When the West Was Young Part 7

They came from all over the West. For railroads and telegraph lines were bringing a new order of things from the Missouri to the Rio Grande, and those who would live by the forty-five hastened to ride away from sight of jails and churches, seeking this new haven down by the border.

One by one they drifted across the flaring Southwestern deserts; from California, Montana, Colorado, Kansas, Texas, and New Mexico, with their grim mouths tight shut against all questions and their big revolvers dangling beside their thighs. The hair of some of them was gray from many winters and their faces deeply lined; and some were boys with down on their smooth cheeks. But once his hand started moving toward his pistol, every man of them was deadlier than a bull rattlesnake in rutting time.

No man challenged them on their arrival. The town was too busy to heed their presence. The one-story buildings which lined the wide streets were packed to the doors with customers; saloons, dance-halls, and gambling-houses roared on through day and night; the stores were open at all hours. The wide sidewalks under the wooden awnings which ran the length of every block, were crowded from wall to gutter with men intent on getting wealth or spending it.

The bad men mingled with the sidewalk throngs; they dropped into the Bird-Cage Opera House, where painted women sang in voices that clanged like brazen gongs; they took their places before the gambling-tables of the Crystal Palace, where girls were oftentimes to be found dealing faro; they joined the long lines before the bars and drank the stinging whisky which the wagon-trains had brought from Tucson. And they met one another.

It was like the meeting of strange dogs, who bristle on sight, and often fly at one another's throats to settle the question of supremacy. Their big-caliber revolvers spat streams of fire in the roadways and bellowed in the dance-halls. And gradually among the ranks of the survivors there came a gradation in their badness.

Several loomed far above the others: John Ringo, Prank Stilwell, Zwing Hunt, the Clanton brothers, and Billy Grounds. They were "He Wolves."

And there was Curly Bill, the worst of all. He might be said to rule them.

They settled down to business, which is to say they started to do the best they could for themselves according to their separate capacities for doing evil unto others.

They rustled stock. They drove whole herds over the boundary from Mexico. They pillaged the ranches, which were now coming into the adjacent country, stealing horses, altering brands, and slaying whoever interfered with them, all with the boldness of medieval raiders. They took a hand in the claim-jumping. They robbed the stage.

Hardly a day pa.s.sed without a hold-up on the Tucson road--and, when the railway went through, on the road to Benson. Shotgun guards and drivers were killed; occasionally a pa.s.senger or two got a bullet. And the bad men spent the money openly over the bars in Tombstone.

Then the Earp brothers came upon the scene. From this time their figures loom large in the foreground. Whatever else may be said of them they were bold men and there was something Homeric in their violence. Wyatt, Virgil, Morgan, and Jim, the first three were active in the wild events which followed their inc.u.mbency to power.

California knew them in their boyhood, and during their manhood years they wandered over the West, from mining camp to cow-town, until they came to Tombstone from Dodge City, Kansas.

They brought a record with them. Back in the seventies, in the time of the trail herds, Dodge was a howling cow-town. There was a period of its existence when the punchers used to indulge in the pastime of shooting up the place; but there were a great many of these frolicsome riders, and too much wanton revolver shooting is sure to breed trouble if it is combined with hard liquor, gambling, and a tough floating population. The prominent business men of Dodge watched the hectic consequences of this lawlessness over their faro layouts with speculative eyes and came to the conclusion that killings were becoming altogether too promiscuous. The town, they said, needed a business administration; and forthwith they selected Bat Masterson as marshal. He established, and enforced, a rule which amounted to this:

If a man pulled his gun he did it at his own peril. Whoever fired a shot within the town limits, whether he did it for sport or murder, faced arrest.

Resistance followed. There were nights when the main street echoed with the roaring of firearms. But, by the force of his personality and by his remarkable ability at the quick draw, Bat Masterson subdued the rebels. It came about that of what killing was done he did his full share, which greatly diminished the death list.

Wyatt and Virgil Earp succeeded Bat Masterson in this office and carried on its administration with a boldness which left them famous.

With the coroner behind them they were lords of the high justice, the middle, and the low; and they sustained their positions by good straight shooting.

At such times as they were not performing their functions as peace officers they were dealing faro; and when the imminence of a less interesting era was made apparent in the dwindling of the trail herds and the increase of dry farmers, they left the good old cow-town along with many other professional gamblers.

They arrived in Tombstone in the days when the outlaws were rampant, and they began dealing faro in Oriental. They found many a friend--and some enemies--from those years in western Kansas among the more adventurous element in the new town. Former buffalo-hunters, teamsters, quiet-spoken gamblers, and two-gun men sat down before their layouts and talked over bygones with them. There was an election at about this time. Virgil was chosen town marshal, and Wyatt got the appointment of deputy United States marshal soon afterward.

