Another story claimed that Kate grew jealous of Lottie, and one night Kate accused her of trying to steal her man. Supposedly, Lottie sprang to her feet, shouting, “Why you low-down slinkin’ slut! If I should step in soft cow manure, I would not even clean my boot on that bastard. I’ll show you a thing or two!” Both Lottie and Kate drew weapons, and bloodshed was avoided by Doc Holliday stepping between them and defusing the episode—or at least that is the way the story was told.104
Such tales notwithstanding, Fort Griffin quieted down quickly in late September with the end of the cattle season and the evaporation of the floating population, and the press was soon reporting, “A Fort Griffin letter says all is quiet and there is less business now than in the summer.”105 Doc was gone by then, and when he left, Kate was with him. She later recalled that she and Doc traveled through south and southwest Texas, stopping “at every place where there was money to be made at his profession.” They stopped briefly at Laredo, then moved up the river to Eagle Pass. “While there,” Kate recalled, “Doc went across the Rio Grande to Piedras Negras, a Mexican army post, and called on the commanding officer to inform he [sic] that he was a dentist. The commandante told Doc he would arrange quarters for him to practice in, and asked him to report next morning at 10 A.M. We remained at Eagle Pass for more than three months, and Doc went across the river every morning.”106
While in Eagle Pass, Doc and Kate stayed at the National Hotel and gambled at the saloon of Blue Vivian, who had moved into the area early with his brother, Charlie. “Old Blue” passed stories down through the family about Doc’s days there.107 In December, the situation at Eagle Pass grew tense when the Mexican authorities refused to turn over to American authorities a man accused of murdering a blind man on the Texas side of the river. That may well have been the reason that Doc decided to move on, although Kate said that when they left Eagle Pass, the Mexican “commanding officer would not accept anything in the way of rent for the office Doc had occupied.”108
From Eagle Pass, Kate recalled that she and Doc moved to San Antonio, where they remained for “a few weeks” before moving on “to Bracketville [sic] across the river from Fort Clark, and then to Jacksborough where we remained two months. The next town we hit was Griffen [sic], Texas.”109 Kate may have confused this itinerary (for example, she placed it in the fall and winter of 1875–1876), because in her recollections she frequently telescoped events and confused time lines, but the movements in question were consistent with the gamblers’ circuit at the time and fit, circumstantially, with other sources and anecdotal material.
Sam Baldwin, who was a buffalo hunter in Texas in the 1870s and later a mining man in New Mexico, knew Doc at Fort Griffin in “the early spring of 1878.” He became acquainted with him because his partner, Bob Fambro, and Doc “were from the same neighborhood in Georgia.” Baldwin provided one of the few descriptions of Doc during the Texas period: “He was a tall, slim fellow; was a dentist by trade and had a Southern drawl. His hair was almost red and he was blue-eyed. Didn’t have a mustache.”
Baldwin said that early that spring “a bunch of race horse gamblers” arrived in Fort Griffin anxious “for anything that might come up.” Things were dull, so they decided to have a foot race (a surprisingly popular sport in the 1870s and 1880s). A local named Sam Diedrich, a one-armed freighter, fancied himself a racer, so the gamblers brought in a character called Sugar Foot. Diedrich “didn’t have a chance with Sugar Foot,” but the gamblers bet heavily on Diedrich against their own man. Even Sugar Foot quietly placed bets on Diedrich.
On the day of the race, the crowd gathered on the flat below the military post about a hundred yards from the army’s haystacks. Quite a crowd gathered, and the race was about to start when Doc Holliday drove up in a wagon. Baldwin recalled:
It was about a hundred and twenty yard race. And he stepped over and said, “Boys, what kind of race is this? I have got a lot of money to bet on this!” They said, “It is up and going.” He said, “My idea is … Sugar Foot could win this race.” And said, “Sugar Foot, you know you could.” Sugar Foot said, “I don’t know.”
Doc steps to his wagon, picks up a double barrel shotgun, he was quick speaking anyway, had kind of a whining voice, and said, “Boys, you can’t get out of this race. You are going to run it.”
