After consulting with these and other Tombstone leaders, Tritle organized a posse to go after the Cow-Boys. Significantly, he did not put this group under Behan’s control, but under the command of Deputy U.S. Marshal John H. Jackson with directions to restore order. In fact, Behan’s failures were cited as justification for the creation of the group. Tritle urged local citizens to set up an emergency fund to pay special deputies. He then wired President Arthur, pinning the troubles on “the utter failure of the civil authority and the anarchy prevailing; the international trouble likely to grow out of this cattle thieving along the border, the fact that business is paralyzed and the fairest valleys in the territory are kept from occupation by the presence of the cowboys.”132
Behan took considerable heat for his seeming indifference to Peel’s death, and he was still in the field in his ineffective pursuit of the Earps when E. M. Harley, the chief deputy in charge in Behan’s absence, dispatched Billy Breakenridge to Chandler’s Milk Ranch to capture Zwing Hunt and “Curly Bill’s Kid,” Billy Grounds, who were believed to be Peel’s killers. On the morning of March 29, a gunfight ensued in which Hunt and Grounds were wounded (Grounds mortally) and Deputy Sheriff John A. Gillespie was killed.133 With two more of the well-known Cow-Boys taken for their criminal activities, the focus was shifting back to their depredations rather than the Earps. “Calky times very,” Parsons recorded on March 30. “14 murders and assassinations in ten days. More than one a day. A hanging bee anticipated tonight—But not carried out. Cowboy raid on town expected tonight.…A regular epidemic of murder is upon us. What and when the end will be—God only knows.”134
Chapter 9
THE OUT TRAIL
The claim I make is that some few of us pioneers are entitled to credit for what we have done. We have been the fore-runners of government.… If it hadn’t been for me and a few like me there never would have been any government in some of these towns.
—Doc Holliday, New York Sun, 1886
In March 1882, John Henry Holliday was a more robust and tougher man than he had been when he first arrived in Tombstone in September 1880. It was more than notoriety and a healthier climate that explained the difference. Doc had changed. For the first time in a long time—perhaps since before he left Georgia—he had a sense of purpose that extended beyond survival or self-indulgence. He did not see himself as a killer or even as a vigilante. Rather, he saw himself as an instrument of justice and an agent of progress. Perhaps it was a rationalization, but if it was, it was validated by important men and forces all the way from Tombstone to Washington, D.C. He had a new perspective that would have surprised his relatives back in Georgia—a Republican, business-oriented perspective in tune with the spirit of the Gilded Age.1
Doc and the rest of the vendetta posse shared the role of federal marshals, Pinkerton agents, “company men,” and other enforcers of the new industrial establishment, and, like them, Doc may have been viewed by his patrons as a necessary evil. Even so, he had a part in the search for order that gave his life a fresh meaning. He was more than a mercenary, as he had been in the Royal Gorge War; this time he had a stake in what happened that was consistent with the lingering code of honor and a half-forgotten sense of right and wrong that even his father would have understood. In the saddle for a cause—and with friends and comrades around him—he had finally stepped beyond the preoccupation with self that had characterized his life since he left Georgia for the West. His link to the Earps, beginning with the street fight and especially after Morgan’s murder, went far beyond loyalty to a friend. He had a sense of belonging he had not known since those long-ago family gatherings. John Henry’s life had a new meaning in his own mind, quite apart from the measure of Doc Holliday by other men. What they made of him was another matter, not bound by the truth of things. Already, he stood on the edge of legend.
Legends grow, and rarely by design. Like the wisteria in Doc’s native Georgia, they spread, encircle, constrict, and hide the damage they do to the truth in a cascade of tales that, like foliage and flowers, cause people to forget everything else. But, like the wisteria, they have an unmistakable beauty that makes them nearly irresistible until they become a part of the landscape of history. That spring of 1882, Doc Holliday was swept along by events, caught up in something larger than himself, something larger than a settling of accounts with a friend’s enemies. The newspapers and politicians would not let it be that, nor, for that matter, would Wyatt Earp and his compatriots, who saw what they did as justice gained the only way it could be under the circumstances: at gunpoint.
