The dramatic tale of Johnny-Behind-the-Deuce has fallen almost into the realm of legend, spawning several different versions. The Epitaph described the incident without even mentioning Wyatt Earp, instead crediting Virgil, Behan, and city marshal Ben Sippy for standing off the crowd. No period record survives telling of Wyatt Earp walking into a maddened mob to save the life of a scared young man. Yet there is really no doubt that it happened: even Billy Breakenridge, an Earp foe, credited Wyatt with the deed, as did townsman Robert Boiler, who said Earp rushed into the milling crowd and ordered everyone to disperse: "As no one in the crowd was armed or knew what had been going on, they did as he demanded."48 Certainly, much of the throng was made up of townsfolk who wandered onto the scene out of curiosity and made a few angry millhands appear to be a massive mob.
Parsons, usually the best observer, wrote: "A gambler called 'JohnnyBehind-the-Deuce,' his favorite way at faro, rode into town followed by mounted men who chased him from Charleston.... The officers sought to protect him and swore in deputies, themselves gambling men (the deputies that is) to help. Many of the miners armed themselves and tried to get at the murderer. Several times, yes a number of times, rushes were made and rifles leveled, causing ... me to get behind the most available shelter. Terrible excitement, but the officers got through finally and out of town with the man bound for Tucson.... This man should have been killed in his tracks. Too much of this kind of business is going on. I believe in killing such men as one would kill a wild animal. The law must be carried out by the citizens or should be, when it fails in its performance as it has lately done." Fred Dodge, the Wells, Fargo spy, told virtually the same story.
Parsons did not mention Wyatt Earp at the time, but twenty years later he wrote to the Los Angeles Mining Revtew, "A day that I recall, one that Tombstoners now living will not forget, was one during which 'Johnny Behind the Deuce' was brought into town from Charleston. That was the day that saw the Earps and Doc Holliday stand off the crowd bent on hanging.... That was a gallant preservation of law and order on the part of the intrepid Earp posse and the nearest approach to a wholesale killing that Tombstone ever saw."49
Nearly a half century after the event, Parsons wrote to Wyatt Earp's biographer Stuart Lake: "Wyatt, I could see him now as his team went down the street, he backed his horse down the street fronting the mob and lowered his rifle every now and then on them when a rush was attempted. Several others were with him and kept the crowd back from a would-be lynching.... It was a very nervy proposition, particularly on the part of Wyatt.""
Wyatt Earp seemed to see the whole event with far less complexity. He matter-of-factly told writer Walter Noble Burns that Virgil rode into town with Johnny mounted behind him, "and turned him over to me, and miners came swarming in, and I faced five hundred of 'em and just didn't let them get him. That's all."51
While details are sketchy, the incident began when 18-year-old JohnnyBehind-the-Deuce, whose real name was probably Mike Rourke, killed Philip Schneider, the manager of the Tombstone Mining and Milling Company's San Pedro smelter. The Epitaph reported that Schneider was angry over a robbery at his cabin and believed Rourke responsible. Schneider went to Smith's Restaurant, moved near the stove, and commented on the cold weather. Rourke supposedly said, "I thought you never got cold." Schneider, according to the Epitaph, said, "I was not talking to you, sir." Rourke responded, "God damn you, I'll shoot you when you come out," and left the room.
The Epitaph, in graphic prose, wrote, "After eating his dinner, Mr. Schneider passed out the door, and was proceeding to the mill, when, true to his promise, the lurking fiend, who had desecrated himself with hell in his heart and death in his mind, drew deadly aim and dropped his victim dead in his tracks."52
A Tucson Citizen reporter stopped by Rourke's cell the day after his arrival in Tucson and described him as "rather under the average size, has a fair face, slight black mustache and well-marked eyebrows, blue eyes and black hair and seemed quiet and self-possessed." Rourke told the paper the incident started when Schneider made a remark about the weather and Rourke answered by saying, "Yes, it is cold." Schneider then said he was not talking to the young gambler and called him an obscene name, which Rourke resented. Rourke was hustled out by another man, and Schneider followed.
