Wyatt Goes Bananas

The Earp Detractors have quite a problem with the ambush of Virgil and the killing of Morgan.  No matter how you cut it, the men who did that were really bad dudes who would stoop to nothing for revenge.  NOT the type of work you would expect of honest stockmen no matter how aggrieved.   But trying to figure out exactly who was responsible is what got the Earp Champions and the Earp Detractors jawing at each other beginning in 1882 and they haven't stopped yet.

Detract from the Earps if you want.  But both episodes stunk of someone providing generous grants and funding to a group of men possessing high technical skills in what Charlton Heston might call sporting paraphernalia.  In other words, someone had put up a bunch of money to some hired killers to bump off the Earps.

The Earp Champions put the finger on Will McLaury.  He was still in town and as ticked off as ever.  And a number of Will's letter back home have survived and in one he gripes how his time in Tombstone had returned him nothing except considerable personal grief and financial loss.  The only exceptions he said were the wounding of Virgil and the killing of Morgan.

Did that mean he was putting up the money for the killers?  Earp Champions say obviously that's what he meant.  Earp Detractors say obviously that's NOT what he meant; he was just pleased with the outcome of someone else's spontaneous efforts.

And regardless of how he came by it, Wyatt did have the legally constituted responsibility of a federal deputy marshal, and if anyone was going to bring them in it had to be him.  He wasn't expecting Johnny Behan to expend much of the county's allocations to arrest anyone.  But he, Wyatt, at least had taken the oath of office and was determined to do his duty.

There was just one thing, though.  He had gotten a little fed up with the ponderous rate at which the wheels of justice turned and decided that things needed to be sped up a bit.  

As far as identifying the criminals, Wyatt didn't really need to bother.  He had no doubt that even if Ike wasn't the triggerman he was at least in on it.  And if you were a friends of Ike's then if you weren't in on it, then you SHOULD have been in on it.  Guilt by association was fine with Wyatt.

Wyatt had also figured out who was the actual triggermen:  Frank Stillwell, Johnny Behan's sometime deputy who was now under indictment for stage robbery, and Peter Spencer, a hard case who made his legal income from cutting and selling firewood to the locals.

There was some difficulty with Frank being involved.  For one thing it was known that Frank was in Tucson at the time Morgan was killed.  But with Spence, Wyatt was on firmer grounds since Maria, Spence's wife, had testified to the coroner that her husband had pulled the trigger.  Now Spence WAS the type of man who wouldn't mind plugging a few innocuous individuals if paid sufficiently.  And since  the firewood business wasn't all that lucrative, it didn't take much for him to consider it sufficient.

The trouble was Maria's conclusions were based only on her husband's suspicious behavior and ambiguous comments the night Morgan was killed.  Also she was ticked off at him since Spence, like Doc, tended to pound on his wife when he was under stress.  She also said Spence told her that if she ever talked he'd take her out into the desert and kill both her and her mother.  So it's likely her testimony was slightly biased, but it's also likely it was true.

And to do Johnny Behan some justice he did haul Spence in, but with the superb confidence Johnny had his his own professional abilities to protect his prisoners, he gave Spence a loaded pistol to keep in his cell just in case the Earps came calling.

That didn't change Wyatt's mind, though.  Frank and Spence were buddies and as far as Wyatt was concerned if Spence was there, so was Frank. 

But for now he had to get Virgil out of town and fast.  Since they were going to send Morgan back to be buried in California (where their mother and father still lived), it seemed best for Virgil and Allie to go along.  The main thing was to get Virgil out of Arizona.

But the trick WAS getting him out.  Both Wyatt and Virgil figured that just loading Virgil up on the train and sending him off accompanied only by Allie and Morgan's wife, Lou, wouldn't be too safe.  So Wyatt planned to go along for a while - together with his brother Warren, Doc, and at least three and possibly as many as five other men bristling with rifles, shotguns, pistols, knives, and cartridges.

