The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 799: Doc Holliday, Wyatt Earp, and the Booze-Fueled Bender that Ended at OK Corral

Episode Date: December 1, 2025

Steven Rinella talks with author Mark Lee Gardner, Brody Henderson, Randall Williams, Phil Taylor, and Corinne Schneider.  Topics discussed: Mark Lee Gardner's brand new book: Brothers of the Gun: Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and a Reckoning in Tombstone; having a deep love for estate sales and rare books; being the author of interpretive guides for National Park historic sites; Old West cliches; “I’ll be your huckleberry”; the friendship between Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday; a brothel on a boat; Steve’s celiac theory; drifters; outlaws and lawmen; robbing trains; a play-by-play of the OK Corral gun fight; a performance by Mark on banjo; and much more. Connect with Steve and The MeatEater Podcast Network Steve on Instagram and Twitter MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. For our friends north of the border, Anex Hunt just got better in Canada. Now you can get nationwide coverage for less than a box of shells. Plus, Anex has dropped big updates to Crownland layers and added parcel boundaries where available. You still get fully functional offline maps,

real-time GPS tracking, precise weather conditions, and customizable map tools you can share with your buddies. If you're hunting in Canada, this is a no-brainer. Download the on-ex hunt app. Try it free for seven days. Hey folks, Steve Ronella here. It's that time again, the Meat Eater Black Friday sale. From November 20 through December 1, you can save up to 50% across the entire meat eater family of brands.

First Light, FHF gear, Dave Smith decoys, Phelps, and the Meat Eater store. Whether you're chasing elk, setting decoys, or just gearing up for camp, this is the time. to upgrade the kit that carries you through the season. Visit your favorite brand site to find your deal, and don't miss the Meat Eater Black Friday Sale. This is the Meat Eater podcast coming at you, shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. The Meat Eater podcast.

You can't predict that. brought to you by First Light. When I'm hunting, I need gear that won't quit. First Light builds. No compromise gear that keeps me in the field longer. No shortcuts, just gear that works. Check it out at firstlight.com. That's F-I-R-S-T-L-I-T-E.com. Join today by author Mark Lee Gardner, expert on all things wild west. But first, the Bob Cratchett Report. Do you think the audience looks forward to the Bob Cratchett Report

every Monday? That's the thing I've been worried about. Yeah, you think maybe no one cares as much as I care. I think you're on to something there. How's it going? How's it going as Bob Cratchett? Just real quick.

Phil's, just so everybody knows, people just discovering the show. Phil is, he's been cast in a Christmas Carol. yeah it's true we just tiny tim's dad tiny tim's dad rehearsals are rolling they're going well uh it's it's always fun watching watching it come together you know it's show business baby uh we're we're i don't have a whole lot to add steve if you in case you you you do you get like groupies

groupies yeah theater groupies um like girls that want to come talk to you uh i i the first time someone asked me to sign their program in the alley behind the theater i was taken i was i was Phil thought he was getting mugged that he realized. They do exist, but they are very, they are few and far between. Yeah. Phil, do you use a special Bob Cratchett voice in the show? Yeah, how do you say stuff? I do, I do have an English accent.

Oh, I think you guys could just not do that. You just think we should go full American, just spanning all different regions of the United States. Yeah, like I was saying, you would do U.S. currency. U.S. yep, because that's confusing. And just have, have you ever watched Death of Stalin? Oh, yeah, that's the guy from who created Veep did that. Yeah, phenomenal movie. But everybody just talks like how they talk.

They're not all trying to have that like that Boris. Like, do the accent you do when you're a Russian in a movie. I've never been a Russian in a movie, but it's, yeah, sure. They don't do all that. Yeah. And it's like Steve Bouchemmy, but he talks like he's Steve Bouchemmy. Yeah, that's good. I think you are masking your love for theater and,

spectacle, you try to direct it towards me. But this is just a way for you to share all of your ideas that you have for how to, how to just create a great theater production. I think you're in the wrong line of work, frankly, Steve. Yeah, that's true. Because you know what my wife points out to me a lot of times? A lot of times I'll yell at my kids about something. And she's like, you're talking through the kids to me. This is me you're talking about. Because I can get away with that, but I can't get away with saying it to her. So I'll say it to them in her presence. yeah like who left all this laying everywhere but i know it's hurt my wife does the exact same thing to me i hate to tell you this but that might be a universal tactic because i tend to do the

same thing so like mom did oh oh oh it was mom okay okay just don't like to see that just make sure it's not you guys by the time this airs you and i will probably be coordinating our outfits for to go see bob cratchie mm-hmm The matinee. I'm going to have a sign that says I'm here for Cratchett. Love it. Mark Lee Gardner is the author, historian of the West musician. I didn't know this.

Turkey hunting enthusiast? I'm an addict. Seriously? Yes. Every spring. Huh. Rare book collector. Yes.

And I heard that you compete with Randall and estate sales. I do. Yes. If there's one today, I'll be there. But they're usually not on Tuesdays. Yeah. author of many books you know you know what i liked it you did a lot you did that thing where you do what's that thing called where you do like um you take questions like wild west questions

it's on uh what the hell was that wired yeah wired where you like field you're like the help line and you field wild west questions dude you got a lot of breadth when it comes the wild west history like good wild west details well thanks yeah uh here's some of mark's books what are we sitting here right in front right here we got in front of me i got shot all the hell jesse james the northfield raid in the wild west greatest escape um we got brothers of the gun sitting in front of us wider doc holiday and a reckoning and tombstone also the author of wagons for the santa fe trade that sounds very detailed it's very detailed i think it's sold like 300 copies it's it's very specific. It's the definitive

book on Wacken's. But that's like, but that's like hard history. Hard history. That's what they call a material culture study, yeah. Okay. And explain that to folks real quick. Like, what will they learn in that book? Wagons for the So they're going to learn what the freight wagons look like, what they were made out of, and how

the styles changed from the 1820s up through when the trail ended in 1880. How many mules? You know, what weight? You know, they'd average 6,000 pounds or three tons. I mean, you know, the dimensions, all from primary sources, newspaper accounts. And it was actually the first study of freight wagons.

And it came about because the Santa Fe Trail has made a national historic trail by the park service. But it's also the only book on Santa Fe Trail freight wagons. You got to hell on a fast horse, the untold story of Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett. That's a good one. We talk about Shot All the Hell. You got a book on Roosevelt. I do, on the Rough Riders. Rough riders.

Theodore Roosevelt, his cowboy regiment, and the immortal charge of San Juan Hill, and a book on one of my personal favorite subjects. I'm kind of a little big horned Edmund Fitzgerald guy. Okay. I think I might do a shirt where it's the Edmund Fitzgerald, but Custer's on it. Combining. Just bringing everything together. It would be the only shirt like that in the world. that that book i haven't read yours on this but i'd like to

the earth is all that lasts crazy horse sitting bull in the last stand of the great sue nation does that cover like this the summer of 76 and yeah yeah i mean i have a whole chapter on just the battle itself but it's their it's their life story it's a dual biography of both these lecota leaders but yeah i have a lot of information about the battle and i just stopped there on a way up here actually yesterday isn't it haunted man yes it's haunted dude It's one of those few places Speaking of like

Like if you're in Whitefish Bay You can feel the Edmund Fitzgerald If you're on last stand hill You can feel it It's like you can feel it I cried on last stand hill First time I went there I went there on the anniversary

Oh My buddy Seth got married on the anniversary A different time Oh Not him That's Brody Okay Yeah

Although I got a cover ancestors that were in that back. Yeah, if you look at the dead, Brody's all over that. Oh, wow. Well, it's a very moving site. I completely agree with you. I mean, especially if you're, if you can go there, you know, they're open. Well, they used to be who knows now, but they used to be open till a dust, the sunset and no, nobody's there then. If you just stand on a last stand hill or or go to Reno Hill, you know, it's just a very moving, you know, just a neat experience. Yeah, a lot of suffering that day. But you know,

thing you can't get over is um just the absolute exuberance that must have been felt by the the northern Cheyenne in the Sioux to be like just after like all these just stunning defeats and massacres to just that one day one time

just well and bring it to them you know what I mean like how good for them how good for them how good that day must have felt. I think you're absolutely right, but also it was a tremendous relief. I mean, these soldiers had come to kill them. I mean, they had families and children in the village, and they had protected. I mean, that was the reason they were fighting.

It wasn't just to get a victory over the white man, but those soldiers were going to hurt them, and they were protecting their families and their mothers and sisters. And they did it. And then there's all this booty they got, you know, Springfield Carbines and Colt Evolvers, of course, Sitting Bull had warned them in his vision that they weren't supposed to take anything from the soldiers. And if they did, it would mean their doom. But they disobeyed the vision and some Lakota's feel that that was the downfall of their people. But yeah, the vision told them, do not take booty, do not take souvenirs or whatever.

But how could you not help? There's all this stuff, ammunition and horses. And so, yeah, they took plenty of booty. Have you ever read the account of Wooden Leg? Mm-hmm. It's one of the best accounts, Cheyenne accounts. Yeah.

He, uh, like, he leaves the battlefield. He, like, face-scalped guy at the battlefield. Tried to give it to his mom or grandma. She didn't want it. Like a sideburn scalp. Splits. They all take off. The, of the cavalry, the other, the survivors,

the surviving cavalry guys come up. They, like, scour the whole battlefield. bury everyone Woodleg and his buddies go off to the west to go hunt for crow Indians They don't find any crow They find like one family

And decided not to kill him For some reason He doesn't explain why they decided Not to kill him And then they come back To the battlefield To get stuff That they remember

That they didn't grab at the time To like If I remember right There should be a few shells over here. Or I remember like I threw a belt down in the bushes there and they were kind of like coming back through looking

for stuff. Just wow. Well, they were finding stuff at the battle. I mean, for decades, I mean, they were still finding stuff that had been lost and you know, maybe an errol washes out and they find a canteen and one guy, I mean, this was involved a court case.

It was like maybe in the 1960s or 70s, found a pair of binoculars. You kidding. Yeah. And then of course he told people about it and uh he was arrested it was it was a huge no kid yeah you're not supposed to take anything sure yeah the national park service sites or federal land so have you read plainsman of the yellowstone yes but it's been a long time that's a hell of a book yeah there's an interesting take like i like i said i've always been a big little big horn buff you know um in plainsman of the yellowstone he treats it like uh he's like a lot of his like to to

summarize his view he's like you know everybody loves it everybody writes books about it it didn't matter it was a non-event it was a non-event this all lands to where it was going to land where it landed they were going to kill them all and bring them on to reservations and they did and it's a non-event it was just nothing like if you look at like what actually matters he's like it's just it's a thing that historians love to talk about but it didn't matter the only reason it's it's huge of course is because the guy that was killed george custer right i mean the civil war i mean truly an amazing uh soldier to civil war i mean he earned all the accolades that he got and he's this darling you know the american army

michigan man yeah yeah um yeah he uh the michigan brigade the fighting wolverines all that stuff so uh but anyway yeah i mean if if it had been some other officer maybe it wouldn't have been as big a deal or is covered as widely as it was, but it was Custer. You know, the guy that had this amazing reputation. He had fought Indians before at the Washtan. So, you know

the story about, um, they, no one knew who he was. The La Codes and Cheyans didn't know. It was George Custer. Well, that's contested. It is contested a little bit, but some of them. There's a Cheyenne woman that there's a Southern Cheyenne woman that, uh, was visiting and was there

she said she recognized him she did this that's in my book yeah yeah she they were going to scalp and mutilate him and she said no no stop that's that's he's the husband of monocita who you know she claimed that custer had buried but anyway and it was her that took the sewing all

yes and punctured his eardrums yes yeah because that goes back to when he after the waschaton in oklahoma He met with some Cheyenne leaders, and one of the shying leaders dumped some ashes from his pipe, you know, on his boots. And he said that was so that he would remember next idea. Keep his promise that he would not go against their people or whatever. And so the reason for puncturing the all into his eardrum was so that he would hear better in the other world. Yeah.

