Dodge City

by Clavin, Tom

  TWENTY-FIVE

  We were down there again last week, and were surprised in the change in the city. It has built up wonderfully, has a fine court house, church, good schools, large business blocks, a good hall, first-class hotels, and two live newspapers. Dodge is coming out and is destined to be a city of considerable size.

  —Topeka Times

  That well-dressed dandy strolling along Front Street one fine spring day in 1879 sure resembled Luke Short, and it was indeed him, after a lengthy absence. Given that the city suited a gambling and drinking and lecherous man so well, it’s a wonder that Luke had left Dodge City at all. But his intention had been to make money, an understandable motivation for most frontiersmen. But along the way he wound up in the army.

  Luke had set off the previous August with a wagon full of whiskey. As good as the saloon business was, he had gotten a tad restless waiting for customers to come to him, so he decided to go to them. He filled up a long wagon with sturdy wooden barrels of cheap whiskey and drove around the frontier. He made good money by supplying thirsty men at hunting camps and even bands of Indians who were unwise enough to trade robes and horses for a fiery liquid that could destroy their minds and bodies.

  During the uprising that September led by Dull Knife and Little Wolf, the army had been anxious for scouts. Luke had run out of whiskey, and when the 4th Infantry recruited him, he signed on. He didn’t see much action and was not part of the final roundup of Indians. When the winter of 1878–1879 came on, Luke stayed warm by gambling in Deadwood, South Dakota, and Ogallala, Nebraska. When he finally did get back to Dodge City in the spring, he spent most of his days drinking and wagering at the Long Branch Saloon.

  Luke’s schedule did not call for him getting there early in the day. He lived in the Dodge House and preferred to sleep until late in the morning, shades drawn against any sunlight that tried to intrude. After rising, he’d chase down a good breakfast with a shot of whiskey. He then strolled to the Long Branch, but not in a direct way, enjoying the warming spring breezes as he stopped to chat with friends and acquaintances, visited Wyatt and Bat at their respective offices or as they patrolled the mud-filled streets, and perhaps paid a call on his favorite brothel before or after the barbershop. Luke Short was not a member of the elite level of society in the city but he was comfortable enough and had few ambitions beyond remaining comfortable and being available if a friend needed help or there was a damsel in distress, though most of the damsels he knew were soiled doves experienced in taking care of themselves. When he did get to the Long Branch, he drank and dealt faro until it was time to call it a night.

  Luke also liked a good practical joke—as evidenced by his encounter with Bill Tilghman—so it was no surprise that he was involved in one of the more famous ones played in Dodge City during its golden decade, and he was probably in on it from the beginning. It was a surprise that the usually serious Wyatt joined his pal in the festivities.

  A minister named O. W. Wright (no relation to the businessman Robert Wright) had recently arrived and soon proved popular enough that he attracted a sizable congregation, including Wyatt and Bat as “deacons.” When Reverend Wright wanted to build a church that would be home to the congregation, the two lawmen went along Front Street, putting the touch on Doc Holliday and most of the other gamblers. To top off the collection basket, the Dodge City Ladies Aid Society suggested that there be a beautiful-baby contest. Beauty was in the eye of the beholder or in this case the donor, because the winner would not necessarily be the most beautiful baby but the one who had attracted the most donations.

  Seeming to suddenly find religion—or the deacons leaned on him—Luke Short told the ladies that he would put up one hundred dollars to go to the parents of the winning baby rather than have the prize come out of the proceeds.

  Parents and other supporters of the future church sold ballots vigorously. The plan was that the ballots bearing the names of babies would go into a bin, and that at a big congregation dinner the ballots would be counted and the baby with the most ballots, or donations, would be declared the winner, with the proud parents becoming a hundred dollars richer. Parishioners were pleased when the presumably impeccable lawmen Earp and Masterson offered to tabulate the results.

