The shotgun blast tore through the narrow alley and lifted Frank McLaury off his feet, the double charge from both barrels slamming into his belly before he could get off another shot. He was dead before he hit the ground, and the gun smoke was still curling through the cold October air when the rest of the world seemed to stop. Billy Clanton lay sprawled in the dust, his chest torn open, his pistol still in his hand. Tom McLaury was down too, and the three Earp brothers stood in the smoke, three of their four men still on their feet, the fourth, Doc Holliday, already turning to see what he had done.
It had taken about thirty seconds. Thirty seconds to decide the fate of Tombstone, Arizona Territory, and to make Wyatt Earp the most famous lawman the West would ever know. Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp was born on March 19, 1848, in Monmouth, Illinois, to Nicholas and Virginia Earp. His father was a farmer and a lawyer who had once served in the army, and the boy was named for his father’s former army captain.
When Wyatt arrived, his older brothers James and Virgil were already seven and five, and a sister Martha was three. Two years later the family moved to Iowa, where Nicholas established a farm, and three more children followed: Morgan in 1851, Warren in 1855, and Adelia in 1861. Nicholas Earp held the land and the law in high regard, and he instilled that same respect in his children. In 1864 the family moved west to Colton, California, near San Bernardino.
Along the way Wyatt was given his first weapon, a combination shotgun and rifle, to help protect the family against Indian attacks. He soon acquired a six-gun and practiced with it daily, becoming a deadly marksman. Once in California he worked as a teamster and a railroad hand for a time, but before long he began working his way back east, taking jobs as a buffalo hunter, a wagon train scout, and a railroad worker. By 1870 Wyatt had reached Lamar, Missouri, where he fell in love with and married Urilla Sutherland.
The marriage was brief; within a year Urilla was dead. Historical accounts vary on the cause, some say she died in childbirth, others that typhoid fever took her. Heartbroken, Wyatt headed for Indian Territory, working as a buffalo hunter and stagecoach driver. But he and two traveling companions were soon accused of stealing horses.
After paying bail, Wyatt fled to Kansas before the case ever came to trial. In 1871 Earp met Wild Bill Hickok in Kansas City, along with other Western legends including Buffalo Bill Cody, Jack Gallagher, and Billy Dixon. Wyatt would later say of Wild Bill that he was regarded as the deadliest pistol shot alive and a man of great courage. The truth of certain stories of Bill’s achievements may have been open to debate, Wyatt allowed, but Bill had earned the respect paid to him.
Hickok helped Wyatt become a better buffalo hunter, and on the open Kansas prairie in August 1873, Wyatt met Bat Masterson. It was in Ellsworth, Kansas, that the Earp legend began. Ellsworth was a railhead where vast herds of cattle were driven north from Texas. The town was wild with drunken cowboys, two of whom were Billy and Ben Thompson, lethal gunmen who would rather resort to gunplay than talk out an argument.
Wyatt had heard of the two killers and chose not to play at the same gaming tables with such unpredictable men. But before long he caught up with them anyway. On August 15, 1873, Wyatt was standing across the street from Brennan’s Saloon when he heard the sounds of an argument coming from the gambling house. The Thompsons had started a dispute with two other gamblers, John Sterling and Jack Morco, a local lawman.
The disturbance soon brought Sheriff Chauncey Whitney and two deputies. Sterling and Morco charged at the Thompsons guns blazing, but Ben Thompson drove them off with a volley of shots. Then Billy Thompson, a homicidal maniac and hopeless alcoholic, turned his gun on Sheriff Whitney, a drinking companion and friend to the two brothers, and at point-blank range shot the sheriff down. Wyatt watched without interfering.
He saw Ellsworth’s mayor, James Miller, enter the saloon and demand that Thompson surrender his guns. Thompson refused. Miller went looking for Whitney’s deputies, who had disappeared from the scene after the sheriff was shot. When Wyatt spotted the two deputies cowering on the sidelines, he remarked to the passing mayor, “It’s none of my business, but if it was me, I’d get me a gun and arrest Ben Thompson, or kill him.
”
Miller tore the badge off Deputy Norton’s chest, walked back to Earp, and said, “I’ll make it your business. ”
Wyatt watched, stunned, as Ben Thompson swaggered out of the saloon and mounted his horse, with his brother Billy waving him goodbye. “What kind of a town is this? ” he snapped at the deputies and the mayor, who now stood meekly across the square.
