TOMBSTONES Chapter Twenty

I know what Billy Clanton (above) was thinking when the shooting stopped. When photographer C.S. Fly bent down to take the empty Colt revolver from his hand, Billy Clanton told him, "Give me more cartridges". A few moments later, when they lifted the 19 year old's bleeding body he cried out in pain, "They have murdered me. I have been murdered." 

Inside the Harwood House, after Dr. Gibberson softened his pain with morphine, Billy was boastful again, threatening Wyatt - "If only I could get my teeth into that son-of-a-bitch's throat, I'd die happy." But when he realized he was slipping into the gentle night, Billy ordered the gawkers to, "Go away and let me die." But Billy was the appointed Hector of Tombstone, the last hero of the melodrama, and his public was not to be denied.

The funeral of Billy and the McLaury brothers was staged - and that is the right word - the very next day, a cold gray Thursday, 27 October, 1881. Andrew Jackson "Andy" Ritter propped the three caskets up in the front window of Ritter and Ream City Undertakers, behind a sign which read "Murdered on the Street of Tombstone" so they could be photographed (above). The Democratic Tombstone Nugget that day cried that “Three Men" had been "Hurled Into Eternity In the Duration of a Moment.” 

And at about 4:00pm - fashionably late - the 3 hearses, 22 carriages and 300 mourners,  all led by the volunteer firemen (above),  made their way to the Old Cemetery - it would not be called Boot Hill until the arrival of 20th century tourists. 

 Some 2,000 watched the procession, and even Cochise County Republicans were uneasy with the violence which had exploded on the streets of Tombstone..

It was lucky for the Democrats that Ike Clanton, the Paris in this Cow Boy Iliad, the man most responsible for the gun fight, ran away and lived.  Four days later Ike filed murder charges against the Earps and Holliday.  Older brother William McLaury, who was a practicing lawyer, came up from Texas to help prosecute the case. And a New York Democratic editorial cartoonist depicted wild man Virgil Earp, two guns blazing, trying to herd Arizona into statehood with violence (above).  In fact the shoot out helped delay Arizona statehood until Valentines Day, 1912 - making it the last of the 48 contiguous states to join the union.

The one clearly disinterested witness at the Earp's trial, a tuberculosis sufferer named Henry F. Sills, who was a fireman on the Atcheson, Topeka and the Sante Fe Railroad and had only arrived in Tombstone the day before.  He supported the Earps in all important details. The hearing judge decided the Earps had done nothing illegal. But like all violence, the shoot out did not merely end. There were aftershocks.

Half an hour before midnight, on Wednesday, 28 December, 1881, Virgil Earp (above) was shot from ambush while walking into the Cosmopolitan Hotel.  Dr. Goodfellow had to remove 4 inches of Virgil's left humerus, making him a cripple for life. The suspected shooters were Phin and Ike Clanton, Cow Boys Johnny Barnes, Johnny Ringo, Hank Swilling and Pete Spence. Although arrested, all 6 were released on $1,500 bail. No trial was ever held.

Ten minutes before eleven on the evening of Saturday, 18 March, 1882,  Morgan Earp (above) was shot through the spine while playing billiards. He died soon after. A coroner's jury would conclude the assassins were Pete Spence, Frank Stillwell, Frederick Bode and Florentino "Indian Charlie" Cruz. Convinced the Republican Party had abandoned his family, and the local Democratic courts would never punish the Cow Boys the Earps had been sent to Tombstone to breakup, Wyatt gathered a small band of supporters, and rode out to punish those who had injured his loved ones. In true epic tradition, it would be called his vendetta ride.

It began the night of Monday, 20 March, 1882. The wounded Virgil Earp, his wife and Morgan's widow boarded a Southern Pacific train to take Morgan's body to California for burial. The next morning, between the railroad tracks, the little dandy, Frank Stillwell (above), was found so full of lead the coroner described his corpse as "the worst shot up man I ever saw." Frank was the first. 

