|
 On January 17, 1882, a
supposedly famous confrontation took place between
Wyatt,
Doc and
John Ringo.
Many writers would say that
John Ringo
challenged the
Earp brothers and
Holliday.
But, this cannot possibly be true as
Virgil
and
Morgan were
incapacitated with painful wounds from the shoot-out. So, while
Ringo
might have offered the challenge, he obviously wasn't running much risk as
there was little chance that they could accept. The
Earps also
knew that
Ringo
had been drinking heavily and that the whiskey was talking.
On March 18, 1882, the
cowboy gang struck again while
Morgan Earp was
playing pool at Campbell and Hatch's
Saloon. A
shot was fired from the darkness of the alley striking
Morgan in the
back.
Morgan's body
was dressed in one of
Doc
Holliday's suits and shipped to the parents in Colton,
California
for burial.
 Just two days later, the
Earp party
encountered
Frank Stilwell and
Ike Clanton
at the Tucson Railroad Station and
Wyatt
chased
Stilwell down the track, filling him full of holes. A Coroner's
Jury named
Wyatt
and
Warren Earp,
Doc
Holliday,
"Texas Jack Vermillion", and
Sherman McMasters as the men who had killed
Stilwell and warrants were issued for
their arrest.
Earp sought vengeance on the men
who shot
Virgil
and killed
Morgan and
killing
Stilwell was just his first step and
Doc
Holliday rode beside him all the
way.
Wyatt
heard that Pete Spence was at his wood camp in the Dragoons and on March
11, 1882, he and his men quickly headed out, finding not Pete Spencer, but
Florentino Cruz.
The frightened Cruz named
all the men who had murdered
Morgan, himself
included. Earp
and his men filled Cruz with bullet holes. The
Earp
"posse” rode out once again and on March 24, 1882, they ran into Curly
Bill Brocius and eight of his men near Iron Springs. A gunfight ensued
where Curly Bill was killed and Johnny Barnes received a wound from which
he eventually died.
In just over a year, the
Earp
"posse” along with
Doc Holliday eliminated
"Old Man" Clanton,
Billy Clanton,
Frank McLaury,
Tom McLaury,
Frank Stilwell, Indian Charlie, Dixie Gray, Florentino Cruz, Johnny Barnes, Jim Crane, Harry Head, Bill Leonard, Joe Hill, Luther
King, Charley Snow, Billy Lang, Zwing Hunt, Billy Grounds and Hank
Swilling. Pete Spence turned himself in to the authorities where he could
"hide” in the penitentiary.
In May, 1882,
Wyatt
and Doc
left Tombstone,
swearing they would never return,
but still vowing vengeance
on
Ringo,
Clanton, Spence and Swilling if they could ever find them. Riding
their horses to
Silver City,
New Mexico,
they sold them, rode a stage to Deming, and boarded a train for
Colorado.
Colorado
 Shortly after his
arrival in Denver, Doc
was arrested by a man named Perry Mallan. Some people thought that
Perry Mallon was actually a brother to Johnny Tyler, a foe of
Holliday
and a would-be gunman that
Doc
ran out of
Tombstone.
On May 22, 1882, while
Doc
was in jail, the Denver Republican printed the following: "Holliday
has a big reputation as a fighter, and has probably put more rustlers
and cowboys under the sod than any other one man in the
west.
He had been the terror of the lawless element in
Arizona,
and with the
Earps
was the only man brave enough to face the bloodthirsty crowd which has
made the name of
Arizona
a stench in the nostrils of decent men."
Mallan told the paper that he was standing along side when
Curly Bill Brocius was killed.
Doc
related his thoughts as to that: "...eight rustlers rose up from
behind the bank and poured from thirty-five to forty shots at us. Our
escape was miraculous.
The shots cut our clothes and saddles and killed one horse,
but did not hit us. I think we would have been killed if God Almighty
wasn't on our side.
Wyatt Earp
turned loose with a shotgun and killed
Curly Bill. The eight men in the gang which attacked us were all
outlaws, for each of whom a big reward has been offered...If Mallan was
along side
Curly Bill when he was killed, he was with one of the worst gangs of
murderers and robbers in the country."
Finally,
Doc's troubles concerning extradition to
Arizona
ended. On May 30, 1882, the Rocky
Mountain News
printed: "Doc
Holliday's case was finally disposed of by Governor Pitkin yesterday,
his Excellency deciding that he could not honor the requisition from
Arizona.
The District Attorney's Office was represented by Honorable I.E. Barnum,
Assistant District Attorney, who was accompanied in his visit to the
Governor by Deputy Sheriff Linton and Sheriff Paul of
Arizona.
