In the good old days of Indians and bad men the roaring town of
Tombstone had a man for breakfast every morning. And there were
mornings when the number ran as high as half a dozen.
That is the way the old-timers speak of it, and there is a fond pride
in their voices when they allude to the subject; the same sort of
pride one betrays when he tells of the wild oats sowed by a
gray-haired friend during his lusty youth. For Tombstone has settled
down to middle-aged conventionality and is peaceable enough to-day for
any man.
But in the early eighties!
Apaches were raiding; claim-jumpers were battling; road-agents were
robbing stages; bad men were slaying one another in the streets; and,
taking it altogether, life was stepping to a lively tune.
Geronimo's naked warriors were industrious. Now they would steal upon
a pair of miners doing assessment work within sight of town. Now they
would bag a teamster on the road from Tucson, or raid a ranch, or
attack the laborers who were laying the water company's pipe-line to
the Huachucas. Hardly a week passed but a party of hard-eyed horsemen
rode out from Tombstone with their rifles across their saddle-bows,
escorting a wagon which had been sent to bring in the bodies of the
latest victims.
In the two years after the first rush from Tucson to the rich silver
district which Ed Schiefflin had discovered, there was much
claim-jumping. And claim-jumping in those days always meant shooting.
Some properties were taken and retaken several times, each occasion
being accompanied by bloodshed. Surveying parties marched into the
foot-hills of the Mule Mountains under escort of companies of
riflemen; in more than one instance they laid out boundary lines and
established corner monuments after pitched battles, each with its own
formidable casualty list.
What with the murders by the savages and these affrays--together with
such natural hazards of disease and accident as accompany any new
mining camp--the boot-hill graveyard out beyond the north end of the
wide main street was booming like the town. And now there came a more
potent factor in stimulating mortuary statistics.
The bad men took possession of Tombstone.
They came from all over the West. For railroads and telegraph lines
were bringing a new order of things from the Missouri to the Rio
Grande, and those who would live by the forty-five hastened to ride
away from sight of jails and churches, seeking this new haven down by
the border.
One by one they drifted across the flaring Southwestern deserts; from
California, Montana, Colorado, Kansas, Texas, and New Mexico, with
their grim mouths tight shut against all questions and their big
revolvers dangling beside their thighs. The hair of some of them was
gray from many winters and their faces deeply lined; and some were
boys with down on their smooth cheeks. But once his hand started
moving toward his pistol, every man of them was deadlier than a bull
rattlesnake in rutting time.
No man challenged them on their arrival. The town was too busy to heed
their presence. The one-story buildings which lined the wide streets
were packed to the doors with customers; saloons, dance-halls, and
gambling-houses roared on through day and night; the stores were open
at all hours. The wide sidewalks under the wooden awnings which ran
the length of every block, were crowded from wall to gutter with men
intent on getting wealth or spending it.
The bad men mingled with the sidewalk throngs; they dropped into the
Bird-Cage Opera House, where painted women sang in voices that clanged
like brazen gongs; they took their places before the gambling-tables
of the Crystal Palace, where girls were oftentimes to be found dealing
faro; they joined the long lines before the bars and drank the
stinging whisky which the wagon-trains had brought from Tucson. And
they met one another.
It was like the meeting of strange dogs, who bristle on sight, and
often fly at one another's throats to settle the question of
supremacy. Their big-caliber revolvers spat streams of fire in the
roadways and bellowed in the dance-halls. And gradually among the
ranks of the survivors there came a gradation in their badness.
Several loomed far above the others: John Ringo, Prank Stilwell, Zwing
Hunt, the Clanton brothers, and Billy Grounds. They were "He Wolves."
And there was Curly Bill, the worst of all. He might be said to rule
them.
They settled down to business, which is to say they started to do the
best they could for themselves according to their separate capacities
for doing evil unto others.
They rustled stock. They drove whole herds over the boundary from
Mexico. They pillaged the ranches, which were now coming into the
adjacent country, stealing horses, altering brands, and slaying
whoever interfered with them, all with the boldness of medieval
raiders. They took a hand in the claim-jumping. They robbed the
stage.
Hardly a day passed without a hold-up on the Tucson road--and, when
the railway went through, on the road to Benson. Shotgun guards and
drivers were killed; occasionally a passenger or two got a bullet. And
the bad men spent the money openly over the bars in Tombstone.
