collect a debt. The same day Allen sent for Pat Sweeney, a gambler friend of Doc’s, and told him that he had heard that Sweeney had said that if Allen jumped on Doc, Sweeney would jump on him. Sweeney called it a “damned lie” and said Doc could take care of himself, but Allen told him that if Doc did not pay up by noon of the nineteenth, he “would knock him down and kick his damned brains out.” Allen also made a point of calling Frank Lomeister, a bartender at Hyman’s, Doc’s roommate at the time, and arguably Doc’s best friend in Leadville, aside that same day and repeating his threat to “start hunting for him” if Doc did not pay up by Tuesday.72

  Over the next few days several men warned Doc to be on his guard against Allen because they had heard him threaten “to do” or otherwise injure Holliday. Ed Doude and Patrick “Blackie” Lorden both said they had heard such threats. James Ryan told Doc that Allen had said that if Doc did not pay up, he would take his gun away from him and pawn it to satisfy the debt. All these men would later swear that Allen had threatened Doc; why they did not help him with the debt to avoid the trouble was another matter never explained. Most likely they offered—or would have if he had asked—but Doc was too bullheaded to accept it.73

  On Monday evening, August 18, Officer Charles Robinson approached Doc and told him “that someone had told me to search him for a gun and for him not to carry one, because he was a friend of mine and I didn’t want to arrest him.” It turned out later that the “someone” was Billy Allen. Nevertheless, Doc took this message to heart. Near six o’clock on the morning of August 19, he retired to his upstairs room at 405 Harrison Avenue in the Star Block, after a night’s work, knowing that he did not have the funds to pay the debt.74

  Doc later testified that he slept until three o’clock in the afternoon, but that never quite fit the extended pattern of testimony. More likely, unable to sleep, Holliday walked to Hyman’s shortly after noon. Looking at the clock, he remarked to Mannie Hyman in an offhanded way, “The time’s up.” Hyman did not understand the import of the remark, and Doc went into the card room. Near three o’clock, Pat Sweeney came into the saloon and called Doc out of the gambling room. He told Doc that Allen was looking for him, and Doc remarked that he was going to have trouble. He then asked Sweeney to go to his room and get his pistol for him, which Sweeney refused to do. Reportedly, Doc then said, “I’ll go get the gun,” and the two of them left the saloon together. Doc went to his room, and Sweeney returned to Hyman’s.

  Later, Billy Allen came into Hyman’s, walked into the gambling room, looked around, and left. At that point, Sweeney headed to Doc’s room. In the meantime, Doc was growing restless and told Lomeister that he did not want to stay cooped up in his room all day and asked Lomeister to find Marshal H. S. Faucett or Captain Edward Bradbury for him because he wanted protection from Allen. Lomeister left to find one of the officers, and Doc decided to return to Hyman’s. He met Sweeney in the stairwell. They returned to Doc’s room, where Sweeney told him that he had seen Allen in Hyman’s looking for someone and that he was armed. Doc asked Sweeney what to do, and Sweeney said he did not know. Doc then said that he did not think it was right for one man to be able to carry a gun and not another. He then asked Sweeney to find Faucett or Bradbury. Together, they left Doc’s room, and Sweeney left to find one of the officers.

  En route to Hyman’s, Doc ran into Marshal Faucett in front of Sands & Pelton’s, and asked him if Allen was in fact a special policeman. Faucett told him that he was, but said he was authorized to carry a gun only in the saloon where he worked. Holliday declared his intention of defending himself, saying, “I’ll get a shotgun and shoot him on sight.” Faucett told Doc that he would locate Allen and end the matter. The marshal headed for the Monarch to find Allen. He missed him by minutes, but Cy Allen pleaded with the marshal to tell Billy to stay out of trouble when he did find him.75

  In the meantime, Doc ran into E.D. Cowen. “I wish you would do me a favor,” Doc reportedly said to him. “Bill Allen is after me. I want you to come around and see me wing him when the ball comes off. He isn’t worth killing.”76 Cowen declined the invitation, but with that announcement of intent Doc proceeded to Hyman’s—he later said to wait for Faucett, although he was clearly prepared for other alternatives. There, he explained the situation to Hyman and asked him to look out for an officer “as I would not carry a gun, for I had no money to pay a fine, and I did not want to be murdered.”77 Someone—not likely Doc himself, given his concerns—had taken Doc’s pistol to Hyman’s and placed it under the bar. While Doc waited, he stood beside the cigar case next to the bar, where he could watch the entrance. His revolver—a Colt revolver, identified variously as a .41 or .44 caliber—was just under the bar near his right arm.

