Wyatt Earp: The Life Behind the Legend
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Nine months after he came to town as a journalist, he added the title of undersheriff to editor and legislator. Woods and Behan made an odd couple. Both were politicians far more than peace officers, and neither had any real experience fighting criminals. Woods suffered with "inflammatory rheumatism," arthritis, which occasionally forced him out of action. Behan, arriving in Tombstone on September 14, 1880, immediately joined the volunteer fire department, a politically prudent move. He never failed to shake a hand nor did he miss a political opportunity. Harry Woods was clever, and he brought a flair to the Nugget that enlivened the once dreary paper that had been started by Artemus Fay in October of 1879. Fay had remained as owner and publisher, with Woods handling most of the work. The paper had been tacitly Democratic, but the moderate Fay prevented it from becoming overly partisan.
In mid-March of '81, shortly after the Benson stage robbery, Harry M. Woods & Co. purchased the Tombstone Nugget from founder Fay to give a stronger voice in the community to Behan and the Democrats. Prescott politician Hugo Richards provided the backing for Woods's purchase, and Richards was charged with funding the newspaper to boost his political career. Such a motive was common practice in the purchase of newspapers.
Frontier journalism was rife with political partisanship; reporting and analysis were often highly biased. Newspapers had a great impact on the beliefs of the frontier populace. They were both a lifeline to the outside world and a barometer of public opinion. Editorials influenced how the citizenry would view major issues. Just about everyone who could read scanned a newspaper, and the literacy rate on the frontier was probably higher than it is more than a century later.
Newspapers had another important function as well. By 1881, both the Epitaph and the Nugget had daily and weekly editions, with the weeklies usually providing a summary of news highlights. Big investors around the country often subscribed to the weekly editions to keep up on important events in the mining town. The investors were really not too eager to read that their capital was in jeopardy in some wild territory teeming with outlaws. Constant stories of criminal doings could scare off investors with cash to open new mines or businesses and make the county prosper. Consequently the Nugget took to downplaying the dangers around the county, making the cowboys seem playful rogues rather than true desperadoes. The law-and-order-loving Epitaph took the opposite tack, sensationalizing cowboy depredations and calling for strict law enforcement to make the district safe to lure greater investment.
Richard Rule, a talented young journalist and the clerk of the territorial legislature, showed up in Tombstone on March 23, 1881, and a week later became the top reporter and local editor on the staff of the Nugget. Rule brought quality to the Nugget in contrast to the amateurish Epitaph, with consistently better writing and story development. Editorially, the Nugget always supported Behan and the emerging Democratic county government under saloonkeeper Milt Joyce, while the Epitaph espoused the Republican side and accused the county leaders of skimming taxes. County officials kept a percentage of the tax money, not an unusual practice on the frontier. The Epitaph labeled Joyce and his allies as the "Ten Per Cent Ring," a clever epithet that seemed to suggest thievery.
San Diego Union correspondent Clara Brown expressed the town's dislike of the plan: "Much dissatisfaction is manifested at the high rate of taxation decreed by the County Supervisors-$2.83 on $100-and at their course in allowing the Sheriff 10 per cent for collecting it, a percentage whose exorbitance is without a precedent. Add to this a large city tax, and the people will find a heavy burden upon their shoulders, which they will not enjoy carrying for the aggrandizement of a few officials."16
Also in the competition between the two newspapers were lucrative advertising contracts with both the city and the county. The incumbent power determined which paper to advertise in, and these revenues could make the difference between large profits for the newspaper and running at a deficit. Almost from the start, the county voted Democratic and the city went Republican, with Tombstone's advertising going to the Epitaph and Cochise County's to the Nugget. Epitaph editor John Clum supported the Earps and railed against Behan and his friends.