Then the Earp brothers came upon the scene. From this time their
figures loom large in the foreground. Whatever else may be said of
them they were bold men and there was something Homeric in their
violence. Wyatt, Virgil, Morgan, and Jim, the first three were active
in the wild events which followed their incumbency to power.
California knew them in their boyhood, and during their manhood years
they wandered over the West, from mining camp to cow-town, until they
came to Tombstone from Dodge City, Kansas.
They brought a record with them. Back in the seventies, in the time of
the trail herds, Dodge was a howling cow-town. There was a period of
its existence when the punchers used to indulge in the pastime of
shooting up the place; but there were a great many of these frolicsome
riders, and too much wanton revolver shooting is sure to breed trouble
if it is combined with hard liquor, gambling, and a tough floating
population. The prominent business men of Dodge watched the hectic
consequences of this lawlessness over their faro layouts with
speculative eyes and came to the conclusion that killings were
becoming altogether too promiscuous. The town, they said, needed a
business administration; and forthwith they selected Bat Masterson as
marshal. He established, and enforced, a rule which amounted to this:
If a man pulled his gun he did it at his own peril. Whoever fired a
shot within the town limits, whether he did it for sport or murder,
faced arrest.
Resistance followed. There were nights when the main street echoed
with the roaring of firearms. But, by the force of his personality and
by his remarkable ability at the quick draw, Bat Masterson subdued the
rebels. It came about that of what killing was done he did his full
share, which greatly diminished the death list.
Wyatt and Virgil Earp succeeded Bat Masterson in this office and
carried on its administration with a boldness which left them famous.
With the coroner behind them they were lords of the high justice, the
middle, and the low; and they sustained their positions by good
straight shooting.
At such times as they were not performing their functions as peace
officers they were dealing faro; and when the imminence of a less
interesting era was made apparent in the dwindling of the trail herds
and the increase of dry farmers, they left the good old cow-town along
with many other professional gamblers.
They arrived in Tombstone in the days when the outlaws were rampant,
and they began dealing faro in Oriental. They found many a friend--and
some enemies--from those years in western Kansas among the more
adventurous element in the new town. Former buffalo-hunters,
teamsters, quiet-spoken gamblers, and two-gun men sat down before
their layouts and talked over bygones with them. There was an election
at about this time. Virgil was chosen town marshal, and Wyatt got the
appointment of deputy United States marshal soon afterward.
Old friends and new rallied around them. Of the former was Doc
Holliday, a tubercular gunman with the irascible disposition which
some invalids own, who had drifted hither from Colorado. Among the
latter were the Clanton brothers and Frank Stilwell, who robbed the
stage and rustled cattle for a living. John Ringo, who was really the
brains of the outlaws, and Curly Bill, who often led them, are listed
by many old-timers among the henchmen in the beginning.
It was a time when the old spoils system was recognized in its
pristine simplicity. If you trained with the victorious political
faction you either wore a star or had some one else who did wear a
star backing you. If you trained with the minority you were rather
sure, sooner or later, to have your name engrossed on a warrant. In
such an era it was as well to vote wisely; else, in the vernacular,
you were "short" in your home town, which meant you could not go back
there.
How much the Earps knew of what their henchmen did is beyond the
telling in this story. An official history of Arizona published under
the auspices of the State legislature and written by Major McClintock,
an old Westerner, states that first and last they were accused of
about 50 per cent. of the robberies which took place in the town. It
is, however, altogether possible that their cognizance of such matters
was no greater than many a city official to-day holds of crimes
committed in his bailiwick. When one comes to analyze police politics
he finds they have not changed much since the time of the Crusades:
desire for power has always blinded reformers to the misdeeds of their
followers. One thing is certain; the Earps did protect their friends,
and some of those friends were using very much the same methods which
the Apaches employed in making a living.
To a certain extent this was necessary. What one might call the highly
respectable element of the town was busy at its own affairs.
Mine-owners and merchants were deeply engrossed in getting rich. And
unless he liked gun-fighting, a man would have to be a good deal of a
busybody to give the town marshal anything more tangible than his best
wishes in the way of support. It was up to that official to look out
for himself. At any time when complications followed his attempt to
arrest a lawbreaker he could depend upon the average citizen--to get
outside the line of fire.
And the gun-fighters were eager to get into the game. They were right
on hand, to make a stand in front of the enemy if need be--but
preferably to murder the foe from behind. Which was ever the way with
the Western bad man.