  In the meantime, Allen had been looking for Doc. Near five o’clock, he had his boots polished and then went to the Monarch to begin his shift, missing Marshal Faucett by only a few minutes. He was behind the bar when he saw Doc Holliday pass by on his way to Hyman’s. He pulled off his apron, put on his coat, and started for the door. Cy asked him where he was going. Billy replied, “I am going to hunt this party.”

  “For God’s sake don’t go into Hyman’s,” Cy Allen responded, “as Holliday is in there.”78

  Moments after Billy Allen left, th
e marshal returned to the Monarch looking for him. Cy told him that Billy was on his way to Hyman’s. Outside Hyman’s, Blackie Lorden, an employee, told Captain Bradbury, who happened to be standing there, “If Allen puts his foot inside the door there will be trouble.” As Allen approached, Bradbury stopped him and asked him what the problem was. Allen told him that Doc owed him five dollars and would not pay him. Bradbury warned him not to go into Hyman’s because there was sure to be trouble, but Allen pushed by the officer, saying that he intended to speak to Doc.

  As Allen stepped through the door with his hand in his pocket, Doc reached behind the counter, pulled out the revolver hidden there, leaned over the cigar case, and fired. Allen, who apparently had not seen Doc, turned at the report and tried to run as the bullet crashed into the door facing next to him. When he heard the shot, he wheeled around, stumbled, and fell, catching himself on his outstretched hands. As he scrambled to get up, Doc fired again. The second bullet tore into Allen’s right arm halfway between the shoulder and the elbow. Henry Kellerman, who was mixing a drink behind the bar, jumped and grabbed Doc as he tried to squeeze off a third shot. Kellerman already had him subdued when Bradbury sprang through the door shouting, “Doc, I want your gun!”

  Doc surrendered his pistol without resistance and said to Bradbury, “Alright, I want you to protect me,” as he was led away.79

  Billy Allen had collapsed into Blackie Lorden’s arms, and Cy Allen, who had followed Billy from the Monarch, quickly took charge of him by helping him into a taxi and moving him away to receive medical treatment. The bullet had entered the back of the arm below the shoulder and passed through it, ripping open the artery and cutting the muscles. He was bleeding profusely, but the doctor was able to close the artery and save Allen’s life.80

  Immediately, the question was raised whether Allen was armed. He and other witnesses testified that he was not, but several swore that he had his hand in his pocket and at least two said they saw a gun. His quick exit after the shooting did not allow the police to determine whether he was carrying a pistol or not.81 The Democrat’s reporter pressed the issue in his interview with Doc:

  “What has Allen got particularly against you?”

  “He is the tool of the gang?”

  “How do you account for no pistol being found on him?”

  Doc seemed surprised at the question, but he brushed it aside quickly: “His friends spirited it away—that’s all.”82

  When Allen was asked whether he had a weapon, he replied, “Nothing, not even a pen knife.”

  Allen also said that the affair was about the five-dollar debt. Doc insisted, on the contrary, “That was just a pretext. It is the old trouble, and Allen was picked out as the man to kill me.”83

  Some locals agreed, and many expected the trouble not to end with the Allen shooting. One man predicted “the biggest free fight Leadville ever saw in one of the gambling houses.” “Mark my word,” he said, “there is going to be a whole lot of trouble before this thing is over.” He suggested that it did not matter whether the fight was over a “private grievance” or not, because Allen was a friend of the Tyler crowd, and they would use it as a pretext for going after Holliday. As for Doc, the informant said he would not cause any fight. “To do him justice, he isn’t trying to get up a fight, but is sick, and knows he has a hundred times the worst of it and would be glad if they would let him alone.”84

  Others derided predictions of further violence as “bosh of the worst sort.” One observer insisted that Allen would tell his friends to let the matter drop and even predicted that he would not press charges. He added that Allen was “a man of sense and isn’t going to precipitate any general trouble when a word or two from him can avoid it.” He then made an observation that was true beyond a doubt: “The proprietors of several sporting resorts have become considerable alarmed over the status of affairs and are not anxious to have a shooting match in their houses. The consequence is they are pouring as much oil as possible upon the troubled waters. The police are also putting a damper on hostilities by frequently searching all the parties, and do not propose to permit them to carry weapons.”85

  Captain Bradbury arrested Doc on a charge of “assault with intent to kill” and had him incarcerated in the city jail. In Judge W. W. Old’s office on the afternoon of August 20, bail was set at $5,000, and John Morgan, the owner of the Board of Trade, and Colonel Sam Houston, who was now working at the reopened Texas House, signed his bond. On August 22, the Daily Democrat reported that “[t]here is some talk of further trouble among the Holliday and Tyler factions, but the police have their eye upon them and will see that they don’t do any damage.” The report added, “The police are making a quiet raid upon everybody who carries concealed weapons.”86