Indian Charlie died second, on 23 March. And on 24 March, Johnny Barnes was shot to death, along with William "Curley Bill" Brocius (above)  at Iron Springs, in the Whitestone Mountains, northeast of Tombstone. All of them were presumably murdered by Wyatt Earp, in revenge.

John "Johnny Ringo" Peters, so called "King of  the Cow Boys"  evidently committed suicide in July of 1882. 

Wanted for rustling, loudmouth, alcoholic Issac "Ike" Clanton was killed while avoiding arrest in 1887.   His elder brother, Phin Clanton,  served 17 months in the Yuma Territorial prison, also for rustling. He died in 1906. 

The ex-Texas Ranger and stage robber, Pete Spence (above),  aka Elliot Larkin Ferguson,  also did 18 months in Yuma, but for manslaughter. In 1910 he married Phin Clanton's widow, and died in 1914. Thus the villains of Tombstone.

The subterranean towers of this Ilium   -  the mines of Tombstone - were drowned in 1887 after fires destroyed the pumps that kept them workable, and the price of silver plummeted. Fire also destroyed Fly's Boarding House and the Harwood house as well. 

The dawning 20th century made copper the new gold, and by 1929 the Copper Queen mine in Bisbee drew the Cochise County seat there, leaving Tombstone to fade into the Sonora desert. During the 1930's Arizona politicians tried to kill the town by using New Deal money to "improve" Fremont Street, plowing over the site of the shoot out  (above) and obliterating the history. But Tombstone refused to die.

Tuberculosis killed 36 year old John Henry "Doc" Holliday (above), in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, in November of 1887.  He died alone, in the company of a hired nurse. 

Almost all of the stories of robberies and murders attributed to Doc Holliday and the Earps originated with John Harris Behan (above), the corrupt sheriff of Cochise County. When the mines failed, Johnny moved on, leaving behind debts and missing funds. He was the brutal superintendent of the Yuma Prison for 2 years, stealing an estimated $50,000. Always a Democratic appointee and always corrupt, by the turn of the century he was in Washington, D.C., but quickly returned to the Southwest. He died in Tuscon in 1912, of heart failure brought on by 30 years of syphilis, which he had contracted in Tombstone. Like most villains, he was usually guilty of the very sins he attributed to others.

The Southern Pacific Railroad provided a California job for the handicapped Virgil Earp, and supported him until he died of his wounds on 19 October, 1905. 

Wyatt Earp died of a urinary tract infection in January of 1929, at the age of 80. 

His second common law wife, Josephine Sarah Marcus Earp, died on 20 December, 1944. Neither of them suffered from syphilis. But like most gamblers "Sadie" died broke. Her funeral was paid for by silent movie cowboy William S. Hart, and Hollywood theater owner Sid Grauman. Thus the heroes of the Tombstone saga.

Between 1860, when Frederick Brunckow discovered silver ore along the banks of the San Pedro River, to 1890, when the mines drowned, something around $85 million dollars worth of silver was harvested from the black veins around Tombstone, Arizona. Figuring in the efforts of those who fed and entertained the miners, treated their wounds, physical and emotional, and buried their bodies, Tombstone's silver fulfilled thousands of dreams and millions of nightmares. Those who died in the effort in this desert would have died someplace else, at some other time. But this is where they died, and this was when, because the earth cracked here long before humans ever set eyes upon the place.

And asking why their tombstones were erected here, may not be worth the effort.

But nothing that happened in Tombstone was an accident, anymore than the way rocks crack along molecular lines is an accident, or the way greed drives humans to murder is an accident. But of the two ways to get rich, the fastest is to not bother with reason, and simply grab anything and everything you can. Reason is far slower to show a profit,  but it makes you far richer, and for far longer. As they said in the saloons and brothels along Allen Street,  "Name your poison, stranger."

