by Clavin, Tom
When Ed was up and around enough to resume his duties as marshal, Bat figured that just like when they were kids he would keep an eye on him and be prepared to protect him if necessary. But on April 9, 1878, Bat wasn’t there. Or at least, not in time.
Around ten that night, Ed was on patrol along Front Street, accompanied by an assistant marshal, Nat Haywood. As they passed the sheriff’s office, Ed may well have waved at his younger brother seated inside, unless they had already passed each other while patrolling on the street. From across the Dead Line could be heard loud shouting and laughter, which was not unusual. Then there was a more disturbing sound—a quick series of gunshots. With luck, it was just an exuberant cowboy having a hurrah. Just in case, though, Ed and Nat hurried south.
More shots were heard coming from inside the Lady Gay Saloon. The season had begun early that year, with a herd of cattle having just been delivered to Dodge City from a ranch in Texas. Alf Walker was the trail boss. He and his dusty and dry-mouthed drovers had been lubricating their throats with whiskey most of the evening. One of the cowboys was Jack Wagner. It was clear he was very drunk, and with a pistol in hand, he had been the one blasting away.
Entering the saloon, Ed glanced around. No one appeared to be hurt, but there were a bunch of holes in the ceiling. He approached Wagner. Most likely, Wyatt or Bat would have buffaloed the cowboy right then and there, but Ed said in an even tone, “You better check that gun with me.” It probably surprised most of the men in the smoke-filled room “sweetened” with kerosene fumes from the stove when, without hesitation, Wagner turned the six-shooter around and handed it to Ed.
Learning that Walker was the trail boss, Ed turned the gun over to him and suggested that he leave it with the bartender for safekeeping. His man Wagner could collect it when the Texans were ready to head back to camp. Walker agreed, and with the Lady Gay much quieter and the routine gambling and drinking resuming, Ed and Nat Haywood left.
But only a few moments later, the two lawmen heard footsteps behind them. They turned to find Walker and Wagner on the wooden walkway outside the dance hall. Ed saw that Wagner’s shoulder holster had his gun in it. Irritated that Walker had returned it to the drunken drover so quickly, Ed advanced on Wagner and demanded it. “Come down to the marshal’s office in the morning and you can have it back,” he instructed.
Wagner responded, “You ain’t got no business taking my gun. Who do you think you are?”
“Marshal Ed Masterson of the Dodge City police,” Ed said, putting out his hand for the weapon.
Wagner wouldn’t give it up, and that led to a fight for the pistol. The saloon door swung open and more cowboys spilled out. When Haywood went to help Ed, Walker pulled his gun out. He told the assistant marshal to mind his own business and aimed the pistol at his head. Haywood saw that Walker’s men were holding six-shooters on him, too. Somehow, Haywood had the courage to go for his own gun. Walker pulled the trigger. His pistol did not fire. However, just hearing the hammer strike metal was enough for Haywood, who took off down the street, shouting for help.
Wagner managed to drag his gun out of the holster. He pressed the barrel against Ed and pulled the trigger. The bullet went through the abdomen of the eldest Masterson brother, a mortal wound. In addition, the muzzle blast right up against him set Ed’s vest on fire. Smoke overcoming his senses and knowing he was hurt badly, Ed staggered away.
Nat Haywood would subsequently be criticized for leaving the marshal behind to alone face six armed men, but to be fair, most likely he just would have gotten himself killed. His fast feet were more effective. Bat heard the assistant marshal’s shouts and stepped out of his office. He listened to the breathless mentions of Ed being in trouble with a bunch of armed cowboys. Without hesitating, Bat checked that his ivory-handled pistols were loaded, and he quickly followed where Nat was leading him.
He rounded a corner and was within sight of the Lady Gay when he heard the gunshot and saw his brother lurch away. Moments later, with Ed out of the line of fire, Bat jerked his guns and they spit bullets. According to one witness, “It was the fastest gun work I ever saw and so quick it sounded like a Gatling.”
Wagner took one of those bullets in the abdomen. Three of them found Walker, one piercing a lung. Both men collapsed in a heap.