Doc saw the changes in his friend, too. Nothing in Wyatt Earp’s life, before the vendetta or after it, ever hinted that he was homicidal by nature. The vendetta was the great anomaly in a life as devoid of vigilantism as it was of murder. The man who had protected Curly Bill Brocius and Johnny-behind-the-Deuce took the law into his own hands because he believed the law had failed. He believed that the legal system was so corrupt and impotent that he had no other way to keep his promise to his brother but to go after Morgan’s killers himself. He was smart enough, however, to listen to advice and to know there would be consequences, and he kept counsel with men of position and respectability who—privately, at least—encouraged and applauded his trail of retribution as useful to their sense of the future.
On Saturday, March 25, 1882, the same day that news reached Tombstone of the killing of Curly Bill, the Earp party returned to the edge of Tombstone for a meeting with supporters and apparently rendezvoused with O. C. “Charlie” Smith and Warren Earp. They may have also met with John Thacker of Wells, Fargo. Unfortunately, Tony Kraker and Whistling Dick Wright had not returned, so they did not recover the $1,000 sent by E.P. Gage.2 Instead, they struck north. They ate along the way with a group of miners in the Winchester district and had dinner at Summit Station on the Southern Pacific line through the Dragoon Mountains, where they apparently boarded a train looking for someone, most likely a courier with the money they expected.3 Then they proceeded to the ranch of Hugh and Jim Percy. Although sympathetic to the Earps, the Percys feared the Cow-Boys, so they reluctantly fed the group and asked them to leave before morning. Apparently, they were not the only guests at the ranch: the Dos Cabezas Gold Note reported, “Barney Riggs informs us that on Tuesday night the Earp party stopped at Perseley’s [sic] ranch for supper. A promising young deputy sheriff, whose initials are Frank Hereford sought safety in a corn crib near the house. He and Riggs were in the house which the party approached.”4
About three o’clock in the morning of March 27, the Earp posse left the Percy ranch, moving toward the Sierra Bonita ranch of Henry C. Hooker, where Wyatt hoped to reoutfit and wait for the Gage loan. Somehow, Wyatt had sent a message to Tombstone, because the Nugget reported that “D.G. Tipton, well-known as one of their friends, was called out of bed about 4 o’clock and left on the 5 o’clock stage, and arrived at Willcox on the morning train. He immediately obtained a horse and started at a rapid pace to overtake the party, evidently knowing their destination.”5
In the meantime, Earp’s group had arrived at Hooker’s ranch. The cattleman welcomed them, and when told about the death of Curly Bill, Hooker reportedly said, “Good work, Wyatt! Keep it up, and when you have finished I’ll get you pardoned.”6 Although Hooker told them to make themselves at home, Wyatt told him that what he really needed was fresh horses and that he was willing to pay for them. Hooker fed the little band and allowed Wyatt and his friends to pick fresh mounts but refused to take any money for them. Late on the afternoon of March 27, John Behan’s posse was spotted in the distance. Hooker encouraged Earp to make his stand at the ranch, but Wyatt decided to move to a hill about three miles from the ranch headquarters in the direction of the Galiuro Mountains called Reilly Hill.7
Sheriff Behan and his posse arrived at the Sierra Bonita on the morning of March 28 and faced a very different reception. When Behan explained his purpose and asked Hooker if he knew where the Earps were, the rancher told the sh
eriff that he did not know where they were and that he would not tell him if he did know. At that point, Behan said to Hooker, “You must be upholding murderers and outlaws then.”
“No sir, I am not,” Hooker replied. “I know the Earps and I know you and they have always treated me like gentlemen; damn such laws and damn you, and damn your posse; they are a set of horse thieves and outlaws.”
At that, one of the “honest farmers,” as the Epitaph derisively called them, spoke up and said, “Damn the son of a b——h, he knows where they are and let us make him tell.”
A moment later, Billy Whelan, Hooker’s foreman, stepped up and pointed a Winchester at the Cow-Boy. “You can’t come here into a gentleman’s yard and call him a son of a b——h! now you skin it back! [S]kin it back! If you are looking for a fight and come here and talk that way you can get it before you find the Earps; you can get it right here.”