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TOMBSTONES Chapter Fourteen

I can't imagine what the hell Pete Spence - aka Elliot Larkin Ferguson - was thinking when he and that smug violent little (5.4") lunatic Frank Stillwell (above) held up the south bound Bisbee Stage on Thursday, 8 September, 1881. The Sandy Bob line carried no strong boxes so this less than dynamic duo were reduced to robbing the passengers, miners and gamblers who had little cash southbound, going into the little mining town 25 miles south of Tombstone. And probably every one of the 200 residents squeezed into the narrow "Puerta de los Mulos" knew Pete and Frank personally, since the pair jointly owned a livery stable in Bisbee. Stillwell was just 24, but he had already gunned down an Hispanic waiter who brought him tea instead of coffee. But Spence had been a Texas Ranger. Not for long, since he was also a little crazy, but he should have been too smart for this hold up.

Some thought this lunatic larceny had something to do with Robert Crouch, a 50 year old California coach driver who had entered a cut-throat competition with the established Arizona Mail and Stage Company. Because the new entrepreneur had red hair and a freckled face, they called him and his business the "Sandy Bob" line.  And it was a hard business in the best of times. Paying passengers and freight barely met operating costs. The Arizona Mail could also count on a $15.00 a month fee for carrying Wells Fargo insured strong boxes 3 times a week between Charleston and the rail head at Benson. But the real profits were in carrying the United States Mail. Seeking to promote growth, the USPS paid $50 a month for daily delivery between Tombstone and Charleston, and $78.00 for three times a week delivery between Tombstone and Bisbee.

But when Arizona Mail and Stage balked at delivering to the tiny San Pedro River community of Hereford, 7 miles due west of Bisbee, "Sandy Bob" snapped it up.  He was even willing to wait to be reimbursed by Arizona Mail, which continued to collect from the USPS. So maybe there was a nefarious plot to generate bad publicity for the upstart Sandy Bob line, and they hired Frank and Pete as their agents. But that seems unlikely because the future of all stagecoach lines in Arizona had been determined in March around a conference table in far off Boston, Massachusetts.

On one side of that table sat William Barstow Strong, President of the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe Railroad conglomerate. On the other sat the President of the Southern Pacific Railroad et al., Mr. Charles Crocker. At this meeting the SP agreed to lease their tracks between Lodi, New Mexico and Benson, Arizona for use by ATSF trains. And ATSF agreed to share profits from a new line they would build south from Benson, through the mill town of Fairbank, Arizona, to the border at Nogalas Mexico, where it would connect with their Sonoran line, reaching the Pacific via the port of Guaymas. The minute that agreement had been reached, the most profitable stage coach lines in Arizona were living on borrowed time. So why go to all the trouble to annoy a competitor when everybody's business was going to shrink over the next six months to a year?

Like the Guadalupe Canyon Massacre, the beginning of the Benson to Guaymas rail line was another indication that the age of outlaws was coming to an end. Two months earlier, about midnight on Thursday, 14 July 1881, the career of freelance and infamous hot head Henry McCarthy, aka William Bonney, aka Billy the Kid (above), came to an abrupt end in rural Lincoln County, New Mexico when he was shot dead slipping into his girlfriend's bedroom. 

 And the day before the Bisbee Stage Mutt and Jeff robbery, a successful 15 year criminal career, which included at least 9 bank robberies, 8 train and 4 stage coach holdups also came to an end. On a tight turn 2 miles west of Glendale, Missouri the James gang pulled off their last armed train robbery. The division of the paltry $6,000 take, caused some discouragement among the members.

And 6 months later, in St. Joseph Missouri, Mr. Thomas Howard, aka Jesse James himself, would be assassinated by one of his own gang. These were indicators.