He said, “You know that Sugar Foot can beat Diedrich and can win it. There are sixteen buckshot in each barrel and I am going to empty it into Sugar Foot if he don’t win it!” And they called the race, and that fellow fairly flew. By golly, he did fly! Doc walked over and said, “I knowed he could beat him.”
Baldwin’s recollections concerning other matters are generally reliable, and his account affirms Doc’s presence in Fort Griffin in the spring of 1878 as the legend always insisted. In fact, Wyatt Earp claimed that he first met Doc there in the winter of 1877–1878. Earp did have an altercation in a Fort Worth saloon in January 1878, and before the month was out, the Dodge City, Kansas, papers were reporting him at Fort Clark, so he could have met Holliday at Fort Griffin on his way to Fort Clark, as he claimed, although Kate’s chronology makes it possible that they met at Fort Clark. Earp may well have remained at Fort Griffin nearly a month before moving on to Clark. However, at some point in time, at one place or the other, he and Doc met, and they talked at length about Dodge City. Doc asked questions and seemed genuinely interested in what Earp had to say.110
Earp was the source of the story of another encounter between Doc that became one of the mainstays in the Holliday legend. He said Doc and Kate had departed Fort Griffin because of an argument over cards while he was en route back to Griffin from Clark:
Doc Holliday was spending the evening in a poker game which was his custom wheneer faro bank did not present superior claims on his attention. On his right sat Ed Bailey, who needs no description because he is soon to drop out of this narrative. The trouble began, as it was related to me afterward, by Ed Bailey monkeying with the deadwood, or what people who live in cities called discards. Doc Holliday admonished him once or twice to “play poker”—which is your seasoned gambler’s method of cautioning a friend to stop cheating—but the misguided Bailey persisted in his furtive attentions to the deadwood. Finally, having detected him again, Holliday pulled down a pot without showing his hand which he had a perfect right to do. Thereupon Bailey started to throw his gun around on Holliday, as might have been expected. But before he could pull the trigger, Doc Holliday jerked a knife out of his breast-pocket and with one sideways sweep had caught Bailey just below the brisket.111
According to Earp, Doc was locked up in a hotel room while a crowd clamored for his blood. He said that Kate heard about the incident, saw the predicament Doc was in, and set fire to a shed behind the hotel, and when she hollered “Fire,” everyone rushed out to fight the flames, leaving the marshal and the constables with the prisoner. Kate then marched into the room, pointed a revolver at the marshal, tossed a pistol to Doc, and, with a laugh, said, “Come on, Doc.” Earp said that Doc “didn’t need any second invitation” and that the two of them hid in the willows along the creek until a friend brought two horses and clothes for both of them, after which “they got away safely and rode the four hundred miles to Dodge City, where they were installed in great style when I got back home.”112
No record concerning such an incident at Fort Griffin has been found, although some claim that a large file on Holliday disappeared from the county records at Albany and that a case against Kate for arson was made. Kate later denied that such an incident ever occurred. Reacting to the story as related in Stuart N. Lake’s Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal, she denied that Doc ever killed “a man named Bailey over a poker game, nor was he arrested and locked up in a hotel room.” She told Anton Mazzanovich that she “got a hearty laugh” out of the story of her alleged rescue of Doc. She said, “Just think of it…. A woman weighing only one hundred and sixteen pounds, standing off a deputy, ordering him to throw up his hands, disarming him, rescuing her lover
and hustling him to the waiting ponies. It reads fine, but there is not a word of truth in that fairy story.”113
Still, Earp, who told the story more than once, did not claim to be an eyewitness to the Bailey stabbing and sometimes confused names, places, and details in his recollections, so that it is possible that the incident in question happened somewhere else in Texas. For example, Brackett, the town near Fort Clark, had a murderous reputation. A report written about the time that Doc and Earp were there proclaimed that
Brackett is a fast place. There are seven dry goods stores, twelve or more retail whiskey shops, 1080 regular thoroughbred monte- dealers…. [W]hy sir, it is nothing to hear from fifty to one hundred shots fired here every night, and to hear the next morning of two or three men and as many women being shot or robbed or thrown into Los Moras Spring to feed the fish and flar [sic] the water. Six men broke jail last night, and seven are still there.114
Given Holliday’s peregrinations and Earp’s known movements, the Bailey episode could have happened somewhere other than Fort Griffin at some place like Brackett or San Angela, whose records are scarce or nonexistent and whose townships had no newspapers. Much that happened in those camps off the beaten path escaped attention. At any rate, that spring Doc and Kate headed north to Sweetwater and, from there, took the wagon road to Dodge City. Wyatt Earp returned to Dodge in May, and he later said that Doc had already arrived and had settled in by the time he got back. This time, Doc Holliday had left Texas for good.115
Chapter 4
COW TOWNS AND PUEBLOS
It was easily seen that he was not a healthy man for he not only looked the part, but he incessantly coughed it as well.
