WHO SAID IT FIRST? JOHN CLUM WONDERED. Shakespeare? Cicero? Caesar? A year in politics is an eternity.
A year, he thought with his hairless head in his ink-stained hands. Hah! One day was enough to change everything in this godforsaken town.
In the first minutes after the gunfight, public opinion was all on the side of the law. An early rumor spread that Deputy Morgan Earp had died in the performance of his duty and there was great sympathy for the Earps on their loss, for Morgan was well liked. Then Ike Clanton was seen leaving the Western Union office and somebody said he had summoned more Cow Boys. Soon it was all over town: They were coming to Tombstone to lynch the Earps and Holliday.
A reasonable person might have expected citizens to rally behind their police force, but Tombstone was about to be invaded by a gang of vengeful outlaws. Suddenly Johnny Behan’s policy of “Live and let live” appeared to be the better part of valor, and folks began to grumble that the Earps had stirred up a hornets’ nest.
Then the doctors reported that Morgan was hurt bad but likely to live. Virgil Earp and Doc Holliday’s wounds were far less serious. An inch of difference in the bullets’ trajectories could have severed Morgan’s spinal cord, or cost Virgil his leg, or left Doc Holliday gut-shot and screaming. Even so, it began to seem as though the police had gotten off easy.
Talk shifted to the argument Holliday and Ike Clanton had the night before the fight. Nobody knew what it was about, but somebody who’d been eating in the Alhambra’s restaurant insisted that Ike Clanton had started it. Then somebody reminded everyone about when Milt Joyce coldcocked Holliday last year and how Wyatt said anyone who laid a hand on Doc would answer to him. When Ike Clanton turned himself in to Sheriff Behan because he was afraid Wyatt Earp would find him and finish the job, the notion did not strike anyone as impossible, or even unlikely.
Virgil was steady, folks said. Morgan was affable. But Wyatt? Hell, he beat a man to death up in Dodge City! Who knew what he was capable of when his friend and two of his brothers had been shot?
Word began to filter out of the inquest: Tom McLaury might have been unarmed. A counterrumor claimed that somebody had picked Tom’s pistol up after the fight and was keeping it as a souvenir. Nobody seemed to know who “somebody” was and no one came forward to show the gun.
Even Earp partisans admitted that Tom wasn’t near as bad as his brother Frank, so why had Wyatt hit Tom a couple of hours before the gunfight? Nobody had a good explanation for that.
Everyone had expected Willie Claiborne and Ike Clanton to blame the Earps, but Johnny Behan’s testimony at the coroner’s inquest was a surprise, and he wasn’t shy about repeating it in public later on. “Frank McLaury and Billy Clanton were the only ones carrying weapons, and they had agreed to disarm,” he testified. “When I saw the Earps come around the corner, I went to them and told them not to fight because those parties had agreed to give me their weapons. The Earps ignored me and began firing without preamble. I heard Billy Clanton say, ‘Don’t shoot me! I don’t want to fight!’ Tom McLaury threw open his coat and said, ‘I have got nothing!’ But Holliday cut him down. That gunfight was little more than murder.”
Hour after hour, the coroner had listened to witness after witness, letting conflicting and ambiguous testimony stand without asking for clarification. By midnight, facts that had seemed clear-cut were in doubt. Those who’d initially supported the Earps lapsed into uneasy silence, leaving only the voices of those who condemned the officers and who now turned on John Clum himself during an emergency meeting of the City Council.
“I lay what happened at the mayor’s feet,” Councilman Milt Joyce declared in what was the opening move of a run for the city’s top office. “He knew what everyone in this town knows: Doc Holliday will shoot without provocation!” Milt held up his own scarred and deformed hand. “And wasn’t it Mayor Clum who told the Earps to disarm those boys? Why not let well enough alone? I’ll tell you why,” Milt offered. “Sheriff Behan was already on his way to the O.K. Corral. Johnny Behan could have settled matters in his own quiet, professional way, but Mayor Clum wanted Wyatt Earp to look good to the voters for next year’s election!”