Among others present were Deputy Sheriff Masterson (Bat) of Trinidad and
several friends of Holliday."
Doc left Denver, supposedly
traveling to Pueblo,
Colorado. However, on
July 14, 1882 when
Doc
Holliday
was allegedly still in
Colorado,
John Yoast, a teamster in
Arizona
Territory,
discovered a body intertwined among the branches of an oak tree east of
the Dragoon Mountains. A bullet had entered the head in the right temple
and exited through the top of the head. The body turned out to be
John Ringo, sworn
enemy of Doc
Holliday . Though
Bat Masterson,
Warren Earp and some newspaper friends attempting
to create an alibi, claimed that
Doc had
never left
Colorado,
the truth was
Wyatt Earp
and
Doc
Holliday
had returned to
Arizona. While there, they met up with some of their friends - Fred Dodge, Oregon
Smith, Johnny Green, John Meagher and probably Lou Cooley.
Ringo
had been spotted by the group and next he was found dead.
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Doc then headed to
Leadville,
where he led a quiet and uneventful life until the afternoon of August 19,
1884.
Doc learned that two old
Tombstone
enemies, Billy Allen and Johnny Tyler, had arrived in
Leadville,
armed and making threats. Around 5 PM on August 19, 1884,
Doc
strolled into Hyman's
Saloon and
placed himself at the end of the bar.
It
wasn’t long before Billy Allen entered and
Doc
leveled his pistol, sailing a bullet over Allen’s head, barely missing
him. Allen turned, intending to flee but tripped over the threshold, and
pitching forward landed on his hands and knees. Reaching over the
tobacco counter,
Doc
fired again, hitting Allen in the right arm.
Holliday
would have shot him again, but the bartender rushed up from behind and
clamped down on his gun hand. In a news report only days later, the
Leadville
Daily Democrat August 26, 1884, stated, in part, the following: "The
public sentiment, which has nothing to do with the law, is largely in
favor of Holliday. The manlier class of the community not only appreciate this,
but have little criticism to make as to his actions in connection with his
trouble with Allen.”
Holliday faced a long legal
process, his popularity notwithstanding, but on March 28, 1885, a jury
found him not guilty of the shooting or attempted murder. The
courthouse in
Leadville today still shows the arrests of the infamous
gunfighter and
gambler,
Doc
Holliday in its jail records.
There was one more flurry
of activity during the last week of October, 1885, when word on the street
told of more gunplay. But the
Leadville
police kept a strict watch out for concealed weapons and no violence came
to pass. By the winter of 1885,
Holliday
fearing a bout of pneumonia in the city in the clouds migrated to Denver. Though he did not improve in Denver, he was able to see his old friend,
Wyatt Earp
in the late winter of 1886, where they met in the lobby of the Windsor
Hotel. Sadie Marcus described the skeletal
Holliday
as having a continuous cough and standing on "unsteady legs.”
 Holliday’s health continued to
deteriorate. As a realist,
Doc was
not one to believe in miraculous cures, but hoping that the Yampah hot
springs and sulfur vapors might improve his health, he headed for Glenwood
Springs,
Colorado in May, 1887. Registering at the fashionable Hotel
Glenwood, he grew steadily worse, spending his last fifty-seven days in
bed at the hotel and was delirious fourteen of them.
On November 8, 1887,
he awoke clear-eyed and asked for a glass of whiskey. It was given to
him and he drank it down with enjoyment. Then, looking down at his
bare feet he said, "This is funny", and died. He always figured
he would be killed with his boots on.
Doc
Holliday had come
West
years before, knowing his days were numbered. He never believed
that he would die in bed. He often said that his end would come
from lead poisoning, at the end of a rope, a knife in his ribs, or
that he might drink himself to death.
His obituary,
appearing in the
Leadville
Carbonate Chronicle on November 14, 1887, stated the following
"There is scarcely one
in the country who had acquired a greater notoriety than
Doc
Holliday, who enjoyed the
reputation of being one of the most fearless men on the frontier, and
whose devotion to his friends in the climax of the fiercest ordeal was
inextinguishable. It was this, more than any other faculty that
secured for him the reverence of a large circle who were prepared on
the shortest notice to rally to his relief.”
The Glenwood Springs cemetery sits high
upon a steep hill overlooking the valley below. But at the time
of his death, the steep road was too icy so they buried him at the
bottom of the hill with the intention of moving his body when the ice
thawed. But, they never did. Many years later, a housing
development was built at the base of the hill and though a marker sits
in the cemetery, his actual remains are probably buried in someone’s
back yard.
Doc
Holliday claimed he almost
lost his life a total of nine times. Four attempts were made to hang
him and he was shot at five times.
How many men
Holliday
killed is unknown. |