And I think she said, maybe I kicked dirt up on him with my horse. I think that's something she said she was like speculating that could have happened but you know he was um he wasn't apparently you know he had like a fingertip cut off and but he wasn't mutilated like all the other bodies i mean tom custer was just unrecognizable um and the idea behind that was that in the land of ghost you know what you did to them in this world that's how they would be in the land of ghost yeah there's that move of like slack make it so you can't run sure yeah make it so you can't shoot you know Make it so you can't shoot.

You're ugly. Make it so you can't make love. Right. So, but no, he was apparently, it was very, you know, in good shape. I believe there was two guys that weren't touched. One guy was under a pile of dead horses so that it doesn't seem like they found him. And the other guy was Captain Keio. And Captain Keio had on a, he was some, I don't know, some like branch of Catholicism.

I can't remember what the hell it was. Yeah. And he had on some, he had on some kind of emblem, some kind of jewelry that, and all this stuff is like, it's everybody contradicts everybody. You know what I mean? It's like so-and-so said this, so-and-so says that. So-and-so says no one recognized them. So-and-so says they recognized them. Either way, he had this thing on, this religious piece.

I think he was in a papal guard at one time or something. And it might have been had to do with that. I can't remember. Anyways, they're like, he might be, they felt that he might be some kind of religious figure and didn't mess with him. Well, he was a highly respected officer. He was one of the more well-liked officers in the 7th Cavalry. I think his horse was the only thing that survived. Comanchee.

Well, the Lakota's in Cheyenne survived. I'm sorry, I'm the only like, yeah, the only, I shouldn't say the only thing to survive. Yeah. What am I trying to say? Of the men with Custer and their horses, I guess. They want to stuff in that horse. They did. You could go see it in Lawrence, Kansas.

Is that what it is? It's at the Natural History Museum. Is it on display? Yes. Oh, yeah. And they've, not too long ago, they kind of refurbished Comanchee. But no, yeah, so he's there because he was at Fort Riley in his last years in Kansas. And yeah, he's fully, it's mounted and he's got a, you know, McClellan saddle.

And, yeah, yeah. And he had some arrow holes in him and some bullet holes. I think he's crippled up pretty good. He was, yeah. I mean, he was, but apparently he was, they felt he would survive. He was in good enough. shape so yeah so they they made sure they kept him took it back this has nothing to do with that we'll get on with this in a minute but when after all the buffalo were killed off we were talking

about this in our hide hunters thing after all the buffalo were killed off you know horn today came out to do him to put together a museum collection and he comes out and starts scouring the country between the yellowstone Missouri and eastern Montana trying to find museum specimens works his ass off. Can't find any. But the biggest bull he finds that he kills for the museum. He kills it. It's already carrying four slugs in it.

Oh, wow. Yeah. Already carrying them. So they can put up with something. You know, Theta Roosevelt went into the bad lands. He just had to kill a buffalo, you know, and later he becomes, you know, later he was wanting to preserve the buffalo, but he did it after he, after

he got his buffalo. But it's time to preserve of them. He's like, yeah, preservation starts now. He killed two. The second one he regretted a little bit. I think. He killed one of Madora, right, outside of Madora. Then killed one outside the park somewhere, I believe, didn't he?

Randall? Randall's got a PhD in history. Okay. Do you got one of those? No, I don't. His is right up there. It's a smaller one underneath my very big one. Oh, nice.

Nice. Think of that. Yeah. It's almost like a to scale replica. I don't even know why you have that there. Oh, because like gas like you come in would get intimidated. Oh, okay. All right.

You'd be like, oh. You know, with the big guns now. Yours is a nice frame. Yeah. You could enlarge it. Yeah, I know. Just photocopy it. Yeah.

enlarge it. I want to get into your books, but can we hit you with some? Because when you did that thing for Wired, where you, answer Old West questions? Can we hit you with some Old West question? You gave me his old West question. I don't know if I'll have the answer, but I'll try. Is there any reason to believe? Is there any reason whatsoever to believe that people would, uh, that any, is there like a famous case example of someone getting shot and falling over a balcony rail? Do you mean like that is such a like trope of Westerns? I can't. Is there like a famous story that

inspires all those scenes? Yeah, nothing famous. I mean, this may have happened sometime in the Old West, but I'm not aware of any famous incident. So just they just like it and it became like a, it became a trope. I think so, yeah. Now I'll probably get lots of emails. Oh, yeah, you know, Frank James knocked that guy off the balcony. No, I don't know of any famous case. Were those doors, the swinging doors?

Was that a thing? Well, I got in trouble for that. So I didn't think it was. What do they call them batwing doors? Yes. And I looked at historic photos and could not find, you know, these swinging doors. But apparently they were used late in the 19th century. But for instance, there's an episode with Doc Holliday and it gets really nerdy.

But, you know, Doc Holliday got into a gunfight, a minor gunfight in Leadville. And it's in this saloon. And it talks about this guy walking in the door. You know, so it's like, well, it wasn't, you know, these swinging doors. walked in the door, yeah, and it had glass in it, so, uh, you don't picture anyone knocking. No, yeah, but anyway, uh, but apparently there were, you know, late in the 19th century, you did start to see them introduced. And the idea was behind it, um, they didn't want like children looking in, being able to see in, you know, in the summertime. That's what that is.

So it kind of blocks their view and also let some air in because I'm sure it was filled full of cigar smoke and I was going to say it seems like a seasonable, or a seasonal. Yeah. style. And then a lot of these that had the swinging doors, they had both doors. They had a door you could close, but also they had the swinging doors as well. So like you say, in the summer. It's like a little privacy screen. It's kind of a privacy screen. Yeah, but I just don't see it prevalent like in the 1870s, Dodge City or Wichita. I just, I have not seen any evidence that it was. That's a good idea to look at all those old photos and do you see them or not. Exactly. Yeah. And go through the newspaper account. I mean, you can even go through advertisements in historic newspapers and see, oh, yeah, here's the new swinging door. You need to for your saloon or whatever. But that doesn't exist or it does exist? Well, it does exist. Oh, the ads?

The ads. No, I have not come across anything. No, but apparently there are patents for these kind of spring-loaded hinges. I haven't seen them, but I've been told that there's actually patents that were done so that they swing back and for. I mean,

you would have to have something to make it do that, I guess. If I ever build a house from scratch or do a big remodel, I was already planning on putting in a urinal. Okay. I do them damn doors. There you go, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Huh.

Well, kind of you're in, like, a trough or like, like a communal one or. What's kind of the airport? Yeah. Like the airport. Yeah. Next to the toilet. I've actually been in restrooms and houses that had those swinging doors or whatever. Oh, yeah.

I have. But see, I want to create tension where I'm going to have a very modern home, but old swinging doors. Okay. All right. Do you know what I mean? Like it creates a power balance between the two motifs. For the bedroom, that would be good. right yeah yeah oh that's a great idea yeah privacy screen yeah okay uh crin was

crin was saying you got some insights into um you got some insights into cowboy hats oh yes oh okay cowboy hats what do you want to know oh like did everybody okay let's oh gotcha yeah like what would you regard to be i i know you've said in the past someone said like when did the wild west end and you thought the wild west ended with the car i went when you don't see horses on the street anymore that seems to me that that era is gone you know so when it was like that that you were just pointing out there's ways people define yes exactly like you some people will say like barbed wire right like the open range closed land was owned it was fenced the the west died and you had

you had a you had to take that like you view it like when the horse ceases to be the primary mode of transportation yeah and it and it i just think the horse is so interwoven with the american west I mean, you know, cowboys and, you know, buggies, you know, and mules, of course, pulling wag. I mean, when you don't see that kind of those animals as transportation, I mean, that's so associated with the West. I mean, you don't have a cowboy without a horse. Yeah. I mean, there's no cowboys that are just a foot. I mean, they're on horseback.

And same with the Plains Indians. I mean, their mobility is because of the horse. And so when the horse is not part of that fabric, I just see that is kind of the, the end of what you could call the old west. Now, you could argue, was that in 1930s? I mean, 1940s, because, you know, in some places of Wyoming and Montana, I'm sure people are still riding their horses into town in the 1940s, maybe in the 50s. Yeah, they're all, like, working on the Manhattan Project and dudes are riding

around on horses. 20 minutes from here, I saw a guy get off his horse and go to Stacey's, right in Gallatin Gateway. Was he being cute? No, I don't know. I think he had the proper jeans. and the proper boots, so I don't know. And his driver's license was suspended? You know those little, uh, actually maybe.

I like to play that game whenever we see an adult on a bicycle or a lawnmower. Yeah. What are those little scooter? You know those little like hover, now the hoverboard? Segways. Yeah. But there's no handlebars on one of those.

Oh, the little. What's the kind of? Those are called hoverboards. The hoverboards. Those are so far from here on a keggy. Uh-huh. There's a guy. Going down the road, on one of those with a white cowboy hat on the phone.

I'm not getting a picture of that and sent it to a hipters of Bozeman. No, he wasn't like he, no. I hate the world. Wasn't a hipster vibe. Oh. I was getting more of a crazy guy vibe. It's still, I just like, I love everything about it. I was like, a local eccentric.

Yeah. I'm trying to weigh stereotypes to the reality real quick. Just got to have a hand. handful of these um you go go to let's pick a year 1870 okay is it really like in 1870 is it really that like there is the wide brimmed hat and that's like it no everyone all men wear a hat and all men wear a cowboy style hat yeah I don't think so no no I don't I mean you know your cowboys in the 70s they're going to have some kind of a wide brimmed hat but I think that Or if you look at historic photos, there's a lot of variety, even into how they wear them.

I mean, you know, some guys have their hats tilted up. You know, the crowns are creased. I mean, there's just a lot of difference. So I just don't think you can say there's one standard. You can probably look at what's working. I mean the broader family of like a hat. Hey, folks, Steve Ronella here. It's that time again, the meat eater Black Friday sale from November.

20 through December 1, you can save up to 50% across the entire meat eater family of brands. First Light, FHF gear, Dave Smith decoys, Phelps, and the Meat Eater store. Whether you're chasing elk, setting decoys, or just gearing up for camp, this is the time to upgrade the kit that carries you through the season. Visit your favorite brand site to find your deal, and don't miss the Meat Eater Black Friday sale. body of a hat and then a wide circular brim, a hat that a tourist would buy on vacation. Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty standard.

It's like when you leave home in 1870, if you're a man, you're not bald. You don't, like, you're not hatless. No, no. No, the hat is, yeah, very common. Now, a little bit later, you have the introduction of the bowler hat, the derby hat or whatever. And there was a story about in Tombstone, if somebody came in wearing a derby hat that Doc Holliday would go around with a triangle, ring of a bill. behind them and kind of harassing them or whatever because they stuck out, you know, they were a little bit.