There were determined men of another breed in Tombstone and the
surrounding country, men who had outfought Apaches and desperadoes on
many an occasion; dead shots who owned high moral courage. Such a man
was John Slaughter, who had established his ranch down on the Mexican
line and had driven the savages away from his neighborhood. But these
old-timers were not enlisted under the Earp banner and the town's new
rulers had only the other element for retainers.
So now Frank Stilwell robbed stages on the Bisbee road until the
drivers got to know his voice quite well; and he swaggered through the
Tombstone dance-halls bestowing the rings which he had stripped from
the fingers of women passengers upon his latest favorite. Ike and
Billy Clanton enlarged their herds with cattle and horses from other
men's ranges, and sold beef with other men's brands to Tombstone
butchers. And taking it altogether, the whole crew, from Doe Holliday
down, did what they could to bring popular disfavor upon the heads of
the new peace officers.
But if their followers were lacking in the quality of moral courage,
that cannot be said of the Earp brothers. And not long after they took
the reins in their strong hands, an occasion arose wherein they proved
their caliber. Wyatt in particular showed that he was made of stern
stuff.
It came about as a result of the reforms under the new regime. After
the manner of their Dodge City administration the brothers ruled in
Tombstone. They forbade the practice of shooting up the town. He who
sought to take possession of a dance-hall according to the old
custom, which consisted of driving out the inmates with drawn
revolvers and extinguishing the lights with forty-five caliber slugs,
was forthwith arrested. To ride a horse into a saloon and order drinks
for all hands meant jail and a heavy fine. To slay a gambler, or make
a gun-play in a gambling-house, when luck was running badly, resulted
in prosecution.
Virgil Earp attended to these matters, and after several incidents
wherein he disarmed ugly men whose friends stood by eager to let
daylight into the new marshal, he owned a certain amount of prestige.
It is only fair to remark in passing that he had a disposition--in
ticklish cases--to shoot first and ask questions afterward; but that
was recognized as an officer's inalienable right in those rude days.
Now this new order of things did not meet universal popular favor in
Tombstone. There were always three or four hundred miners off shift on
the streets, and while a large percentage of them were peaceable men,
there was a boisterous element. This element, and the cow-boys who had
been in the habit of celebrating their town comings after the good old
fashion, felt resentful. An occasional killing of one of their number
with the invariable verdict from a carefully picked coroner's jury,
"met his death while resisting an officer in performance of his duty,"
made the resentment more general. The recalcitrants said that
Tombstone was being run by a gang of murderers in the interest of the
gamblers.
Opposition to the administration began to crystallize. Things reached
the point where in a twentieth century community reformers would be
preparing to circulate recall petitions. But in the early eighties
they did things more directly, and instead of the recall they had the
"show-down." The malcontents eagerly awaited its coming.
It came. And its origin was in Charleston.
Charleston was eleven miles across the hills from Tombstone down by
the San Pedro River. There was a mill there, and the cow-boys from the
country around came in to spend their money. Jim Burnett was justice
of the peace. Early in the town's history he had seceded from the
county of Pima because the supervisors over in Tucson refused to allow
him certain fees. "Hereafter," so he wrote the board, "the justice
court in Charleston will look after itself." Which it did. Once the
court dragged Jack Harker from his horse, when that enthusiastic
stockman was celebrating his arrival by bombarding the town, and fined
the prisoner fifty head of three-year-old steers. And once--it is a
matter of record--a coroner's jury under his instruction rendered the
verdict: "Served the Mexican right for getting in front of the gun."
Things always moved swiftly in Charleston. There is a tale of a
saloon-keeper who buried his wife in the morning, killed a man at high
noon, and took unto himself a new bride before evening. If that story
is not true--and old-timers vouch for it--it is at least indicative of
the trend of life in the town.
And to Charleston came those followers of John Ringo and Curly Bill
who did not get on with the Earps. Several of them became men of
influence down here on the San Pedro. Hither flocked those boisterous
spirits who craved more freedom of action on pay-day than the mining
town afforded.
Guns blazed in Charleston whenever the spirit moved. The young fellow
who was ditch-tender for the company had to give up his lantern when
he made his nightly trip of inspection, because, as surely as that
light showed up on the side hill, there was certain to be some one
down in the street who could not resist taking a shot at it. So while
dissatisfaction was crystallizing among the miners of Tombstone a keen
rancor against the Earps was developing over by the San Pedro.
