Wyatt Earp: The Life Behind the Legend

by Casey Tefertiller

  Ike Clanton portrayed himself more innocently in his version: "As near as I can remember it was about 1 o'clock in the morning. I went in there to get a lunch. While sitting down at the table, Doc Holliday came in and commenced cursing me and said I had been using his name; that I was, 'A son-of-a-bitch of a cowboy,' and to get my gun out and get to work. I told him I had no gun. He said I was a damn liar and had threatened the Earps. I told him I had not, to bring whoever said so to me and I would convince him that I had not. He told me again to pull out my gun and if there is any grit in me, to go to fighting. All the time he was talking, he had his hand on his pistol in his bosom, I mean he had his hand in his bosom, and I believed on a pistol. I looked behind me and I saw Morg Earp with his feet over the lunch counter. He also had his hand in his bosom, looking at me. I then got up and went out on the sidewalk. Doc Holliday said, as I walked out, 'You son-of-a-bitch, you ain't heeled,* go heel yourself.' Just at that time Morgan Earp stepped up and said, 'Yes, you son-of-a-bitch, you can have all the fight you want now.' I thanked him and told him I did not want any of it. I am not heeled. Virgil Earp stood then about fifteen feet from me down the sidewalk. Just about this time Wyatt Earp came up. Wyatt did not say anything. Morgan Earp told me if I was not heeled, when I came back on the street to be heeled. I walked off and asked Morg Earp not to shoot me in the back."6

  Ike left drunk and mad. The Earps were clearly riled, an aftereffect, they said, of the threats made earlier against Morgan. About a half hour later Ike found his way into the Occidental Saloon. What followed was one of the most improbable events in what was to be an incredible day as Ike settled in for an all-night poker game with Virgil Earp, Tom McLaury, John Behan, and an unknown player. A few hours before they would meet under distinctly different circumstances, Virgil Earp tossed aces and eights at Tom McLaury, who had already threatened his life, and at boisterous Ike Clanton. In Tombstone, during those early morning hours of October 26, civility would serve as a prelude to death.

  VIRGIL EARP HAD ENOUGH POKER, and he headed for home around 7 A.M. Ike had a going-away message for Virgil to deliver to Doc Holliday: "The damned son of a bitch has got to fight," Virgil recalled the statement.

  "Ike, I am an officer, and I don't want to hear you talking that way at all," Virgil said he responded. "I am going down home now, to go to bed, and I don't want you to raise any disturbance when I am in bed."

  Virgil said he had just taken a few steps when he heard Ike call, "You won't carry the message?" Virgil said of course he would not, and Ike yelled, "You may have to fight before you know it." Virgil ignored him and went to bed. He would not have long to rest.

  Ike kept drinking and fuming. A little after 8 A.M. he ran into Ned Boyle, a bartender at the Oriental and a friend of the Earps. Seeing Ike's pistol clearly exposed, Boyle covered it with Ike's coat. Boyle kept telling Ike to go to bed. Ike insisted he would not. Boyle recalled Ike's eerie threat: "He said that as soon as the Earps and Doc Holliday showed themselves on the street, the ball would open, and that they would have to fight." Boyle went to Wyatt Earp's house to deliver the ominous message.7 Wyatt stayed in bed. They had all heard Ike talk before, and Ike's talk usually did not lead to much.

  Ike kept up his dawn patrol with a stop at Julius Kelly's Wine Room, where he talked with a man named Joe Stump, telling him of the previous night's problems. Kelly overheard the conversation and asked what trouble Ike had been having. "He said that the Earp crowd and Doc Holliday had insulted him ... when he was not heeled; that he had now heeled himself, and that they had to fight on sight," Kelly said.8

  Ike's tour of the saloons started a flow of rumors. Deputy Marshal Andy Bronk heard the talk and awakened Virgil Earp, telling him, "There is likely to be hell." Like Wyatt, Virgil remained in bed.