As Ed staggered down the street, people ran past him—some away from the gun battle, others to see what all the commotion was about. The Ford County Globe would report in a special edition published the next day that Ed’s gunshot wound was “large enough for the introduction of the whole pistol.” As he continued to will himself down the street, smoke was wafting off his burning clothes. Hoover’s Saloon, owned by the former mayor, was two hundred yards to the north, across the Dead Line, and on sheer determination Ed got that far. With slow, pain-filled steps he approached the bar and told George Hinkle, “I’m shot,” then slid down to the dirt-covered floor.
That is where Bat found his brother. Ed lived in a room above the saloon, and Bat and a couple of men brought him there, blood leaving a trail up the boot-worn steps. Soon after a doctor arrived, he informed Bat that there was nothing to be done for Ed. In an anguished whisper, Bat said, “This will just about kill Mother,” recalling all the times he had been told to watch out for his mild-mannered brother. “She’ll never forgive me for letting him get killed in this town.” Bat was already certain he would never forgive himself.
Down on the street, the severely wounded Jack Wagner, too, was on the move. After climbing to his feet, he crossed to the saloon owned by A. J. Peacock and fell into the arms of Ham Bell. “Catch me, I’m dying,” Wagner sighed, slipping through Bell’s arms to the floor. Bell realized that what the cowboy said was true, and murmured, “I can’t help you now.”
A minute later, Alf Walker also wobbled into the saloon. Because of the punctured lung, blood dripped out of his mouth. He offered his gun, but Bell wouldn’t take it, saying, “Throw it on the floor if you don’t want it,” which Walker did. He turned and tried to leave but made it only a few steps before he, too, was on the floor.
Bat sat beside his brother, holding Ed’s hand. During the next thirty minutes, what was left of the young marshal’s life ebbed away. Then, without regaining consciousness and thus unaware of his brother’s tears, Ed Masterson died.
Bat stood up and checked his guns once more. He had been told that there were several other of Walker’s cowboys in the Lady Gay and that they, too, had guns. Bat was prepared to go kill them all. But the problem was that he was the duly elected and sworn Ford County sheriff. As John Wesley Hardin had asserted, some men needed killing, and that was true of the cowboys who had killed Ed, but Dodge City didn’t need backsliding to the days of Bully Brooks. What Bat did next would have an impact on the present and future of Dodge City and law and order across the frontier.
Spectators held their breath when Bat emerged from Hoover’s Saloon, eyes blazing, his strong hands hovering above his holstered six-shooters. A few gestured to direct him to Peacock’s place across the Dead Line. There he found Walker and Wagner. Before the latter took his last breath, he confessed to shooting Ed Masterson. With Walker being treated by a doctor, Bat went to have warrants sworn out for the arrest of the four other cowboys.
Within an hour, Bat had found them, arrested them, and put them in jail. They would later be released when it was determined they had no direct role in the marshal’s death. A grieving, hotheaded brother might have then gone after them, but Bat accepted the finding.
Walker managed to survive his wounds, barely. He was bedridden into May, when his father arrived to make sure he was receiving the proper care. Because of his condition and Wagner’s confession, Walker was never arrested. When he was able to travel later that month, his father took him home to Texas. It was later reported that Walker contracted pneumonia from the lung wound and died from it.
Wyatt had not yet returned to Dodge City from the trail of outlaws. He was still in Texas, probably doing some gambling, too, a
nd perhaps keeping clear from Mattie Blaylock and her problems for as long as he could. But the death of Ed Masterson changed that. A telegram from Mayor Kelley found him and informed him of the death of Bat’s brother and that he was needed immediately back in Dodge City. Charlie Bassett would once again become the marshal, and he and the other leaders of Dodge City wanted Wyatt to return to being assistant marshal. Especially with Bat badly shaken by the shootings, a steady hand wearing a badge was needed, one citizens trusted and potential troublemakers feared.