Clum never hesitated to point out that his adversary Harry Woods was holding down the job of undersheriff at the same time he was running a newspaper, in effect holding two full-time jobs and never giving adequate time to his duties as a law officer. In addition, Woods and Behan always gave precedence to the lucrative duties of tax collecting, turning the sheriff's office into a dubious enterprise. Behan appointed a full crew of deputies, including tough Dave Neagle, who would serve as his crime fighter, plus Lance Perkins, Billy Breakenridge, and Frank Stilwell, who would patrol Charleston. This proved a less than distinguished cast of officers to try and battle crime against a continuing flow of noaccounts drifting into Cochise County. At the same time that Governor Fremont was trying to raise funds for a militia to fight crime in Cochise County, Behan built a sheriff's office more dedicated to collecting taxes than dealing with trouble. Such a department might be satisfactory in a law-abiding region, but crimeriddled Cochise County demanded tough enforcement.
The Earps could only sit and watch, apparently never quite understanding the back-room politics and deals that made such an inefficient operation possible. Tucson papers wailed about the problems down in Cochise and townsfolk complained, yet Johnny Behan was still riding high. The next election would come in November of 1882, and Wyatt Earp knew he would have to increase his popularity in Cochise County if he was to win the job of sheriff away from Behan. The Luther King fiasco, the broken promise to Earp about the undersheriff's job, and Behan's refusal to pay the Earps had already built enmity between the two camps, and Wyatt came up with a plan to enhance his position as a lawman. It would be a most foolish and ill-advised decision.
THE 10-PERCENT COLLECTION FEE made the sheriff's job of Cochise County potentially one of the most lucrative civic positions in the territory. With the county growing constantly, mines, railroads, and sundry new businesses could be expected to tithe substantial sums, enough to make the sheriff a rich man. The sheriff could make two or possibly three thousand dollars a month, big money for a time when a working cowhand made a dollar a day plus board, and a Tombstone cabin rented for about $15 a month. Wyatt Earp wanted the job enough to come up with a trick to bring Philpott's murderers to justice, an accomplishment that would certainly raise his stock with the townspeople.
The Earps came to understand that Ike Clanton had become a leader among the cowboys, who often spent time at the Clanton and McLaury ranches. Wyatt said he met with Ike Clanton, Frank McLaury, and a cowboy named Joe Hill behind the Oriental Saloon to make an offer. The stage robbers Leonard, Head, and Crane had rewards of $1,200 each on their heads. Wyatt thought the large sum might tempt Ike Clanton and Frank McLaury to give them up. Earp later testified: "I told them what I wanted. I told them I wanted the glory of capturing Leonard, Head and Crane, and if I could do it, it would help me make the race for Sheriff in the next election. I told them if they would put me on the track of Leonard, Head and Crane, and tell me where those men were hid, I would give them all the reward and would never let anyone know where I got the information. 1117
Ike Clanton had a motivation other than the reward for wanting the robbers out of the way. He had run his cattle onto a ranch owned by Leonard near Cloverdale, New Mexico, probably assuming Leonard would not return. Virgil Earp said that Clanton pulled him aside and told him, "As soon as I heard of his robbing the stage I rounded up my cattle over on the San Pedro and drove them over and jumped his ranch, and shortly after you boys give up the chase, who should come riding up but Leonard, Head and Crane, and by God they have been stopping there ever since and it looks to me as if they are going to stay. They have already told me I would either have to buy the ranch or get off it. I told them that I supposed after they'd done what they had they wouldn't dare stay in the country, and I suppose you'd rather your friends would get your ranch than anybody else, but
if you are going to stay in the country I will either get off or buy the ranch.... Now you can see why I want these men either captured or killed, but I had rather they would be killed."
Virgil said he responded, "There are three of them and three of you, why don't you capture or kill them and get the reward?"
"Jesus Christ. If we did that we wouldn't last as long as a snowball in hell," Clanton responded, according to Virgil. "The rest of the gang would think that we killed them for the reward and they would kill us.... We have agreed with Wyatt to bring them to a certain spot where you boys can capture them.... Now, I want to caution you never to give us away or say a word outside of this or the party we took along. 1118
According to Wyatt Earp, "Clanton said that Leonard, Head and Crane would make a fight, that they would never be taken alive; that I must first find out if the reward would be paid for the capture of the robbers dead or alive. I then went to Marshall Williams, the agent of Wells, Fargo in this town and at my request he telegraphed to the agent-or superintendent-of Wells, Fargo at San Francisco to find out if the reward would be paid for the robbers dead or alive. He received, in June, 1881, a telegram, which he showed me promising the reward would be paid dead or alive.'"