  Ike continued his meander through Tombstone's saloons, stopping at Hafford's Corner and telling owner Roderick F. Hafford that he was searching for Holliday or the Earps, and they had agreed to meet him before noon. Hafford recalled Ike saying, "It is five minutes past 12 now," as he pulled out his watch. Hafford looked at the clock and said, "It is 10 minutes past, and you had better go home. There will be nothing of it." A few minutes later Ike left the bar.9

  Drunk and boisterous, Ike Clanton went from saloon to saloon, pleading his case at the bar. His threats had aroused the village, creating a furor and building the anticipation of confrontation. Tombstone settled in for a showdown, even before the Earps were out of bed. Ike kept walking and talking. He showed up at Camillus Fly's boarding house, where Holliday kept a room. Big-Nose Kate awakened to find Mary Fly, Camillus's wife, at the door. She told Kate, "Ike Clanton was here looking for you and had a rifle with him." Kate quickly woke up Doc to say that Ike Clanton had been seeking him out. "If God will let me live to get my clothes on, he shall see me," Holliday said as he got out of bed.'°

  Wyatt arose and picked up his coat for protection against the unseasonably cold wind. He went to the Oriental Saloon, where attorney Harry Jones told him that Ike was armed with a Winchester and a pistol and "hunting you boys."

  Mayor Clum, who had not heard the rumors, saw Ike at the corner of Fourth and Fremont and innocently greeted Clanton with "Hello, Ike, any new war?" Clum learned shortly that a war would soon occur."

  About noon, Virgil Earp stepped into the chilly afternoon and came up behind Clanton, with a six-shooter jammed in his pants and a Winchester rifle in his hand. Virgil said he grabbed the rifle with his left hand. As Ike started to draw his pistol, Virgil crashed his six-shooter into Ike's head, knocking him to his knees, then relieved him of his pistol. Virgil recalled, "I asked him if he was hunting for me. He said he was, and if he had seen me a second sooner he would have killed me. I arrested Ike for carrying firearms, I believe was the charge, inside the city limits."12

  Ike had a different version, saying Virgil and Morgan Earp had approached him from behind, struck him on the side of the head, and knocked him against a wall. "Morgan Earp cocked his pistol and stuck it at me, towards me. Virg Earp took my arms, six-shooter and Winchester. I did not know or see that they were about there; I did not know who struck me until I fell against the house, then they pulled me along and said 'You damned son-of-a-bitch, we'll take you up here to Judge Wallace's office."'13

  The Earps hauled Clanton to the recorder's court, where he took a seat on a bench and dabbed at his bloodied head with a handkerchief. Virgil left to search for Judge Albert 0. Wallace while special deputy Morgan held Clanton's Winchester and six-shooter as he leaned against the wall. The two were heatedly discussing the incident when Wyatt Earp walked in, followed by Rezin J. Campbell, clerk of the Cochise County board of supervisors.

  Wyatt looked toward Ike and said, "You damn dirty cowthief. You have been threatening our lives, and I know it. I think I would be justified in shooting you down any place I would meet you. But if you are anxious to make a fight, I will go anywhere on earth to make a fight with you -even over to San Simon, among your own crowd."14

  "Fight is my racket, and all I want is four feet of ground," Clanton defiantly responded, according to Campbell. The clerk then heard Clanton say, "If you fellows had been a second later, I would have furnished a Coroner's Inquest for this town."

  Morgan Earp, holding the guns, taunted Ike, offering to pay the fine if Ike would make his fight. "I'll fight you anywhere or any way," Ike said he replied. Morgan offered a weapon, but Ike did not fight. Ike said he didn't like the odds. Deputy Sheriff Dave Campbell shoved Ike back in his chair. The confrontation sent the courtroom into a frenzy as spectators dived to the floor or scurried for the doorway.

  Wyatt Earp said the months of tension caught up to him in that little courtroom. "I was tired of being threatened by Ike Clanton and his gang. I believed from what he said to me and others, and from their movements, that they intended to assassinate me the first chance they had, and I thought that if I had to fight for my life with them, I had better make them face me in an open fight."

  Judge Wallace f
inally showed up and fined Clanton $25 plus $2.50 in court costs. Virgil asked Clanton where he wanted his arms, then left them for him at the Grand Hotel. At about I P.M., the small gathering left the courtroom, and Wyatt encountered Tom McLaury, who had come by to check on Ike.

  "Are you heeled?" two witnesses heard Wyatt say. McLaury reportedly said he had never done anything against the Earps and was a friend of Wyatt's. But, "If you want to make a fight, I'll make a fight with you anywhere."

  "All right, make a fight," one witness heard Earp say before he slapped McLaury with his left hand, then slammed his pistol against McLaury's head with his right, sending a blood stream across the cowboy's face. Butcher Apoli- nar Bauer, a friend of McLaury's, said Earp struck "two, three or maybe four" blows with the pistol. Other witnesses said only one.