—Bat Masterson, Human Life Magazine (1907)
John Henry Holliday never looked back. He was through with Texas. He wrote to Mattie Holliday back in Georgia that he had “enjoyed about as much of this [Texas] as [I] could stand.”1 Doc had heard about the Kansas cattle towns often enough, told all scary the way that drunk drovers told everything at poker tables and faro banks, but there was enough truth in their bragging and yarn telling to intrigue a man like Doc. He might have talked about Kansas—and especially Dodge City—with Charles Rath, the former Dodge City entrepreneur who now had a base of operations in Fort Griffin, or with Henry M. Beverley, the Texas agent of Wright, Beverley & Company, which had taken over Rath’s business in Dodge.2 Doubtless, too, he had talked about Dodge with Wyatt Earp, and the bottom line was that there was money to be made there.
Dodge City was seven years old that May 1878, and by the look of it, it was quite a different place from the little end-of-track buffalo camp it had started out as. Now it was “the queen of the cow towns,” the “beautiful, bibulous Babylon of the plains.” It had a reputation for wildness and violence, although, truthfully, the rowdy cow town Dodge could not hold a candle to the hellhole Dodge had been when buffalo hides guaranteed most of the capital for the city’s entrepreneurs.3 The cowboys could still have their fun with the blessing of the town fathers, but there were limits. Dodge City’s police force had gained a reputation for toughness and keeping things under control.
Only weeks before Doc arrived, Edward J. Masterson, the town marshal, had been murdered in the line of duty.4 Charles E. Bassett, a veteran officer and past sheriff whom one old-timer described as “a pretty good man, too, better than his associates,” was appointed to replace him. Ed’s brother, Bat Masterson, was the sheriff of Ford County and was making a reputation for himself as the bane of horse thieves.5 On May 12, the Dodge City Times reported Wyatt Earp’s return from Texas and predicted that he would be rehired. Three days after that, the Ford County Globe confirmed the prediction: “Wyatt Earp, 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, much to their credit.” In fact, the Times seemed pleased with the entire police force, noting:
Dodge City is practically under an efficient guard. The city fathers have wisely provided for the honor, safety and character of the city by the appointment of an excellent police force. We believe no better men for the position can be found anywhere. The city’s guardians are named as follows:
Marshal—C. E. Bassett
Assistant Marshal—Wyatt Earp
Policemen—John Brown and Charles Trask6
Later in the summer, Charles Trask was replaced by Jim Masterson, and Dodge was ready for the cowboy invasion.
Doc arrived as the town was preening itself for the cattle season. The Dodge City Times told the story:
This “cattle village” and far-famed “wicked city” is decked out in gorgeous attire in preparation for the long horn. Like the sweet harbinger of spring, the boot black came, he of white and he of black. Next the bar “with his lather and shave.” Too, with all that go to make up the busy throng of life’s faithful fever, come the Mary Magdaleens [sic], “selling their souls to whoever’ll buy.” There is “high, low, jack and the game,” all adding to the great expectation so important an event brings about.
Front Street, Dodge City, Kansas, as it looked in 1878 when Doc Holliday arrived from Texas.
The merchants and the “hardware” dealer has filled his store and renovated his “palace.” There are goods in profusion in warehouse and on shelves; the best markets were sought, and goods are in store and to arrive. Necessarily, there is great ado, for soon the vast plains will be covered with the long horn—and the “wicked city” is the source from which the great army of herder and drover is fed.