Borrowing a pair of six-shooters, he followed Ben Thompson, who was about a block away. When he caught up with him, he demanded that Thompson throw down his gun. Thompson, who knew a fighter when he saw one, complied, and Wyatt marched him to jail. Ben Thompson was fined twenty-five dollars for disturbing the peace, and a warrant for murder was issued for his brother Bill.
Mayor Miller was so impressed that he offered Wyatt the job of town marshal at one hundred twenty-five dollars a month. But Earp declined, handing the badge back and saying he intended to go into the cattle business with his brothers. Ben Thompson, who would later turn lawman himself, would say to Bat Masterson in subsequent years that he had a powerful hunch Wyatt would have killed him if he hadn’t thrown down his gun. The story of how Earp had backed down Ben Thompson spread up and down the Chisholm Trail, and the Wyatt Earp legend was born.
In the spring of 1874 Wyatt moved on to Wichita, Kansas, another Wild West town. He worked as a part-time lawman and city maintenance man, making about sixty dollars a month. But he was fired from the police force after fighting with William Smith, who was running for city marshal against Mike Meger, a friend of Wyatt’s. Worse, Wyatt was almost arrested himself for discharging his weapon in public.
The incident was an accident, but it didn’t speak well for a lawman. He had been sitting in a local saloon with his feet up on a table when his pistol fell out of its holster, hit the floor, and went off. The bullet went through his coat and into the wall. Before moving on to Dodge City, Wyatt and his brother James were nearly arrested for vagrancy.
Some reports say that Wyatt stole city tax money before hightailing it to Dodge. By the spring of 1876 the cattle trade had shifted west to Dodge City, and soon Wyatt was offered the position of chief deputy marshal by the city’s mayor. Dodge City had already acquired its infamous stamp of lawlessness. Buffalo hunters, railroad workers, drifters, and soldiers streamed into town after long excursions on the prairie and quickly found the many saloons, gambling houses, and brothels.
Gunfights were common, and the people of Dodge feared for their lives. Marshal Larry Deger, the last in a long line of officers who had been run out of town or shot in the back, was overwhelmed and heartily welcomed Wyatt. Soon four assistant deputies were hired: Bat Masterson, Wyatt’s old buffalo-hunting friend, Charlie Bassett, Bill Tillman, and Neil Brown. Intending to restore order, the new lawmen first initiated a deadline north of the railroad yards on Front Street to keep the commercial part of the city quiet.
On the north side of the deadline the city passed an ordinance that guns could not be worn or carried. Those who supported the lawlessness continued to operate as usual on the south side, with its host of saloons, brothels, and frequent gunfights. But the gun-toting rule was in effect around the clock, and anyone wearing a gun was immediately jailed. Soon Dodge City’s jail was full.
In his new role, Earp went after the famed train robber Dave Rudabaugh, following the Outlaw’s Trail for four hundred miles to Fort Griffin, Texas. When he arrived, Wyatt went first to the largest saloon in town, Shanssey’s, asking about Rudabaugh. Owner John Shanssey said that Rudabaugh had been there earlier in the week but that he didn’t know where he was bound. He directed Wyatt to Doc Holliday, who had played cards with Rudabaugh.
Wyatt was skeptical about talking to Holliday, since it was well known that Doc hated lawmen. But when Wyatt found him that evening at Shanssey’s, he was surprised by Holliday’s willingness to talk. Doc told Wyatt that he thought Rudabaugh had back-trailed to Kansas. Wyatt wired this information to Bat Masterson, now sheriff in Dodge City, and the news was instrumental in apprehending Rudabaugh.
The unlikely pair formed a friendship in Shanssey’s that would last for years. In the fall of 1876 Wyatt and his brother Morgan left Dodge for a time, traveling to the Black Hills outside Deadwood, South Dakota, in search of gold. But he returned to Dodge in May 1877 after James “Dog” Kelly, Dodge City’s new mayor, wired him asking for help with the Texas cowboys shooting up the town. Wyatt was made the new town marshal when he returned and deputized his brother Morgan.
He began to plague the courts for harsher sentences, banned some men from entering the town, and organized a citizens’ committee to help law enforcers watch the streets. Not long after Wyatt returned to Dodge, Doc Holliday turned up with Big Nose Kate after killing a man in Fort Griffin, Texas. Doc was running from a lynching party. At first Doc hung out his doctor’s shingle, but soon he went back to gambling, frequenting the Alhambra and dealing cards at the Long Branch Saloon.