This was the state of affairs when Johnny Behind the Deuce brought
matters to a crisis by killing an engineer from the mill.
Johnny Behind the Deuce was an undersized, scrawny specimen of the
genus which is popularly known as "tinhorn," a sort of free-lance
gambler, usually to be found sitting in at a poker-game. The engineer
was a big man and abusive.
There was a game in which these two participated; and when he had lost
his wages to Johnny Behind the Deuce, the engineer sought solace first
in vituperation, then in physical maltreatment. Whereat Johnny Behind
the Deuce shot him. Charleston's constable took the slayer into
custody. The rustlers and other exiles from Tombstone knew the
prisoner for a friend of the Earps, and so they decided to lynch him.
They sent one of their number to get a reata for that purpose.
The constable learned what was going on. He commandeered a buckboard
and a team of mules, put Johnny Behind the Deuce aboard, and drove
the animals on the dead run for Tombstone.
When the man who had been sent for the reata returned, the rustlers
set out after the prisoner and found they were five minutes too late.
They saddled up and started in pursuit.
The road wound along the lower levels between the foot-hills of the
Mule Mountains; there were two or three dry washes to cross, some
sharp grades to negotiate, and several fine stretches which were
nearly level,--a rough road, admirably suited for making a wild race
wilder.
And this was a wild race. The constable and the prisoner were just
getting their team nicely warmed up when they heard a fusillade of
revolver-shots behind them. They glanced over their shoulders and saw
more than fifty horsemen coming on at that gait which is so well
described in the vernacular as "burning the wind." From time to time
one of these riders would lean forward and "throw down" his
six-shooter; then the occupants of the buckboard would hear the whine
of a forty-five slug, and a moment later the report of the distant
weapon would reach their ears.
The mules heard these things too. What with the noise of the firearms
and the whoops of the pursuers they were in a frenzy; they threw their
long ears flat back and entered into the spirit of the occasion by
running away. The constable, who was a cool man and a good driver,
centered his energies on guiding them around the turns and let it go
at that.
Now as the miles of tawny landscape flashed behind them the two
fugitives saw that they were being overhauled. And the pursuers found
that they were gaining; their yells came louder down the wind; they
roweled their lathered cow-ponies. And they drew closer to the
buckboard.
The constable negotiated the dry wash near Robbers Rock on two wheels,
and as the light vehicle was reeling along the easy grade beyond, the
prisoner took another look behind. He told his captor that the wild
riders were not much more than four hundred yards away.
They came to a stretch of level road. The mules were doing a little
better now, and they clattered down into the next dry wash with an
abandon which all but ended matters; the outer wheels went over the
high cut bank, but by the grace of good luck and marvelous driving the
buckboard was kept right side up. And now the lynching party, who had
made a short cut, appeared between the rolling hills not more than two
hundred yards behind.
Johnny Behind the Deuce reported the state of affairs. The constable
answered without turning his head.
"Looks like we're up against it, kid," said he, "but we'll play it out
's long as we got chips left."
Three miles outside of Tombstone stood an adobe building wherein
a venturesome saloon-keeper had installed himself, a barrel of
that remarkable whisky known as "Kill Me Quick," and sufficient
arms to maintain possession against road-agents. The sign on this
establishment's front wall said:
_LAST CHANCE_
It was a lucky chance for Johnny Behind the Deuce. For Jack McCann,
who owned a fast mare, was exercising her out here this afternoon
preparatory for a race against some cow-ponies over on the San Pedro
next week. He had trotted her down the road and was about to head her
back toward the saloon for her burst of speed when he saw the
buckboard coming over a rise.
The mules were fagged. The constable was lashing them with might and
main. The lynching party were within a hundred yards.
As Jack McCann surveyed this spectacle which was so rapidly
approaching him the constable waved his hand. The situation was too
tight to permit wasting time. McCann ranged his mare alongside the
buckboard as soon as it drew up; and before the breathless driver had
begun to explain, he cried.
"Jump on, kid."
Johnny Behind the Deuce leaped on the mare's back. The constable
pulled off the road as the lynching party came thundering by with a
whoop and halloo. He peered through the dust which the ponies' hoofs
had stirred up and saw the mare fading away in the direction of
Tombstone with her two riders.
* * * * *
It was nearly four o'clock in the afternoon. That hour was the dullest
of the twenty-four in the gambling-houses, for the evening shift was
on its way to work and the day shift had not yet come off. The Earps
were dealing faro in the Oriental.