Old friends and new rallied around them. Of the former was Doc Holliday, a tubercular gunman with the irascible disposition which some invalids own, who had drifted hither from Colorado. Among the latter were the Clanton brothers and Frank Stilwell, who robbed the stage and rustled cattle for a living. John Ringo, who was really the brains of the outlaws, and Curly Bill, who often led them, are listed by many old-timers among the henchmen in the beginning.

It was a time when the old spoils system was recognized in its pristine simplicity. If you trained with the victorious political faction you either wore a star or had some one else who did wear a star backing you. If you trained with the minority you were rather sure, sooner or later, to have your name engrossed on a warrant. In such an era it was as well to vote wisely; else, in the vernacular, you were "short" in your home town, which meant you could not go back there.

How much the Earps knew of what their henchmen did is beyond the telling in this story. An official history of Arizona published under the auspices of the State legislature and written by Major McClintock, an old Westerner, states that first and last they were accused of about 50 per cent. of the robberies which took place in the town. It is, however, altogether possible that their cognizance of such matters was no greater than many a city official to-day holds of crimes committed in his bailiwick. When one comes to a.n.a.lyze police politics he finds they have not changed much since the time of the Crusades: desire for power has always blinded reformers to the misdeeds of their followers. One thing is certain; the Earps did protect their friends, and some of those friends were using very much the same methods which the Apaches employed in making a living.

To a certain extent this was necessary. What one might call the highly respectable element of the town was busy at its own affairs.

Mine-owners and merchants were deeply engrossed in getting rich. And unless he liked gun-fighting, a man would have to be a good deal of a busybody to give the town marshal anything more tangible than his best wishes in the way of support. It was up to that official to look out for himself. At any time when complications followed his attempt to arrest a lawbreaker he could depend upon the average citizen--to get outside the line of fire.

And the gun-fighters were eager to get into the game. They were right on hand, to make a stand in front of the enemy if need be--but preferably to murder the foe from behind. Which was ever the way with the Western bad man.

There were determined men of another breed in Tombstone and the surrounding country, men who had outfought Apaches and desperadoes on many an occasion; dead shots who owned high moral courage. Such a man was John Slaughter, who had established his ranch down on the Mexican line and had driven the savages away from his neighborhood. But these old-timers were not enlisted under the Earp banner and the town's new rulers had only the other element for retainers.

So now Frank Stilwell robbed stages on the Bisbee road until the drivers got to know his voice quite well; and he swaggered through the Tombstone dance-halls bestowing the rings which he had stripped from the fingers of women pa.s.sengers upon his latest favorite. Ike and Billy Clanton enlarged their herds with cattle and horses from other men's ranges, and sold beef with other men's brands to Tombstone butchers. And taking it altogether, the whole crew, from Doe Holliday down, did what they could to bring popular disfavor upon the heads of the new peace officers.

But if their followers were lacking in the quality of moral courage, that cannot be said of the Earp brothers. And not long after they took the reins in their strong hands, an occasion arose wherein they proved their caliber. Wyatt in particular showed that he was made of stern stuff.

It came about as a result of the reforms under the new regime. After the manner of their Dodge City administration the brothers ruled in Tombstone. They forbade the practice of shooting up the town. He who sought to take possession of a dance-hall according to the old custom, which consisted of driving out the inmates with drawn revolvers and extinguis.h.i.+ng the lights with forty-five caliber slugs, was forthwith arrested. To ride a horse into a saloon and order drinks for all hands meant jail and a heavy fine. To slay a gambler, or make a gun-play in a gambling-house, when luck was running badly, resulted in prosecution.

Virgil Earp attended to these matters, and after several incidents wherein he disarmed ugly men whose friends stood by eager to let daylight into the new marshal, he owned a certain amount of prestige.

It is only fair to remark in pa.s.sing that he had a disposition--in ticklish cases--to shoot first and ask questions afterward; but that was recognized as an officer's inalienable right in those rude days.

Now this new order of things did not meet universal popular favor in Tombstone. There were always three or four hundred miners off s.h.i.+ft on the streets, and while a large percentage of them were peaceable men, there was a boisterous element. This element, and the cow-boys who had been in the habit of celebrating their town comings after the good old fas.h.i.+on, felt resentful. An occasional killing of one of their number with the invariable verdict from a carefully picked coroner's jury, "met his death while resisting an officer in performance of his duty,"

made the resentment more general. The recalcitrants said that Tombstone was being run by a gang of murderers in the interest of the gamblers.

