Legends of the Old West - TOMBSTONE Ep. 4 | Helldorado

Episode Date: September 2, 2018

In the aftermath of the gunfight, Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday are taken to jail as they wait for a judge to decide if they should stand trial for murder. Newspapers fan the flames of chaos and ruin the reputations of the Earps. And the Earp family experiences its darkest moments when Virgil and Morgan are shot from ambush. Join Black Barrel+ for early access and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join For more details, visit our website www.blackbarrelmedia.com and check out our social media pages. We’re @OldWestPodcast on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Lego Fortnite. Lego Fortnite is the ultimate survival crafting game found within Fortnite. It's not just Fortnite Battle Royale with minifigures. It's an entirely new experience that combines the best of Lego play and Fortnite. Created to give players of all ages, including kids and families,

a safe digital space to play in. Download Fortnite on consoles, PC, cloud services, or Android and play LEGO Fortnite for free. Rated ESRB E10+. Make your nights unforgettable with American Express. Unmissable show coming up? Good news.

We've got access to pre-sale tickets so you don't miss it. Meeting with friends before the show? We can book your reservation. And when you get to the main event skip to the good bit using the card member entrance let's go seize the night that's the powerful backing of american express visit amex.ca slash y amex benefits vary by card other conditions apply three nights after christmas 1881 virgil erp stepped out of the Oriental Saloon to walk home to his room at the Cosmopolitan Hotel.

It had been two months since the gunfight with the Clantons and McClourys. So many things had changed, yet so many remained the same. The threats on his life and the lives of his brothers had not died down after the gunfight. They had actually grown worse. The Earp families had moved into the Cosmopolitan to be close to each other and hopefully safe from attack. The hotel was only about a block from the Oriental, but it would be a chilly walk at 11.30 p.m. As Virgil crossed Fifth Street between the Oriental and the Golden Eagle Brewery, shotgun blasts tore through the night.

The pellets shredded his left arm and peppered the outside of the brewery. The force of the blast knocked Virgil into the middle of the street. He staggered back to the Oriental to find Wyatt. Wyatt helped him to his room at the hotel. Virgil's wife, Allie, was distraught. room at the hotel. Virgil's wife Allie was distraught. The doctors conferred about Virgil's left arm. It was mangled. Would they have to amputate, or could they find a way to save it? It was a long, restless night for the Earps, but it was only a prelude to what was to come. There were darker nights ahead.

As a podcast network, our first priority has always been audio and the stories we're able to share with you. But we also sell merch, and organizing that was made both possible and easy with Shopify. Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you sell and grow at every stage of your business.

From the launch your online shop stage all the way to the did we just hit a million orders stage. Whether you're selling scented soap or offering outdoor outfits, Shopify helps you sell everywhere. They have an all-in-one e-commerce platform and in-person POS system. So wherever and whatever you're selling, Shopify's got you covered. and in-person POS system. So wherever and whatever you're selling, Shopify's got you covered. With the internet's best converting checkout,

36% better on average compared to other leading commerce platforms, Shopify helps you turn browsers into buyers. Shopify has allowed us to share something tangible with the podcast community we've built here, selling our beanies, sweatshirts, and mugs to fans of our shows without taking up too much time from all the other work we do

to bring you even more great content. And it's not just us. Shopify powers 10% of all e-commerce in the U.S. Shopify is also the global force behind Allbirds, Rothy's, and Brooklinen, and millions of other entrepreneurs of every size across 175 countries. Because businesses that grow, grow with Shopify. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash realm, all lowercase. Go to shopify.com slash r-e-a-l-m now to grow your business, no matter what stage you're in. Shopify.com slash realm.

From Black Barrel Media, this is season two of the Legends of the Old West podcast. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer, and this is the fourth episode of a five-part series on Tombstone and the gunfight at the OK Corral. This week, the gunfight has unimaginable consequences. A judge determines whether or not the Earps and Doc Holliday should stand trial for murder. In the wake of his decision, the Cowboys take the law into their own hands and set out to destroy the Earp brothers. It all comes to a head with a murder in March of 1882, one that puts Wyatt on a path towards cementing his legacy as a legend of the Old West. This is Episode 4, Helderado. Three caskets stood inside the Undertaker's window for the whole town to see.