In a decade the Federal government would recognize what was happening that summer of 1881. The Census Bureau would announce in 1890 there was no longer anywhere in America with less than 2 persons per square mile, nor significant numbers migrating west. The frontier had ceased to exist. And according to historian Fredrick Jackson Turner (above), "The Significance of the Frontier..." in America was that it had made Americans exceptional - more violent, more inventive, less restricted by traditions. 

The same census also determined that over the previous 40 years the population of native Americans had been reduced by almost half - 401,000 to 248,000 - proof that Americans were not like other nations who butchered and starved minorities, such as the Ainu in Japan, the Armenians in Turkey, the Hindus in Pakistan, the Muslims in India, and the Romani, the Cathars and the Irish in Europe. Except of course we did.  But all that was big picture stuff.

The little picture was that Pete Spence and Frank Stillwell needed a couple of hundred dollars for the up coming weekend. And Frank was so disliked that one Tombstone resident predicted that when he died Frank would be the "chief attraction" in hell.  So on that dark night of 8 September, 1881, these two chuckle heads wearing masks blocked the road and forced the passangers to hand over any "sugar" they had on them. All noticed the smaller of the thieves repeatedly used that word - "sugar" - to refer to money. It was a favorite phrase of Frank Stillwell, a man whose inquest jury laughed when the coroner described his body as the most shot up corpse he'd ever seen. And Cochise County Marshal Johnny Behan knew the instant he received the telegram announcing the Sandy Bob hold up, that Frank Stillwell had to be the chief suspect. He was, after all, one of Johnny's own deputies..

And this might be the proper moment to ask why the crooks never thought to cut the telegraph lines which criss-crossed southern Arizona. The Apache did, every chance they got.  But "white" criminals never seemed to think of delaying law enforcement by just clambering up the nearest pole and snipping the thin wire. And it was not just the fools Stillwell and Spence. In March the would-be robbers of the Benson stage had also left the telegraph wires intact, allowing for immediate pursuit. But I digress.

Part of Deputy Marshal Frank Stillwell's job was collecting county taxes, but Behan noticed the money from Bisbee always seemed to be late and always seemed to be short, which meant so was Johnny's 10% cut.  So Behan, not usually known for his dedication, wasted no time in dispatching to Bisbee ,a 28 year old mining engineer, fast draw shooter and part time deputy, David Nagal  along with 35 year old Deputy William Milton "Billy" Breakenridge (above).   Billy was also a Federal Deputy Marshal, and a cool man with a gun. And knowing that Frank Stillwell was the suspect, he and Dave were joined by deputized Federal Marshals Wyatt and Morgan Earp, and Wells Fargo detective, Marshal Williams.

The Tombstone lawmen interviewed the passengers of the held up stage, and learned about the thief who asked for "sugar". And in checking the crime scene they identified a distinctive boot heel mark in the sand. Checking with a Bisbee cobbler, they were told that Frank Stillwell had new heels put on his boots that very morning. A search of the shoemaker's trash produced the source of the distinctive heel prints, and all 5 lawmen proceeded directly to the livery stables where they found Frank and Pete, still recovering from their night time crime spree. The master criminals were arrested and transported directly back to Tombstone. Which is where things started to get confused.

Charged with highway robbery and theft, both men were arraigned in front of a Justice of the Peace on Tuesday 13 September.  Bail was set at a hefty $7,000 each. And then, to the Earps surprise, Frank's bail was guaranteed by his old boss, Charles Hamilton "Ham" Light.  Light had managed teamsters in Prescott, and Frank Stillwell had been his enforcer. Then about 1880, "Ham" moved to Tombstone. He owned a corral there, and rented out apartments on the northwest corner of 3rd and Fremont, in his Aztec house. It got is name because it also contained the offices of his Arizona Trading Company. In other words, Charles "Ham" Light was far more than he appeared to be.