Wyatt rode north, most likely with a troubled mind. Perhaps if he had been assistant to Ed, Ed might not have died. And he had to be thinking about Bat and his loss. Probably, too, Wyatt was thinking about how awful it would be to lose one of his brothers to a bullet, especially Virgil or Morgan, the ones he was closest to, as Bat had been close to Ed.
He also may have pondered that he was returning to lawing sooner than he expected. “Wyatt Earp,” the Ford County Globe would soon report, “one of the most efficient officers Dodge ever had, has just returned from Fort Worth, Texas. He was immediately appointed Asst. Marshal, by our city dads,” and in its account, The Wichita Eagle added, “with all its dangers and responsibilities.”
ACT III
Bat Masterson as sheriff of Ford County.
(COURTESY OF DENVER PUBLIC LIBRARY)
NINETEEN
The sun was shining so clear and sweet you wanted to run out and breathe the brilliant freshness. Father must have felt that way because he jumped up and fairly shouted, “Come on, Shane. I’ll show you what this hop-scotch climate does to my alfalfa. You can almost see the stuff growing.”
—JACK SCHAEFER, Shane
Despite the ongoing deaths from violence and disease, in 1878, only six years since it had been the very rough-hewn Buffalo City, Dodge City was much changed. Whether it was for the better depended on how you made your money and what your hopes were for the city’s future. To some extent, many of the changes to Dodge City reflected those under way in the United States, coursing across the country from east to west. They previewed what would be the progress in twentieth-century America that would eventually include much of the West.
The reputation of Dodge City had not changed to many people back east. To them, seeing the occasional breathless headline in the newspapers, it remained the center of dangerous hedonism of biblical proportions. Even in Kansas, Dodge was looked upon with awe for its perceived decadence. A Hays City editor expostulated, “Her principal business is polygamy without the sanction of religion, her code of morals is the honor of thieves, and decency she knows not.” Another Kansas weekly concluded that Dodge City was “a den of thieves and cut throats.”
But the frontier would not be immune to the social, political, scientific, and cultural changes under way in 1878. That year the U.S. Senate first proposed women’s suffrage (though women would not actually be given the right to vote until 1920). Also in 1878, the first college daily, the Yale Daily News, made its debut, and Joseph Pulitzer bought the St. Louis Dispatch and began the process of turning it into a modern major newspaper. A mask for baseball catchers behind the plate was patented. Also in sports, the fourth Kentucky Derby and twelfth Belmont Stakes were held. Thomas Edison patented the gramophone and he incorporated the Edison Electric Light Company, which began to provide electricity to households. A phone was installed in the White House, where Rutherford B. Hayes resided, and the first female phone operator was hired, in Boston. The first typewriter with a shift key enabling lower- as well as uppercase characters was introduced by Remington, and at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore the first university press was established. And perhaps the most low-tech innovation was the first firehouse pole, in New York City. The so-called Gilded Age was still under way and would be through 1896, and only one year was left to the national depression that had begun in 1873.
A sure sign of a more civilized society on the frontier was the proliferation of churches. In Dodge City there had been small congregations as early as November 1872, and two years later a building was used for services by various denominations. In June 1878, the Dodge City Times reported, “The wicked city of Dodge can at last boast of a Christian organization. We would have mentioned the matter last week but we thought it best to break the news gently to the outside world.”
The gently broken news was that plans had been initiated by the Presbyterian congregation to construct its own house of worship. The Gothic-windowed frame church would be completed two years later. Also in 1878, the Methodist congregation was officially organized and began the process that would lead to building a church. The congregation of Baptists would follow suit. Alas, it would seem that part of being more civilized was less mingling of the different faiths.
Catholicism made its way to Dodge City, too, which included the founding in nearby Clark County of a monastery known as the “Christian Fort.” In Windhorts, Ford County, was a church, and Bishop Louis Fink designated Reverend Ferdinand Wolf to man it. The priest ventured forth from time to time to conduct services, such as celebrating Mass for the first time in Dodge City in August 1878. Efforts to build a house of worship got under way, which would result in the opening of the Sacred Heart Catholic Church four years later. Not far behind with their own church would be the Episcopalians. Of course, all houses of worship would be north of the Dead Line.