Well, what was he calling him out about? I think because they were like a newbie or like a dude or, you know, it's just maybe a little uppity or something. You're wearing this kind of latest fashion. And so he's going around. But, you know, apparently he was reported his word of derby hat later, a few years later. So I don't know how, you know, if that. It's a bold.

You see, I'm sure you're around. Like a lot of the later gunfighters had those kind of. Well, often there's like an English villain. the cowboy movies that wears a bowl hat. And, you know, Basterson, I think there's a photo of him wearing a derby hat, you know, later in his career. Did they all wear slip-on cowboy boots with jangly metal spurs that announced their presence? Well, they definitely wore cowboy boots, you know, and they could go up to the knee. There's different styles of those boots.

One of the more interesting to me is what they call a muleer boot. Have you heard of this? So on the sides, instead of having the leather loops that you would. pull up. There's a long leather strap on each side that you can grab onto and pull you. They call a muleer boots. Just a strap, not a loop. Just a strap. Yeah, a long strap, maybe like that long

that you would grab hold of. Those were fairly popular. You tuck them inside. No, you leave them on the outside. They're flapping on the outside. Oh, hence the name, Muleer's. Yeah, yeah. And I, you know, there's different theories in the, I mean, these boots, you know, they could be very tall. They go up to the knee or whatever. And you're out on the range and their boots are sweaty when you take them off at night. They get wet.

And, you know, it might be a little nicer to have something to really grab hold of to pull those on. You know, the story of Billy the kid, the night he was killed and he was in his stocking feet. And a lot of people think that, oh, you know, he would never walk across that parade ground on his stocking feet. And it's like, do you want to pull your boots back on after you've taken them off, you've been in them all day? And no, it might be easier. Just walk over here across the corner and get that slab of meat. and just leave the boots behind. You know, when he went over,

when Billy the kid went over to get a chunk of meat off that thing, like what was the sort of situation? Like, is it just sort of matter of course that there's a, that there's a side of beef hanging in the courtyard? Well, no, it's not a matter of course, but he had been told. So he gets in really late to this house at Fort Sumner, this Adobe building.

And he's hungry. And the woman in the house, who is Pat Garrett's, sister-in-law. His Billy the kid's girlfriend though? There's some dispute on whether she was the girlfriend. The family says that they were not boyfriend girlfriend. So we don't know for sure. But he was staying there and she had a husband. He was there too. So, but anyway, she tells him that there's a side of beef hanging over at Pete Maxwell's place. So that's why he goes over there with the butcher knife and his gun because if he gets the meat, she was going to cook it up for him.

And then that's where, you know, he meets Garrett's two guards, or deputies, I should say, are outside. And they don't know what, they don't know what Billy the kid looks like. And they just, they think he's a ranch hand or they works for Pete Maxwell. But as soon as Billy approaches them, he sees these guys in the shadows and he pulls his gun right away. And he's going, K&S, K&S, you know, who is it? And John Poe, one of the deputies is saying, okay, calm down, friend, you know, we're not going to hurt you or whatever. But they don't know it's Billy. And that's when he gets up on the porch.

backs into the room. Pat Garrett is on the side of Maxwell's bed, and he recognizes Billy's voice, as does Pete Maxwell when he says that's him. And Pat Garrett, now here's the thing, you know, people are always on Pat Garrett's like, oh, you shot, you didn't give Billy a chance to kill you. You know, well, you know, Billy the kid had said he was going to kill Pat Garrett the next time he saw him. And he'd already killed a Lincoln County Sheriff and a Lincoln County deputy. And why would Pat Garrett give this guy a chance? You know, it's like it was Billy the kid. So he's shoots right away. Sure. The first shot gets him in the heart, and then he fires a second shot. You know, it's a moonlit night, but if you fired a cult revolver, black powder smoke, I mean,

the smoke fills the room, and so he fires right away, you know, you want to make sure he got him. Of course, Billy had already collapsed by then he runs out, and Pete Maxwell runs out, and they almost shoot Pete Maxwell, the deputies, because, you know, these guys are outside. They hear a gunshot, and they don't know what's going on. And anyway, don't, don't shoot. That's Pete, you know, whatever and and then they get a they light a candle put it in the window and they see his body inside they've got billy the kid but but anyway pat garrett was saying is pet garrett wrote a book later called the authentic life of billy the kid and he says people have accused me of hiding behind a couch and he says if there'd been a couch i would have been hiding behind it why would i you know i'm

not an idiot you know oh that that yeah but that whole thing of like uh being uh chivalrous around shooting i mean the way we hit dudes now we do it from i outer space. Oh, yeah. Well, this is, no, I mean, it's like, you know, you're just driving down the road your car, you know, it's not like someone comes on. It's like, stick them up. Yeah, or in your boat.

Yeah. But, well, here's, Steve, here's the thing about that. It's like, and I think what's so amazing about Wyatt Earp, I mean, most of his job or a lot of his job was disarming drunken cowboys. I mean, there were these laws in these towns, you know, whether it was Wichita or Dodge City, you can't carry a gun. And so today, I mean, you can go to YouTube and if a policeman sees a gun, they shout gun and the fireworks start. You know, I mean, you're going to be dead.

But Wyatt Earp went up to these guys and he would physically disarmed in. And usually his technique, he was hit him in the head with the barrel of his revolver. But he was so close quarters time and again and disarming these guys. And, you know, he had no training. There was no police academy then to go to. He couldn't go on YouTube. No. You know, there was, nobody knew about karate or whatever.

I mean, it's like he had to physically disarm him. And I tell you, lots of officers got killed disarming Cowboys. So Ed Masterson, he was the sheriff or the Marshall in Dodge City. He was killed disarming a cowboy. Is he related to Batmasters? Yes, he is. He was a brother. Oh, okay.

Fred White and Tombstone. And if you saw the movie, you know, you see where Curly Bill kills, you know, Fred White was trying to disarm and he grabbed the gun and pulled it. towards him and the gun goes off and he gets a mortal wound so it was a very dangerous thing to be a law officer disarming cowboys and they didn't do it at a distance you know they did it up close um batmasterson said white irp was the bravest man he'd ever known he showed no fear whatsoever and he survived he never got wounded i mean which is kind of bizarre too so what do you what do you take of the i see here that um white irp's six shooters up for

right now yes okay yeah is it's being auctioned yes i haven't pulled up the link yet yeah well you know it's uh it's one of those things where um yeah the auction says it comes with a binder full of providence and the providence is this so um this one i'm looking at the site right now so this man was a friend of white irp and also a friend of josephine but who is white's wife it's a 45 colt yes and it was purchased and they have the colt letter so it was purchased in Los Angeles at a store in 1922. Wyatt Earp doesn't die until 1929. So this man who was a friend of Wyatt, he dies.

But then his son remains close to Josephine, Wyatt's wife. And the son got the revolver. And then he told his children, Josephine told me that this was Wyatt's gun. So we don't have a letter from Josephine saying it's why it's gun. We have this guy's word, the son of the man who was a friend. And their children, the grandchildren are saying, you know, here's our, you know, and they sign notarized statements and all that kind of thing. But also, I mean, Josephine was known to acquire a gun or two and claim that it belonged to Wyatt. You know, Jesse James' mom did the same thing.

She would buy guns and, oh, yeah, this belonged to my son. Oh, really? And then she would, yeah, and she would make money. Actually, this is funny. So they would sell at Jesse James Gray. He was very next to the house there in Cartney or Carney initially. And they would sell pebbles from the grave of Jesse. I'd buy one of those.

Yeah, I would too. But then when they ran out of pebbles, they went to the crick and got more pebbles and put them on the grave. So, you know, it was still from his grave, but it wasn't there a long time, a short time. So every white irp gun, there's a question on Providence. I mean, it's, you're just not sure. And to me, it may very well be true. You know, that story may be true. But like I said, you know, any more, you would almost have to have somebody dig up White and pick the gun out of his grave to say, you know, yeah, that was for sure.

And it's the same thing with all of these old West figures and outlaws. And there's such a big money involved. And one of the bane's of a historian's existence is that courthouses have been raided of documents. white irp version of the documents valuable yeah yeah i mean they'll clip the signatures and and uh and i know of the cases when i was researching this book that um you know white irp's uh you know certificate where he uh commissioned is a law a law man in missouri um nobody knows where it is fortunately there's a there's a microfilm copy of it but people have gone in and in these county courthouses are not well protected or secured uh especially the remote ones um link

County, New Mexico, a lot of government legal documents with Pat Garrett's name on it had been stolen. In fact, a few years ago, there was a collection it was offered at auction. And the state of New Mexico went in. And then they were county records. I mean, there were legal government documents and they approached the auction company and said, these belong to us. And the family, in order to avoid, they just donated them back to the state. And here's the thing people should know, Steve, is that if it's a government document, it never ceases to be a government document. Even if you found it at the dump. It's still a government document. So something comes up for sale that's that's illegal like a land patent or whatever it is. If it's a county, you know, like a warrant for

arrest or whatever, don't buy it because, you know, it doesn't belong to the public. It's, it belongs to that county or the state or wherever it came from. But a lot of collectors, they just can't resist. Oh, I got to have this. It's got Pat Garrett's signature on or whatever. But anyway, it makes a historian's life a nightmare because, you know, it's removing the historical record. And so we're missing chunks of information because these documents ended up in private hands and are taken out of these courthouses. And then sometimes they're, you know, they're destroyed or lost or whatever. So we don't even know what we're missing. So it makes it really, really tough.

I got a buddy, well, he's dead now, but he was a very well-known arrowhead hunter. He's kind of like an outlaw turned good, arrowhead hunter. okay um he was down in colorado he'd been an oil he'd been a uh oil engineer oil executive i came here he like came up through engineering became an executive but was a big arrowhead hunter and then turned legit started volunteering for site surveys and whatnot anyhow i was driving around him one day in new mexico and he's telling me his story he he's at some kind of a state sale or yard sale or something or another and he sees a fulsome point bolotie oh wow and like something about the patination on it like he knew it was a fulsome point it wasn't a fake like he just looked

he said i looked at it and i knew what i was looking at that was a fulsome point glued to a just like you got on right okay i wish i remember where where it came from he told me the whole story he buys it for of nothing. Peels that Folsom point off there. And on it is still the museum coding number. Oh, wow. And he found the home for it. Oh, nice. Someone just walked away.

Oh, interesting. He rolls it over and it's like, I'm making this up, but like A-119 or something. Oh, wow. Where they do like white out and then put a thing on there and then like nail polish over it or whatever. Oh, yeah. No, that's, that's voice. So it's just like, like you're saying, like people's walk up with stuff. You know, my wife was a curator at the city of Colorado Springs Museum several years ago,

and she had a woman come in, and it was with a Van Briggle vase. And Van Briggle was a very well-known early pottery maker in Colorado Springs. So anyway, she brings it in because she wanted my wife to give her some information on it. Well, my wife takes it, looks at the bottom, and there's an accession number on it. And it's from their museum. And my wife, my wife says, this is an accession number. The lady grabbed it out of her hands and ran out of the building. Yeah, she'd gotten it like a yard sale or something.