To the onlooker who does not know its hazards faro is a funereal game.
The dealer slides one card and then a second from the box. The
case-keeper moves a button or two on his rack. The dealer in the
meantime is paying winners and collecting chips from losers, all with
the utmost listlessness. In his high chair above them, all the lookout
leans back with every external sign of world-weary indifference. And
the players settle a little lower on their stools. There was about as
much animation in the Oriental that afternoon as there is in a country
church on a hot Sunday morning; less in fact, for there was no
preacher present.
Into this peaceful quiet came the sound of hoofbeats from the street.
It stopped abruptly. Two men burst through the front door on a run.
The players looked around and the faro-dealers dropped their right
hands toward the open drawers where they kept their loaded pistols.
Jack McCann and Johnny Behind the Deuce had arrived.
But before the prisoner finished his story, to which he did not devote
more than twenty words or so, a man ran into the Oriental with the
tidings that the miners who were coming off shift were arming
themselves as fast as they left the cages. The rustlers had ridden up
the hill and were gathering reinforcements.
Wyatt Earp at once took charge of the affair. He was a medium-sized
man with a drooping sandy mustache.
"We'll close up, boys," he said.
The show-down had come.
Wyatt, Virgil, Morgan, and Jim took counsel. Doc Holliday advised
with them. A handful of their supporters stood by awaiting their
decision. All others left; the neighborhood was no healthy place for
non-combatants.
The Oriental gambling-house stood on Tombstone's main street at the
intersection of a cross street. Because of its size it would be a hard
place to defend against so formidable a mob as this which was now
moving down the hill. Several doors north on the main street and on
the opposite side, there was a bowling-alley. Its narrowness gave that
building a strategic value. They took Johnny Behind the Deuce there
and set guards at both ends.
Wyatt Earp remained alone out in the middle of the main street just
below the corner. He held a double-barreled shotgun over the crook of
his arm.
The ugly sound which rises from a mob came into the deserted
thoroughfare; the swift tramp of many feet, the growl of many voices.
More than three hundred miners, the majority of whom were armed with
rifles from the company's arsenal, and the fifty-odd members of the
Charleston lynching party swept into Toughnut Street, turned the
corner, and rushed down the cross street toward the Oriental.
They reached the intersection of the main street, and as they faced
the closed doors of the Oriental their left flank was toward Wyatt
Earp. They filled the roadway and the front ranks surged upon the
sidewalk toward the portals of the gambling-house.
Then some one who had seen the prisoner taken to the bowling-alley
shouted the tidings. The throng changed front in the instant and faced
the solitary man who stood there a few yards before them.
Wyatt Earp shifted his shotgun into his two hands and held it as a
trap-shooter who is waiting for the clay pigeons to rise.
In the moment of discovery the mob had checked itself, confronting him
as one man confronts another when the two are bitter enemies and the
meeting is entirely unexpected. There followed a brief, sharp surge
forward; it emanated from the rear ranks and moved in a wave toward
the front. There it stopped. And there passed a flash of time during
which the man and the mob eyed each other.
That was no ordinary lynching party such as some communities see in
these days. Its numbers included men who had outfought Apaches,
highwaymen, and posses; men who were accustomed to killing their
fellow beings and inured to facing death. And the hatred of the Earp
brothers, which had been brewing during all these months, was
white-hot now within them.
"Come on," called Wyatt Earp, and added an epithet.
Above the mass of tossing heads the muzzles of rifles were bobbing up
and down. The trampling of feet and the shuffling of packed bodies
made a dull under-note. Shouts arose from many quarters.
"Go on!" "Get him!" "Now, boys!"
Wyatt Earp threw back his head and repeated his challenge.
"Come on!" He flung an oath at them. "Sure you can get me. But"--he
gave them the supreme insult of that wild period's profanity--"the
first one makes a move, I'll get him. Who's the man?"
Those who saw him that afternoon say that his face was white; so white
that his drooping mustache seemed dark in contrast. His eyes gleamed
like ice when the sun is shining on it. He had the look of a man who
has put his life behind him; a man who is waiting for just one thing
before he dies--to select the ones whom he will take with him.
The cries behind redoubled, and the crowding increased in the rear.
Some leaped on the backs of those before them. But the men in the
front ranks--some of them were bold men and deadly--withstood the
pressure. They held their eyes on that grim, white face, or watched
the two muzzles of that shotgun which he swept back and forth across
their gaze with hypnotic effect.