Though Dodge City citizens thought the friendship between Wyatt and Doc was strange, Wyatt ignored them, and Doc kept the peace while in Dodge City. One night, while Doc was dealing faro in the Long Branch Saloon, several Texas cowboys arrived with a herd of cattle. After many weeks on the trail, the rowdy cowboys were ready to let loose. Leading the cowboy mob was Ed Morrison, whom Wyatt had humiliated in Wichita, and a man named Tobe Driscoll.
The cowboys rushed the town, galloping down Front Street with guns blazing and blowing out shop windows. Entering the Long Branch Saloon, they began harassing the customers. When Wyatt entered the front door, he came face to face with several waiting gun barrels. Stepping forward, Morrison sneered, “Pray and jerk your gun.
Your time has come, Earp. ”
Suddenly a voice sounded behind Morrison. “No, friend. You draw, or throw your hands up.
”
It was Doc, his revolver pressed to Morrison’s temple. Doc had been in the back room, his card game interrupted by the havoc out front. “Any of you bastards pulls a gun, and your leader here loses what’s left of his brains. ”
The cowboys dropped their arms.
Wyatt wrapped Morrison over the head with his long-barreled Colt, then, relieving Driscoll and Morrison of their arms, he ushered them to the Dodge City jail. Wyatt never forgot that Doc Holliday saved his life that night. He would say later: “The only way anyone could have appreciated the feeling I had for Doc after the Driscoll-Morrison business would have been to have stood in my boots when Doc came through the Long Branch doorway. ”
While in Dodge City, Wyatt met a saloon girl named Celia Ann Blaylock, whom he affectionately called Mattie.
Though the two never married, they lived as husband and wife. At first the couple was happy, but Mattie had acquired a laudanum dependency due to a prior illness, which would soon strain their relationship. In their ongoing love-hate relationship, Big Nose Kate and Doc Holliday had one of their frequent violent quarrels. As a result, Holliday soon saddled his horse and headed to Colorado, leaving Big Nose Kate behind.
An often-told event was the 1878 showdown between Wyatt Earp and Clay Allison, the self-proclaimed shootist from New Mexico. According to the stories, Allison planned to protest the treatment of his men by the Dodge City marshals and was willing to back his arguments with gunsmoke. The Dodge City lawmen had gained a reputation for being hard on visiting cattle herders, with stories circulating that cattlemen had been robbed, shot, and beaten with revolvers. George Hoyt, who had once worked for Clay Allison, had been shot to death while shooting a pistol in the air in the streets of Dodge City.
There are several versions of the story. Some say Allison and his men terrorized Dodge City while Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson fled in fear. Others say Wyatt Earp pressured Allison into leaving. Still others say Allison was talked into leaving by a saloon keeper and another cattleman, with little or no contact with Wyatt Earp.
There is no evidence of any serious altercation ever having happened. Historians surmise that Allison might have come to Dodge City looking for trouble, but nothing happened. While Allison and his men went from saloon to saloon fortifying themselves with whiskey, Earp and his marshals began to assemble their forces. In the end, Dick McNulty, owner of a large cattle outfit, and Chalk Beeson, co-owner of the Long Branch Saloon, intervened on behalf of the town, talking the gang into giving up their guns.
By 1879 Dodge City had been tamed, and Wyatt was spending more time at the gaming tables than marshaling. So when brother Virgil wrote him about the new city of Tombstone, Arizona, Wyatt, along with brothers James and Morgan and common-law wife Mattie, headed west. Big Nose Kate would follow, and when Doc Holliday returned to Dodge City and found everyone gone, he too headed for Arizona. When Wyatt arrived in Tombstone in December 1879, he planned to establish a stage line but soon discovered two were already operating in the town.
Instead he acquired the gambling concession at the Oriental Saloon for a quarter percent of the proceeds. He also took a side job as a shotgun rider on the stage lines for Wells Fargo shipments. James established a saloon on Allen Street. Virgil was already deputy marshal of Tombstone, and Morgan went to work with his brother as a lawman.
