Trouble (Again) in Tombstone City

After the Gunfight at the OK Corral and the Spicer Hearing, it would have been nice if everyone could have just holstered their guns, let by-gones be by-gones and settled down and lived happily ever after.  Sure, there had been a gun battle prompted by questionable motives and with a tragic outcome.  But arrests had been made, the legal wheels had turned, and the judge had spoken.

So all loyal American should have happily bowed to the judicial decision in a country where justice is dicated by laws, not men.

Right?

But that would have made an awfully dull story for movies, TV, historians, and humorous writers.   So to make it exciting for everyone, things actually got much worse.

This wasn't completely evident at first, mind you, but there were hints that things might not quite return to the happy days of yesteryear where the Earps could cash in with relatively little work.  Certainly law enforcement fees weren't going to keep rolling in.   That became clear when Virgil got fired as city marshal.

Naturally the Earp Champions are aggrieved by this.  After all, Virgil WAS the city marshal, and the cowboys WERE violating the law by making threats and refusing to give up their guns.   And even if Doc opened the ball first, why should Virgil get the axe? Just for a few rustlers?

Well, there were several reasons.  First, the judge himself said by making deputies out of Doc and Wyatt (and don't forget the judge mentioned Wyatt here) Virgil committed an unwise and censurable act.  And there were a lot of people who agreed with that, especially those who thought Doc was a jerk.

Next, despite what Wyatt said, most of the evidence suggested that at least Billy Clanton and Tom McClaury were not looking for trouble. Only Frank had been giving Johnny a tough time, and even he had agreed to go to the sheriff's office. A little more restraint on the Earps' part and the matter would have sorted itself out at least for the time being.

Finally, there was Will McLaury. He was still in town and him just being there kept the anti-Earp flames fanned up a bit.  He wasn't satisfied with the judges ruling, and he let people know it.  All in all, the people felt sorry for him.

So bit by bit the opinion began to shift against the Earps.  Oh, they still had their friends and supporters but a sizeable chunk of the population began to think they might have been just a wee bit quick on the trigger.  So the city council asked Virgil to turn in his badge.

But there was no real reason for the Earps to clear out of Tombstone just yet.  Virgil still had his federal deputy commision (which wasn't all that lucrative though), and Wyatt still had his faro table. Although other opportunities weren't as plentiful and mining speculation was drying up, there were other business ventures around, and Wyatt was also thinking about running for sheriff again.  Who knows? In time, maybe things COULD have returned to normal.

But that all changed when Virgil got blasted by a shotgun as he crossed the street in front of the Oriental Saloon.   It was night and no one saw who did it.  But it appeared to come from a building across the street.   According to the story, Wyatt was around and he gave vigorous chase to the miscreants.

And gosh darn it, can you imagine what he just happened to find?  By golly, there in a back alley jest sittin' there big as life was a hat belonging to none other than Joseph Ike Clanton.  How about that?  Looks like just before he went out for a little fun-and-murder, Old Ike asked his mother to stitch his name on his hat just like it was a pair of underwear intended for summer camp.  Of course, the hat somehow disappeared and no one but Wyatt saw it.

At least Wyatt now knew who he should go after.  For the moment, though, he had a bit more to worry about.   Like Virgil.

Even if there had modern medicine with its arsenal of antibiotics, antiseptics, and pain killers, Virgil would still have been in pretty bad shape. The buckshot had shattered his upper arm and caught him in the back.  Not too many people expected him to live, including himself.

In that day and age and at that place, the remedy for a severe arm or leg wound was to cut off the offending appendage and hope that the amputation wouldn't kill the patient.   So Virgil's main concern was the impression he would make at his impending funeral.  He told Wyatt if he was going to be buried he wanted to be buried with both arms attached.

The doctor did his best although he did have to remove most of the bone in Virgil's upper arm.  After that it was pretty much useless for anything other than cosmetic appearances.  But Virgil did keep both arms, and to everyone's surprise, he did pull through.