The children of parents in an environment moving toward peace and prosperity needed to be educated. A schoolhouse had been built in 1873, anchoring the intersection of Walnut Street (two blocks north of Front Street) and First Avenue. This served the youngsters well enough for several years, but then it was obvious that a bigger building was required to house an expanding student body. This would result in the end of Boot Hill.
Dodge City needed a bigger cemetery, too. That fact plus the location being more desirable for a new school added up to those interred at Boot Hill being dug up and transported to a new and less centrally located cemetery. In their place went a two-story brick building that served elementary through high school students. The first teacher hired when the new schoolhouse opened in September 1880 was Margaret Walker, who, typical of teachers in those times, was unmarried.
Within the city limits more homes and commercial buildings were being constructed, and with better materials to withstand the wind-driven prairie storms. The city in southwest Kansas was maturing in 1878—so much so that it rated a visit from the commander in chief. But the visit of President Hayes also illustrated that Dodge City was indeed still a cow town on the frontier. The president desired to visit Dodge City to see firsthand what a Chicago newspaper editor had dubbed the “beautiful, bibulous Babylon of the West,” which now shipped almost all of the longhorn cattle driven up from Texas.
On that exciting day in late September, the presidential train arrived and Hayes emerged from his private car, accompanied by the Civil War hero William Tecumseh Sherman and the Kansas governor, John St. John. It was probably bad enough that summer hadn’t completely loosened its grasp, and the hot wind coming off the flat prairie carried with it clouds of dust. The wooden buildings and horses and the people waiting in the street as music blared were covered with the yellow, gritty powder. But the wind carried something else, too. During Mayor Dog Kelley’s flowery speech of welcome, the presidential nose began to twitch. The wind had picked up and brought along the unique scents of the cattle pens, and Hayes, though an Ohioan, had never been acclimated to that particular fragrance. The president returned to the less-aromatic confines of his car, leaving General Sherman and the governor to soldier on as the speech continued.
Most likely, Wyatt Earp looked on with a taut smile, while Bat Masterson repaired to one of the saloons for a rueful shake of his head and a beer. Though in Casey Tefertiller’s biography his focus was on Wyatt, the author pointed out that Bat “always had an air about him, a blend of cockiness and charisma that charmed just about everyone he met, and a style that seemed to invite good times.”
Loud tunes to welcome th
e twitchy-nosed chief executive were probably provided by another sign of civilization, a musical ensemble. It had begun as the pet project of Chalk Beeson, who was one of the more familiar and forward-thinking members of Dodge City society.
Chalkley McArtor Beeson had been born in Salem, Ohio, in 1848. As the youngest of seven children, he may have realized there would not be much opportunity left over for him in Albion, Iowa, where the family had moved, so at nineteen, like thousands of other young men soon after the Civil War, he set out for the West, landing in Denver. There he drove a stagecoach, and when he had enough for a stake, he became a rancher near a Colorado town named for Kit Carson.
By this time, Chalk could play violin pretty well. In January 1872, Denver hosted three distinguished visitors, the Union cavalry heroes Philip Sheridan and George Armstrong Custer, and the Russian nobleman they had just taken buffalo hunting, Grand Duke Alexei Romanov. At a ball in their honor, Chalk was one of the featured performers, and subsequently he served as a guide on the trio’s next hunt, which resulted in forty buffalo being shot and skinned.
He sold his ranch and began another one near Dodge City. Chalk’s timing was excellent, and he prospered. He and Ida Gause married and had three sons. His next investment was in a saloon—the Long Branch, which was named after a sportsmen’s resort in the East. Beeson wanted less of a haven for rowdy cowboys and more of a high-class tavern, so instead of prostitutes and the cheapest whiskey, the Long Branch offered top-shelf liquor, bartenders adorned with silk vests, walls festooned with artwork, and a long, carved-wood bar. By 1878, another incentive was a five-piece house band whose members were actually good musicians.