They were staged there with a sign that read, Murdered on the Streets of Tombstone. Frank McClowry, Tom McClowry, and Billy Clanton were dressed in their Sunday best for the display. Their coffins had glass lids that allowed viewers to see their bodies down to about the middle of their chests. They wore white gloves, and their hands were folded in peaceful repose. But there would be no peace in Tombstone for the next six months. The factions that had developed over the last year hardened into immovable bases after the gunfight. The Mayor, the Earps, and the Epitaph newspaper were on one side. The Cowboys, Johnny

Behan, and the Nugget newspaper were on the other. And it began the moment the gunfight ended. The first few minutes after the gunfight were frantic. Men ran to the scene to help the wounded in dying. Frank McClowry died in the middle of Fremont Street. Tom McClowry and Billy Clanton were moved into a house, but they died shortly thereafter. Wyatt supervised the transportation of Virgil and Morgan to their homes so doctors could look at their wounds. As Fremont Street calmed down,

Wyatt and his friend Fred Dodge walked uptown. As they approached the county sheriff's office, Johnny Behan stepped into Wyatt's path. Johnny told Wyatt he'd have to arrest him. Fred Dodge said Wyatt just stared at Johnny for two or three seconds. Then he told the sheriff that any decent lawman could arrest him, but not Johnny. Wyatt knew this thing wasn't over. He wasn't going to run from it or leave town. When the time came to answer for his actions, he would do it, but not to Johnny Behan. The Epitaph newspaper immediately came to the defense of the Earps.

It was run by the mayor, John Klum, who was a staunch Earps supporter. The San Francisco Examiner also applauded the Earps for taking down some of the cowboys. But then came the funeral. The Tombstone Brass Band led the largest procession in the town's history through the streets the day after the gunfight. It surpassed the funeral of Town Marshal Fred White almost exactly a year earlier. There were two hearses. Ike and Finn Clanton rode in a wagon. 300 people followed on foot. Behind them were 22 carriages and buggies, a stagecoach, and an entourage of men on horseback.

Citizens of Tombstone lined the sidewalks to watch. The McClowries and Billy Clanton were laid to rest in the old cemetery, known today as Boot Hill. It didn't take long for sentiment about the gunfight to become fiercely territorial. Clara Brown sent a dispatch to the San Diego Union describing the situation. Opinion is pretty fairly divided as to the justification of the killing, she wrote. You may meet one man who supports the Earps and declares that no other course was possible to save their own lives, and the next man is just as likely to assert that there was no occasion whatever for bloodshed, and that this will be a warm place for the Earps hereafter. A warm place is a common expression at the time. It was used

during the Civil War to describe a place of intense fighting, one of heavy gunfire, and heavy casualties. Also common in those days was the practice of using a coroner's inquest to determine the cause and manner of death. Two days after the gunfight, a jury heard testimony from nine witnesses about the events on Fremont Street, and then reached an astounding verdict. The dead man had died of gunshot wounds. The Tombstone Nugget responded with an awesomely sarcastic article. The people of this community are indebted to the 12, actually 8, intelligent men who composed the coroner's jury for the valuable information that the three persons who were killed last Wednesday were shot.

Some 30 or 40 shots were fired, and the whole affair was witnessed by probably a dozen people, but people are liable to be mistaken and the verdict reassures us. We might have thought they had been struck by lightning or stung to death by hornets. The article was the last chance the Nugget would have to poke fun at the situation. Judge Wells Spicer heard enough damaging testimony during the inquest to issue arrest warrants for Virgil, Wyatt, Morgan, and Doc. Virgil and Morgan were allowed to remain at home while they recovered. Wyatt and Doc were taken to jail. After the inquest came a preliminary hearing that took up the entire month of November.

Judge Wells Spicer heard testimony from the prosecution and the defense to determine if the Earps and Doc Holliday should stand trial for murder. Both sides assembled their legal teams. The prosecution felt good about its case, and its team was bolstered by a ringer from out of town. Will McClowry, older brother of Frank and Tom, had made the trip from Fort Worth to assist in the conviction of the men he felt were murderers. Will had fires in his eyes to see the Earps hanged for their actions. The prosecution opened the hearing with damning testimony against the

Earps, and their strategy became clear immediately. Virgil and Wyatt had solid reputations as lawmen. immediately. Virgil and Wyatt had solid reputations as lawmen. Morgan and Doc did not. And Doc was a notorious gambler with a serious temper. The prosecution claimed the Clantons and McClourys were trying to surrender, and Morgan and Doc fired the first shots. The first witness for the prosecution established the basics of the case. Then Johnny Behan took the stand and supported the theory. The Cowboys were trying to surrender, the Earps opened fire, and specifically, the first shot came from a nickel-plated pistol. Doc Holliday was the only one with a nickel-plated pistol, so the implication was clear. His testimony was printed in newspapers all across the West. His testimony was printed in newspapers all across the West.