But anyway, they tracked her down and lawyers were involved, but they got the vase back. But no, it's like the lady, I mean, she did not want to hear this. I mean, because those pot, those faces, it was probably like a $30,000 or $40,000 van Briggle vase. Wow. But no, she grabbed it. took off. It's like, I'm not, I'm out of here, you know. The other day, a couple weekends ago, I was at my buddy's wedding down in New Mexico. Jeremy Romero, he's getting married.

You know, his wife, Shannon, I never clicked her maid, family's names and all that in her background. Like, I mostly know him. Anyways, in the, in the, whatever the hell, the ceremony, they throw a nod to Grandpa Earp. hmm well when i said do you mean like the later when you're supposed to say congratulations later in the evening when you're supposed to say congratulations i'm like does that mean like the irps and she didn't know where everybody fit with like the irp family suddenly you became very interesting yeah does anyone have any objections to this union actually more of a question here yeah perked up yeah during the ceremony so so your new book wyat irp doc holiday and a reckoning and tombstone

Oh, let me hit you with this one first. Okay. Do you feel that what Doc Holliday, that the script was wrong, they screwed the script up in Tombstone. Doc Holliday should have been saying, I'll be your Huckle Bearer. That's, that's an urban legend, hucklebearer. Oh, yeah, it is, yeah. That's why I asked. I didn't say that's what it said.

No, no, no. I'm sorry. Asked me on this. Asked and answered. Yeah. Yeah, but he did like an accusation. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

I was not implied that you, that you were wrong. That's not true? Yeah, no, it's not, no. What the hell is he talking about? Well, you can find that. I mean, actually, that came up recently, and I looked through newspapers.com, and, like, one of the first references is in the 1850s, and it was regarding, like, so-and-so, we're going to, you know, he wants you to be, you know, or have a shooting match, and the guy.

goes, yeah, I'll be your huckleberry. Like, yeah, I'm... But not hucklebearer. No, not huckle. Because the urban legend is that they used to use like hucklewood for the rails on a, what do you call it, a grave thing, a box, a casket. Yeah. That a coffin had like handrails. And the handrails, they would use like hucklewood.

Yeah. Like a huckleberry. Well, I don't know. That doesn't make any sense. Yeah. I don't even know what a huckle tree looks like. Well, if it's a huckleberry tree, it's a mighty thin ray. Yeah.

Yeah. But no, that's that. That's not true. That's not true. And I have heard that, that story about the huckleberry. But no, Huckleberry. What does it mean? I'll be your Huckleberry. Well, that means I'm game. But I don't know the origins why it's associated with the word Huckleberry. But it's just the implication is, oh, yeah, I'm game. I'm your man or whatever. Yeah. Like out like a trout in like Flynn. Yeah, exactly. Maybe you're looking. There's the idea that you're looking for Huckleberries. And hey, well, I found him. I'm your guy. And I don't even, I don't even know if the people. Just spitball in here, you know. I don't even know if the people that said it knew where it came from. It's one of those phrases where, oh, yeah, I'm your, and people just started using. Now, I don't think it was that common, but it was, at least in the 19th century, it was used. Now, I have never seen Doc Holliday at a contemporary source saying, I'm your Huckleberry. But Kevin Jarre, the script writer, was a brilliant, I mean, he did research.

and he really looked at the historical record and somewhere he came across that phrase which was brilliant you know I'm your Huckleberry and Val Kilmer did it exceptionally well but one of the neat things about the movie Tombstone is there are lots I mean Kevin Jarre found lots of quotes for instance you're a daisy if you have or you're a daisy

that actually is in the testimony from after the okay corral gunfight Kurt Russell says one of the earth says it's a regular slaughterhouse. Well, that came from the diary of John Parson, who was a minor. I mean, so there's, Jarre did his research and there's lots of phrases. And, and I have to agree with Kurt Russell, who, who's said before that, you know, the thing

that stands out about Tombstone is all the quotes. It's one of the most quotable Westerns ever, you know. You know, here's a good, if you're a screenwriter out there listening, or an aspiring screenwriter, there's a lesson to be learned here. People love to quote full metal jacket, Stanley Kubrick's full metal jacket. Everything memorable that anybody says in Stanley Kubrick's full metal jacket is taken verbatim from Michael Hare's book Dispatches when he was sent to cover the Vietnam War for

Esquire magazine. And instead of going and doing what everybody else did at the time, which is go talk to Westmoreland or like the brass, right, and talk about strategy and body counts and money spent and money wasted he just went and spent years talking to grunts and dispatches is about he cruised around with Arrow Flynn's kid Sean Flynn

who's a photographer he just went around Vietnam everywhere and talked to grunts and so when you read dispatches which is his account of his time in Vietnam Kubrick teamed up with him all the quotes

how can you shoot the women and children you don't lead him as much all that God, but yeah from the movie right which is from the book yeah it's all from it's all stuff dudes say to her hair however he says his name it's all stuff people say to him and it's all and it's all those memorable lines from from full metal jagger it's my it's an interesting deal that this guy that like those great quotes like i'll be your huckleberry right becomes just no one knew what the hell that man no but it's like it's because it was a thing yeah and it's on t-shirts now you can t-shirt that says I'm your huckleberry but is Michael here the one that that

wrote that there's nothing as vicious as a teenage boy or something like that or he might have yeah I think that comes from him or the war kind of killed him in a way he didn't do much like he reached like his zenith he even explains in the end of dispatches how hard it was to come home because he was from Berkeley and he came home and he talked about people would expect him to condemn everything but all he could talk about was how beautiful he thought it all was like it messed him up he never did much anything he was like the dude that wrote dispatches you know it like of the book killed him it was like Truman Capote like writing in cold blood kind of killed him hey folks steve rnella

here it's that time again the meat eater black friday sale from november 20 through december one you can save up to 50% across the entire meat eater family of brands First Light, FHF gear, Dave Smith decoys, Phelps, and the Meat Eater store. Whether you're chasing elk, setting decoys, or just gearing up for camp, this is the time to upgrade the kit that carries you through the season. Visit your favorite brand site to find your deal, and don't miss the Meat Eater Black Friday Sale. Talk about Wyatt or, like, as a kid or whatever, you know.

Like, where does a guy like that come from? So he's born in Illinois, 1848. His father was a Mexican war veteran, very short time, just a few months in the Mexican War. But, I mean, you know, it's Midwest, farming family. His father, you know, ran kind of a grocery store in Monmouth, Illinois. Then they moved to Pella, Iowa. I mean, really, there's nothing exceptional about his childhood. And there's very few stories about him.

I mean, you know, they talk about schoolyard fights or something. But what's odd about White Earp is that the only stories that we, really detailed stories about his childhood come from him when he's dictated. I mean, you would think somebody in Mom, oh, yeah, they live next to us, the guys that fought at the OK Corral. Oh, yeah, they were my neighbors, and this is what they did. There's nothing like that, either in Illinois or Iowa. And so I just find that kind of odd, but.

And he wasn't tangled up in the Civil War at all. No, his brothers were. He had three brothers that fought for the North, but he tried to join. It's a famous story. He was like 14 years old. He runs away from home. 14. Yeah.

Well, his brothers were in, and it's like, you know, so different from wars today. Everybody wanted to go to war. I mean, you wanted to be a hero. You wanted to join, you know, and fight the ribs and the other side, the same thing. So. I got to hold you up on that. Okay. I'm just curious, not just because I cough.

Oh, sure. Is that, that's like, there was an enthusiasm to fight that war. Oh, yeah. I mean, well, because that was that war, that was no joke. No, it was not. You get involved in that war. You're going to a very good chance something's going to happen to you. Part of it is expectation. I mean, you're a young man. You're expected, you know, you're going to go to war. You're going to fight for your country. But also part of it is, is looked at, I mean, it's the glory. You know, Custer gets knocked for being a glory hunter, but you're not going to advance in the army unless you get glory, unless you have victories. You, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, win at war. So it was expected. And then if you wanted to seek political office later, I mean, look at how many generals advanced into political office after the war. I mean, it would help

your career. I mean, Grant becomes president, right? I mean, and so many of them become congressmen and senators. So, it was a whole different mindset in the 19th century. And then everything you read as a kid, well, for instance, Theodore Roosevelt born in 1859, all

through the Civil War, I mean, he's seeing Harper's Weekly and Frank Leslie's, and they've got these giant engravings of these glorious battles and they're not in color you know they're black and white you don't see the blood you don't see the the drip you don't see the men beheaded by a cannonball i mean it looks so glorious and thrilling and and so there's all this kind of manliness involved yes go off and we're going to fight we're going to become heroes and of course they realize later that it's awful it's horrible it's ugly um so no they're there you know Wyatt wanted to join and his brothers you know and of course the option for you know why could either join

the army or he can stay home and planting that stupid cornfield that he hated you know he didn't want to be a farmer but that's what his father had him doing his father told him hey you know you're this food goes to your brothers in the war and why it eventually like you know well i'm going to starve with him because i'm going to go fight the ribs and he runs away from home his father tracks him and he's you know why it's all excited you got he got grounded he got well yeah essentially but he he sees his father in his hotel and he thinks his father doesn't see him and he rushes back home well his father had spotted him and he almost got a whipping but his mother saved him and his father made him promise it says you will not join the military without the

permission of your mother and you will tend to the cornfield and so that was it and then his the family ends up leaving during the war and going to california and i think the reason was nicholas erb he already had three men that had gone to fight he opposed the war he was what they call a copperhead he was a democrat but a copperhead they were opposed to the war because they thought the war was really becoming about slavery and abolition and what he wanted to be about well he thought it was about the constitution initially it was supposed to be out the constitution and keeping the union together why the term copper well i don't know where that comes from actually copperhead um so you're like a democrat and you don't want to be involved in

a war about slavery but he wasn't so not an abolitionist no oh no that's and that was they were really opposed to the abolitionist stance because they felt they felt they became a war about abolitionism. Which he didn't care about. No, no. And, you know, Nicholas Earp, I mean, you know, he had the racist views of the period. He didn't think it was worth fighting to free these people that didn't deserve it. So I think one of the reasons to go to California, he opposes the war, but he's also taking

his sons out of harm's way. He's getting, you know, Wyatt wants to join. We're going to go to California. He had younger brothers, Morgan and Warren. And who knows, at this time, it's 1864. They don't know how long this war is going to go. It might go for another two or three years, and I don't want my sons, you know, in this war that I disagree with. So they go to California.

So that was, that was, you know, why it's closest encounter with the Civil War was his attempt to join up. But he got caught. Any of his brothers get killed there? No. One brother, Jim, was so badly wounded in his arm that his arm was unusable. So he kept his arm, but he just, you know, couldn't use it. And Virgil, I don't. think he was wounded in the war and then he had a half brother newton and he survived the war

also where did he go from california like how did he get tangled up with hunting buffalo down in texas and his kind of his whole gang did like the dudes he became to be associated with did yeah he met bat masterson on the buffalo plains of course you know it's a little murky as to the chronology because he claimed now you know white's thing was he had a lot in his past that he preferred not get out to the public. I mean, he wanted to tell a story, but... Such is what? Well, so he's a constable in Missouri for just about, well, less than a year, and he loses

his wife there. He abscons with tax monies that he had collected that were supposed to go to the county and gets his family in trouble because his father and uncle decided his surrety's on this bond, $1,000 bond. He ends up getting arrested for stealing a horse in Oklahoma. Is he a pimp for a while, too? That's what I'm getting to. So from that horse theft thing, he escapes from jail. He says at that point, and he never admits to stealing the horse or any of the other things. But he says, then I went to the Buffalo Range and I was able to make $5,000 in hides or whatever. Well, there's an interval in there where he went to Peoria, Illinois. And he's living in the home of a prostitute. There's a prostitute that claims to be his wife. And he's actually running a brothel, according to. to the arrest record.