  "I could kill the son-of-a-bitch," Earp said, according to Bauer, then McLaury "opened his eyes up large and trembled all over." Earp left the dazed McLaury and headed to Hafford's Corner to buy a cigar. At about this time Frank McLaury and Billy Clanton rode into town and headed to the Grand Hotel for a drink. Doc Holliday, master of the unexpected, greeted the two cowboys by politely inquiring, "How are you?" Disarming and dashing, Holliday had a distinct flair.

  Ike needed medical attention, and Billy Claiborne, the friend of the Clantons, helped him to Dr. Charles Gillingham's office. At the Grand, Billy Clanton and Frank McLaury ordered drinks for themselves and rancher Edwin Frink. Billy Allen walked in. The cowboys invited Allen to join them, but he pulled Frank McLaury to one side and told him that Wyatt had pistol-whipped his brother. Frank looked surprised and said, "What did he hit Tom for?" Allen did not know. Frank McLaury said, "I will get the boys out of town. We won't drink," Allen recalled. Frank McLaury and Billy Clanton left, walking toward the O.K. Corral.15

  Claiborne returned from helping Ike and ran into Billy Clanton and Frank McLaury. "Billy [Clanton] asked me where was Ike. He said, 'I want to get him to go out home.' He said he did not come here to fight anyone, 'and no one didn't want to fight me."' Frank McLaury and 19-year-old Billy Clanton seemed more interested in preventing a battle than in fighting one.16

  Ike Clanton's threats had clearly riled the Earps, and Wyatt became tense and alert. The rumors flooded Tombstone, and it is likely that at every stop Wyatt made, he heard another call to arms. When men hear the sound of death pounding in their ears, they assume every action or innuendo by their foes to have some hidden meaning.

  Billy Clanton and the McLaurys visited Spangenberg's Gun Shop, loading up on ammunition. Wyatt moved closer for a better look as Billy Clanton and Frank McLaury shoved cartridges into their gunbelts in what appeared to be a show of force. Frank McLaury's horse strayed up on the sidewalk and stuck his head into the door of the gunshop. Wyatt Earp provided a little bravado by walking into the lions' den. He took the bit and started leading the horse back into the street. The McLaurys and Billy Clanton charged to the door. Billy Clanton placed his hand on his pistol and Frank McLaury took the bridle. Earp said, "You will have to get this horse off the sidewalk." Frank McLaury guided his horse back into the street as Ike Clanton walked up and joined the party in the gunshop. Wyatt watched through the window and saw the cowboys again loading their cartridge belts.17

  Ike tried to purchase a pistol from shop owner George Spangenberg but, according to Ike, "The gentleman who owns the gunshop remarked that my head was bleeding, that I had been in trouble and he would not let me have it. My physical condition was such that ... I was sick and bleeding," from the blow he had received from Virgil Earp.

  With trouble brewing, Virgil stopped by the Wells, Fargo office to pick up the shotgun he left there in case of emergencies. The marshal began heading out when saloon owner Bob Hatch rushed up and said, "For God's sake, hurry down there to the gun shop, for they are all there, and Wyatt is all alone. They are liable to kill him before you get there."18

  The cowboys left the shop. Tom McLaury stopped at Everhardy's Butcher Shop on Allen Street before joining his friends at Dexter's Livery and Feed Stables, co-owned by Johnny Behan and John Dunbar, where they picked up Billy Clanton's horse, then strolled across the street to the O.K. Corral. Doc Holliday joined the Earps at the corner of Fourth and Allen streets. Several townsmen came by, prodding the Earps. Mining man Ruben F. Coleman told Virgil, "They mean trouble. They have just gone from Dunbar's Corral into the O.K. Corral, all armed, and I think you had better go disarm them."19

  Sheriff Johnny Behan had slept late. Then he went for a leisurely shave at Barron's Barber Shop at about 1:30 in the afternoon. "Someone in the shop said there was liable to be trouble between Clanton and the Earps," Behan said. "There was considerable said about it in the shop and I asked the barber to hurry up and get through, as I intended to go out and disarm and arrest the parties." Behan, more a tax collector than a lawman, himself faced a most difficult situation. His two top enforcement deputies, Breakenridge and Neagle, were off chasing escapees. Behan had no deputies to call in to stop the fight.