Readers far and wide opened the pages to see that the sheriff of Cochise County said the Earps not only started the fight, but they had gunned down innocent men in cold blood. The tide turned against the Earps. Will McClowry grew more confident that he would get justice for his brothers. He said in a letter home, I think we can hang him. The defense team grilled Johnny for two days. Among other things, they wanted to know why he was so confident the first shot came from a nickel-plated pistol

when it was generally accepted that Doc Holliday had the shotgun in the beginning. Johnny stuck to his story. He was unshakable. A third witness supported the first two. He laid the blame squarely at the feet of the Earps. The case against the Earps and Doc grew stronger by the day. And then, Ike Clanton took the stand. The prosecution expected Ike's testimony to be the nail in the coffin. When he answered their softball questions, he portrayed himself as an innocent victim. He said he'd never threatened the lives of the Earps, and he tried to stop Wyatt from firing on the men in the vacant lot.

But then the defense team began its cross-examination, and a small miracle happened. Ike went completely off the rails. happened. Ike went completely off the rails. Suddenly, he admitted he had threatened the Earps. Then he talked openly about his deal with Wyatt to turn in the three men who tried to rob the Benson stage. The very deal that he was terrified would come out. Then he told an insane story about Wyatt and Morgan organizing the stage robbery. But since no money had actually been stolen during the robbery, Ike tried to say that Wyatt and Morgan had pulled some kind of bait and switch. They'd stolen the money before it was loaded onto the stage. It was ludicrous for a dozen different reasons, but Ike wasn't done. He added another wild story to the mix, this time about Virgil. He claimed Virgil told

him to get a message to the stage robbers. The message was that Virgil was not going to try to find them. Any pursuit on his part was only an act. The prosecutors shrank in their chairs. The defense team was giddy. Ike's credibility was shot. The case against the Earps was crumbling, and the defense hadn't even presented its first witness. When it did, it came out swinging the biggest bat it had. Wyatt took the stand to lead off the defense's case, and he and his lawyers were about to throw a massive curveball that would catch the prosecutors totally off guard and pay huge dividends in the end. His team had uncovered a little-known quirk

of Arizona law that allowed a defendant to read a prepared statement without being cross-examined. The prosecution instantly objected, but Judge Spicer overruled them. Wyatt answered a few simple setup-up questions from his lawyers and then he read his statement. He outlined a year's worth of history for the judge. He highlighted confrontations between the Clantons and McClourys, the stolen army mules, his deal with Ike to find the Benson stage robbers, his arrest of Frank Stilwell and Pete Spencer for a separate stage robbery. Stilwell and Spencer were friends of the Cowboys, and the arrest added to the bad blood.

It was also another black eye for Johnny Behan. Frank Stilwell was one of his deputies. Wyatt went on, accusing the McClourys of being rustlers and killers, and laying some of the blame for the violence of the summer at their feet. He walked the judge through the 12 hours of buildup before the fight, the continuous threats made by Ike against he and his brothers and Doc. Wyatt explained his version of the gunfight, naming himself and Billy Clanton as the two men who fired the first shots. Then he refuted Ike's ridiculous story about having organized the Benson stage robbery. Finally, as the icing on top, Wyatt presented the court with statements from Dodge

City in Wichita that were signed by 49 men who attested to his quality as a peace officer. Wyatt's statement was a broadside to the prosecution's case. Over the next two weeks, the defense chipped away at what was left until virtually all of it was torn down. During the first two weeks of the hearing, it seemed almost certain that the Earps and Doc Holliday would go to trial for murder. The last two weeks felt like a complete reversal. The day after the defense rested, Judge Spicer issued his ruling. He read a lengthy statement to the tiny, packed courtroom. He believed Ike Clanton had threatened the lives of the Earps and Doc Holliday.