  During the night of the congregational dinner, Reverend Wright read out the names of the babies who had received the third-and second-highest numbers of votes, disappointing every parent whose child was not named. When the winner was finally announced, there was stunned silence and much turning of heads, because no one knew who that baby was. Finally, Wyatt and Bat stepped forward and announced they knew the winning baby and would go fetch it.

  When they left, they marched across the Dead Line to a dance hall that catered only to black customers. A woman was waiting there, holding a baby, and the lawmen escorted them back to the congregational dinner. There, the black woman displayed the baby and declared it was the winner. Where was the hundred dollars?

  One of the losing mothers stood up and demanded, “Who is the father of that child?”

  A perplexed but gallant Reverend Wright responded, “That is the lady’s business,” and he handed over Luke’s money. Sometime later, when the good pastor learned about the hoodwinking, he may have wondered With deacons like that, who needs enemies? In any case, the fund-raiser had been successful and the congregation’s church was one of several constructed during the next few years.

  Maybe Dodge City was getting too much religion to suit Luke Short because he left again, this time for Leadville, Colorado, where he resumed gambling. The following year, Luke was living in Buena Vista, also in Colorado and about thirty miles from Leadville. It is not known why he was there, but that is where the 1880 U.S. Census found him. He did not stay long; his next move was to drift eastward, to Kansas City. There he found more trouble. A Texan who went by the name of John Jones claimed that Luke had swindled him out of $280. Local lawmen must have believed him, because Luke ended up in jail.

  When he was released on October 11, Luke lingered in Kansas City because he didn’t have a hankering to go anyplace in particular. Finally, out of habit, he drifted back to Dodge City.

  When Luke’s most recent wanderings had begun in the spring of 1879, he missed out on a confrontation that almost cost Wyatt his life. This time it was Bat, not Doc, who had his back.

  In May, three men from Missouri were passing through on their way to Leadville to find work in the booming mineral mines there. They decided to take full advantage of the saloons in Dodge City and raise a ruckus before the sun rose and it would be time to leave. They were in the midst of their revelry when, before they could do any real damage, Wyatt arrived on the scene. He sized up the person who he thought was the trio’s leader and grabbed him by the ear. The man’s yelps could be heard far and wide as the assistant marshal hauled him down Front Street toward the city jail.

  If his companions had been smart, the arrest would have signaled it was time to call it a night—but they weren’t very smart. They went back inside the saloon and demanded their guns from behind the bar. Armed, they hurried out to Front Street and in the direction Wyatt had gone. They came up behind him with guns drawn. Hearing their approach, Wyatt turned and drew his pistol. The Missouri men ordered that their friend be released. Wyatt smiled grimly, one fist clutching his prisoner, the other his six-shooter. It was their play.

  Bat had heard the commotion and from across the street was quietly observing the standoff. His friend’s physical strength and a loaded gun were probably plenty for three Missourians. But suddenly the prisoner quit his moaning and grabbed Wyatt’s arm, struggling for the gun. His companions saw this as their opportunity and moved in.

  They weren’t quick enough. Appearing to have materialized out of the darkness, Bat was beside Wyatt with his own gun drawn. He reminded the assistant marshal what buffaloing was by applying it to the prisoner, who in the morning would have a headache to go with a very sore ear. Bat then fixed his gun on one Missourian, and
Wyatt raised his to cover the other. Right then and there, the visitors may have vowed never to drink in Dodge City again if it meant taking on two men who by then had gained the inflated reputation of being the most feared and bloodthirsty lawmen on the frontier. In its next edition, the Dodge City Times crowed that the Missouri men “were no match for Dodge City officers.”

  Instead of having learned a lesson, the trio then displayed that they were even dumber. The first standoff ended when the two would-be rescuers surrendered their weapons and joined their groggy comrade in jail overnight. The next day they paid fines, saddled up, and rode west. But they did not go far, and after the sun set, the men doubled back into Dodge City, with the idea of ambushing Bat for interfering and turning the tables on them.