He's arrested as a pimp. And one of his, his last bravel operation, which I think is kind of hilarious, it was a floating bravall on the river. So, yeah. Was it to get out of like the, like how you would have to gamble on the river to get out of the state regulations? I don't know, because they still arrested him. But in the book, I say it was, it was the true definition of a pleasure boat.

But anyway. It's a joke. Yeah. So he got arrested a few, in fact, one time he got to. So he had a. boat. Yes. Like what kind of like a keel boat? I think it was like some kind of a flat boat or it wasn't an extra. It wasn't like a casino. No, no. Yeah. It wasn't one of these luxury boats. No, it wasn't like that at all. I think it was a pretty basic boat. But he was arrested more than once. And one time when he was

arrested, it was going to charge him like $44 and he didn't have the money. So he chose to be in jail, him and his brother Morgan. So they sat out their, their, you know, time in jail. And then they went back to doing the same thing. That's when they got the boat or whatever. But I want to narrow in on this boat for me. Okay. I'll just have a hard time. Why are they running a, like, why are they

running a cat house on a boat? Well, I think it's the mobility. Moving target. Yeah. The sheer novelty. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. No, I think it's like you could, the idea is, and I'm kind of speculating here, I mean, you could, again, you could move from place to place or maybe move to a different town,

you know, down the river or whatever. and uh conduct your business so but but it was funny that we laugh so hard about this years ago is uh years ago there's this whole dispute in this town where like this town is trying to ban ice fishing okay remember this town's trying to ban ice fishing there's like this city councilman who is given like this speech at the town meeting and he's talking about well if you allow ice fishing then people are going to have ice shanties If you bring in ice shanties, it's prostitution And that killed it, right?

And the guy became like the laughing style, you know, but it was like But when you're talking about the boat, I'm just trying to, I don't know, just somehow I thought like, why? Like, I don't get like the connection. Yeah. But yeah, you just can move around. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And who knows?

I mean, maybe was it really inexpensive, you know, rather than have a, you know, go to some building in town. But like you say, yeah, you're mobile. and maybe you're here one night and the next night you tell you guys yeah we're going to be on here five miles or whatever was his wife like would you imagine was his wife a madam or was she an actual worker

well so he had four wives and or significant he only there's only one legal marriage record for his first wife but the wife he had in Peoria she apparently was not a madam but was actually a worker working girl yeah now later

it's a generous spirit Yes, later, apparently this wife, when he was in Wichita, because she came with him, and apparently she was a madam or running a brabble. And, you know, it's really sad because these are one-sided affairs. I mean, you know, let's say Doc Holidays, you know, big-nosed Kate. I mean, a lot of times these, these prostitutes, they had gamblers as their partners. And it's like, well, you know, you lose a lot of money at the table. Well, you're having your, your wife, you know, make, you're taking her money, basically.

Or you're just freeloading off of them and just adding a little, getting a little protection form. You're not really doing much work of protection. So it's a sad, it's uneven, I should say, is those relationships. A little predatory. Exactly, yeah. So, but anyway, I, the way I look at, um, so. So White had these unseemly things about his past, but he was in his early 20s. I mean, and, you know, a little sympathetic because he grew out of that.

He became different. He aspired to something better. And when he ends up in Wichita as a policeman, even though his wife is still a prostitute, they rave about him as a policeman there. And when he's in Dodge City, the same thing. I mean, he's like the best policeman they've ever had. And when he gets to Tombstone, you know, he wants to run. run for county sheriff. I mean, he's trying to better himself. And one of the things about the

American West is that you can leave your past behind. I mean, there's nobody on the internet looking you up, you know, like they do today. I mean, you know, finding your high school yearbook photo or you dressed up in some weird character. I mean, it's that you can escape your past. Why was he moving from place to place to be like, was he following money? Was he getting recruited? Was he getting in trouble and having to leave? Like, why did he bounce around? It's a combination of all those things. So he had a good job. He was well respected in Wichita, but he got in a fight there. There was a man that was running against his boss for sheriff. And this man had said some unsavory things about White's brothers. And so he hauled off and hit him. Well, you know, he got arrested and fined and he was dismissed from the police force. Almost immediately thereafter, the mayor of Dodge City learns that Wyatt Earp's available. And so he sends him a letter offering him more pay, you know. And the The cattle herd trade had shifted west. Have you heard of the deadline?

Have you heard of the phrase called the deadline? No. I've dealt with a few deadlines, but not like what you're talking about. So there was a tick-borne disease called Spanish fever. And the Kansas legislature, they had a line. Not a livestock disease, but a human disease. No, a livestock. Yeah.

And they did not want these Texas cattle infecting the herds and the more settled places of Kansas. Is that the one that they're worried about coming back now? I don't know. I haven't heard about that. So anyway, there's Texas fever. Well, they kept moving. They use that, they spray those nilghai with that automated spray gun to try to like get the tick off. Right. Oh, okay.

Well, it was a tick-borne disease. So they kept moving the line west. And so they had moved the line west of Wichita. And so Dodge City became the headquarters. And it was just perfect timing. You know, he needed a job. But as far as Tombstone, for instance, he had resigned his post in Dodge City. He'd heard about the strikes in Tombstone, and he was going to go there to make money.

In fact, he said that he bought a Concord coach, a stage coach, and he thought they might need a stage line. And so his idea was, I'm going to take this coach. When he got there, there were already two stage lines operating. But he went to Tombstone to make money. And actually, to put down roots, I mean, he builds a house for his wife at the time. I mean, he buys mining claims. He's first a deputy sheriff there in the county. And then, you know, he's wanting to run for this.

When they create Cochise County, he wants to run for the county sheriff. He really is looking to advance, to better himself. I mean, to really settle down. You know, he's like 33 or no, he's like 30 or, well, I can't remember, 33, I think, at that time. And there's opportunity here. And he got there right at the birth. I mean, Toonstone was just starting to boom. And so he did have, you know, he did have a real opportunity to make a difference.

and to be someone. The problem was the Cowboys and all the outlawry and the wrestling that was going on. And, you know, when a stage was robbed, well, he was on the posse, you know, when somebody was killed or, you know, they needed somebody. You know, White Earp was the one that was, you know, helping out or, you know, representing the law or his brother needed help. He was helping his brother because his brother was a deputy U.S. Marshal and became chief of police in Tombstone. But he was really looking to change and to make himself better. And even the Earp women, you know, several of them had been prostitutes as well. But one of the things about in the Old West, if someone said, you know, why I could say, this is my wife, you didn't question him.

They just called her Mrs. Earp. I mean, there was no, this stuff didn't follow you. So they really had hopes for a new beginning in Tombstone. Were his brothers, like, was it always like a family business or did they not join him until Tombstone? It wasn't really a family business. But what it was was these brothers, I mean, they were a tight-knit brood and they always tended to come back together and, you know, for instance, Jim Earp was in Tombstone, but he wasn't involved with White. He was, you know, a barkeep there at one of the saloons. Virgil Earp, he didn't invest in the gambling concession that Wyatt had at the Oriental. He was the deputy U.S. Marshal and eventually chief of police. So they liked being together, but they weren't really in business together. Now, I think that they might have shared. some mining claims that they speculated in, but over and over again, they tend to stay together as a family. And, you know, Morgan comes down from Montana when he learns that Wyatt and the

other brothers are in Tombstone and joins him there. And he gets a, he takes, uh, Wyatt's job as a sitting shotgun on a stagecoach after Wyatt becomes the deputy sheriff or whatever. So they just, you know, they, they navigate together because they're family. You know, the thing that, in reading about this era and different figures that I've written about and the Randall's researched about what you're talking about. You get these guys

that are these incredible drifters. Like, when we talk about the mountain man era, um, nowadays someone might think of like a mountain man, you know, like a hermit lives by himself up in a cabin,

oh, he's a true mountain man, you know. This is up in his cabin. Never talks to anybody. I think that's a history. channel show is it yeah so but like the mountain men like the actual mountain men would have been the most widely

like the most some of the most widely traveled people in the country I mean crisscrossing the country right and you think this is a time when you could be a farmer and spend your whole life in a 20 mile radius right in certain areas

like it's not easy to get around these guys get around unbelievable well. Like, if you look at all the, like, how much the Earps move? Would that have seemed at that time? Would that have seemed weird that they lived in, you know, I mean, you've lived in eight states, you've been to the West Coast and back?

No, I don't think so. Because in all these boom towns, people are coming from someplace else. Yeah. I mean, they're all, I mean, especially if it's, uh, now, a mining boomtown is different than a cattle boom town. So, you know, when gold or silver, Tombstone's a silver place, you know, people are coming all over and are thinking they're going to make their riches. And, you know, what's odd is that there was one newspaper account where a guy's writing a letter from Tombstone. And he says most of the, and like at one point, there was like 20 men arriving a day early on.

And he says, most of the people that arrive here are arriving broke. And he said, that's not really a good idea to come here because there's not that many. jobs as far as you know you could if you're a minor you could get like working minor you get like four dollars a day or something like that but i mean it wasn't that there were just all kinds of jobs ready to take these people so you've got a lot of people that are wandering around they don't have a job they don't have the money and then plus everything is super expensive there it's like double uh what you can find elsewhere i mean like a a sack of flower and tombstone with six dollars you could get it in kansas for less than three dollars you know or a bushel or whatever so

So, yeah, so the people are coming from all over, you know, for this. And all the talk is about mining. One of the funny stories I came across was, you know, there are always, people always talk about these different claims. And anyway, in 1880, it was an election year. And it was Garfield, and I can't remember who he was running against. But somebody mentioned Garfield, and they said, oh, where's that claimant? How much does it pay? You know, they thought it was a mighty claim or whatever.

And then another thing, it's just really horrible, actually, but the diar is George Parson. We have his diary, which is so great. But he mentions that there was a lightning strike at the lumberyard in Tombstone, and it killed a man. And he says, you know, some of the people are talking about, maybe it struck there because there was a large load of metal in that spot. Oh, you're kidding. Yeah, they weren't talking about the guy that was killed at all. It's like, I wonder if there's a... Yeah, I wonder if there's some silver there.

It's like, oh, yeah, who was that guy that was, you know, they didn't even care about him. So, yeah. Walk us through, walk us through Doc Holiday. Like, people kind of carry it in their head that these guys are, that these guys are buddies, became buddies, but totally different upbringings. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Doc had a little more advanced education than, than Wyatt did. And you can tell that, you know, if you look at the few letters that we have, a Wyatt, he wasn't the best speller or calligrapher.

But, I mean, he had an education. We have no letters, actually, from Doc. And we know that he was a big letter writer. He had a cousin that he was, some people think he had an affair with. We're not really sure. But he wrote her constantly. And I guess she burned all her letters after Doc. Yeah.