He agreed that it was Virgil's duty to disarm the men who were blatantly carrying heavy firepower inside town limits. But he rebuked Virgil for the way he disarmed them, enlisting his brothers and Doc as enforcers. Spicer slapped aside Ike's testimony as flatly unbelievable, and said it appeared pretty clear that the Earps had not walked into the vacant lot and started blazing away at men who threw up their hands to surrender. and started blazing away at men who threw up their hands to surrender. Frank and Billy had guns, and they obviously used them. Finally, Spicer made it to his official ruling. He said that in his judgment, the case against the Earps and Doc Holliday would not warrant a conviction if it went to trial by jury.

He said that he didn't think there was a jury that could be found anywhere in Arizona that would hear the evidence he had just heard and find the defendants guilty. Two weeks later, the grand jury upheld his ruling and refused to charge the marshal's posse with anything. The case was closed. The Earps and Doc Holliday were free to go. were free to go. The legal troubles for the Earps were over, but the real trouble was just beginning. The hearing ruined their reputations in Tombstone.

Even though they weren't going to stand trial for murder, murder was exactly what many people still believed had happened. The image of the cowboys, outgunned and outmatched and trying to surrender, was impossible to erase. It naturally fueled rumor and speculation. The cowboys did not feel they'd received justice from the law, so many people thought they'd take it themselves. Will McClowry rode out of Tombstone frustrated and angry over the turn of events, Will McClowry rode out of Tombstone frustrated and angry over the turn of events, and the town braced for cowboy retaliation. People whispered of a death list that was circulating that featured men who had been marked for assassination by the cowboys.

No one knew for sure if the list was real, but the believers wouldn't have to wait long for proof. On the evening of December 14, 1881, John Clumb, the mayor of Tombstone, boarded a stagecoach for the first leg of a trip to Washington, D.C. Four miles outside of town, the stage passed a water stop called Malcolm's Station. As it rolled through a gully, the driver heard someone yell, hold. A volley of gunshots followed the command. None of the passengers were hit, but a horse was shot and the man who was driving a wagon behind the stage was hit in the leg. The stage roared past the gunman, but it had to stop a half a mile down the road. The horse was badly wounded by the gunfire, and it collapsed and died.

John Clum jumped down from the stage and surveyed the scene. He was positive he had just survived the first attempt at retaliation by the cowboys, and he was not eager to give them a second chance. He didn't get back on the stage when it resumed its trip to Benson. Instead, he began the 20-mile walk on foot in the dead of night. When Klum didn't get back on the stage, the passengers assumed he was riding on top with the driver or behind them in the wagon. But when they got to Benson, they discovered he was missing. They sent a wire to Tombstone. Johnny Behan quickly raised a search party and traced the stage route. In the middle of the road, they found a dead horse and a pool of blood, and no John Klum.

But Klum eventually sent word that he was okay. He'd made it to the Grand Central Mine and borrowed a horse to continue his trip to Benson. He finally boarded the train to Washington, but he was badly shaken by the event. Klum's political opponents accused him of overreacting and inflating his self-importance. Elections were coming in January, and Klum wasn't running for another term. Why would someone want to kill him now, when he would be out of the job in two weeks? To Klum, the motivation was more than just politics. He was a supporter of the Earps,

and the editor of the newspaper that had backed them and criticized the Cowboys. That was certainly enough to put him on the hit list. The war of words in Tombstone's newspapers heated up as the election of January 1882 drew closer. Just one year ago, this was the election Wyatt Earp had looked forward to. He had hoped to unseat Johnny Behan, but now that idea seemed like a distant dream nearly faded from memory. The reality for the Earp family was security. They all moved into the Cosmopolitan Hotel so they could stay close and protect each other. Over the weeks since the gunfight, as Virgil and Morgan recovered from their wounds and the town held its breath in the aftermath of Judge Spicer's ruling,

reports continued to come to the brothers that they could be assassinated at any time. They were always watchful, but at the same time, they couldn't confine themselves to the hotel forever. They had businesses to run. They had to make a living. So it was, three days after Christmas, that Virgil and Wyatt were wrapping up a night at the Oriental Saloon when Virgil made the fateful decision to walk home alone. Virgil stepped into the cold night air around 11.30 p.m. Wyatt was still in the Oriental, but Virgil was done for the night. He started his walk home to the hotel, only about a half a block, but he never made it. As he stepped off the boardwalk and out of the shelter of the