"I looked around and said, 'I don't want you to throw out any more insults to me.' He says, 'I wasn't talking to you.' I said, 'Well, that's all right, then, if you wasn't.'
"'Supposing I was,' says Schneider, 'what are you going to do about it?' I says, 'I ain't a-going to do anything about [it].' Schneider seemed to get mad, and kept coming nearer and nearer. I kept stepping back, and finally he got so close I put my left hand against him, as he got nearer. I said, 'Go away from me; I don't want any trouble with you.' He had a knife in his hand. I was excited, of course, for the man was twice as big as I was. I'm not certain whether the knife was open or not, for his hand was sideways to me and I could only see the end of the handle. He continued to crowd against me, and I pulled my gun and shot him." Rourke paused in his story and illustrated the motion of drawing a pistol. "I was so excited when I shot him that I dropped my revolver and ran a little ways. I always tried to keep out of such trouble, and when I saw the bloodwell I didn't hardly know what I was doing, I guess."53
A week after the incident, the Citizen reported:
The accumulating evidence is more and more corroborative of Rourke's own story ... in which case those newspapers which called loudly for the prisoner's gore should feel rather "cheap." More particularly the Tombstone Epitaph, which published a most ridiculously furious and improbable account of the affair. The Citizen now learns that to Deputy United States Marshal Virgil Earp and his companions the credit of saving the young man from the fury of the miners is due. There is too much inexcusable killing in this county, but if the statements of the arresting officers are to be credited there are a dozen men in our county jail who deserve lynching much more than does young Rourke.54
Rourke never stood trial. He escaped from jail in Tucson and headed for parts unknown.
The story grew in Tombstone lore, with numerous versions and added exploits. It has been told, retold, and dramatized to the point where fact and fancy mix into legend. It has been the grist for numerous movie plots and glorified to one of the bravest feats accomplished by a Western lawman. But at the time, this remarkable standoff by Wyatt Earp did not receive a line of newspaper coverage, and Wyatt did not even include the Johnny-Behind-the-Deuce story in his memoirs that appeared in the San Francisco Examiner in 1896. Wyatt Earp never seemed to believe this was much of a big deal at all.
CURLEY BILL SPENT MOST OF NOVEMBER AND DECEMBER sitting in the Tucson jail awaiting the court hearing that would make him a free man or send him to the hangman. He had maintained from the start that the killing of Marshal Fred White had been absolutely accidental, the result of White's trying to jerk the gun away from him on that October night when the cowboys tried to shoot the moon.
Wyatt Earp testified on December 27, 1880, in the court of Judge Joseph Neugass. Earp told his story of the events that night, detailing how White had indeed pulled the barrel of the gun before it went off in Curley Bill's hand. Earp said he examined the pistol and found only one discharged cartridge, with five remaining unfired. Morgan Earp told virtually the same story of the events.
James Johnson took the stand and said he had been out with Curley Bill and a few others when one of the band pulled a pistol and fired. Johnson said Bill even yelled, "Don't do that" to try to stop the shooting, but the revelers fired off several more rounds, which drew a rush of townsmen. He said he saw from about ten feet away that White demanded the pistol by saying, "You damned son of a bitch, give me the gun," then jerked the weapon as it went off. Johnson was certain Bill had not drawn his gun before White demanded it.
Gunsmith Jacob Gruber examined the pistol and found it could be fired at half-cock, meaning it could have gone off accidentally as White grabbed the gun. Also introduced w
as a dying statement from the marshal saying he believed the shooting had not been intentional. Judge Nuegass reviewed the case and ruled accidental homicide. He discharged Curley Bill from custody, with Wyatt Earp's statements playing a major role in the decision. While Earp may well have made a deal with Brocious on the Paul-Shibell election, he still delivered on his end. The former deputy sheriff had the opportunity to lie and rid the community of probably the most dangerous man in southern Arizona-to go back on his deal-but he chose instead to tell a straight story. It is one of the great ironies of this saga that Wyatt Earp's honesty would lead to the exoneration of a man who was to become one of his key adversaries over the next seventeen months of what came to be called the Arizona War.55
Little more than a week after Curley Bill went free on the murder charge, he decided to do a little celebrating with a spree that became notorious across the West. On Saturday night, January 8, 1881, as told by Wells, Fargo detective Jim Hume, Curley Bill and a friend walked into a crowded Mexican dance hall in Charleston, and each cowboy placed his back against an exit door. At a given signal, they drew their guns and yelled for the music to stop.