They definitely had the phone. There you go, yeah. Why didn't she have burned the letters? She didn't want anybody to see it. I mean, you know, she burned all of them. So, which is, I mean, we would have had so much information. But according to, there's a family story. that they saw these letters and they said doc was talking about his experiences in the West and talking about what he was doing and what he was seeing and we would have had so much more information but to get back to your question um you know he was a doc he was a doc he was a dentist um he actually went to a dent the the most uh prestigious dental school in the country at that time was in philadelphia the philadelphia dental school um and he got a degree uh he went there in 1870 he got his dental degree uh one of the

few photographs we have of him was taken in Philadelphia, and we think it was like a graduation photo or whatever, and it has his signature on the back, and it says, you know, J.H. Holliday, D, D, D, D, D, or whatever. But anyway, so he also comes down with tuberculosis. His mother had tuberculosis, and there's speculation that, well, you know, he probably got it from her. In the 19th century, people didn't know it was contagious. So, you know, today, if somebody, oh, I got TB, you're coughing all over the place. That's what I got right now. I hope you're taking some pit of sillin.

But anyway, yeah, you would, I mean, people didn't know that. They called it consumption. Yes, exactly. Yeah, or they called him a lunger. What is it in the movie Tombstone? Yeah. Johnny Ringo calls him a lunger or whatever. So anyway, there's a couple of theories as to why he goes out west.

And one of them is that they encourage him to go west because of his health. You know, let's go out to a different climate. It's odd because he goes to Texas. Texas, which is Dallas, which is not that much different from where he is as far as humidity and all that stuff. But that comes up, though. Yes. That comes up. Like the historian Francis Parkman, who wrote sort of like at the time a definitive history of the French and Indian War, he gets advised by his doctor.

You need to go out west for your health. So he goes out and starts hanging out in the Dakotas. Probably goes to crazy, probably is in the same camp in a Glawful camp. probably in the same camp with crazy horse and crazy horses like 13 years old and he's out there on his like doctor's recommendation yeah it was called the prairie cure yeah they believed you know now yeah they was called the prairie cure and they see reference to it so much you've got to get away from the miasmas yeah the bad air the east well and there's some amazing survival stories of a josiah gregg who wrote a book called commerce the prairies he was advised to go out west this is in the 1830s and along the Santa Fe Trail, he started his journey as an invalid. He could not walk. Within a few weeks, he's up and walking.

He's eating buffalo meat, and he's like fully recovered. What was his affliction? We don't know. I mean, we don't know, but he was so bad off, but he couldn't even walk. I wonder if he just had celiacs.

Well, do you know what I'm saying? No. Well, think it through. He's got, he's a celiac. Okay. And also now he's out there eating, nothing but me. I thought you didn't believe in seal.

It's like totally my, no, I believe in that. Uh, you don't believe in trendy. I don't believe in gluten intolerance. Okay, got you. But what, what a lot of, I believe in it as a partisan disease, right. It's a political disease. Well, what, what history, what's, what's, what's, what's, what

some historians think, I told you, it was refuted. Oh, okay. I used to feel, just to, I said something incendiary, I got to clean it up. I used to feel. that it was a that just with all due respect to everyone out there. I know plenty of celiac

far. No, I'm a bleeding. I came up with this theory based on just nothing that gluten intolerance was a left wing affliction.

Okay? I was like, how could there be, so I questioned this legitimacy like how could there be a health problem that seems that mostly strike people of

a politically left persuasion. But then my buddy Spencer our colleague came to me with a quiz and it's like it's like breaks down different belief systems into like right leaning left leaning ghost he's like ghosts and I'm like definitely left wing he's like no no if you're right wing you're more inclined to believe so anyways once he walked me they didn't do the gluten intolerance but like the one thing you can say is right wing people like a rare steak more than left wing people but you can't

can't say that they get more gluten intolerance. I don't even know where you sit politically. Well, you don't need to tell me. But I just wanted to clear that up, because I don't want to rehash. I don't want to open old wounds. I'm glad you did a statistical study. Well, that's the problems I did. Oh.

But my friend did. And it caused you to rethink. And he challenged a lot of my assumptions, and then my theory fell apart, as many theories do. That's all. Hey folks, Steve Ronella here. It's that time again, the Meat Eater Black Friday sale. From November 20 through December 1, you can save up to 50% across the entire Meat Eater family of brands. First Light, FHF Gear, Dave Smith Decoys, Phelps, and the Meat Eaters store.

Whether you're chasing elk, setting decoys, or just gearing up for camp, this is the time to upgrade the kit that carries you through the season. visit your favorite brand site to find your deal and don't miss the meat eater Black Friday sale. The Prairie Cere. Yes. We don't know what Josiah Greg. No, we don't. What his affliction was.

But I believe it was celiacs. Okay. All right. Yeah, well, it could very well be. I mean, I can't say either way. But a lot of historians think that people that were ill that went west may not really have had tuberculosis to begin with. It might have been, you know,

something else and also tuberculosis can go into remission as well so um so but but but but you're right though i mean doctors were constantly referring you know go west or whatever and so in in in like medical hindsight is it that that wasn't like like that wasn't a way to cure that that wasn't actually helpful if you had tb i well it might have been helpful just because you're getting away from this, I mean, the West is arid. So you have dry air. You're getting away from this humid. You're getting away from all the coal smoke and that certainly isn't going to make your TB any better. So I think it was helpful. And you had all kinds of sanitariums popping up in the late 19th century, early 20th century. Colorado Springs was a huge place for sanitariums. And they had little

huts and you're supposed to get out in the sun, which is helpful, you know, getting sunlight. What's a sanitarium? Oh, it's a huge complex for creeding patients. of tuberculosis with like dozens and dozens, hundreds of individual huts. What? Yeah, and you would go. I would have thought you meant like an insane asylum, a sanitarium? Yeah, sanitarium, yeah. Did you know this, Randall?

They covered that one in the doctorate? I mean, that's where he ended up in Glenwood Springs. I believe, uh, I sure, hot springs used to be a sanitarium. Oh, man. Always springs. They're always hot springs. Yeah, I know this because I would have raised my hand like in trivia. I'd have been like, same asylum.

Yeah. But you get sane aside. That's what that is. Was Doc Holliday already, like, before he left the East to go West? Was he already like a never do well gambler and drinker and all that? Well, there's some authors have written that he had kind of learned to play cards while he was in Georgia before going west. But here's the other story that's more unseemly about Doc Holliday that counters the tuberculosis story. There was this fishing hole along the river where he's a euphemism.

No, no, it's a real, no, I'm sorry, it's a swimming hole. Sorry, a swimming hole. And anyway, it was enjoyed by both black swimmers and white swimmers. Oh, I've heard this. Yes, and so the white swimmers, including Doc Holliday, did not want that black swimmers in their swimming hole. And they threatened them and said, you're going to have to go someplace else. Well, the black young men said, we're not going someplace else. You can go someplace else.

Well, a few days later, Doc Holliday shows up with a double-barrel shotgun, and he yells at him all to get out. And then as they're clamoring out of the fishing, the swimming hole, he unloads both barrels and apparently kills two of these young men, yeah. Doc Holliday. Yes. And the story is. Bell Kilmer. Yeah. That's right.

Yeah. Did his quade. So the story is, is that the family, I mean, apparently it wasn't a horrible, you know, thing to kill black men in Georgia right after the Civil. war, but they suggested, oh, maybe you need to leave for a while until things settle down or whatever. The family does have stories of this incident, but they say Doc Holliday fired over the heads of the swimmers. I can tell you that there are no legal documents known or newspaper reports that mention this episode at all. Doesn't it, does it seem like a thing that would have been reported on? It seems like if two men were killed, whether black or white, I think it

would have been reported, but it's a very strong story in the lore. And when Doc Holliday died in Glenwood Springs, his obituary in a Montana paper mentions that episode, says he had killed a couple of black men or one black man in Georgia. So that story, you know, how I said you can escape your past, that story stuck around. People knew that story. I would just love to, I mean, it would make me feel better if I found an actual document from the time or a newspaper report, that these men had been killed or whatever but it's also believable i mean i can't say it didn't happen it's it's believable so when he left when he leaves georgia and whether it's it's because he's got consumption whether because he's worried about getting arrested yeah he leaves dentistry

no no he sets up a he has a partner in dallas texas and they have a dental he has a partner His name is Segar, yes, Seeger. And this is the cool thing. I mean, there's a local fair, the Texas Industrial Association. They get a prize for like the best false teeth. So Doc Holliday is an award-winning dentist. He not only has a dental degree, but now he's an award-winning dentist, and he's in his early 20s, you know. But Dallas is also where he takes a different path.

He diverges. He later in talking to a newspaper reporter, he said, yeah, I was part of the Methodist Church. He was even part of this group of what you wouldn't call it AAA, but it was a temperance organization. But then he says that I swayed, something from rectitude or whatever. And so, yeah, he started gambling. Bat Masters and says, you know, there was gambling was rampant in Dallas. says that was the one way to sure make money in Dallas because of all the places where you gamble. We know that Doc was arrested there for gambling in Dallas. And apparently, you know,

Doc's life as a gambler. Well, in fact, Batman's says the only way to get an appointment was to sit across from at a poker table, you know, so I guess his partner got fed up and they separated. And only a few more times do we know that Doc Holiday does practice dentistry or at least appear to, you know, he apparently set out in Denton, Texas. He set out a sign, you know, dentistry. And in Dodge City, when he arrives there, he puts an ad in the paper. And so we have those newspapers. Oh, he does. Yeah, it says, you know, John H. Holliday dentist. But after that, we have no record that he actually practiced as a dentist. For instance, he was in Prescott, Arizona for a while. He was gambling. He was definitely not practicing dentistry in Tombstone. He was a full-time gambler.

But the funny thing is, in the 1880 census for Arizona, his occupation is listed as dentist. But he wasn't doing, I mean, you know, it's kind of like, this is the other weird thing. The Earp brothers in the same census, they're listed as farmers. They weren't farming. Why it hated farming? But, you know, I guess you tell the census taker, what's your occupation? Oh, I'm farmer. I don't know.

But anyway, I just thought that census taker had to chuckle when Doc said, yeah, put me down as dentist because he was not doing dentists. history in Prescott, Arizona. Got it. If he, if a guy like Doc Holiday filled out of, like, his tax forms at the end of a year of gambling, um, like, he's, he's showing like a gain. He, like, yeah, do I mean, like, when he, when he, when you read all these guys, like, he was a gambler, professional gambler, what's that look like economically? There's no house, right?

Oh, no. You're just, you're playing at a table just like anybody. Yeah. Well, is it, there's guys that are legitimately supporting themselves, or is it that you're doing other nefarious stuff, but you're mostly spending your time playing cards, but your income is from prostitution or whatever to hell you got going on? Well, sometimes you're actually just being paid as a dealer in a gambling establishment. You're not necessarily taking part of the women's or winnings, or, you know, you get a concession. you can run this ferro table and you'll give so much to the guy that owns a place and that you keep so much. Got it.