Light's willingness to put up $7,000 in property to guarantee Frank Stillwell's appearance in court, would seem to indicate a couple of things. Either "Ham" trusted that Frank would show up or he feared what Frank would tell the lawmen if he was supported by Light.  There was also the possibility that like Luther King before him, once out of jail, Frank Stillwell would shortly be dead. That possibilty was reinforced when Johnny Behan chose this time to fire Frank for "accounting irregularities".   But the rapidity with which both bails were supplied - Ike Clanton guaranteed Pete Spence's $7,000 bond - hinted that if "Ham" Light and Ike Clanton were not the money men behind the Cochise County Cowboy's rustling ring, they were both closely connected to those who were.

Whatever the reason for the quick bond, the Earps (above) were not willing to allow these two miscreants out of their clutches. Almost immediately Pete and Frank were re-arrested, and transferred to Tuscon for trial in Federal court, beyond the immediate reach of the Cow Boy forces in Tombstone.  To make matters worse, the Republican Tombstone Epitath now insisted the pair were being charged with the robbery of the Tombstone to Contention stage coach. 

Knowing Pete Spence (above) and Frank Stillwell were innocent of that charge, the McLaury brothers and the Clanton family were convinced the Earps were now framing their opponents, as the Cow Boys had done to Doc Holliday. As Wyatt Earp later testified, "since the arrest of Spence and Stilwell, veiled threats were being made that the friends of the accused will 'get the Earps.'" In fact the pair had been charged with interfering with the United States Mail, which justified the Federal charge.

It didn't matter. By the end of September 1881, with Pete (above) and Frank in jail, the Cow Boys could feel walls, real and imagined, closing in on them.  They were willing to believe in a conspiracy against them, because they had conspired against others. And in response to the rising tensions, the Earps moved their families into adjoining rooms at the Cosmopolitan Hotel. Both sides were hunkering down into armed camps. 

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TOMBSTONES Chapter Seven

I can't be certain what 28 year old Thomas McLaury (above) was thinking that Sunday afternoon, 25 July,  1880. I'm sure he was anxious and angry, watching 9 strangers approach the ranch he shared with his older brother. But then Tom was often angry, and anger masks thought. At just 5 foot 3 inches tall Tom found a reputation as a hot head to be a leveler in social conflicts. His opponents and even friends never knew when Tom might turn violent, and that hid how smart he was. With his men at hand suddenly outnumbered, and with 5 of the men pulling up outside his corral wearing soldier blue, and with 6 freshly re-branded stolen army mules in his corral, Tom knew he would have to do some pretty fast thinking to avoid a shootout with the U.S. Government in his own front yard.

The mules had been stolen 4 days earlier from Camp Rucker, an outpost in the cool elevations of White Canyon in the Chiricahua (chee-ree-KAH-wah) or wild turkey mountains, about 35 miles east of Tombstone and an equal distance north of the Sonora border. The garrison of 45 soldiers and 100 Indian scouts where supposed to discourage Apache raids, and mules were essential to their existence. Pride and regulations demanded the stolen property be returned, so the next morning Lieutenant Joseph H. Hurst set out with 4 men to locate the missing animals. But the civil war veteran seems to have been pretty certain the thieves were not Apache, because he headed straight for Tombstone. He arrived there on 24 July, seeking out the federal authority, the Deputy United States' Marshal. His name was Virgil Earp.

The McLaury boys - there were 8 of them and 3 girls - were all short and well educated. Their father had been a judge back in Iowa, and all the boys studied law. What interrupted the father's dreams and defined the son's lives was 5 years of bloodletting. Like all wars, the American Civil War left a "lost" generation in its wake - traumatized, emotionally drained, and in varying degrees feeling abused, cheated and betrayed. Only the eldest son, Will, went on to pass the bar. He started his law practice as a carpetbagger in Fort Worth, Texas. His younger brothers, Tom and 33 year old Robert Findley "Frank" McLaury, had intended upon joining him. But in 1878 the lure of quick money around the Tombstone silver strike distracted Frank and Tom McLaury to the Arizona desert.