Doc Holliday met up with Big Nose Kate in Prescott, Arizona, and the pair soon joined the Earps in Tombstone. Tombstone was the last of the wide-open hellholes, teeming with rustlers, thieves, gunmen, gamblers, and prostitutes. The outlaw Clanton gang had been running roughshod over the territory and immediately resented the Earps’ arrival. Old Man Clanton, his sons Ike, Finn, and Billy, the McLaury brothers Frank and Tom, Curly Bill Brocius, John Ringo, and their followers lost no time in expressing their displeasure.
The Clantons had long been rustling cattle from Old Mexico, moving their plunder north to their ranch on the San Pedro River, keeping Cochise County Sheriff John Behan on their payroll. Their operation had been highly successful until the Earps arrived. Wyatt wasn’t spending all of his time working. He met Josephine “Josie” Sarah Marcus while in Tombstone.
The petite eighteen-year-old had arrived in town with a traveling theater troupe in 1879, before Wyatt arrived. She hooked up with Sheriff John Behan and stayed in Tombstone. But shortly after Wyatt appeared on the scene, Sheriff Behan made the mistake of introducing Josie to Wyatt, and the two instantly hit it off. The relationship between Wyatt and Mattie had continued to deteriorate as Mattie’s laudanum dependency grew worse.
Josie thought Wyatt was the best-looking man in Tombstone, and she began to be seen with him almost every night at his faro table while Mattie lingered at home. Behan, refusing to accept Josie’s apologies, fell in deeper with the Clantons to thwart the Earps at every turn. Now holding a personal grudge, he vowed to help the rustlers rid Tombstone of the bothersome Earp brothers as soon as possible. So when in July 1880 Behan offered Wyatt a job as deputy sheriff under Chief Marshal Fred White, Wyatt was suspicious.
He finally concluded the offer was designed to keep him too busy to guard the Wells Fargo stage again, allowing the Clantons access to that lucrative plunder. Wyatt accepted the job, but Behan’s plan failed when Wyatt convinced Wells Fargo to hire brother Morgan as the new guard in his place. Their plan having been a bust, the Clantons were furious. Curly Bill Brocius first tangled with Wyatt Earp in October 1880.
One day Brocius, along with Billy Clanton and Frank and Tom McLaury, were riding up and down Allen Street, firing their weapons and harassing anyone walking along the boardwalks. When Sheriff White tried to stop the cowboys, Brocius drew his gun. White grabbed it, and in the fray the gun went off, hitting White in the groin. Earp arrived on the scene and brought his six-gun down on Curly Bill’s head, knocking him unconscious.
White was taken to the doctor; Brocius was taken to jail. White made a deathbed statement in the doctor’s office that his own carelessness had shot him. After White’s death, Wyatt confronted the gunman, stating he would kill any one of them who reached for a weapon, and ordered them out of town. Soon Curly Bill was released, thanks to White’s dying statement.
Meanwhile, while Doc Holliday was gambling at the Oriental Saloon, John Behan accused Doc of manipulating a faro game. Doc, never one to back down quickly, challenged Behan, who retreated hastily. Behan’s public embarrassment added more fuel to the fire. Through the early months of 1881 the Clantons continued to rustle cattle from Mexico, a crime the Earp lawmen could do nothing about.
Their hands were tied, since cattle rustling was officially a county matter and John Behan was the county. The gap between the law and the outlaw faction grew wider, dividing the town into two camps. While most of Tombstone’s citizens supported the Earps, the politically strong outlaw element, with Behan in control, supported the Clantons. In the meantime Doc and Big Nose Kate continued living together, but they had serious arguments when Kate got drunk.
Her drunkenness often escalated to abuse, and finally Doc had had enough and threw her out. The Clantons used the separation to their advantage. On March 15, 1881, four masked men attempted a holdup on a stagecoach near Contention and killed the stage driver and a passenger. The cowboy faction immediately seized the opportunity and accused Doc Holliday of being one of the holdup men.
Sheriff Behan, investigating the holdup, found Kate on one of her drunken binges, still berating Doc for throwing her out. After feeding her even more whiskey, Behan persuaded her to sign an affidavit that Doc had been one of the masked highwaymen and had killed the stage driver. While Kate was sobering up, the Earps were rounding up witnesses who could verify Doc’s whereabouts on the night in question. When Kate realized what she had done, she repudiated her statement, and the charges were thrown out.
But for Doc this was the last straw. Giving her some money, he put her on a stage out of town. Wyatt and his deputies had gone after the robbers and had arrested a Clanton hanger-on named Luther King, who under pressure confessed to participating in the crime. But after the arrest, John Behan argued that King was his prisoner, since the crime was territorial, not city.