saloon, three gunshots boomed in the darkness. Virgil was blasted into the middle of Fifth Street, halfway between the Oriental and the Golden Eagle Brewery. The shots pulverized his left arm and peppered the outside of the brewery. Across the street, three men raced out of the building that was under construction and sprinted away from town. The shots had come from that location, but the men escaped. Virgil staggered back to the oriental. Wyatt heard the shots and came running. He grabbed his brother and quickly helped him to the cosmopolitan. Doctors were called to the room, and their prognosis was dire. They weren't sure Virgil would survive his wounds, and if he did,

he would never use his left arm again. The debate now centered on whether or not to amputate it. Virgil was adamant. They would not take his arm. The doctors acceded to his wishes, but they still had to operate. The damage was extreme. In the end, they removed five and a half inches of bone from his arm. It would hang limp at his side for the rest of his life. Now the assassins had to be found. Virgil swore that as he walked out of the Oriental, he saw Frank Stilwell, one of Johnny Behan's deputies, run into the vacant building. The building was searched and a critical piece of evidence was found.

Ike Clanton's hat. And it was certainly Ike's hat, because he had his name printed on the inside. The next day, Wyatt sent a telegram to the U.S. Marshal for Arizona, Crawley Dake. He said, verbatim, Virgil was shot by concealed assassins last night. His wounds are fatal. Telegraph me appointment with power to appoint deputies. Local authorities are doing nothing. The lives of other citizens are threatened. Wyatt Earp. Dake responded immediately. He made Wyatt a deputy U.S. Marshal with the power to pick

his own men for assistance. Wyatt Earp was done messing around. After the attack on Virgil, the Earps once again took center stage in the newspapers. attack on Virgil, the Earps once again took center stage in the newspapers. The Nugget railed against the Earps. The Epitaph defended them. The upcoming election became a referendum on the Earp family. Meanwhile, other newspapers fanned the flames of chaos. The Tucson Star published rumors that a gang of cowboys from New Mexico was on its way to Tombstone to wreak havoc. The San Francisco Stock Report advised the citizens of Tombstone to take the law into their own hands. Election Day was a landslide for people who opposed the Earps. They took the mayor's race, the treasurer's race, and three of the four city council seats.

And one of Johnny Behan's deputies won the race for town marshal. This meant the anti-ERP faction now owned the county sheriff's office, the town marshal's office, and the local government. The day after the election, undersheriff Harry Woods and his Tombstone Nugget newspaper strutted their stuff. They had just helped dethrone the Earps and their supporters, and now they made a fantastic proclamation. There need be no fears of turbulence or violence on the part of the lawless elements of Tombstone in the future. Right on cue, the paper was proved wrong. Within two days of the Nuggets' statement, there were two stage robberies outside Tombstone.

Numerous shots were fired and thousands of dollars were stolen, but luckily no one was injured or killed. Johnny Ringo emerged as the prime suspect in one of the robberies. He had also emerged as one of the leaders of the Cowboys by that point, though to this day, he remains one of the more mysterious members Cowboys by that point, though to this day he remains one of the more mysterious members of the gang. Very little concrete information is known about Johnny's background, but one thing we do know was that in mid-January, he had a face-off with Doc Holliday in the streets of Tombstone. The initial details of the showdown between Johnny Ringo and Doc Holliday are lost to time, but it seems clear that they met on the street and spit verbal assaults at each other.

All the while, their hands were positioned where guns were likely hidden, and at any moment, another fight could jump off. But Wyatt rushed up and grabbed Doc. A policeman pulled Ringo away. A shootout in the street was avoided. Ringo and Doc were both fined. They did, in fact, have concealed weapons. After Wyatt helped quash the dust up between Ringo and Doc, he put his marshal's badge to work. In the wake of the election, he had sold his share of the gambling operation at the Oriental. He was now a full-time marshal, and he went right after

Ike Glenn. He had warrants for Ike, Ike's older brother Finn, and their friend Pony Deal. They were wanted for the attempted murder of Virgil Earp. Wyatt enlisted Morgan, Doc, Sherman McMasters, Texas Jack Vermillion, Turkey Creek Jack Johnson, and two others to ride with him. They packed enough firepower to fight a small war. Each man carried a shotgun, a Winchester rifle, two pistols, and at least 100 rounds of ammunition. And there was one more member of the group, Warren Earp.