But the thing is... So it's not like that you need to win more than you lose. There's other ways to turn a problem. There's other ways to turn a living as a gambler. Yes. But, I mean, Doc, his income had to be so erratic. You know, he definitely had highs and lows and the last few years were definitely lows. I mean, he's bouncing around from one place to the other and has no money.

um this incident well here's an example in leadville uh he borrowed like five dollars from this guy and he wasn't paying it back and a guy kept harassing him you know it's just five dollars you know it's not the end of the world or whatever but doc doesn't have the money and you know he ends up pawning a bunch of stuff when he dies in glenwood springs he has hardly anything um he had a few possessions that were sent back to his family there were no guns that were sent back so he probably sold those long before um there was a stick pin, a gold stick pin that had a diamond in it, the diamond was gone. So he probably talked the hat and sold it. I mean, why the hell did he? I mean, it was sad. I was like,

why did he get, like, why did he get out of, why not this be a dentist? Well, I guess he didn't like it. I mean, you know, I mean, gambling, he was a gambling addict. He was addicted to it. I mean, he had to gamble. Was he drunk too? He was often drunk, yes. And, you know, if you want to be sympathetic to Doc. You can say he was self-medicating. I mean, he had tuberculosis. So there's lodinum, any kind of tonic that you took had all kinds of alcohol in it. So, but the problem with the drinking was that, you know, he was what they would call him mean drunk. You know, he was not a good person. And he was quick to get angry and get into fights. And as White Earp said, you know, Doc was his own worst enemy. And that was one of the things that kind of this bond that they had, you know,

Wyatt kind of, and the brothers kind of took care of Doc, but he got out of control. There's an account when they were in Gunnison, Colorado, and the guy remembered all of them. And he said, oh, yeah, when Doc started to get out of control, they kind of took him aside and took him away. I mean, they kind of looked after him. And once they separated, he didn't have that family, really, to his other brothers. They were kind of like siblings in a way. Doc was three years younger than Wyatt. But anyway, yeah, it was really, for Doc at the end, it was very sad.

But people that wrote about him said he was always a meticulous dresser. And he didn't dress over the top or whatever, but he's just meticulous. Even in Tombstone, Big Nose Kate says when he went out that day that ended up in the OK corral, it's like, you know, he'll be able to see me once I'm dressed or whatever. And so he got all dressed. He had a cane. He had an overcoat. And it was very sharp. You know, it took real pride in his appearance.

If you were hanging out with Big Nose Kate, would you say, excuse me, Big Nose Kate? I don't think she liked that at all yeah well and that's a name here's the this is what's so interesting that name comes from one person white herb white herb said she was oh he's a bully too yeah big nose kate and big he coined the term well he's the only reference that we have we don't see big nose kate in contemporary newspapers but his account that he left he calls her big nose kate and She left her own account. She never refers, you know, to that, of course. Now, here's an interesting theory behind that name, though.

A buddy of mine, Ron Hanson. She's Hungarian, right? Yes, she is. Yeah, my buddy of mine, Ron Hanson, who wrote the assassination of Jesse James. Dude, that is an unbelievable book. It's a great book. Your buddies with him? Yeah, yeah, he's a friend of mine.

And he wrote a blur, but it's on the back of that book. Oh. But anyway, Ron had a great theory, and I included it in my book. He says, you know, I always wondered about that name, and I think I know where it came from. He thinks that it's a corruption of the term for braw, the Italian term banyo, because Banyao was a bravo. He thinks they called her banyo, Kate, and it got corrupted into big nose just to kind of irk her. That's his theory, you know.

I mean, I don't want to be rude to her, but, I mean, you've seen pictures of her. Yes. Yeah. But that's it's not like, you know what I mean? That's in later life. That's in later life. You know it's terrible? When I was in high school, we had a friend.

Her name was Michelle. she had a hook nose everybody called her hook she called herself hook and her boyfriend called her hook oh they call her nowadays yeah i'm sure it's not that yeah she would even say oh wow she said tell her hook called well you know she was a perpetual i say in the book a perpetual erp hater and that tells me how big nose kate hated the erps oh yeah she hated but but it tells me how close that bond was between Wyatt and Doc because she was so jealous of that relationship and she just hated she seethed against why she thought white was the one that ended caused all their problems between her and Doc you know white just said well they were always a quarrelsome couple that was all he had to

say about it but um she a big booze or two no i don't think so i mean i haven't seen any references to her being a drinker but and she in her own account she claimed that oh you know doc had a whiskey bottle with him but he never really drank well i mean everybody else says he drank you know, all the time, and he was often drunk. She was very kind in her recollections of Doc. But no, she hated the Earps. She thought that was the end of their relationship. She thought that how everything went wrong, and they turned Doc wrong.

And she actually, I mean, she was so mad at Doc, and they would often have these big horrible fights. And she went to the sheriff, Johnny Bean, and implicated Doc in the Benson stage robbery. She said, oh, yeah. Her boyfriend. Yeah, her boyfriend. And then she later said, this was my way of getting them away from. The Earps. Well, he could have been hung, you know, because there was a guy, a couple of guys, you know, was a guy killed. No, two people killed in that robbery. So she was that angry with him that she implicated him. And then, of course, the prosecuting attorney, once he heard this story and there was no evidence. He said, he asked the judge to dismiss the case. He said, there's no evidence whatsoever that what she's saying is true. There's not to back that up. But no, she did. She turned her lover in and tried to get him arrested. Well, he did get arrested, but it didn't go to trial. All right, set up how

Set up how it comes that Like rather Like the way you talk about these guys Rather than being like there's a like super slick You know Virtuous Right White-headed Western heroes

It's they're kind of just Like drifters make and do Well in a way A little gambling little drinking Yeah in a way I think I think Wyatt is a little more than that.

You know, the fact that Wyatt builds a house in Tombstone tells me something that he's aspiring to more. Doc Holliday, throughout his life, never bought a house. He was always rooming somewhere. In fact, in Tombstone, he was at a boarding house, the Fly Boarding House, which is right

next to where the... What is it called? Flies. F-L-Y. Their last name was Fly. C-S-Fly was a famous photographer, and he had a photo studio behind the boarding house. And anyway, so Doc had a room there, and that's where Kate stayed when she would come to visit him. You know, they'd have these fights, and they would separate, and then Kate said that she

would get a letter from Doc and say, hey, would you come be? I'd like to see you again. And she came back at like three different times when she came back to see him. There was this off and on again relationship, but she couldn't stand the Earps. So I think that she couldn't stand to be in Tombstone very long. How did Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp? Like, how did it all start? Was Doc Holliday just gambling out his establishment at Wyatt Earp?

establishment and they got to know each other that way or like so that's a great question i'm glad you asked it and that's that's one of the reasons for the book was that you know when we see the movies they tell us that they're friends but nobody knows how they became they don't even cover that it's like it's just accepted yeah so what happened was is that uh doc and white had first met about 1877 uh in fort griffin uh Texas and um white was down there he was being employed by the atchson Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad to track down a couple of these men had been robbing the railroad camps and he was employed to track them down and when he got to Fort Griffin the owner of this saloon gambling establishment Wyatt asked him he says hey you know I'm looking for these guys and he says

well if anybody would know it would be Doc Holliday do you know him and White didn't know him and so they introduced each other and Wyatt talked about this a lot he says you at the time I wasn't looking for a friend I was looking for information about, you know, where these guys might be. And Doc said, well, you know, let me ask around and I'll see what I can do. And I guess Doc gave him a few leads that didn't pan out. But Doc had also pumped Wyatt about Dodge City, you know, because Doc was kind of looking for, you know, someplace else where it might be a good place to land.

And he was with Big Nose Kate at that time. And so Doc ends up in Dodge City. And you remember I said he placed that ad for a dentist office. But one night, and this was happening almost. constantly. You know, cowboys are being rowdy, wanting to shoot up the town. There was a big gang of cowboys starting to shoot off their guns, and then they see Wyatt Earp on the street near the Long Branch Saloon by himself, and they quickly surround him, and they got their guns, and they're saying, we're going to get you now. For what? They just didn't like him. You know, he was the law,

and they were drunk, you know, and so we're going to get you. Wyatt dearly, I mean, he thought he was going to be killed. He thought that was going to be it. Well, inside the Long Branch, they had glass windows. And Doc Holliday is back in. Swinging doors. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I doubt it. But anyway, he sees through the window what's going on. And the guy at the dealer, he says, do you have a gun? And the guy says, yeah. So Doc gets it. Doc has his own gun. He comes out the door with both guns. His gun and a borrowed gun. His gun and a borrowed gun. He said, hold up your hands. And of course, the cowboys are all startled and they do. And then Wyatt goes for his guns. And they march him off to jail and lock him up. So Wyatt said this more than once and he said from that day forward I was Doc Holliday's friend. We were friends. I mean, he's he he considered his life saved and he thought he was indebted. I mean, he really thought his life was in danger and he says we were friends. And so no matter of the crazy stuff Doc did, you know, White stuck with him. And and the Cowboys in Tombstone, they even tried to use Doc against him by putting these, you know, claiming he was a stage robber and.

He was a bad character because everybody in town knew they were friends. So by association, if they make Doc look bad, well, how are we, we're not going to like Wyatt Earp. He's a friend of this crazy, you know, Thief, you know, Doc Holliday. But that really says something to me about Wyatt Earp, you know, that he, you know, had that bond. It's like, you save my life. We're friends, you know. Doesn't care what you do or what happens. We're friends.

Got it. And that's the way it was until, you know, they separate eventually after the vendetta ride. and doc they they do see each other one last time in denver and i actually found the notice often when people checked into a hotel the paper would say who's staying you know you could go through a list and white erp trinidad is staying at the hotel here that was news and doc holiday read that and he went down to meet him at the hotel and josephine erp white's last wife wrote an account and she said that uh they were just amazed i mean doc was just looked horrible he was all thin, like an old band.

But, you know, Wyatt just had this. So, yeah. No, I don't think like that. But anyway. Is Steve your friend? For the list of Steve. I asked myself that every day. But anyway, they embrace, and they go as to a table to the side and they're chatting.

And then they stand up later, a few minutes later, however long it took. And they shake hands. And she actually tells what. white said and and uh you know uh doc said something like who would have imagined you know that that um you know that that that i would be the first to go or whatever between us in and uh anyway they part prophesizing his death yes he is and uh white irp comes back to the table and there's tears in his eyes huh i mean there is no other account of white irp crying i guarantee you you're ever going to see that but he's in tears you know after his friend parts and he just knows he's not

going to ever see him again. Huh, yeah. Hey, folks, Steve Ronella here. It's that time again, the Meat Eater Black Friday sale. From November 20 through December 1, you can save up to 50% across the entire meat eater family of brands. First Light, FHF Gear, Dave Smith Decoys, Phelps, and the Meat Eaters store. Whether you're chasing elk, setting decoys, or just gearing up for camp, this is the time

to upgrade the kit that carries you. through the season visit your favorite brand site to find your deal and don't miss the meat eater black friday sale explain the mashup that occurs around the okay corral like who the i've read accounts of this i still cannot explain or understand who's mad at who is there an efficient way of explaining well i'll try to make it brief it's the most yeah byzantine a lot of it like he's mad about this and mad about that and was hired by him it's not like like well there's lots of under there's lots of undercurrents i mean the irp brothers they were on the side of of law and order okay um and uh white irp had made this deal uh and it was not it was not a good idea you know

it was a form of gambling essentially but um the the stage had been robbed the benson stage had been robbed, and two people have been killed, the driver and a passenger. Okay. So we're now on the outskirts of tombstone. Yes, so the stagecoach was robbed and everything. And this is a way, this is like a scheduled piece of transportation into tombstone. Well, going out of tombstone. Okay, and it's robbed of what?