The safest route would be to stick to the larger towns and avoid the ambush-prone smaller stations.  So Wyatt 's plan was to take Virgil up through Tucson and once the train took off from there, he'd ride back to Tombstone and finish up the business.

There is much speculation as to why Frank Stillwell happened to be in the train station just as the train with the Earps pulled in.  Earp Champions say he was planning to ambush the Earps with a little help from Ike Clanton and some others.  Earp Detractors point out he was in Tucson to attend court and naturally would be staying at a hotel by the station.  Indeed, the Detractors say, the stop through Tucson was planned just so the Earps would find Frank.

Exactly what happened is not entirely clear.  "Killed while resisting arrest" doesn't really seem to fit the coroner's verdict who found Frank had been blasted at close range in the head, chest, thigh, side, and back.  His own gun had not been fired.

Strangely, his body wasn't found until the next morning.  Tucson's own federal deputy marshal said he heard the shots but didn't think much of them.  Several witnesses said they heard the shots and ran to investigate, but were turned back by a group of men with guns.  Other's thought it was just people celebrating.

That Frank was killed by the Earps is not in doubt.  In later years, Wyatt admitted it although the story changed from time to time.  In earlier years, he stuck to the story of how a huge band of rustlers including Spence and Ike were laying in wait and only through heroic efforts (and obviously excellent marksmanship) did Wyatt, Doc, and the rest defend themselves.  Later he the story seemed to shift to where he had blasted a helpless and frightened man who was on his knees begging for his life.

Since the physical evidence seemed to support the latter, the coroner ruled the death an unjustifiable homicide.  Five days later a grand jury convened and issued an indictment against Wyatt, Doc, Warren, and two others.  So now Wyatt, although a newly commissioned deputy federal marshal, was also a wanted man and a fugitive, charged with murder.

Johnny Behan went to one of his more reliable and honest deputies, Billy Breckindridge, and said they had to go out and arrest the Earps again.  Billy, unlike some of the people Johnny would deputize, was pretty much a law and order man, and thought that despite his faults, Johnny was simply trying to run the sheriff's office in a kinder and gentler (and more modern) fashion than the Earps.  He had nothing personal against the Earps either, but he got together a posse and went out looking for Wyatt.

But as far as Wyatt was concerned he was still a lawman.  He just happened to be was enforcing the law in his own way.  He was entitled to use force if fugitives resisted arrest.  And why, if a man happened to raise his hands, couldn't he possibly be going for a gun hidden in his hat band?  It certainly was possible, and besides, it was really a lot more effective than going before a judge.  So with Frank out of the way, he decided to take out after Spence.

When Wyatt was pushing eighty and looking back over fifty years, he wrote a letter where he said he didn't think Spence had anything to do with Morgan's murder.  But that idea was probably a long time coming.  Subsequent events indicate that if Wyatt had found Spence, he would have ended up like Frank.

But Spence was already in jail and shortly afterwards would be heading toward the territorial prison at Yuma, although on another charge.  Wyatt didn't know this of course and he rode out to the camp where Spence and others used for cutting  the firewood.  Spence wasn't there of course, but one of Spence's friends, Florentino Cruz, was.  Florentino had also been mentioned by Spence's wife as being involved in Morgan's death.  Like Frank, Florentino seems to have really resisted arrest quite vigorously since his wounds matched those of Frank.  His manner of resisting was most unusual since witnesses said they saw Wyatt's mounted group literally chasing the unarmed man around on foot and shooting at him until he dropped.  Maybe Wyatt figured he was running around looking for a gun so he could resist arrest.  Or something.

Wyatt wasn't intending to stop just at those two attempted arrests.  There were quite a few more people he would loved to attempt to arrest.  That included anyone remotely associated with the Clantons or McLaurys.