"Strip, every one of you," shouted Bill. They did so without hesitation, according to Hume. "Now, strike up a tune," Bill said to the musicians.
For about a half hour, a mad fandango was danced, with Bill and his accomplice holding pistols as the dancers swayed and glided to the Mexican music. The restrained newspaper reports avoided description and left Curley Bill's naked fandango to the imagination of their readers, who could envision bouncing breasts and dangling organs, all boldly displayed for the entertainment of the two drunken cowboys.
A local officer passed by the ballroom and looked in the window at the strange scene. He quickly organized a posse of four or five men to try to capture Curley Bill. They decided it would not be a good idea to race into the hall with pistols blazing, so they hid in a corral where the cowboys had left their horses, with plans to shoot them down when they came out. As the cowboys were on their way to the corral, one of the pistols of the officers' posse went off accidentally. Bill and his companion at once raised their pistols and began firing into the corral. Under cover of darkness the not too heroic preservers of law and order crawled out of the enclosure and. made good their escape. The horses of the cowboys had not been injured, but several other horses in the corral had been wounded by the shots. The next day Bill sent a friend over to Charleston with money to pay for the damage done.56
Curley Bill followed his Saturday-night indulgence in mass nudity with a little piety on Sunday morning. According to Hume, the two cowboys rode up the road three miles to Contention. They kept drinking and were well fueled by the time they reached a church with an itinerant preacher pounding out a sermon. The two cowboys stalked up the middle aisle of the church, with guns drawn and the congregation frozen into silence. Curley Bill spoke out. "You're a pious sort of man, I've been told, but I want to test it. You just naturally think of the Savior while my bazoo [gun] works, and at the same time pay a little attention to me." The minister agreed.
"Now stand perfectly still and you won't get hurt," Bill said. "Don't move a peg or this congregation will be without a gospel sharp. Do you take?"
The two cowboys began firing, with the shots striking the side wall above and on either side of the pastor's head, some coming within an inch of his cranium. The minister never flinched, only to lift his head toward the roof for a prayer.
When the gunfire stopped, Curley Bill spoke out. "You have given us an evidence of piety which shows that you have chewed the Bible to good advantage. I'm damned if I don't like your style, and if you don't climb up to the good place, it's because the seats are already filled. Now step down on the floor, my pious friend, and we will have the doxology.
"Come right down," Curley Bill said when the minister hesitated. "It shan't cost you a cent, and Pete, my Christian friend here, will provide the music." He pointed to his pal. The minister stepped to the floor and folded his hands as Curley Bill laid out his next command.
"Now dance a jig, and see if you can't discount Solomon in all his glory."
The minister finally protested. "I can't dance. You know not what you ask."
"Oh, that's all right," Curley Bill responded. "Do the best you can. Dance anything, only dance you must." Curley Bill pulled his gun and the minister began shuffling his feet, continuing until Bill ordered him to stop.
"My friend, your piety is of the right stripe. It pleases me to find that this congregation has such a worthy man to guide its spiritual affairs. Now go right ahead with your gospel chin music and proceed with your bible lessons to the kids. "57
With that, Curley Bill and his friend left the church and headed for Tombstone. There were more adventures ahead.
Neither the nude dance nor the preach-and-pray incident can be confirmed by the few extant Tombstone newspapers for that week, but diarist George Parsons wrote obliquely on January 10: "Some more bullying by the cowboys. Curly Bill and others captured Charleston the other night and played the devil generally, breaking up a religious meeting by chasing the minister out of the house, putting out lights with pistol balls and going through the town." He provided further confirmation with his May 13 entry when he encountered an itinerant preacher he called McKane, actually Joseph McCann, this "rough, uncouth dominie, is a strange, original character. He is the one Curly Bill made dance and commanded to preach and pray, shot out lights, etc., at Charleston recently. He won't discuss the matter."