Hooker remained cool and in control, but seeing Fin Clanton, John Ringo, and the other Cow-Boys in the sheriff’s posse, he told Behan again, bluntly, “These are a pretty set of fellows you have with you; a set of horse thieves and cut-throats.”
At that point both Behan and Harry M. Woods responded, “They are not our associates; they are only here on this occasion with us.”
“Well, if they are not your associates I will set an extra table for you and set them by themselves,” Hooker replied.8
After eating, Behan approached Whelan and offered him a diamond stickpin if he would not tell what had happened there. Then he told Hooker, “If I can catch the Earps, it will help me in the next election.”9 With that, he and his posse rode away, but not in the direction of the Earps on the bluff. William Breakenridge would later claim that Behan did not go after them because “the Earps were fortified in a stone house up in the mountains.”10 Instead, Behan rode to Fort Grant, where he offered Colonel James Biddle $500 for the services of Indian scouts. During the discussions, he made the mistake of telling Biddle that he had been to Hooker’s and that Hooker had told him he did not know where the Earps were and that he would not tell him if he did. At that Biddle abruptly ended the negotiations, saying, “Hooker said that did he? Well, if he did, you can’t get any scouts here.”11
Behan returned to Hooker’s the next day. This time the rancher told him he would not need scouts to find the Earps and pointed out the hill where they were camped. Behan told Hooker that he was going back to Tombstone instead, because his expenses were pretty high—$13,000 for ten days of riding. Hooker told him what he thought about his expenses in no uncertain terms, and Behan left. Hooker always expressed the view that Behan was willing to ride anywhere in Arizona except where the Earps were.12
After Behan left, the Earp party returned to the ranch and stayed for several days. Reportedly, Hooker offered Wyatt Earp the $1,000 reward offered by the Arizona Cattlegrowers Association for Curly Bill, but Earp turned it down, saying that he would not take any reward for keeping his promise to Morgan. While Earp, Doc, and the others rested at Hooker’s place, Dan Tipton arrived with the $1,000 from Gage and stayed to be a part of the group. Before they left, Lew Cooley, a former stage driver, also rode into Hooker’s with another $1,000 from Wells, Fargo & Company, for Wyatt Earp.13
All things considered, it was a remarkable moment. While Earp and his riders were enjoying the hospitality of one of Arizona’s most prominent ranchers, he received money from one of Tombstone’s leading mining men and from Wells, Fargo. Such a dramatic demonstration of the establishment’s support of Earp and his mission was striking. James B. Hume, in an interview with the National Police Gazette, would deplore the fact that “the inhabitants fear and harbor” the Cow-Boys “rather than incur their wrath.” He also accused “the sheriff of the county of being in with the cowboys.”14 More dramatically, on March 23, in a remarkably detailed review of events in Tombstone, Wells, Fargo had taken the astonishing step of publicly defending Wyatt Earp and endorsing his actions.
Doc Holliday was even mentioned as part of the company’s defense of Earp and his record at Tombstone, and although the officials scarcely gave a ringing endorsement of Doc and his character, they did take care to defend him from charges that he was involved in the Benson stage robbery:
Doc Holliday, although a man of dissipated habits and a gambler, has never been a thief and was never in any way connected with the attempted stage robbery when Philpot [sic], the stage driver, was killed. For three-quarters of an hour after the stage passed the Wells, two and a half miles from Tombstone, he was seen at the latter place, so drunk that he was helped upon his horse, and the robbery occurred thirteen miles from Tombstone, so that it was utterly impossible for him to be there. Neither did he form a part of agent Williams’ and detective Paul’s posse afterward. The statement that he was present on the occasion of that robbery was put forth by the cowboys and their friends to throw further discredit upon the Earp brothers and their friends.15
Wyatt had conveyed his intent to Bob Paul earlier when he sent word to him that he would either surrender to him or leave the country. Paul was now back in Tucson, content to let events follow their course. By the end of March, it was clear that Wyatt had decided to leave the country, but it was also clear that he was consulting with powerful forces with respect to his plans and the expectation of a full pardon. Wyatt’s posse rested at Hooker’s briefly, then prepared for a final sweep in search of Cow-Boys. A member of the posse—likely Doc, although others in the posse had the skill—wrote a letter to the editor of the Tombstone Epitaph:
In Camp, April 4, 1882
Editor Epitaph:—In reply to the article in the Nugget of March 31, relating to the Earp party and some of the citizens of Graham and Cochise counties, I would like to give you the facts in this case during our trip to Cochise and Graham counties. Leaving Tombstone Saturday evening March 25, we went into camp six miles north of town. Next morning we were overtaken by three prospectors on the road from Tombstone to Winchester district, who asked us to partake of a frugal meal, which we ate with relish, after which we traveled in company with them on the main road to Summit station where we had dinner and awaited the arrival of the passenger train from the west expecting a friendly messenger.