The season promises to be a remarkable one. The drive is reported to be large, and the first herd will probably reach this point within a couple of weeks. There has been no undue preparation, and the earlier season has stimulated activity to the greatest measure of expectation.7
With sixteen saloons, ranging from upscale operations such as the Long Branch and the Alamo to southside dives, Dodge seemed primed for profit for a man like Doc Holliday. “Everybody is supposed and expected to visit these places,” an observer noted, “and ‘everybody’ does. Some of these places are fitted up with a view to the comfort of the patrons, especially the ‘Long Branch,’ where sweet music is dispensed nightly by a band, consisting of eight pieces led by Mr. Beeson, the gentlemanly proprietor of the establishment.”8
Doc watched as the herds arrived, sprawling south of the tracks in surprising numbers. At the stock pens, buyers plied their trade at a feverish pace. By June 9, 110,000 cattle had arrived, with 40,000 ready for shipment. While owners and foremen closed deals, drovers hit Front Street, gawking through the store windows and pondering how to spend their fresh pokes. On the south side, saloonmen, gamblers, and whores were ready to help them make their decisions. On May 20, the Ford County Globe reported “[n]umerous cowboys under the influence in town.”9 This was why Doc had come.
Dodge City was opportunity knocking. There was high-toned play at places like the Long Branch and the Alamo, and the town did not have a practicing dentist. Day or night, there was money to be made. Doc rented a room at the Dodge House and was soon immersed in his new world. He wired his old colleague in Dallas, John A. Seegar, and had him ship the dental chair he had left behind in Texas. When the chair arrived in June, Doc posted the following notice in the Dodge City Times:
DENTISTRY
John H. Holliday, Dentist, very respectfully offers his professional services to the citizens of Dodge City and surrounding county during the summer. Office at Room No. 24 Dodge House. Where satisfaction is not given, money will be refunded.10
Holliday apparently behaved himself in Dodge City, because his name did not show up either in the press or in the police court records. What survived are anecdotes that have an apocryphal feel about them. Perhaps the most interesting story is the one told by Robert M. Wright, a prominent Dodge City pioneer businessman and political leader; it is particularly compelling because Wright mentioned Wyatt Earp only briefly in his Dodge City: The Cowboy Capital, and then misspelled his last name
as “Erb.” Wright’s account, if true, would almost have to have happened shortly after Doc’s arrival in town, and in light of his later association with a man called Turkey Creek Jack Johnson, the story is all the more intriguing because of reference to a male companion known only as “Creek.” Wright claimed to have first made their acquaintance when
two gentlemen, elegantly dressed and groomed, made their appearance at the Long Branch Saloon. One could see at a glance that they were educated and refined, and both men had lovely manners and exceedingly great persuasive powers. They were quiet and unassuming, both were liberal spenders as well as drinkers, but they were never under the influence of liquor. It was only a short time until they had captivated a lot of friends, and I among the number.11
Dodge House, where Doc roomed and practiced dentistry. Inset: Doc Holliday’s advertisement from the Dodge City Times, June 8, 1878.
Wright claimed that as their “friendship ripened,” he learned that they were not “elegant gentlemen” but “big crooks and gold brick men.” He said that they confided to him the details of the shakedown of a banker in Leadville during the first year of the Leadville boom. Doc and Creek allegedly convinced the banker that they were the last members of a gang that had stolen gold bullion bars in stage robberies between the Black Hills and Cheyenne and offered to sell the banker the gold bricks for $20,000. After they convinced the banker that the bricks were real, he gave them $20,000, but insisted that one of them go with him to Chicago as surety while he arranged for transportation of the gold. Creek was the designated hostage. En route, however, a man claiming to be an officer of the law arrested both the banker and Creek. While in custody, Creek suggested that the banker attempt to buy off the marshal. The marshal, following a proper show of righteous indignation, did offer to let the banker go for a payment of $15,000. “It is needless to say that the United States Marshal was no one else but Doc Holliday,” said Wright. Later, they returned to Dodge for a time before heading south in style: “They were sports every inch of them, if they were crooks and both dead shots with the six-shooter.”12
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