by Matt Braun
A legend was born the day Dr. John H. Holliday became Doc Holliday. Wasted by disease, a fatalist who never lost his sardonic wit, he was a figure of mythical proportions across the Western frontier. His exploits in life made him immortal in death.
Doc Holliday, the gentleman rogue, will live forever.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
DOC HOLLIDAY is the untold story.
All too many people believe the saga of Doc Holliday began with the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Historical chronicles offer abundant proof that nothing could be further from the truth. Doc Holliday was a legend long before he met Wyatt Earp.
A shootist and mankiller, Holliday was widely known across the Western frontier. Newspaper accounts of the day rank him with such heralded gunfighters as Wild Bill Hickok, John Wesley Hardin, and Clay Allison. He was a figure of mythical proportions, a gambler who lived by the gun.
Doc Holliday strode across the pages of the Old West. His name was respected and feared in boomtowns and mining camps from Dakota Territory to the wilds of Texas. He was formidable and deadly, and in his time, his reputation far overshadowed that of Wyatt Earp. He was a gunfighter who accepted any challenge, and never lost.
DOC HOLLIDAY is the story of those years before the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. A span of time in which a dentist known as Dr. John H. Holliday was transformed into the Doc Holliday of legend. A tale of a gentleman who became a shootist without equal.
ST. MARTIN’S PAPERBACKS TITLES
BY MATT BRAUN
WYATT EARP
BLACK FOX
OUTLAW KINGDOM
LORDS OF THE LAND
CIMARRON JORDAN
BLOODY HAND
NOBLE OUTLAW
TEXAS EMPIRE
THE SAVAGE LAND
RIO HONDO
THE GAMBLERS
DOC HOLLIDAY
YOU KNOW MY NAME
THE BRANNOCKS
THE LAST STAND
RIO GRANDE
GENTLEMAN ROGUE
THE KINCAIDS
EL PASO
INDIAN TERRITORY
BLOODSPORT
SHADOW KILLERS
BUCK COLTER
KINCH RILEY
DEATHWALK
HICKOK & CODY
THE WILD ONES
HANGMAN’S CREEK
JURY OF SIX
THE SPOILERS
MANHUNTER
THE WARLORDS
THE OVERLORDS
PRAISE FOR MASTER STORYTELLER MATT BRAUN
“Braun takes the big men, the complex personalities of those brave few who were pivotal figures in the settling of an untamed frontier.”
—Jory Sherman, author of Grass Kingdom
“Matt Braun is one of the best!”
—Don Coldsmith, author of the Spanish Bit series
“Braun blends historical fact with ingenious fiction … A top-drawer Western novelist.”
—Robert L. Gales, Western biographer
DOC HOLLIDAY: THE GUNFIGHTER
Copyright © 1997 by Matt Braun.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
St. Martin’s Paperbacks are published by St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
eISBN 9781466816091
First eBook Edition : April 2012
St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition/August 1997