Marshal Virgil Earp (above) was certain any white thieves could most likely be found in the violent little mill town of Charleston.  He sent a telegraph to an informant there - Dave Estes - and looking for safety in numbers he brought along popular Tombstone town marshal Fred White, as well his own deputized brothers Morgan and Wyatt Earp. On Sunday morning all nine men rode the 8 miles west to where Dave Estes suggested the mules could be found, south of Charleston,  on the west bank of the San Pedro River, along Babocomari creek - on the McLaury ranch.

There were six mules in the corral. Outnumbered, 5 foot 4 inch tall Frank McLaury (above) allowed the animals to be inspected. The brands on their left hind quarters read "D.S.", however the uneven nature of the wounds made it obvious to a skeptic that the brand had been recently altered from "U.S.". The inspection strengthened Lt. Hurst's resolve to reclaim the mules. However Tom McLaury's temper abruptly changed the conversation. Even though he had never met the Earps before - Tom rarely went into Tombstone - he pointed at them and warned, "If they ever again follow us as close as you did, they will have a fight!" As usual Frank stepped in to calm his brother, while neighboring ranch owner Frank Patterson took over the negotiations.

Lieutenant Joseph Hurst was no naive West Point shave tail, easily frightened by threats. He'd been on the frontier for years. Before that he had risen in the ranks in the Army of the Potomac, promoted to first lieutenant for bravery at Fredricksburg in 1863, wounded at Chancellorsville, and again at Spottsylvania Courthouse in 1864.  But he also knew that as a military officer he could not seize the mules, nor arrest civilians. Marshall Virgil Earp could do both, but to arrest the volcanic Tom seemed to run the risk of bloodshed. So Hurst allowed himself to be convinced that Frank McLaury would return the mules later, after Tom McLaury had been distracted. Hurst informed the Earps of his decision and the mule rescue party returned to Tombstone without the mules. However, the next morning, before he returned to Camp Rucker,  Hurst warned Virgil Earp of Tom McLaury's threat.

The delay raises the question of why Hurst did not warn Virgil at the McLaury ranch. It seems likely to me, that the Lieutenant sized up Marshall Earp pretty quickly as another hot head, and realized that Tom McLaury's belligerent threat might very well have pushed the Marshall to confrontation. And the 4 men Lt. Hurst was directly responsible for were not trained or armed for a free for all gun fight. The Earps would later imply that Hurst had been duped by Patterson and Frank McLaury. But I suspect Joseph Hurst just decided 6 mules were not worth his men's lives.  But whatever agreement Lt. Hurst thought had been reached, the mules were not returned.

Not that Hurst could allow the matter to drop. In a notice posted in the Friday, 30 July 1880 edition of the Tombstone Epitaph, the Lieutenant offered $35 for the return of the mules and $25 for the arrest of the thieves, whom he identified as "Pony" Diehl, Augustus S. Hansbrough and Sherman MacMasters. Then he went further, accusing Frank Patterson, Frank McLaury and Jim Johnson of hiding the stolen property. Pointedly he did not challenge Tom McLaury.  Frank respond a week later, in the Thursday, 5 August edition of the rival Tombstone Daily Nugget. Frank claimed to have assured the Army Lieutenant, "I would do what I could to assist him. In the course of the next day I saw Diehl...Diehl replied that he knew nothing of the stock...and I interested myself no farther about it."

But Frank McLaury added that Lieutenant Hurst was "...a coward, a vagabond, a rascal, and a malicious liar." Frank even suggested that Hurst might have stolen and sold the mules himself. "My name is well known in Arizona," Frank wrote, "and thank God that this is the first time in my life that the name of dishonesty was ever attached to me..." Having delivered that line with a straight face, Frank managed to avoid mentioning the central secret which supported the Tombstone money machine - most of the beef consumed daily by the miners of Tombstone, was stolen, and most of that from Sonora. In fact the closest allies and neighbors of the McLaury brothers were the owners of one of most successful ranches in southern Arizona, and thus the one of the largest dealers in stolen beef - the Clantons.