After the wild night of nude dancing and the less than reverent Sunday morning in church, Parsons recorded that Curley Bill showed up in Tombstone Monday night to continue the rampage. "They captured the Alhambra Saloon here and raced through the town firing pistols."
A little more than a week later, Curley Bill was back in action in Contention, according to a letter-writer to the Arizona Star. On January 18, Curley Bill and a companion identified only as George took a few shots at an innocent citizen, stole $50, and generally were a nuisance. When Deputy Sheriff T. B. Ludwig came forward to make the arrest, Bill and George warded him off with Henry rifles. A citizens' posse went out after the troublemakers, and shots were exchanged without injury before Bill escaped. The writer railed against the Pima County sheriff's office for failing to take control of the situation: "The Sheriff and his deputies have the authority to call out a force sufficiently strong to take in small bands of evil doers-or large ones either. It is disgraceful that this 'Curly Bill' should occupy the gate to Tombstone-Waterville-for two days after such an outrage as that of the 18th. This bravado sent messages to some of the deputy sheriffs 'that he was there and to come and take him.' He was seen and at the time had on two belts of cartridges, a revolver, and a Henry rifle in his hand. The time has come to make this community too hot to hold them. The terror these men have caused the traveling public, as well as the residents along the San Pedro, is having a serious influence, and this scab on the body politic needs a fearless operation to remove it. Let the Sheriff and his deputies see to it. It is no trouble to find the rascals, for they are not hiding, and they defy the law."58
Curley Bill had emerged as a Grade A frontier badman, with a reputation to match. In the coming months, he would draw national publicity in the Police Gazette, which printed a version of Hume's story, and his activities would be covered in the San Francisco papers. Through 1880, he apparently confined his nefarious activities to cattle rustling and looting Mexican pack trains moving through Arizona and Sonora, but he would gradually extend his range of operations. He had arrived in Arizona from Texas with a mysterious past. Even his real name is uncertain; one of his friends spelled it Brosciou, though court records list it as Brocious. His deeds were later confused with those of another Curley Bill, Curley Bill Graham, who occasionally rode in Arizona, but the two were different desperadoes. Most references to Brocious were simply as "Curley Bill." In Arizona, that was enough.59
Deputy Sheriff Billy Breakenridge describ
ed him as "fully six feet tall, with black curly hair, freckled face, and well built."60 In one of the truly peculiar parts of the Tombstone saga, Breakenridge describes how he befriended Curley Bill and recruited him as assistant tax collector.
The idea of my asking the chief of all the cattle rustlers in that part of the country to help me collect taxes from them struck him as a good joke. He thought it over for a few moments and then, laughing, said, "Yes, and we will make everyone of those blank blank cow thieves pay his taxes."
Next day we started and he led me into a lot of blind canyons and hiding places where the rustlers had a lot of stolen Mexican cattle, and introduced me something like this:
"Boys, this is the county assessor, and I am his deputy. We are all good, lawabiding citizens and we cannot run the county unless we pay our taxes."
He knew about how many cattle they each had, and if they demurred, or claimed they had no money, he made them give me an order on their banker [George] Turner. Curly had many a hearty laugh about it. He told them that if any of them should get arrested, it would be a good thing for them to show that they were taxpayers in the county.
I was treated fine by all of them, and I never want to travel with a better companion than Curly was on that trip. He was a remarkable shot with a pistol, and would hit a rabbit every time when it was running thirty or forty yards away. He whirled his pistol on his forefinger and cocked it as it came up. He told me never to let a man give me his pistol butt end toward me, and showed me why. He handed me his gun that way, and as I reached to take it he whirled it on his finger, and it was cocked, staring me in the face, and ready to shoot. His advice was, that if I disarmed anyone to make him throw his pistol down.
Wyatt Earp: The Life Behind the Legend Page 11