It was a fine, large moment. Any one of them could have got him at the
first shot. There was no chance of missing. And scores yearned to get
him. Undoubtedly he had attained that pitch where he yearned for them
to do it. And being thus to all intents a dead man,--save only that he
retained the faculty of killing,--he was mightier than all of them.
Those in the front ranks were beginning to slip back; and as these
escaped his presence the others, who had become exposed to it,
struggled against the pressure of their fellows who would keep them in
that position. Some of the cooler spirits were stealing away. The
contagion of indifference spread. The mob was melting.
In the meantime one or two members of the Earp faction had procured a
team and wagon. As soon as the lynchers had dispersed they stowed the
prisoner in the vehicle, and set out for Tucson with a heavy guard.
But there was no pursuit. The reaction which follows perfervid
enthusiasm of this sort had settled down upon the miners and cow-boys.
Johnny Behind the Deuce was tried before the district court, and--as
was to be expected--he was acquitted.
Time went on and dissensions came among the followers of the Earp
brothers. Curly Bill and John Ringo were among the first to fall out
with the leaders, and they took the path of previous exiles to
Charleston. But the country by the San Pedro was being settled up, and
not long afterward they emigrated to Galeyville over in the San Simon
valley. Thenceforth this little smelter town became the metropolis of
the outlaws. Ringo spent most of his time here with occasional trips
to Tombstone, where, on more than one occasion, he dared the Earps to
try to take him. They did not accept his challenges. Finally he died
by his own hand and his friend Curly Bill left the country.
In the meantime new secessions were taking place in the Earp
following. The county of Cochise had been established. Tombstone
was made the county seat. Johnny Behan, an old-timer and an
Indian fighter, was the first sheriff. He was hostile to the city
administration from the beginning. Nor was that all. Lawyers came
into the town and henceforth--provided a dead man's friends had
money--killing an opponent no longer settled a dispute. There
remained such complications as indictment, sworn testimony, and the
jury. The good old days were passing.
Sheriff Johnny Behan charged the Earps with participation in robberies
and wilful cognizance of murders.
It was about as far as he did go as a public official. The brothers
issued profane and pointed defiance and went on dealing faro.
About this time Frank Stilwell quarreled with the Earps and hastily
departed from Tombstone And henceforth, until the wind-up of the ugly
affairs that followed, he remained at large, awaiting his opportunity
for revenge.
Sheriff Behan was trying to get some good charge to bring against the
brothers, and various lawyers--some of them widely known throughout
the Southwest--were anxiously awaiting opportunity to appear as
special prosecutors when the Benson stage was held up.
The Benson stage had been robbed often enough before, but this time
the crime brought far-reaching consequences. Bud Philpots was driver
and Bob Paul, afterward United States marshal, was shotgun messenger.
There was a large currency shipment--some eighty thousand dollars--in
the express-box. The stage was full inside and one passenger, a
Mexican, was riding on top. For some reason or other Bob Paul had
taken the reins and Philpots was sitting in his place. As the vehicle
came to the top of a hill the robbers showed themselves.
The old-timers speak of the conduct of the highwaymen with profane
contempt for instead of shooting a horse or two, they opened fire on
Bud Philpots, whom they believed from his position to be the
messenger. They killed him and the Mexican passenger who was seated
behind him. But the team took fright at the noise and ran away and the
eighty thousand dollars went on up the road in a cloud of dust.
Johnny Behan, the sheriff, said that the Earp brothers sent Doc
Holliday out with the Clanton brothers to commit the crime.
Ike Clanton said that he was rustling cattle at the time down in
Mexico, and accused the Earps of sole responsibility.
The Earps in turn stated that the Clanton boys were the bandits.
And that began the Earp-Clanton feud.
It did not last long, but there was much happening while it was going
on.
The Clanton brothers, Ike and Billy, betook themselves to their ranch
and gathered their friends around them. Frank and Tom McLowrey were
prominent among these allies. And now the statement was made in
Tombstone that the members of this faction had promised to shoot the
Earps on sight.
One October evening Ike Clanton came to town with Tom McLowery, and
Virgil Earp arrested the two on the charge of disturbing the peace. He
did it on the main street and disarmed them easily enough. The justice
of the peace, whose name was Spicer, fined the prisoners fifty
dollars.
The next morning these two defendants went to the 0. K. corral on
Fremont Street, where they had put up their horses the night before.