Which was uncomfortably close to the truth and put the mayor on the defensive. “I said to disarm those men,” he cried, “not to slaughter them!” And while he regretted the phrasing the moment the words were out of his mouth, there was no taking them back.
So there it was. On the afternoon of October 26, 1881, the Earps were incorruptible, intrepid lawmen bravely marching off to protect the city from gun-toting outlaws. The next morning, they were cold-blooded killers who’d murdered three men on a public street because of some kind of personal feud between Doc Holliday and Ike Clanton. And Johnny Behan had become the odds-on favorite to win the sheriff’s office in the ’82 election.
As editor of the Epitaph, John Clum was free to interpret the events as persuasively as possible; his newspaper was on the A.P. wire, so his version of the story would be read by Eastern investors and Washington politicians. As mayor of Tombstone, he had to be seen as impartial. So he put Virgil Earp on medical leave and appointed Deputy James Flynn as acting police chief. Flynn could serve until the Earps were cleared of wrong-doing. As head of the Citizens Safety Committee, however, John Clum was within his rights to authorize a doubling of the guard around the Earps and Holliday, hoping to shield them from retaliation by the cattle thieves, drifters, and thugs who were converging on Tombstone by the hundreds: drinking heavily and talking big about lynch parties and settling scores.
THE NEXT MORNING’S FUNERAL CORTEGE was far larger than the one that accompanied Fred White to his grave. Two thousand people stood in respectful silence along the route to the cemetery, which passed right by the Earp brothers’ homes.
The procession was led by Curly Bill Brocius and Johnny Ringo, who held aloft a large banner made from a bedsheet and bearing a hand-lettered declaration: MURDERED IN THE STREETS OF TOMBSTONE. Behind them were wagons that bore the dead, their pale cheeks brightened by mortician’s rouge. Chief mourner Isaac Clanton came next, eyes reddened, face ravaged. Ike was followed by more than a hundred men, on foot and on horseback, their pace set by a brass band playing a drinking song called “Where Was Moses When the Lights Went Out?”
“Odd choice for a dirge,” Doc Holliday remarked, looking out Morgan Earp’s bedroom window. “Wash your hands, George.”
“John, they are perfectly clean.”
“You can argue with him for half an hour,” Kate Harony told Dr. George Goodfellow, “or you can save us all time and do like he says.”
“C’mon,” Morgan muttered. “Let’s get this over with.”
The physician sighed and washed up. Again. Like it or not, a D.D.S. had trumped an M.D. ever since the president died. For the past six weeks, the American Dental Association had been frightening everyone out of their wits, claiming that Garfield had needlessly succumbed to infection introduced to his body by the unclean hands of his own doctors. Now all around the country, the ignorant and superstitious were convinced that tiny invisible animals caused infection.
At the Earp family’s insistence, any physician tending to Virgil and Morgan’s wounds was shadowed by Dr. J. H. Holliday. All George Goodfellow wanted to do this morning was inspect the incision and change the dressings, but the dentist still insisted on this senseless rigmarole about “antisepsis procedure.”
Mrs. Earp and the Harony woman sat behind the patient to support his back while he swung his legs over the edge of the mattress, face rigid against the pain.
“There are too many people in here,” Goodfellow said, trying to reestablish professional authority. “I need space to work.”
The women left the bedroom. Holliday merely moved into a corner, vigilant as Goodfellow unwound the bandages.
“The itch is driving me crazy,” Morgan complained.
“Itching means the wound is healing,” Goodfellow murmured. “Apart from that, how do you feel?”
“Tired.”
“You lost a great deal of blood. Fatigue is normal.”
“I can’t find a good way to sleep! I like to sleep on my back or my side, but everything hurts.”