Suspiciously, King escaped from Behan’s jail. It was then apparent to Wyatt that Doc had been shanghaied as an intended sacrificial lamb, and that King had been released so as not to implicate the real perpetrators of the holdup. Events now moved rapidly toward a final showdown. Old Man Clanton was shot and killed by a band of vaqueros during a rustling attempt below the border.
His eldest son Ike, whose rushed judgments would prove fatal, took the family reins. Also in the heat of summer 1881, a fire swept the business district of Tombstone, and the citizens blamed Marshal Ben Sippy for not controlling the looting that followed. Virgil Earp, the senior deputy, was appointed marshal, a move that antagonized the already hostile Clantons. And there was Josie, who continued to see Wyatt while she tried to remain apart from the bad blood churning between the factions.
The sight of her riled Behan all over again. Throughout the lazy summer season of 1881, threats against the Earp brothers increased. Ike Clanton, Johnny Ringo, Curly Bill Brocius, and others of their ilk would often be heard telling a barroom full of listeners how they would send Wyatt Earp to Boot Hill. On Tuesday, October 25, Ike Clanton spent the day getting drunk, moving from one saloon to the next, making threats against the Earps and Holliday to anyone who would listen.
That night he went to the Occidental Saloon for a card game with Tom McLaury. An angry Doc Holliday, who had heard of the boasts, confronted him. “I heard you’re going to kill me, Ike,” he said. “Get out your gun and commence.
”
Virgil, a United States deputy marshal; Wyatt, an appointed acting city marshal by Virgil; and Morgan, also a sworn officer, were present during the confrontation. Virgil told Doc and Ike that he would arrest both of them if they continued the argument. Though boasting violence throughout the day, Clanton was unarmed, and finally Virgil drew Holliday away. But Clanton followed, promising, “I’ll kill you tomorrow, when the others come to town.
”
Spotting Wyatt on the streets, the fired-up Clanton continued: “Tell your consumptive friend, your Arizona Nightingale, he’s a dead man tomorrow. ” To which Wyatt just turned and replied, “Don’t you tangle with Doc Holliday. He’ll kill you before you’ve begun. ”
Ike’s parting shot was, “Get ready for a showdown.
”
Wednesday, October 26, 1881, was an overcast, windy day. The Earps, anticipating trouble, woke early. As Virgil watched from his hotel window, he saw Billy Clanton ride into town accompanied by his friend Billy Claiborne. They met the McLaury brothers and Ike Clanton on Allen Street.
Ike was looking for Holliday, but before he could find him, Virgil and Morgan confronted him. Ike, bracing a shotgun, exchanged words with the two. But when Clanton raised his rifle, Virgil subdued him, impounded his rifle, and dragged him before Justice of the Peace Wallace, who fined Ike $27. 50 for carrying firearms in the city.
Wyatt and Tom McLaury, both hearing what had happened, met at the judge’s door simultaneously, literally bumping into each other. Though Wyatt apologized, McLaury insulted him, and in return Wyatt brought his gun down on McLaury’s head. Later that morning the cowboys met at Spangenberg’s Gunsmith Shop. Then Frank McLaury rode his horse onto the boardwalk, frightening pedestrians off its path.
Outside the gunsmith shop, Wyatt grabbed the horse’s reins, leading it to the street as McLaury yelled profanities. After this latest confrontation, the outlaws retreated in a group around the corner off Allen Street. With all the tension, there was bound to be a fight. Several members of the town’s citizens’ committee offered their assistance to the Earp brothers, but thanking them, Wyatt said it was his and his brothers’ responsibility as law officers.
Then John Behan, the county sheriff, appeared, pronouncing, “Ike Clanton and his crew are on Fremont Street, talking gun talk. ”
Ike Clanton, the two McLaurys, Billy Clanton, and Billy Claiborne met in a vacant lot, planning to bushwhack Doc Holliday, who passed that way every morning. Virgil, as chief marshal, agreed to go down there to break them up but contended that Behan should accompany him. Behan only laughed.
“Hell, this is your fight, not mine. ”
However, the cowboys were surprised when the Earps showed up, and Doc was with them. As they made their way to the O. K.