And there they met Bill Clanton and Frank McLowery. All four were
leading their ponies out of the gate when Wyatt, Virgil, and Morgan
Earp, together with Doc Holliday, confronted them.
"Hands up!" Wyatt ordered.
The shooting began at once. Holliday killed Tom McLowery, who was
unarmed, at the first volley. Billy Clanton fell mortally wounded but
continued shooting up to his last gasp. Frank McLowery got a bullet
through his pistol hand but shifted his weapon to the other and kept
on firing until Morgan Earp, who had fallen with a ball through his
shoulder, killed him from where he lay. Ike Clanton jumped a high
fence and fled.
Justice of the Peace Spicer held an examination and exonerated the
slayers on the ground that they had done the thing in performance of
their duty as officers, but friends of the Clantons had money. Some
one retained lawyers to assist in prosecuting the Earps. The sheriff
saw his opportunity and became active getting testimony.
And then, while the town was seething with gossip concerning the
coming trial, Frank Stilwell stole into Tombstone with a half-breed
and slew Morgan Earp, who was playing billiards at the time. The
murder accomplished, Stilwell took a fast horse and rode to Tucson.
The half-breed fled to the Dragoon Mountains.
The next day the three surviving Earp brothers and Doc Holliday
started for California with Morgan's body. At dusk that evening the
train reached Tucson. Now Ike Clanton was in the town, out on bail
awaiting trial for a stage-robbery. And Frank Stilwell was there. It
was no more than natural that the Earps should keep a sharp lookout
when the locomotive stopped at the station.
Their vigilance was rewarded. Stilwell came slipping through the
shadows just as the train was pulling out. The passengers in the
Pullman were startled by a crackling of revolver shots from the rear
platform. Directly afterward the Earps came back inside and took their
seats. And Tucson was given something to talk about that evening by
the discovery of Frank Stilwell's body riddled with bullets beside the
track.
The Earp party held council in the Pullman and determined to return to
Tombstone. Leaving Virgil to complete the journey with Morgan's body,
the other two brothers and Doc Holliday left the train at a way
station and flagged a freight which took them back to Benson. Here
they procured horses and rode to the county seat.
Sheriff Johnny Behan received telegraphic advices from Tucson to
arrest them. He found the trio sometime in the afternoon. They had got
their effects together and sent them ahead on a wagon. They were
themselves on horseback, about to set forth for Colorado.
Wyatt glanced down upon the sheriff as the latter came up.
"Listen," he said. "Don't you even look as if you wanted to arrest
us."
And with that the three rode down the main street. They passed the
saloons and gambling-houses, and men came flocking to the doors to see
them go by.
At the running walk the horses came on, three abreast; the faces of
the riders were set; their eyes swept the crowds on the sidewalks.
They went on by. They turned the corner into the road that leads to
the Dragoons. That was the last that Tombstone ever saw of them.
They stopped at Pete Spence's ranch, where the half-breed was working
who had been with Frank Stilwell on the evening of Morgan's murder,
and a cow-boy found the man's body the next morning.
They rode across wide flats and through great dark mountain ranges,
eastward and to the north, until they came into Colorado.
After the departure of these bold men outlawry took on a new lease of
life in southeastern Arizona. Cattle-rustling, stage-robbery, and
murder went on throughout Cochise County. And at last the people found
a strong man, to whom the law stood for something more than a means of
personal power. They chose for sheriff John Slaughter, who had been
waging war for years on his own account against Apaches and bad men.
But the story of how he brought the enforcement of the statutes into
Tombstone is too long to tell here, although it is a stirring tale and
colorful.
Tombstone to-day stands just as it was back in those wild days of the
early eighties; just as it was--the buildings are unchanged. You may
see them all, and see the streets as they looked when pistols flamed
and men died hard out in the roadway.
But other crowds walk those streets now. And sometimes on an evening
you will see automobiles going down the block with family parties on
their way for a spin along the Benson road where the Clanton boys,
Frank Stilwell, John Bingo, and the other bad men used to rob the
stages in daytime.
On such an evening, should you travel down that highway, you may see
the leaping light of a bonfire by which a group of young people are
toasting marshmallows on the summit of the knoll where Ed Schiefflin
hid from the passing Apaches.
Tombstone is peaceable enough to-day for any man; so peaceable that
one finds it hard to believe there was a time when the town had a
man--or more--for breakfast every morning.