The youngest brother had been in and out of Tombstone over the last two years, but now he would be a player in the final act of the story. Morgan had spent three months recovering from the shoulder wounds sustained in the fight on Fremont Street, and now he was back in action. Fremont Street, and now he was back in action. The posse headed for Charleston, the popular hangout of the Cowboys, and particularly Ike Clanton. Ike had actually been there, but he received a warning from Johnny Ringo that a posse was on its way. He escaped before nearly 40 men surrounded the town. A second posse had joined up with Wyatt's team, and they bottled up Charleston as they searched for the Clantons and Pony deal.

Thanks to Ringo's warning, the posses were forced to return to Tombstone empty-handed. Curiously, Cochise County Sheriff Johnny Behan and his deputies were not part of the group that was searching his jurisdiction for the wanted men. They had been back in Tombstone the whole time, with Ringo. Ringo had turned himself in on charges unrelated to the incident with Doc. His lawyer told Behan that bail would be accepted shortly, and Behan let Ringo leave. But the bail had not been processed, and Ringo should have stayed in jail. Instead, he rode out of town to warn Ike that Wyatt was after him.

Ultimately, the Clantons surrendered to yet another posse, as it seemed half the men of Tombstone were out patrolling the hills. When the Clantons returned to town, they assumed they'd been arrested for the stage robberies earlier in the month. They were shocked to learn that they were about to stand trial for the attempted murder of Virgil Earp.

While Wyatt broke up a feud between Doc and Ringo and stalked the countryside looking for Ike, Virgil's wife Allie tirelessly nursed him back from the brink of death. He was not going to die, but he was also not going to resume his career as a deputy U.S. Marshal. That meant U.S. Marshal Crawley Dake needed a new deputy for Cochise County. He went to Tombstone to work with the new mayor and the city council to find a replacement. They endorsed a man named Ben Maynard, and the Tombstone Nugget applauded the choice. To Wyatt, this was a sick joke. Maynard was a well-known friend of the Cowboys.

Crawley Dake went along with the will of the people, and Maynard took Virgil's place on the roster. The Nugget had been hammering away at the Earps for months, and they had withstood the criticism, but Maynard's appointment was a bridge too far. It was a slap in the face. The next morning, a letter appeared in the epitaph addressed to U.S. Marshal Crawley Dake. It was signed by Wyatt and Virgil, and they said they were resigning their posts. Virgil's resignation was a formality, of course, but Wyatt was deadly serious about his move. Crowley Dake got the message.

He didn't accept Wyatt's resignation and he appointed a more respected man as a third marshal for the area. It calmed the waters for the moment. But this was Tombstone and the waters wouldn't stay calm for long. The charges against Finn, Clanton, and Pony Deal were dismissed due to lack of evidence. Ike went to trial, but he was acquitted on essentially the same grounds. Sure, his hat had been found in the building from which the shots had been fired, but that wasn't proof he had actually been wearing it, or that he was involved.

And like that, Ike was free. It was now painfully clear to Wyatt that he would receive no justice in a courtroom with the current players in power in Tombstone. Ike, fresh off his victory over the Earps, now filed charges against them for the killing of his brother and the McLaurys. A judge in contention issued warrants for the arrest of Wyatt brother and the McClourys. A judge in contention

issued warrants for the arrest of Wyatt, Morgan, Doc, and Virgil. Virgil was allowed to stay in bed, but Johnny Behan took the other three into custody for the trip to contention. He told Wyatt to hand over his guns. Wyatt flatly refused. And then, much to Johnny's chagrin, flatly refused. And then, much to Johnny's chagrin, 12 heavily armed friends of the Earps rode beside Johnny's little group all the way to contention to guard against ambush. They strode into the courtroom in contention, fully armed. Wyatt's lawyer told the local judge that there was no reason for this proceeding to be held in contention. The judge surveyed the firepower in his courtroom and he agreed. The whole troop went back to Tombstone. The next day, the case was dismissed. Ike had no new evidence that wasn't thoroughly debunked from the last hearing,

so there was no reason to continue. It was good news, but it would be the last for the Earps and Tombstone. Wyatt was edgy on Friday night, March 17, 1882. Things had been quiet for the last three weeks, which might as well have been an eternity by Cochise County standards. But he started hearing reports from friends that enemies were in town. The next night, Saturday the 18th, an acting troupe was in town for a one-night-only performance of Stolen Kisses, and Morgan did not want to miss it. Wyatt urged caution, but Morgan and Doc Holliday went anyway. When the play finished, Morgan and Doc split up.