How effective he was in attempting these arrests is debatable.  In the brogadaccio of old age, Wyatt claimed he and his posse killed (sorry, attempted to arrest) a number of other guys involved in Morgan's death.  One was a man named Curly Bill Brocius who Wyatt claimed they found and worsted in a blazing (and fair) gun battle.  But there's some doubt that Curly Bill was killed by Wyatt or anyone else and some say he was still around in the 1920's.  A few people believe Wyatt also killed Johnny Ringo, another Clanton/McLaury/Behan associate and one of the most legendary and overblown gunfighters in history.   But really Wyatt may not even have been in Arizona when Ringo was done in, as like as not by his own hand.  Actually, Johnny's worst fate was that he was the subject of a Top-40 tune in the 1960's.

There were still a few people that Wyatt had not attempted to arrest yet.  Probably the most frustrating one was Ike Clanton himself.  The trouble was that Johnny was out looking for Wyatt with his own posse, and it wouldn't be too surprising if the two posses actually bumped into each other.  Which eventually they did.  And in Tombstone of all places.

Wyatt, still a lawman in his own mind, had pulled into town with his posse probably to replenish his supplies.  Johnny walked up.  Again there's several versions of the story.  One is that an unarmed Johnny confronted a band of heavily armed ruffians which included Wyatt and naturally wasn't able to haul them in.  Wyatt's own version is Johnny simply tried to arrest Wyatt with his usual effectiveness.

"I laughed in his face," Wyatt later claimed.

A more accurate and less dramatic version is gleaned from contemporary newspaper accounts.  Johnny, who didn't have a warrant yet, walked up to Wyatt.

"Wyatt," he said, "I want to see you."

"Johnny," Wyatt said, "some day you may see me one time too many."

And Wyatt and the rest got on their horses and rode out of Tombstone before Johnny could get reinforcements.

Their next actions are uncertain but it is known that the group of men later headed to New Mexico and on north to Colorado.  Johnny and Wyatt never saw each again.

Few people whose knowledge of the Earp legend is derived from television and motion pictures are aware that Wyatt Earp committed murder, was indicted for it, and skipped out to avoid near certain conviction.  Earp Detractors, going back to the charge of stealing horses in Fort Gibson, Indian Territory and Wyatt's own boasts, point out that Wyatt Earp's criminal record is therefore much worse than any of the Clantons or McLaurys.

Is this true and was Wyatt a murderer?  Like anything else, this is really a matter of definition.  At the time, he did have more past and present crimes charged against him than Ike, Billy, Frank, or Tom ever had.  But since he was never convicted - either because the charges were eventually dropped or he skipped out of the territory, by United States legal custom and practice, he was innocent.  But if you want to look at it from a historical perspective, the inescapable conclusion is he was.

So how many?  If you count the deaths at the OK Corral and those involving any posse involving Wyatt and his friends, you might be able to list over 15 men who may have met their deaths at the hand of the Earps and their associates.  If Wyatt was an accomplice and an accomplice is guilty, then you have a pretty horrifying record.

But if you agree with the legal ruling that the OK Corral was self-defense and if you make allowances for what was in effect a breakdown in the regional government that pitted two opposing factions of law officers against each other, naturally the number gets pared down.  And you might want to stick to cases where the evidence would have resulted in a conviction.  Making those allowances and you probably have only two bonafide murders by Wyatt Earp:  Frank Stillwell and Florentino Cruz.

So how does Wyatt stand up as an authentic Western hero?  You might want to compare him to another well known figure in the history of the West.  Making the same proviso - that is excluding cases of clear self defense and deaths that were a result of a state of anarchy that existed in the territory - that's exactly the same number of men killed by Billy the Kid.  In fact, the circumstances with Billy were even more extenuating since the two remaining deaths were from him escaping jail after the prosecutor had refused to honor a plea bargain between Billy and the territorial governor.

But, you say, Wyatt WAS legally commissioned as a law enforcement officer.  After all, like it or not, Wyatt had been appointed a deputy officer by legally constituted authorities.

Well, so had Billy the Kid.

But that's another story.

At this time though, Wyatt was through with Arizona.  Virgil and Allie had arrived safely in California, and Josie went home to her parents in San Francisco.   And Mattie (who nominally during all this time was Mrs. Wyatt Earp) stuck around Tombsone where she soon joined the honorable ranks of sporting ladies.