Holliday went to the door. “Kate? Miss Louisa? Go over to Mrs. Fly’s and ask for pillows. Three—no, four at least. Tell her I’ll pay for replacements, but we need them right away.”
Ignoring the dentist, Goodfellow continued his examination.
“Entry and exit are mostly scabbed over . . . Swelling is somewhat reduced across the whole of your back . . .”
Holliday came forward to inspect the incision and met the physician’s eyes. A portion of the tunnel looked angry. In a rare moment of agreement, both doctors made a silent decision not to say anything to Morgan about another surgery until they were certain it was necessary.
“And your own wound, John?” the physician asked.
“Granulation is well along. Kind of you to ask, George.”
The next ten minutes passed in silence while Morgan’s dressings were replaced with fresh bandages—boiled, sun-dried, minutely examined and accepted by Holliday as sufficiently clean. Bidding his patient good day, Dr. Goodfellow left the room, promising he’d return that evening.
MORGAN HAD ANOTHER BAD TEN MINUTES as Kate and Lou got him settled again, but when they were done, he was half-sitting in bed: his arms, lower back, head, and neck supported by pillows with a narrow gap across his shoulders so pressure on the wound was relieved.
“Better?” Doc asked.
“Hell, yeah,” Morg said. “Damn. Yes.”
“I am very sorry, Morgan,” Doc murmured. “I should have thought of that sooner.”
“Will you be able to sleep now?” Lou asked anxiously.
Morgan’s eyes were already closed. “Mmm.”
“Miss Louisa, Kate and I will sit with him now. Please, honey, go on over to our room at Mrs. Fly’s and get some rest yourself, y’hear?”
“Doc . . . are you sure?” Lou asked.
He contrived to sound hurt. “Why, Miss Louisa! After all you and Morgan have done for me! How can you ask such a thing?”
“Turnabout is fair play,” Kate added, for she and Lou had spent long hours together back in Dodge when Doc was so sick. “I’ll go with you and get a few things from the room.”
The women left again and for a little while, there was no sound in the room but Morgan’s soft snoring. Easing himself into the corner chair, John Henry Holliday took stock of everyone’s condition three days after the shootings. His own wound was painful but could have been much worse. Virgil might be left with a limp, but he already felt well enough to be impatient with keeping his leg up. Morgan likely had more surgery ahead of him and a long recuperation, but he was young and in good health otherwise.
The crisis was nearly over. All they had to do was wait for the inquest jury to find that the McLaurys and Billy Clanton had been killed without malice aforethought by four police officers doing their duty. Then he and Kate would leave Tombstone for good.
She returned from Mrs. Fly’s and handed him the new Zola novel he’d been reading before he left for Tucson. He opened the book and stared at the print for a time but couldn’t concentrate and set it aside.
Kate was staring at him, her own eyes shadowed by fatigue. “You don’t fool me none,” she said.
For as long as Kate had known him, John Henry Holliday had been haunted by nightmares of his mother’s death. Now there was a new dream that made his sleep fearsome and broke her own. Tom McLaury, reaching for that rifle. Tom McLaury, blood pouring from the crater in his chest.
“Dammit, Doc, we coulda been in Denver by now!” she whispered. “We never shoulda come back here.”
“I know, darlin’. I know,” he said softly. Too late now, he meant.
FIVE DAYS AFTER THE GUNFIGHT, the Cochise County coroner’s jury returned a thunderously unenlightening verdict: William Clanton and Frank and Thomas McLaury had come to their deaths as a result of gunshots inflicted by Virgil Earp, Wyatt Earp, Morgan Earp, and John Holliday. Having failed to characterize the shootings as either justified or criminal, the jury left the whole question open for legal wrangling that could easily drag on for a year or more. Which suited Johnny Behan and Milt Joyce just fine.
That afternoon, there was a soft knock on Doc Holliday’s door. Kate got up to answer it. When she saw who it was, she stepped into the hallway, shut the door behind herself, and scowled up at Wyatt Earp.