Wyatt had gone back to the Cosmopolitan, but he couldn't rest easy. He pulled his boots back on and went back out to meet Morgan. Wyatt tried to convince his brother to come back to the hotel, but Morgan wanted one game of pool at Campbell and Hatch's Saloon before he retired for the night. Wyatt relented. They walked into the billiard parlor, and Wyatt took a seat against the wall next to Sherman McMaster's. It was a stormy, windy night as Morgan started his game. He loved pool, and he moved around the table enthusiastically. At 10 minutes to 11 p.m., he walked around the table to line up his next shot. He leaned forward, eyeing his move. His back was fully exposed to the glass door at the rear of the saloon. Before he could strike

the ball, a gunshot blasted through the door. It slammed into Morgan's body, went clean through, and then thudded into a bystander. Another shot smashed into the wall near Wyatt's head. it into a bystander. Another shot smashed into the wall near Wyatt's head. Everyone in the room hit the floor, but the shooting stopped. Morgan collapsed against the pool table and then slid to the ground. McMasters and one of the owners of the saloon hurried outside to try to catch the shooters. There were no clues to be found. McMasters ran back inside, and he and Wyatt and another man carried Morgan out of the pool room and into the card room next door. Morgan languished in the room for an agonizing hour. The bullet had cut through his liver and his left kidney before slicing its way out.

The Tombstone Nugget reported that a dog wailed outside the saloon, sensing the pain of its owner inside. Three doctors examined Morgan, but there was nothing they could do. On March 18, 1882, Morgan Earp died. He was 30 years old. In the summer of 1881, while tensions ran high between Arizona and Mexico, a miner wrote a letter to the Tombstone Nugget newspaper. He said everyone came to town with dreams of getting rich, but most ended up working

back-breaking jobs for little money. They all had visions of Tombstone as El Dorado, the fabled city of gold. But what they found was Hel Dorado. Two months after Morgan Earp died, Wyatt said his younger brother asked him one question before he passed away. Did Wyatt know who shot him? Wyatt said that he did, and he would get them. Two days later, he and a select group of trusted men began to systematically destroy the Cowboys. Wyatt's quest for vengeance would become known as the Vendetta Ride, and it would cement the fame of he and Doc Holliday for all time. That's next time on the final episode of

Tombstone. Thanks for listening to Legends of the Old West. If you enjoyed the show, the best way to help is to give it a rating and a review on iTunes. Sound design for this series was by Rob Vallier in Phoenix, Arizona. Our website is oldwestpodcast.com, and that's where you can find links to source material, music, and the ways to subscribe. Lastly, check out our social media pages for photos, videos, and discussions. Our Facebook page is Legends of the Old West Podcast,

and our handles on Twitter and Instagram are at Old West Podcast. Thanks again. Et nos portes sur Twitter et Instagram sont à Old West Podcast. Merci encore. Si vous faites vos achats tout en travaillant, en mangeant ou même en écoutant ce balado, alors vous connaissez et aimez l'excitation du magasinage. Mais avez-vous ce frisson d'obtenir le meilleur deal? Les membres de Rakuten, eux, oui. Ils magasinent les marques qu'ils aiment et font d'importantes économies, en plus des remises en argent. Et vous pouvez aussi commencer à gagner des remises en argent dans vos magasins préférés,

comme Old Navy, Best Buy et Expedia, et même cumuler les ventes et les remises en argent dans vos magasins préférés comme Old Navy, Best Buy et Expedia, et même cumulez les ventes et les remises en argent. C'est facile à utiliser et vous obtenez vos remises par PayPal ou par chèque. L'idée est simple. Les magasins paient Rakuten pour leur envoyer des gens magasinés. Et Rakuten partage l'argent avec vous sous forme de remise. Téléchargez l'application gratuite Rakuten et ne manquez jamais un bon deal. Ou allez sur rakuten.ca pour en avoir plus pour votre argent. C'est R-A-K-U-T-E-N.