  They broke into the back of a shop. Its windows allowed them to crouch out of sight with a good view of the dark alley behind it. When a young black boy wandered through the alley, the Missourians instructed him to find Sheriff Masterson and tell him a man wanted to meet him in the alley. The not-so-brilliant bushwhackers drew their pistols and waited.…

  And waited. Everyone in town knew Bat, including the young messenger and his family. When he located the sheriff, he told him about three men setting up in the back of the shop. Bat’s IQ had to be considerably higher than that of the Missourians, because he posted his brother Jim on one end of the alley and possibly Wyatt, returning the favor, or Bill Tilghman at the other end, while he eased himself into a chair outside the shop’s front door.

  After an hour or so, the frustrated and weary trio were out of patience. They would soon be out more money, too, because after spotting men at either end of the alley, they tried to sneak out the front door, where Bat and his ivory-handled pistols waited for them. Another night in jail, another fine, and this time when they left town, the Missourians stayed gone.

  A short time later, Wyatt and Jim Masterson had each other’s back in another confrontation. The Ford County Globe reported that a black man had done a job, possibly blacksmithing, for a couple of cowboys. Instead of paying the man, they got on their horses and left town. The workman visited the marshal’s office to complain, and Wyatt and Jim rode out. They soon found the two cowboys—in the company of five of their friends. Two against seven were not good odds, but Wyatt, at least, had faced worse. He and Jim had their hands near their six-shooters as Wyatt calmly explained that if the money owed the workman was not ponied up, the jail would be crowded that evening. The lawmen, as the newspaper reported, returned to Dodge City, and the workman was paid in full.

  In June 1879, Bat, perhaps after joshing with his lawmen friends that they could take care of themselves for a while, left Dodge City again. But this time it was not to chase an outlaw or gold—it was to go to war. It took place in Colorado and became known as the Royal Gorge War.

  Leadville had been formed by miners and others in the Arkansas River Valley of central Colorado. Tons of silver and lead were being gouged out of the earth. It had to be transported out and more men and supplies brought in. The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe wanted to lay tracks into Leadville, but so did the Denver & Rio Grande outfit. Only one could do so, because there was just one right-of-way through the Royal Gorge canyon, a chasm 1,250 feet deep and only 40 feet wide at its narrowest point. Instead of flipping a coin or in some other way determining who could have the right-of-way, both railroads tried to take it.

  The Santa Fe Railroad sent crews to grade for a rail line at the mouth of the gorge, and they turned back Rio Grande crews when they arrived. The Rio Grande was also stymied by court orders the Santa Fe obtained. So the thwarted crews went upriver and built stone forts from which they could hurl huge rocks and sharp tools onto the Santa Fe crews as they tried to lay down tracks. While the lawyers continued to fight it out in court in Denver and elsewhere, the skirmishes between the crews escalated to rifles and pistols. On June 10, armed crews from both railroads attacked each other. Men were wounded, trains were taken over, and depots and equipment shacks were torched.

  An indication of the reputation applied to Bat, still only twenty-five, was that the Santa Fe Railroad—the same one he and his late brother Ed had graded track for back in Buffalo City days—reached out to him to pull together an outfit that would protect its crews. Bat, as the sheriff of a county in Kansas, of course had no legal jurisdiction in Colorado, but along the way to further legitimize his hunting of horse and cattle thieves, he had been appointed a deputy U.S. marshal, and that gave him some standing in the dispute. And it wasn’t too hard to organize an outfit, because he invited fellows he knew and had ridden with before—Ben Thompson, Mysterious Dave Mather (during a Colorado sojourn), and, in a rare collaboration, Doc Holliday. With them aboard, it was even easier to collect a small “army” of sixty or so men. Fortunately for everyone’s safety, Eddie Foy turned down an invitation from Doc to go along for the ride, explaining that if he fired a gun, he had no idea if he’d hit friend or foe.

  Bat led the charge into the Royal Gorge. He and his men occupied a Santa Fe roundhouse in Pueblo, a strategic position to prevent Rio Grande rail crews from working in the area. If any opposing worker showed himself, Bat had marksmen positioned atop the roundhouse, or he might be of a mind to take a shot himself and remind others what a good rifleman he was. There were attempts to dislodge the defenders that must have involved close combat, because one of the participants reported that Bat put a railroad policeman in the hospital by applying a gun barrel to his head.