According to Earp's version, Clanton and Hill insisted on seeing the telegram. When it was produced, they agreed to the deal and said Hill would go to Eureka, New Mexico, to lure the robbers back to Arizona, near the McLaury ranch about thirty miles from Tombstone. Clanton and McLaury would tell the robbers a paymaster would be going from Tombstone to Bisbee to pay off the miners, and they wanted them to come and take it. Hill then gave Virgil Earp his watch and chain and between two and three hundred dollars for safekeeping.
Ike Clanton told a different version, insisting he had never agreed to the deal. He said he had been approached alone by Earp, who feared he and Holliday would be implicated in the holdup. According to Clanton, the meeting took place at the Eagle Brewing Company, across the street from the Oriental, and Earp offered $6,000 to Clanton to turn over the robbers. "He then told me he would put me on a scheme to make $6,000. I asked him then what it was. He told me he would not tell me unless I agreed to do it, or if I would not agree to do it to promise him on the honor of a gentleman that I would never mention our conversation to any one else. I then asked him what it was. He told me it was a legitimate transaction. He then made me promise him a second time I would never mention any more. He told me he wanted me to help him put up a job to kill Leonard, Crane and Head. He said there was between $4,000 and $5,000 reward for them. He said he would make the balance of the $6,000 out of his own pocket. I then asked him why he was so anxious to capture these fellows. He said his business was such that he could not afford to capture them. He would either have to kill them or else leave the country. He said that he and his brother Morg had piped off to William Leonard and Doc Holliday the money that was going off on the stage, and that he could not afford to capture them; that he would have to kill them or else leave the country, for they were stopping around the country so damned long that he was afraid some of them would be caught and would squeal on him. I left town; never talked to Wyatt Earp anymore about it."20
While Ike swore he never made the deal, an admission of being party to such a plot with the law would have meant a death sentence from the cowboys. By the Earps' version, Ike had entered into an arrangement to turn over the robbers for cash. Joe Hill thought he knew just where to find the three robbers. He arrived one day too late and found two corpses instead. The Epitaph ran a letter, dated June 12, from an anonymous correspondent across the New Mexico line:
Well, about the shooting scrape. This is their [the cowboys] headquarters. Ike Haslett and his brother Bill have a ranch in the Animas Valley, the best one in it, and old man Gray, of Tombstone fame, has one on each side of it that he bought from Curley Bill and his gang and he wanted the one belonging to the Haslett boys, so some of the cowboys were going to run the H. boys out of the country or kill them. On Friday last [June 10th] Bill Leonard and three more cowboys or "rustlers," as they call them, came to camp to a store about one-quarter of a mile from the mine.... Well the rustlers went in there and got drunk and said they were coming up to the mine to kill the Haslett boys, so some fellow came up and told Ike, which put him on the lookout.
Yesterday I went down to the store, getting there at noon, so I went in and ate my dinner. Bill Leonard and the others were at the table with their six-shooters alongside their plates and their rifles lying in their laps, and a fellow outside guarding. I tell you it looked tough. Well, Bill said he was going to shoot the Haslett boys on sight, and we looked for them last night, but they did not come, so Ike thought that the best thing that he could do was to catch them himself, so this morning at day break he went to the store and laid in wait for them.