“Doc’s sleeping,” she told him. “Come back later.”
“It’s important.”
“So is his rest! Something like this, it can knock him back. You know that.”
Down at the bottom of the stairs, a man wearing a badge stood next to Molly Fly. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I hate to do this, but I hafta.”
“Do what?” Kate asked, wary now. “Who the hell are you?”
“Jim Flynn, ma’am. Acting chief of police. I’m sorry, but I have warrants. Morgan and Virgil are allowed to remain under house arrest, but I have to bring Wyatt and Doc in.”
“On what charge?” Kate demanded, voice rising.
“Murder,” Flynn told her.
“Murder!” Molly Fly cried.
“You ain’t serious!” Kate scoffed as the door opened behind her and Doc stepped out.
“Wyatt,” he said evenly, “what’s goin’ on?”
“I’m sorry, Doc, but you’re under arrest,” Flynn said. “Ike Clanton’s filed murder charges against you.”
“Behan helped Ike Clanton get a lawyer,” Wyatt told him.
“Against me?” Doc said, astonished. “But . . . I was deputized!”
“It’s not just you, Doc,” Wyatt said. “It’s all four of us.”
Kate reacted first. “What’s the bail?”
“Behan asked Judge Spicer to deny bail,” Flynn said, “but when I got the warrants, I went to Spicer, too. He agreed to ten grand apiece.”
White, Doc slumped against the door jamb. “I can’t—I . . . I don’t have anything close to that kind of money! Wyatt, can’t Virgil do something?”
“City Council suspended him without pay until this is settled,” Jimmy Flynn said bitterly. “The whole goddam town wanted that fight, and now the bastards are cutting you loose.”
WHICH WASN’T ENTIRELY TRUE.
The relevant meeting had convened late at night and was not open to the public. Ore magnate Richard Gird and his armed escort had ridden in from Millville. When he arrived, Mayor John Clum had summoned two other men. Eliphalet Butler Gage, who’d presided over the development of the Grand Central Mine, came quickly. They waited twenty minutes more for the Wells Fargo agent, Marsh Williams, to show up, then decided to go ahead without him.
“He’s dealing with another stage robbery, I expect,” Mayor Clum said.
“Cochise County is a magnet for criminals these days,” Gird said. “That scoundrel Behan has all but issued formal invitations.”
“Two of my investors back east just pulled out of a deal we were ready to sign,” Gage said. “I told them that the time to invest is when there’s blood in the streets, but they’ve got other places they can put their money.”
“How is the bail campaign going?” Gird asked.
“Seven backers, thirty-eight thousand dollars so far,” Clum told him.
“Does that include Holliday’s as well?” Gird asked, frowning.
“No. Just an oversubscription for the Earps. Wyatt and his brother James have put up eight thousand dollars of their own for Holliday. Several others have pledged the balance—gambler friends of his.”
“If it’s true that Tom McLaury was unarmed,” Gage said, “the publicity is going to be catastrophic.”
“We’ve got to control this, John,” Gird warned.
“I am doing my best,” Clum said, “but I can’t do anything about the results of the inquest. And I’m afraid I have more bad news. Both of Virgil Earp’s regular deputies say they’ll resign if sworn officers go on trial for doing their jobs—”
“It won’t come to that,” Agent Williams said, sounding confident as he came through the door. “Gentlemen, I’m sorry to keep you waiting, but I believe you’ll all be pleased to know that Mr. Thomas Fitch would like to join us.”
Everyone sat back. Then they all stood up.
THE SILVER-TONGUED ORATOR of the Pacific. That’s what the nation’s newspapers called Tom Fitch. A gifted advocate whose eloquence and force of argument had kept California in the Union. A journalist credited by Mark Twain for improving the novelist’s prose style. Forty-three years old, at the peak of his powers, Tom Fitch was widely acknowledged to be the best damn lawyer west of the by-God Mississippi.