Corral, witnesses said the three Earp brothers were all dressed in black, with firm, mean grimaces on their faces, while Doc was natty clad in gray and was whistling. Where the two forces finally met was ninety yards down an alley from the O. K. Corral.
The actual gunfight took place off Fremont Street, between Fly’s Photo Gallery and the O. K. Corral. The Earps passed by the corral but cut through the alley, where they found the troublemakers waiting at the other end.
“You are under arrest for attempting to disturb the peace,” Virgil announced as the senior officer. He displayed only a non-threatening walking stick, giving Doc his shotgun to carry. The rustlers tightened, and Morgan and Doc simultaneously braced for action. “Hold on, I don’t want that!
” cried Virgil. What happened next was a blur, occurring in about thirty seconds. The shooting started when Billy Clanton and Frank McLaury cocked their pistols. It is unknown who fired the first shot, but Doc’s bullet was the first to hit home, tearing through Frank McLaury’s belly and sending McLaury’s shot wild through Wyatt’s coattail.
Billy Clanton fired at Virgil, but his shot also went astray. Then he was hit with Morgan’s shot through his rib cage. Billy Claiborne ran as soon as shots were fired and was already out of sight. Ike Clanton, panicked, threw his gun down, pleading for his life.
“Fight, or get out like Claiborne! ” Wyatt yelled, and watched Ike desert his brother Billy as he ran toward the door of the photography shop. But Ike then withdrew a hidden gun, firing one more round toward Wyatt before disappearing. The sound distracted Morgan enough that Tom McLaury sent a bullet into Morgan’s shoulder.
Doc instantly countered, blowing Tom away with blasts from both barrels of a shotgun. Desperately wounded and dying, Billy Clanton fired blindly into the gun smoke encircling him, striking Virgil’s leg. Wyatt responded by sending several rounds into Billy. Then it was silent.
The townspeople ran from their homes and shops. Wagons conveyed the wounded Morgan and Virgil to their respective homes, and doctors followed. The thirty-second shootout left Billy Clanton, Frank McLaury, and Tom McLaury dead. Virgil took a shot to the leg, and Morgan suffered a shoulder wound, while Wyatt stood still, stunned.
Sheriff Behan appeared, advising him he was under arrest. The Earps and Doc Holliday were tried for murder, but it was determined that the Earps acted within the law. Virgil was later terminated as marshal for his role in the homicides. On March 18, 1882, the cowboy gang struck again.
While Morgan Earp played pool at Campbell and Hatch’s Saloon, a shot was fired from the darkness of the alley, striking Morgan in the back. Morgan’s body was dressed in one of Doc Holliday’s suits and shipped to his parents in Colton, California, for burial. The entire Earp party, including Mattie, accompanied Morgan’s body. However, in Tucson, Wyatt, Warren, and Doc Holliday hopped off the train, searching for Frank Stilwell, who supposedly worked in the railroad yards.
The train went on to California without them. After spotting Stilwell, Wyatt chased him down the track, filling him with bullet holes. A coroner’s jury named Wyatt and Warren Earp, Doc Holliday, and two other men named Texas Jack Johnson and Sherman McMasters as the men who had killed Stilwell, and warrants were issued for their arrest. Earp sought vengeance on the men who had shot Virgil and killed Morgan.
Killing Stilwell was just his first step. Along with Doc Holliday and others, Wyatt began what is known as the Earp Vendetta Ride. Word came that Pete Spence was at his wood camp in the Dragoons, and on March 21, 1882, Earp and his men quickly headed out. They found not Pete Spence but Florentino Cruz.
The frightened Cruz named all the men who had murdered Morgan, himself included. Earp and his men filled Cruz with bullet holes. The Earp posse rode out again, and on March 24, 1882, they ran into Curly Bill Brocius and eight of his men near Iron Springs. A gunfight ensued, in which Curly Bill was killed and Johnny Barnes received a wound from which he eventually died.
In just over a year, the Earp posse, along with Doc Holliday, eliminated Old Man Clanton, Billy Clanton, Frank McLaury, Tom McLaury, Frank Stilwell, Indian Charlie, Dixie Gray, Florentino Cruz, Johnny Barnes, Jim Crane, Harry Head, Bill Leonard, Joe Hill, Luther King, Charlie Snow, Billy Lang, Zwing Hunt, Billy Grounds, and Hank Swilling. Pete Spence turned himself into the authorities, where he could hide in the penitentiary. In May 1882 Wyatt and Doc left Tombstone, swearing they would never return but still vowing vengeance on Ringo, Clanton, Spence, and Swilling if they could ever find them. Riding their horses to Silver City, New Mexico, they sold them, rode a stage to Deming, and boarded a train for Colorado.