From here we continued our journey on the wagon road to Henderson’s ranch where we had refreshments for ourselves and horses. Here we were informed that a gentlemanly deputy sheriff of Cochise county, Mr. Frank Hereford (for whom we have the greatest respect as a gentleman and officer) was at the ranch at the time of our arrival and departure, and have since learned the reason for not presenting himself, was fears for his safety, which we assure him were groundless. Leaving this ranch we went into camp on good grass one mile north. At seven next morning we saddled and went north to Mr. H.C. Hooker’s ranch in Graham county, where we met Mr. Hooker, and asked for refreshments for ourselves and stock, which he kindly granted us with the same hospitality that was tendered us by the ranchers of Cochise county.
As regards to Mr. Hooker outfitting us with supplies and fresh horses, as mentioned in the Nugget, it is false and without foundation as we are riding the same horses we left Tombstone on, with the exception of Texas Jack’s horse, which was killed in the fight with Curly Bill and posse, which we replaced by hiring a horse on the San Pedro river. In relation to the reward offered by the Stock Association, which the Nugget claims Mr. Hooker paid to Wyatt Earp for the killing of Curly Bill, it is also false, as no reward has been asked for or tendered.
Leaving Hooker’s ranch on the evening of that day, we journeyed north to within five miles of Eureka Springs. There we camped with a freighter and was cheerfully furnished the best his camp afforded. Next morning, not being in a hurry to break camp, our stay was long enough to notice the movements of Sheriff Behan and his posse of honest ranchers, with whom, had they possessed the trailing ability of the average Arizona ranchman, we might have had trouble, which we are not seeking. Neither are we avoiding these honest ranchers as we thoroughly understand their designs.
> At Cottonwood we remained overnight, and here picked up the trail of the lost Charlie Ross, “and a hot one.” We are confident that our trailing abilities will soon enable us to turn over to the “gentlemen” the fruits of our efforts, so they may not again return to Tombstone empty-handed. Yours respectfully,
One of Them16
The Earp posse did not immediately leave the area, choosing instead to scout the watering holes of the area with the hope of encountering other Cow-Boys. For more than a week they sought their quarry, but the Cow-Boys had scattered. The Earps returned to Tombstone for one last consultation with members of the Citizens Safety Committee before making a final sweep of the area on their way out of Arizona. Thacker was there, and Judge William Herring advised them to leave the territory while legal options were explored.17
By then, Jack Stilwell, the brother of Frank Stilwell and a famous and respected character noted throughout the West as a scout and Indian fighter—the hero of the Beecher’s Island fight—had arrived in Tombstone and was searching for the Earps with a new posse that included Ike Clanton, John Ringo, and close to thirty others, mostly Cow-Boys. There was some safety in numbers, after all. Stilwell apparently sensed the kind of men he was riding with, though, for he soon gave up the chase, perhaps realizing, at last, what his brother had become. Afterward, several of the Cow-Boys headed south to Mexico for safety.18
Through all of this, the papers were filled with rumors and inflammatory rhetoric, but most people were simply sick of the whole affair and ready for it to be over. The Star did not slow its attack on the Earps, but it did admit that there was a greater problem: “The officials of Cochise County, with all of the available strength they can muster, seem to avail nothing in putting down the blood-thirsty class infesting that county. Ex-City and United States officials have taken to the hills as so many Apaches. A lot of loose, marauding thieves are scouring the country killing good industrious citizens for plunder. The officials are out in every direction but nothing is accomplished.”19 And the San Diego Union declared, “We cannot escape the conclusion that the people of Cochise County are incapable or unfit for self-government.”20
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