  Executives at the Rio Grande had a bright idea: remove a cannon from the state armory, set it up on some level ground, and blast the roundhouse into dust. However, Bat had had the same idea and had it first, so when crews went to the armory the cannon was gone, and sure enough, a couple of days later cannonballs were flying from the roundhouse to rain on Rio Grande crews.

  After all that, it was a simple piece of paper that ended the war. The Rio Grande assembled its own attack force and took over a telegraph office manned by a handful of Santa Fe employees, including Henry Jenkins, who was shot in the back and died. Then the contingent moved on to the roundhouse. Maybe for Bat it seemed like the siege of Adobe Walls all over again. This time, though, he had a cannon, and when the defenders saw the Rio Grande men approach, it was made ready to fire. But what could have been a bloodbath was averted when R. F. Weitbrec, the treasurer of the Rio Grande Pacific Corporation, asked to meet with Bat. He showed the sheriff a decision just handed down by a federal court that the Denver & Rio Grande did have the right-of-way. As a federal peace officer, Bat could not reject it. A truce was declared, and the combatants all went their separate ways, which for Bat meant returning to his Ford County responsibilities.

  Despite its contentious origins, the railroad line through the Royal Gorge in Colorado turned out to be one of the most unique and enduring in the United States. The Denver & Rio Grande paid the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe company almost two million dollars for its troubles and what it had constructed so far, and took over the track work. The goal of trains arriving in Leadville was achieved on July 20, 1880. The line included a hanging bridge suspended over the river on the north side of the gorge at its narrowest point. An engineer from Kansas designed a 175-foot plate girder suspended on one side by A-frame girders spanning the river, and it was anchored to the sheer rock walls. The hanging bridge carried trains for over a century. In 1989, the Denver & Rio Grande company was purchased by the Southern Pacific Railroad, and seven years later, when the combined corporation merged with the Union Pacific Railroad, the route through the Royal Gorge was closed.

  For Doc Holliday, the Royal Gorge War had been a detour during a fresh series of wanderings he had undertaken before and after the conflict. One motivation was that a reform movement under way in Dodge City made it feel less like home for a devout drinking and gambling man. Another was the deterioration of his health as the year went on.

  The biographer Gary L. Roberts suggests that because the Kansas climate was not a congenial one for those s
uffering from a chronic lung disease, Doc was entering the “‘second phase’ of consumption. His voice began to develop a deep hoarseness as the result of throat ulcers that would periodically make it difficult for him to speak above a whisper or to eat. His cough became more severe, constant, and debilitating, producing a thick dark mucus of greenish hue with yellow streaks and laced with pus. The cough was attended by hectic fever that rose and fell with an accelerating pulse rate. The fever contributed to a ruddy complexion that seemed deceptively healthy yet alternated with a deathlike paleness.”

  Doc returned to Colorado, this time accompanied by Big Nose Kate, stopping in Trinidad. He required ten days to recover from the journey, then apparently felt well enough to shoot someone. He would later tell Wyatt and Bat that it was only over a “trivial matter” that he shot a man called Kid Colton. Nothing else is known of the incident other than that it persuaded Doc and Kate to get back on a train and head south. When the tracks ended in New Mexico, they were hauled by freight wagon to Las Vegas.

  Just outside of that town was a facility for those with lung diseases. The Montezuma Hot Springs had been established during the Civil War, and patients from across the country made use of the bubbling, sulfur-scented waters. After a few weeks of treatments, Doc was well enough that he and Kate moved into Las Vegas and he opened a dental practice. He had to make some money from it because the entire New Mexico Territory must have been feeling the reform spirit, too: its lawmakers had outlawed gambling. After being fined for ignoring the ban, Doc left Las Vegas. He left Kate, too—presumably after one of their big fights.