Josie soon joined Wyatt in Denver, where they were married. Mattie had traveled with the Earps to California, to Wyatt’s parents’ home. At some point she left them and ended up in Globe, Arizona, where she lived a life of prostitution. She told her friends that her husband had destroyed her life when he deserted her.
Tragically, she died of a laudanum overdose on July 3, 1888, in Pinal City, Arizona. While in Colorado, Wyatt initially worked as a private investigator and a Wells Fargo driver. He and Josie also occasionally prospected in the mountains. Sometimes Bat Masterson would visit the couple, and they would see Doc Holliday, who had settled down in Leadville, Colorado, when they could.
Wyatt and Josie returned to Dodge City, Kansas, in 1883 for a time, and then he took his new bride on a tour of Texas and northern Mexico before they made their way to California. In the meantime Doc Holliday’s health was badly deteriorating, and he soon migrated from Leadville to Denver in the winter of 1885. Though he did not improve in Denver, he could see his old friend Wyatt Earp. In the late winter of 1886 they met in the lobby of the Windsor Hotel.
Josie described the skeletal Holliday as having a continuous cough and standing on unsteady legs. Holliday’s health continued to get worse. A realist, Doc was not one to believe in miraculous cures, but hoping that the Yampa hot springs and sulfur vapors might improve his health, he headed for Glenwood Springs, Colorado, in May 1887. Registering at the fashionable Hotel Glenwood, he grew steadily worse, spending his last fifty-seven days in bed at the hotel, delirious for fourteen of them.
On November 8, 1887, Doc woke clear-eyed and asked for a glass of whiskey. It was given to him, and he drank it down with enjoyment. Then, looking down at his bare feet, he said, “This is funny,” and died. He had always figured he would be killed with his boots on.
After spending several years in California, Wyatt and Josie spent time with the Earps in San Bernardino and with Josie’s family in San Francisco. While in California, Wyatt acted as a referee in boxing matches, continued to gamble, and invested in real estate, saloons, and a racehorse. In 1897 gold fever broke in Alaska, and the couple headed to Nome, where they opened a saloon during the height of the gold rush. The pair also panned for gold throughout the Yukon and did very well.
They returned to California in 1901 with an estimated eighty thousand dollars. But their stay was short-lived when they heard about the gold strike in Tonopah, Nevada. Taking their prospecting in earnest, Wyatt staked several claims in the Mojave Desert, where he discovered several veins of gold near Vidal, California, and copper as well. They spent winters in a small cottage and summers in Los Angeles.
There he befriended several early Hollywood actors and became an adviser for several Hollywood westerns during the silent-movie days. On January 13, 1929, Wyatt Earp died in Los Angeles at the age of eighty, of prostate cancer. Cowboy actors Tom Mix and William S. Hart were among his pallbearers.
Wyatt’s cremated ashes were buried in Josie’s family plot in Colma, California, just south of San Francisco. When Josie died in 1944, she was buried beside him. As to the other Earp brothers: Virgil was taken to the family homestead in Colton, California, where he recovered from his wounds suffered at the O. K.
Corral. Later he prospected with his wife and was still elected city marshal of Colton. He returned to prospecting with his wife Allie and died of pneumonia in Goldfield, Nevada, in 1905. Virgil is buried in the Riverview Cemetery in Portland, Oregon.
After helping Wyatt track Morgan’s killers, Warren served as a stage driver and did some prospecting in Globe, Arizona. He then moved to Wilcox, Arizona, and in 1900 got into a drunken fight with a cowboy named Johnny Boyett. Boyett shot and killed Warren, who was unarmed at the time. Boyett was acquitted on the grounds of self-defense, the jury believing that even an Earp without a gun was more dangerous than most men with a gun in their hand.
Warren is buried in the Wilcox Pioneer Cemetery in Wilcox, Arizona. When Morgan was killed, James traveled with Virgil and the Earp women to Colton, California, for Morgan’s burial. Later he lived in Shoshone County, Idaho, before settling permanently in California in 1890.
James Earp died on January 25, 1926, and is buried in Mountain View Cemetery in San Bernardino, California.