Back of the store is a corral and Ike and his brother got in there. The fence is about three and a-half feet high. Bill Leonard and the one they call Harry the "Kid" [Head] had to come down the road past the corral, so when they got within fifty yards Ike and his brother Bill jumped up, and opened fire on them. The "Kid" was on foot and Leonard on horseback. Ike let drive and got Leonard just below the heart, when he dropped to one side of his horse, when Bill thought that he would get away so he plugged the horse and he fell. The "Kid" pulled his gun when Ike pulled on him and told him to stop, but he was going to pull when Bill Haslett gave it to him in the abdomen, and he started to run when both Bill and Ike commenced to pop it with him. They put six balls in him. When they picked Leonard up he breathed his last breath. "Kid" is still alive, but they think he will die soon. Bill Leonard said last night that he wished somebody would shoot him through the heart and put him out of misery, as he had two big holes in his belly that he got the time he tried to rob the stage at Tombstone. He was put out of sight at sundown this evening.21
The Haslett brothers, the killers of Leonard and Head, never had time to collect their reward. Wells, Fargo reports indicated they were waylaid and killed, presumably by Jim Crane, the last member of the stage-robbing trio, and other friends of Leonard and Head. Nellie Pender lived nearby and wrote her friend Frances Jackson that fifteen or twenty cowboys stormed into West McFadden's saloon to assault the Hasletts and an immigrant named Sigman Biertzhoff, known as Joe. Nellie and Jim Pender were sitting on their porch when they heard the shots.
I counted eight, but they say there were more. My husband started to run, but I caught hold of him and held him back until I heard them mount their horses and ride away like the wind. I ran and put out the light, and then we started down.... When my husband got to the saloon he said he never saw such a dreadful sight. The place was just running with blood. Bill Haslett was shot six times in his bowels, and Ike was shot through his head and his left hand was shot to pieces. The boy Joe was shot six times through his stomach and once through his ankle. He suffered the worst of any of them. They were all conscious to the last. The Haslett boys made out a will leaving everything to their father and sister in Kansas. The German boy's people live in California-he had nothing, not even enough to pay his debts in camp, but the company gave them all as good a funeral as could be had in this country. It was a sorrowful sight to see those three coffins followed by all the men moving slowly through the camp.22
Wells, Fargo officials would believe Crane took a hand in the killing. Many cowboys would be associated with the raid, though none could be proven to have participated. The brutal murders had a more significant implication: Residents of Cochise County and southwest New Mexico were put on alert that the cowboys could become killers when challenged. For the first time, the cowboys were riding as a gang with the appearance of organization, seeking vengeance and killing. They now appeared as a fighting force, capable of storming a town or mounting an attack on the law. The anonymous letter to the Epitaph telling of the Hasletts killing the robbers, followed by Nellie Pender's chilling letter to her friend, undercut any sense of safety in Cochise County. By public perception, the cowboy
s were riding as an army; attack could be imminent.
While the shots were being fired in New Mexico, something else went wrong with Earp's scheme. Wells, Fargo agent Marshall Williams suspected from the telegram that Wyatt had a plan. While quite drunk, Williams approached Clanton and intimated he knew of the plot. According to Earp, an angry Clanton accused Earp of loudmouthing the secret, and Wyatt responded: "I've told him nothing. He handled those telegrams and may have seen me talking to you, but everything else is surmise on his part. I have told no one our plans."23 But Ike no longer trusted the Earps, and he feared the deal had leaked out, a leak that could prove fatal.
While Wyatt tried to mollify the Clantons, Virgil acquired another badge. On June 6, city marshal Ben Sippy took a two-week leave of absence, and Virgil received the temporary appointment as city marshal. Rumors circulated that Sippy had made off with $200 of city funds and a load of unpaid debts. The Nugget noted: "One of the late Marshal Sippy's creditors has a large picture of him hanging in his office, and underneath the inscription: "Though lost to sight, to memory dear. Two hundred dollars worth."24
Despite Mayor Clum's early support, Sippy had endured an unpleasant tenure as marshal. In May, the city council reprimanded Sippy for his action in the release of some prisoners, and he had previously been absent without leave for a short period. Sippy never returned to Arizona, and Virgil kept the badges of both city marshal and deputy U.S. marshal.25 Wyatt often served as his deputy as he tried to position himself to run for sheriff, and many of the U.S. marshal duties fell to Wyatt while Virgil was tied up with town business. Newspaper reports identified Wyatt as a deputy U.S. marshal during the autumn of 1881, and he actively pursued federal criminals. The brothers Earp, Wyatt would say later, developed a string of informants among the cowboys to keep them current with outlaw activities.