And he knew it.
Aware that he could overawe men, Fitch was all smiles and jocularity at first, but when the greetings were over, he sat at the table, opened a briefcase, put on his glasses, and laid out a stack of papers with efficient dispatch.
“I have already gone over the inquest testimony. All the witnesses called by the coroner were at some distance from the events that took place on October twenty-sixth. Nobody was in a position to see the entire incident. Gun smoke undoubtedly obscured what they could see. In my opinion, the jurymen were not wrong to come to a less than definitive determination.” He looked up. “I understand that Sheriff Behan has been aiding Mr. Clanton in the effort to engage prosecuting attorneys for the murder charges?”
He paused to allow the others to vent their outrage.
“Obviously,” Fitch said mildly, “Behan’s agenda is to eliminate all three Earps as potential rivals for the sheriff’s office in next year’s election. No matter. He will rue the day he allied himself with Isaac Clanton. From what I hear, Ike can’t count to twenty-one unless he’s buck naked.”
When the startled laughter died down, E. B. Gage took the opportunity to ask, “How soon will this go to trial?”
“When hell freezes over, if I do my job right,” Fitch said blandly. “There’ll be a preliminary hearing first, to determine if there’s enough evidence against the defendants to send the case before a grand jury, which would then have to indict. Wells Spicer will be presiding over the hearing. An honorable man. Excellent lawyer. Not one to be swayed by outside pressure. Wells and I have both defended Mormons in capital cases—no easy task, believe me! He stood up to the worst kind of intimidation during the John Lee trial. I promise you: Angry Cow Boys will not frighten him. I myself will represent the Earp brothers. Dr. Holliday has engaged T. J. Drum as his attorney. Good man, Drum. He and I will present a unified defense.” There was a bright smile when he asked, “Would any of you like a cigar?”
None of them were ready to celebrate just yet, but Fitch lit his own.
“Gentlemen,” he said, puffing, “we are going to bury the prosecution under testimony. We will ensure that every single witness with an opinion testifies during that hearing. The more they disagree and contradict one another, the better. Every statement will be undermined until none of what they say can be believed. The prosecution’s case will then hang on the version of events provided by Ike Clanton and William Claiborne.” Tapping ash off the Cuban, Fitch peered over his glasses to add dryly, “Both of whom were running away while the shooting took place. It should be easy to prove that neither man has eyes in the back of his head.”
Brows up, Fitch held out his cigar case again. This time, Gage and Gird accepted the offering.
John Clum hesitated. “If I may ask, sir, who will be paying your fee?”
“Am I speaking to the mayor of Tombstone or the editor of the Epitaph?”
“The mayor,” Clum said. “My officers took an oath to enforce city ordinances. They were told to prevent trouble, not simply to react after it happens. The Earps—and even Holliday—did their duty at the risk of their own lives. If they face trial for that, Tombstone will never be able to hire another policeman and anarchy will prevail. I understand that drawing out the preliminary hearing as long as possible will help to prevent a trial. Many hours mean big fees, and I imagine that your rate is commensurate with your experience and reputation. Wyatt Earp has money. His brothers are not rich men. I have a divided City Council, and I cannot pretend that Tombstone will undertake to foot the bill. So, I ask again: Who is paying you?”
There was a moment of silence. Tom Fitch made his face completely impassive, but when he glanced at Agent Williams, they all understood. Every stagecoach robbery ate away at Wells Fargo’s balance sheets. Anything that curbed the outlaw element of Cochise County was to be supported, and no price was too high. Not even Tom Fitch’s.
“I am working pro bono,” Fitch lied, smooth as you please. Then he grew quite sober. “Gentlemen, the police officers in this case will be exonerated—I promise you that. However, I must also warn you that this will not end in the courtroom. My fee is nothing. Before this is over, there will be hell to pay.”