  Allen was reported “decidedly on the mend,” although because of “the excessive internal hemorrhage of the wound” the doctors feared that gangrene might set in. It was an “ugly wound…likely to give him trouble in after life.” He was confined to his home and expected to suffer a stiff arm for a longer period. “Allen takes the matter philosophically,” one paper said, “and bears his sufferings like a game man.” He would not be able to appear at the legal proceedings about to begin.87

  The preliminary hearing was scheduled for Monday, August 25, and promised “to attract a good deal of attention.” It was an accurate prediction. When court opened on Monday, “an enormous crowd was waiting.” District Attorney William Kellogg and C. A. Franklin acted for the prosecution, while attorneys M. L. Rice and Charles L. Fishback represented Holliday.88

  The hearing elicited few surprises. Captain Bradbury testified that he advised Allen not to go into Hyman’s. He said that he saw Doc through the window after Allen pushed by him and saw Doc fire: “Allen, so far as I could see, made no motion to shoot.” However, he also said that he “could not see Allen’s right hand, as his left side was toward me.” Curiously, he also testified that at the time he did not know that Allen had threatened Holliday.89 Dr. Frederick D’Avignon described Allen’s wound and said he was out of danger. Henry Kellerman, the bartender who subdued Doc, said that Holliday had told him that Allen was going “to do him up” and that he would not be murdered. He testified that he turned at the first shot and saw Doc “reach over the counter and fire the second shot.” On cross-examination, he told the judge that Holliday said that it was hard to go disarmed when Allen was armed. He also said that Holliday had asked Marshal Faucett to protect him. With that brief accounting, the prosecution rested.90

  The defense presented a string of witnesses who testified primarily about Allen’s threats. Pat Sweeney swore that Allen had told him he would “kick his damn brains out” if Holliday did not pay him and that Allen had a gun in his pocket the first time he came into Hyman’s on the day of the shooting. On cross-examination, he said that he had told Holliday of Allen’s threats. Kellerman was then recalled and simply said that Allen was “a good deal Heavier than Holliday.”91 Frank Lomeister said that he roomed with Holliday and had told Doc that Allen had a gun and was looking for him. Lomeister reported that Doc had told him he didn’t want to be “coped [sic] up” and asked him to find Marshal Faucett or Captain Bradbury and tell him he wanted protection. He said he went to look for those officers, but that Holliday found Faucett first.92

  William Reynolds swore that Allen had his hands in his pockets when he came into the saloon earlier in the day, though he did not see a pistol. He did say that he had heard that Cy Allen had tried to head trouble off and that when he saw Bradbury, he assumed the trouble had been squelched.93 Officer Robinson reviewed his conversation with Doc Holliday, and, over the objections of the prosecution, revealed that Billy Allen had warned him that Doc would be armed on the day of the shooting.94 James Ryan, a gambler at Hyman’s, testified concerning Allen’s threats the previous week, and Blackie Lorden testified that Cy Allen had tried to prevent Billy Allen from going to Hyman’s and that he (Lorden) had told Bradbury that “if Allen puts his foot insid
e the door there will be trouble.” He also said Allen had his hand in his pocket, though he did not actually see a pistol.95

  At that point, the defense called Mannie Hyman. The laconic Hyman protested that he had not been subpoenaed, but the judge informed him that it did not matter and that since he was in the courtroom he would testify. He protested further, but the judge persisted, so he took the stand. In testimony that enlightened observers more about Hyman’s nature than about the case, Hyman said simply that Doc Holliday had worked for him in the past and used his saloon as his headquarters.96

  Doc then took the stand. He reviewed the history of his trouble with Allen and tried to introduce the earlier troubles with the Tyler crowd, but the judge ruled that topic irrelevant, which may well have prevented the full truth about what happened from ever coming out. He then described his efforts to obtain protection from the police on the day of the shooting. He admitted to shooting Allen, then added, “I knew that I would be a child in his hands if he got hold of me; I weigh 122 pounds; I think Allen weighs 170 pounds. I have had the pneumonia three or four times; I don’t think I was able to protect myself against him.” Under cross-examination, he told the court, “I had been told he had a gun and was looking for me; when he came in his right hand was in his pocket; he was about three feet inside of the door when I shot; when I shot the first time, he turned and fell; I did not see where his hands were when I shot the second time; I supposed he was going to get there if he could, for I thought he had come there to kill me.” He said that he saw the butt of a revolver and added, “Of course I couldn’t let him murder me so I fired.”97