  Behan said he left the barber shop and crossed to Hafford's Corner, where Virgil was standing. He asked about all the excitement, and Virgil responded that there were "a lot of sons-of-bitches in town looking for a fight." Behan said he told Virgil he should disarm the crowd, but Virgil said he would not; that he would give them a chance to make a fight. Behan said he then told Virgil: "It is your duty as a peace officer to disarm them rather than encourage the fight."20 Then, the sheriff said, he was going down to disarm the cowboys.

  Johnny always came out the hero in his own stories. Virgil Earp told a far different version of what occurred when he and Behan stepped into Hafford's Corner Saloon to talk. "I called on Johnny Behan, who refused to go with me, to go to help disarm these parties. He said if he went along with me, then there would be a fight sure; that they would not give up their arms to me. He said, 'They won't hurt me, and I will go down alone and see if I can't disarm them.' I told him that was all I wanted them to do; to lay off their arms while they were in town."21

  Ike had been seen earlier near the telegraph office, and a rumor passed through town that he had sent a telegram, possibly recruiting help from his brother Fin, Ringo, or other members of the cowboy contingent. Rumors flowed fast on this day when the citizenry expected the yield would be greater in lead than in silver.

  William Murray, a stock and mining broker, came up to Virgil in Hafford's Saloon and offered help. "I know you are going to have trouble, and we have men and arms ready and willing to assist you. Twenty-five armed men can be had at a minute's notice," Virgil Earp recalled Murray saying. "I told him, as long as they stayed in the O.K. Corral, where at the time they were, I would not go down to disarm them; that if they came on the street, I would disarm them. He said, `You can count on me if there is any danger.' "22

  The McLaurys and the Clantons paused in front of the O.K. Corral, angrily talking among themselves. Just within hearing distance was H. E Sills, an engineer on temporary layoff from the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad; he had arrived in Tombstone only the day before. He was standing on the street when he overheard a conversation: "I saw four or five men standing in front of the O.K. Corral ... talking of some trouble they had with Virgil Earp, and they made threats at the time, that on meeting him they would kill him on sight. Some one of the party spoke up at the time and said that they would kill the whole party of Earps when they met them." Sills knew none of the participants and asked a man on the street about Earp. When told that Virgil Earp was the city marshal, Sills took action. He found Virgil near Hafford's and pulled him aside to pass on the threats.

  John L. Fonck, a tough former Los Angeles police captain, stopped Virgil. "The cowboys are making threats against you. If you want any help, I can furnish 10 men," Virgil recalled Fonck's words. The marshal declined and said he would not bother them if they were in the corral, getting their horses to leave town. If they went onto the street, he would take away their guns as the city ordinance required.

  "W
hy," Fonck responded, "they are all down on Fremont Street now."23

  Virgil Earp turned to Holliday, who was wearing his long gray coat against the chilly October wind, and to his brothers. Virgil handed his shotgun to Holliday to hide under his long coat so as not to draw attention. Holliday gave his walking stick to the marshal as they began a walk through the streets of Tombstone.

  The cowboys separated. The McLaury brothers went through the rear entrance of the O.K. Corral to the Union Market on Fremont Street. The two Billys, Clanton and Claiborne, passed through the open corral and entered the rear of a vacant lot next to the two buildings that made up Fly's Photo Gallery and rooming house. Ike, who had his team of horses and wagon at another corral, apparently walked onto Fremont Street and turned left, toward the vacant lot where he would meet his brother and Claiborne. Wesley Fuller, known as West, a hard-drinking 20-year-old gambler, saw the Earps begin their march and started off to warn his cowboy friends. Instead the young gambler with a big hangover tarried with Mattie Webb, the madam of a brothel near the corral.

  Behan met Frank McLaury outside the butcher shop at about Fourth and Fremont. Johnny said he told McLaury to give him his weapon, only to have Frank say he had no plans to cause trouble and insisted the Earps be disarmed before he would surrender his guns. Behan saw Claiborne and the Clantons down the street and ushered the McLaurys toward the vacant lot next to Fly's boardinghouse. Johnny said he quickly patted Ike for weapons and found none. Tom McLaury opened his coat and proclaimed he was unarmed. The series of exchanges took nearly twenty minutes while the Earps and the townsmen waited tensely for the sheriff to complete his mission. After Behan finished his talk, he ordered the Clantons and the McLaurys to wait and told them he was going to disarm the other party-the city marshal, his brothers, and Holliday coming down the street.24