The large Clanton family trickled into Arizona beginning in 1873, by way of Tennessee, Texas and California. They might have stayed in the last two states if they had been willing to fight. Instead both times Newman Hayes "Old Man" Clanton (above) chose the smarter approach and moved his family on.  As the Tombstone mines began drawing hungry miners, in 1877, "Old Man" Clanton took the opportunity to move into moving cattle, even introducing Sonora rustling to his new neighbors, Tom and Frank McLaury.  Where both McLaury brothers were short and dark, the Clantons were tall and described by one who knew them as, "..true blondes (who) rode tall in the saddle...extremely handsome ...and very affable..." And under the calming guidence of the "Old Man", they built a hill top adobe near Lewis Springs, about 5 miles south of Charleston, and 12 miles west of Tombstone. From there "Old Man Clanton" could see for miles in the dry desert air.  No lawmen would ever get the drop on them the way Lt. Hurst and the Earps had surprised the McLaury brothers.

By 1880 "Old Man" Clanton was 64 years old but still active and successful. Most of the labor on the Clanton Arizona ranch was done by second son,  35 year old Phineas "Phin" Fay Clanton, who had several arrests for rustling but no convictions. These days Phin stayed close to the ranch, along with his brother-in-law August M. Smith. Meanwhile both 33 year old Joseph Isaac "Ike" Clanton and 18 year old William Harrison "Billy" Clanton  (above) were well known, if not always welcomed in Charleston, Tombstone, and Sonora.

Newman Hayes Clanton's (above) rustling empire was doing so well,  the Old Man needed legitimate businesses to launder his profits, That November he purchased a house and a saloon in Charleston, on Pioneer Street. 

And with John Peters "Johnny" Ringo (above) he claimed  320 acres in the Animas Valley, New Mexico, at a site called San Simon Cienega. Their stated intent was to grow alfalfa as feed for cattle. It all tied together into what was called the "rustlers trail". 

Running across arid desert from watering hole to watering hole, this production line of stolen beef began at the northern mouth of Guadalupe Canyon on the Sonora border, headed north up the Animas Valley,  then on to the eastern slopes of the Chiricahuas mountains, west through Skeleton Canyon (or Tex canyon) into Arizona, across Sulphur Springs Valley to the Dragoon Mountains, through the South Pass near Tombstone, then southwest to the Soldiers "water" Hole and right to the back door to the Clanton Ranch at the eastern foot of the Huachuca Mountains.

Gathered together in this enterprise were a hardy and hard group of entrepreneurs referred to as the "Cowboys of Cochise County " - Charles "Pony Diehl" Ray,  his life long friend Sherman McMasters.  alcoholic marksman "Curly Bill" Brocius (above),  30 year old John Peters "Johnny" Ringo...

...Billy "The Kid" Claiborne (above), Harry "The Kid" Head, the nervous Billy "The Kid" Grounds, the unlucky Richard "Zwing" Hunt...

... 23 year old occasional lawman Frank Stillwell (above), 30 year old ex-Texas Ranger Elliot Larkin Ferguson AKA Pete Spence, William "Bill" Lang,  Stagecoach robber  and ex-jewelry store owner "Notorious" Jim Crane, gregarious and dangerous Florentino Cruz, Richard "Dixie Lee Grey", Charlie Snow, Bill Byers and gunman Scott Cooley - among others.

Rightly or wrongly, these men would be cast as villains in the story of the October 1881 Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. A few weeks after the 1880 confrontation on their ranch, the McLaury brothers spotted Marshal Virgil Earp on the streets of Charleston.  Tom McLaury made it a point to challenge the lawman once again, repeating now in person the threat he had made to Lt. Hurst. Thus the unresolved confrontation over  6 stolen army mules set the McLaury's on a collision course with the Earp family.

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