Opposition to the administration began to crystallize. Things reached the point where in a twentieth century community reformers would be preparing to circulate recall pet.i.tions. But in the early eighties they did things more directly, and instead of the recall they had the "show-down." The malcontents eagerly awaited its coming.

It came. And its origin was in Charleston.

Charleston was eleven miles across the hills from Tombstone down by the San Pedro River. There was a mill there, and the cow-boys from the country around came in to spend their money. Jim Burnett was justice of the peace. Early in the town's history he had seceded from the county of Pima because the supervisors over in Tucson refused to allow him certain fees. "Hereafter," so he wrote the board, "the justice court in Charleston will look after itself." Which it did. Once the court dragged Jack Harker from his horse, when that enthusiastic stockman was celebrating his arrival by bombarding the town, and fined the prisoner fifty head of three-year-old steers. And once--it is a matter of record--a coroner's jury under his instruction rendered the verdict: "Served the Mexican right for getting in front of the gun."

Things always moved swiftly in Charleston. There is a tale of a saloon-keeper who buried his wife in the morning, killed a man at high noon, and took unto himself a new bride before evening. If that story is not true--and old-timers vouch for it--it is at least indicative of the trend of life in the town.

And to Charleston came those followers of John Ringo and Curly Bill who did not get on with the Earps. Several of them became men of influence down here on the San Pedro. Hither flocked those boisterous spirits who craved more freedom of action on pay-day than the mining town afforded.

Guns blazed in Charleston whenever the spirit moved. The young fellow who was ditch-tender for the company had to give up his lantern when he made his nightly trip of inspection, because, as surely as that light showed up on the side hill, there was certain to be some one down in the street who could not resist taking a shot at it. So while dissatisfaction was crystallizing among the miners of Tombstone a keen rancor against the Earps was developing over by the San Pedro.

This was the state of affairs when Johnny Behind the Deuce brought matters to a crisis by killing an engineer from the mill.

Johnny Behind the Deuce was an undersized, scrawny specimen of the genus which is popularly known as "tinhorn," a sort of free-lance gambler, usually to be found sitting in at a poker-game. The engineer was a big man and abusive.

There was a game in which these two partic.i.p.ated; and when he had lost his wages to Johnny Behind the Deuce, the engineer sought solace first in vituperation, then in physical maltreatment. Whereat Johnny Behind the Deuce shot him. Charleston's constable took the slayer into custody. The rustlers and other exiles from Tombstone knew the prisoner for a friend of the Earps, and so they decided to lynch him.

They sent one of their number to get a reata for that purpose.

The constable learned what was going on. He commandeered a buckboard and a team of mules, put Johnny Behind the Deuce aboard, and drove the animals on the dead run for Tombstone.

When the man who had been sent for the reata returned, the rustlers set out after the prisoner and found they were five minutes too late.

They saddled up and started in pursuit.

The road wound along the lower levels between the foot-hills of the Mule Mountains; there were two or three dry washes to cross, some sharp grades to negotiate, and several fine stretches which were nearly level,--a rough road, admirably suited for making a wild race wilder.

And this was a wild race. The constable and the prisoner were just getting their team nicely warmed up when they heard a fusillade of revolver-shots behind them. They glanced over their shoulders and saw more than fifty hors.e.m.e.n coming on at that gait which is so well described in the vernacular as "burning the wind." From time to time one of these riders would lean forward and "throw down" his six-shooter; then the occupants of the buckboard would hear the whine of a forty-five slug, and a moment later the report of the distant weapon would reach their ears.

The mules heard these things too. What with the noise of the firearms and the whoops of the pursuers they were in a frenzy; they threw their long ears flat back and entered into the spirit of the occasion by running away. The constable, who was a cool man and a good driver, centered his energies on guiding them around the turns and let it go at that.

Now as the miles of tawny landscape flashed behind them the two fugitives saw that they were being overhauled. And the pursuers found that they were gaining; their yells came louder down the wind; they roweled their lathered cow-ponies. And they drew closer to the buckboard.

The constable negotiated the dry wash near Robbers Rock on two wheels, and as the light vehicle was reeling along the easy grade beyond, the prisoner took another look behind. He told his captor that the wild riders were not much more than four hundred yards away.

They came to a stretch of level road. The mules were doing a little better now, and they clattered down into the next dry wash with an abandon which all but ended matters; the outer wheels went over the high cut bank, but by the grace of good luck and marvelous driving the buckboard was kept right side up. And now the lynching party, who had made a short cut, appeared between the rolling hills not more than two hundred yards behind.

Johnny Behind the Deuce reported the state of affairs. The constable answered without turning his head.

"Looks like we're up against it, kid," said he, "but we'll play it out 's long as we got chips left."