But he wouldn't be able to act as a federal deputy marshal, at least not for a while.  So Wyatt telegraphed the head marshal up in Prescott, Crawley Dake (that was his real name, not a double misprint) and told him about Virgil's condition.  He was careful to say that Virgil wasn't expected to live, and asked that the federal deputy position be transferred to him, Wyatt.  Dake (who is generally recognized as a major sleezebag who had no hesitation in lining his pockets) acquiesed.  So finally Wyatt had a federal deputy marshal's commission.  Repeat:  that's a federal DEPUTY marshal's commission.

That's as high as Wyatt went in law enforcement.  A substitute deputy for his brother.  But even here his tenure was pretty brief.  Murder indictments tend to shorten federal appointments.  But we're getting a bit ahead of the story here.

But as far as Wyatt was concerned, he had the authority to go after Virgil's would-be assasins.  And he did this in fine Earp style.  Like a kid with a new toy, he brandished his badge and got together Doc Holliday and a bunch of their more disreputable buddies, some of whom had criminal charges pending against them.  He courteouly dubbed this group a posse and started out.

He knew who he was looking for too.  Ike Clanton and any of Ike's cohorts who happened to be with him.  There was one in particular who Wyatt thought was involved:  Frank Stillwell.  Frank, by the way, was a former deputy under Johnny Behan and was currently under indictment for stage robbery.

At this point it's useful to get out a piece of paper and pencil and start keeping track of who arrested who, who got charged with what, which charges were dismissed, and who got jailed.  Because it turns out that about the time that Wyatt and his buddies were out looking for Ike, Ike had refiled murder charges against the Earps and Doc before Judge Smith in Contention City.  So it fell to Johnny Behan to convene a posse to get the Earps.  He did so, and to help him out he deputized - who else? - Ike Clanton , Frank Stilwell, and a bunch of THEIR buddies.

So now Cochise County had two sets of lawmen each out trying to arrest the other.

In his new capacity as federal deputy marshal, Wyatt didn't cut too dashing a figure.  In fact, him barging into the various towns with a band of armed thugs trying to arrest people who weren't even there made such a stir that some of the citizens complained so loud the governor got wind of it.  And with Johnny's posse doing the same, the news eventually went as far as Chester Arthur, then the President of the United States.  Chet decided to bide his time and see if things would quieten down.  But he did give serious consideration to revising the Posse Commitatus Act ,which then (as it does now) allow law enforcement officers to form posses.

Eventually Johnny managed to haul in Wyatt.  Wyatt put up bail, had his lawyer file a writ of habeus corpus, and got out of jail.  And with no new evidence the charges were dismissed.  But before he could get back after Ike, Wyatt was again hauled in and recharged before Judge Lucas, this time back in Tombstone.  Same story. No new evidence, no indictment.

Sorry, Ike.

Now it was Wyatt's turn.  He hauled in Ike and HIS friends and charged them with Virgil's shooting.  But since the only evidence was a hat which may or may not have even existed, the judge threw this case out, too.  Somehow in all this ruckus, Johnny Behan even ended up getting charged with perjury.  The charges here were also dropped.

The actual chain of events was actually much more complicated and confusing than sketched out above.  But the long and short of it was that after about a year of rather sleezy sordid dealings between the Earps, Clantons, and the rest, it seems that everyone had shot their bolt, leaving few legal recourses for revenge.

That's few LEGAL recourses.

On the night of March 18, 1882, Wyatt and Morgan had attended the theater with their significant others.  Being manly men, they ditched their wives and repaired to Bob Hatch's saloon to quaff a few brews.

At 10:30 p. m. Morgan and Bob Hatch were playing a game of billiards while Wyatt and other patrons looked on. As Bob bent down for his shot there was a roar from the back door as a shotgun blast ripped into Morgan's back, shattering his spine.  A few pistol shots came through the window too, and the kibitzers scrambled for cover.

Wyatt (who was nearly hit) ran out the back alley and gave chase. Although everyone expected Wyatt to come back saying he had found a suit of clothes with Ike's name on it, this time he returned empty handed.

Virgil had survived his ambush, but Morgan wasn't so lucky. He was carried to a sofa and died less than an hour later.

So here you are. Virgil's out of commission (legally and literally), Morgan is dead, and someone is out to kill them all. And Wyatt now has the badge of a deputy US federal marshal.

Now if you were in Wyatt's shoes, what would YOU do?