Well, it wasn't robbed because it went, it went bad. So the guy that was, you know, the guy riding shotgun, you know, when the, when the robbers say hold, he goes, I hold for nobody. buddy and they start blasting away and the driver's killed instantly he falls down between the line so we got a runaway coach they shoot at the coaches that's going away they kill a passenger on top you know a mile or two or several miles later they finally get this the the coach stopped so they know who the robbers were they were three men and there was a big hunt for him doc holiday started initially but wyatt's involved verge warps involved johnny beans involved and they They go out for miles and days.

I got a quick question. Okay. This is where I start getting confused. Oh. How in the world is it Doc Holliday's business? Because Doc Holliday, this is something that Virgil Earp said. Whenever there was a posse formed, Doc Holliday was always there to help out. It's like, yeah.

So he's like, I'm sick. I'm half dead. I'm drunk. Yeah. I'd love to throw in. Yeah, no, he does. It's a fun time. When he's needed.

Well, plus his buddies are there. You know, there's Wyatt. There's Morgan. He's the same age as Morgan. So he just gets excited when there's a posse. It's like your buddy drew a tag, you know. Maybe. Well, I think he also thought it was the right thing to do and they needed help, you know.

So he's like he's one of the guys that likes to be in the possees. Yes, exactly. So, but he wasn't on that posse for very long. But regardless, so they know who the robbers are because they catch one of them. And now I think I mentioned that Wyatt, he is eager to become the Colchise County Sheriff. He thinks if I catch these robbers, I, you know, that's going to let a lot of credence to me. I'm going to be a hero. So he approaches, this is the bad idea.

He approaches one of the cowboys, Ike Clanton, who's in cahoots with all the, he knows everybody, he's in cahoots with him. He's considered a leader of the cowboys, actually. And he says a proposition. He says, you know, Wells Fargo is offering $5,000 for the capture of these guys. If you help me capture him, I'll give you the $5,000. All I want is the glory.

So just lead them to some place where we can get. So Ike agrees. He's going to turn in these people that he knows for the $5,000. dollars um well later uh it gets a little complicated but but yes yes yes but ike fears he fears that why it didn't keep his secret because ike said you know i want to find out if you'll if it's if that roared is good dead or alive and so white finds out he goes to the wells fargo office they telegraph it and yeah it's good dead or alive but he doesn't tell the wells fargo man what's going on but he reads the telegram

and so he just kind of assumes that he's doing that Ike is doing something with White and he approaches Ike's oh yeah you know you're going to go get those guys I guess got too confused I have to understand I have to trust other people are you confused I'm

I'm waiting to hear more Ike's gang is like making sure he's not screwing him over exactly who sent the telegram Wyatt sent the telegram to the Wells Park office says Ike the the the inside man yes he goes hey is that i get five thousand bucks dead or a lot yes and so they send

the telegram let me check yes why it telegrams the bank yes well's for san francisco what's now the bank wells fargo they say no problem dead's fine yeah but then what well because i understand like the then well the wells fargo man sees the telegram from wyatt from wyatt and back and so he makes the connection oh he said he sees he saw white and ike talking together So he makes the connection that Ike is working with Wyatt and he mentions it to Ike and Ike starts freaking out because So he goes, oh, I understand you're working with Wyatt Earp to because of the bad guys. Yes, exactly. Because Ike is fearing for his death because this happened to got men of the cowboys who got caught or or spilled the beans.

They were, they disappeared. And so Ike is terrified. And so he goes and gets mad at Wyatt. Then he accuses Doc of telling people, and he just goes into this rampage, and he's just angry, and you guys lie. I mean, you weren't supposed to tell about this, and then he gets drunk, and he keeps ranting and raving all night long, and he says, you know, and then the next day, and I'm skipping over a lot of stuff, but it's mostly Ike is the problem here. Um, the next day, uh, he's saying, you know, uh, he's telling people, as soon as those Earp brothers get up, I'm going to get him, you know, or I'm going to get Doc Holliday. Can I interrupt you?

Like the cowboys are Ike's gang, right? Like that's like, yes, it's like a loose. Yes, it's a loose amalgamation. And some people look at Ike as a leader or one, I should, there wasn't just one leader, but is one of the leading men. But yeah, the cowboys are all, and no, not all the cowboys were stage robbers. Mostly they were just rustlers. Yeah.

Are they like a mafia style? Yeah, in a way, I mean, you know, there's, you got certain ranchers that are fencing the cattle for the rustlers. They're actually going over the border to Mexico, which is just a day's right away and stealing cattle. And there's, you know, there's butchers and others that they just wink, wink, and they buy the cattle. And that's why so many people and merchants in Tombstone tended to let things with the Cowboys go because they were making money off of them. And the herbs were kind of a, you know, monkey wrench in this whole, you know, they, were they were putting a stop of those kinds of things. So anyway, Ike, Ike is on a rampant.

You're doing a phenomenal job. Oh, thanks. Well, anyway. It's the first time of my life I've ever understood this. Oh, well, good. Yeah. Well, I prefer you read the book, but, uh, well, no, I will. That's why, you know, I've never understood this.

Okay. Well, Ike's on a rampage. He's drunk. He's making all kinds of threats. And these are on top of threats that other cowboys had made in the past. They just don't like the Earps. So the McCarrie brothers, they had threatened them in the past. So Doc Holliday arrives in town

He'd been in Tucson And Ike gets an argument with him And they're threatening each other And what's their What are they arguing about? Well, because Ike believes that Doc is in on it too That Doc has been spreading a word about this Because he's buddies with the herbs

He's buddy with the herbs And he's in and White's you know So these guys are like They're drunk They're accusing each other of stuff And Wyatt had Doc come in to explain Because White tells I didn't say anything I didn't say anything to Doc

And when Doc gets here, he'll be able to, you know, tell you, well, Doc, you know, he gets angry quickly anyway. And so it's just mostly just kind of this, you know, shouting match between the two of them. But the next morning, okay, so Ike's going around. I think that if someone had said, let's all get together and talk this through. Maybe. Let's just go forward with the $5,000 plan that we had lined out. Well, speaking of lines from the movie Toonstone, this is where it comes from. So the night before the OK Corral, you'll, Doc.

is confronting Ike, and he says, and Ike says, I'm not healed, you know, and Doc says, well, go get healed, you know, I'll meet him either, that's that kind of threats that are going on. Like, I don't have my gun. I don't have my gun. I'm not healed. You know, I don't have my gun. And Doc says, go get your gun. And so Ike spends all night up, and he's gambling and he's drinking. He's not shaving. He's pretty disheveled, I'm thinking. And the next morning, you know, Virgil, people are, you have to remember, people that spend the night as gamblers, They go to bed late and they sleep late. So all these guys that are involved, like the Earps, they're getting up like at noon or what. I mean, that's the normal day for them. They're sleeping until noon. So people are waking up Virgil and Wyatt and said, Mike's going around here and he's threatened to kill you guys. And he sees you.

And Wyatt's saying, okay, I'm going to sleep a little longer. And then they weren't too worried. Virgil's the same way. So you're saying the Western trope of a showdown at high noon is largely derivative of their sleeping habits. Yeah, it might be, yeah. I had a, I dated a girl for a while. She was a flight attendant and a gambling addict. Very erratic sleep hours.

Oh, interesting. Because you got a double whammy there. Yeah. So, anyway, finally they get up and, and Virgil, he says, okay, I'm going to go take care of Ike. And he finds him. Like, take care him in what way? Well, and arrest him, you know, and take his gun away because he's armed. You're not supposed to carry guns.

So he's like, Ike's wandering around town, hungover, drunk. Yes, threatening people, you know, shouting. And he sneaks up behind him and cloppers him over the head, takes his gun. I mean, it was a serious blow because he had to go to the doctor and get banned. But then they take... There's like a comic quality doll. There is. So they take...

I'm not making fun of the book. I'm saying it's like a cop like up until the shooting. There's like a comic quality. Oh, yeah, yeah, because I mean, it's crazy. But they take him to the court in Tombstone. And so Ike is there and Wyatt's in there. And, you know, he's going to get fined, of course. But that's where Ike says, you know, he's,

starts yelling at white he says all i want is four feet of ground you know and you took my guns away give him on my guns and and uh there'll be a reason for a coroner's inquet i mean he just gets goes on and on hammered what's four feet of ground mean distance all i want is four feet of ground between us to shoot you he wants to have a gun fight right all i want is give me four feet of ground you and uh why it didn't have to say like what does that mean no he you do exactly yeah yeah and so uh anyway then the mccari brothers arrived or the mcclari brothers arrived or the mccari one of the brothers arrives in And after this incident with Ike, you know, the Vicarys had also been making threats. And Wyatt comes up to Tom McCurry, who's outside.

And Tom McCarrey says something like, well, if you want to fight, I'll fight you right now. Well, White gets his revolver and hammers them over the head. Took the fight right out of Tom McClarie. But then when Fray McClarie gets a town, it's like, why did White hit my brother? You know, and so now the McCarys who are friends with the Clantons, they're all mad at the herbs and they're continuing to make threats. and then people are so this is what's amazing so you know Virgil and Wyatt and Morgan they're kind of wandering around the streets

there's a lot of people on the streets and people keep coming up to Virgil says there's these guys that are going to kill you they're threatening you or whatever and it's like he knows who it is but but over and over and then there's other men that come up say there's like this vigilante group or minute men and it says hey I can get like

so many men together if you want help or whatever Virgins no no I don't want any help like we'll get guys to help you beat up the drugs exactly the rest of the other drugs Yes. And Virgil says, no, no, I can take care of it. And finally, you know, Virgil just get so much of this. And even Johnny Bean, who's the sheriff, the county sheriff, Virgil says, well, can you go and disarm him or whatever? And Johnny Bean, I don't really want to do that. You know, and so finally Virgil is fed up, you know, and after the last time somebody says these guys, they're down there by FI's boarding house, which is where Doc is staying, and which, you know, that's kind of interesting. They're threatening Doc, and here they are at this. right next to where Doc lives. And so Virgil's had enough, and he says, you know, those guys are carrying guns in town against the law.

You know, that's insult to me. It's disrespecting me in my office. That's disrespecting the laws. And I'm going to go disarm him. And so he gets Wyatt, he gets Morgan, who are all there. And then Doc Holliday, you're not going to leave me out, are you? And Wyatt goes, well, he says, it's going to be a hard fight. And Doc says, that's the kind I like.

And so he's deputized. Is that a paid gig? What's that? No. Doc Holliday joins a posse or Doc Holiday does this. There's no financial. No, usually not. Sometimes Wells Fargo would reimburse them, you know, kind of like a per diem or, you know, if they, you know, food. I mean, sometimes they would give them money for the time they spent going after these individuals. And that was also another kind of sore point between the Earp Brothers and Johnny Bean. Johnny Bean, who was the county sheriff, who was leading that posse after the stage robbers, we talked about. He paid himself and his men, but he paid himself and his men. He didn't pay the Earps. And the Earp, well, what about it? We were riding with you, whatever.

And finally, Wells Fargo, I guess, coughed up some money for him. But anyway, Virgil Earp decides, I'm going to go down there. I hear they're down here by, you know, flies boarding house. So we got Wyatt, we got Virgil, we got Morgan, and we got Doc Holliday. And Virgil has the authority to do that because he's a U.S. Marshal? Well, it's mostly because at that time he's also the chief of police of Toonstone. So he's both chief of police and a deputy U.S. Marshall. So he's in charge of enforcing Tombstone's laws.

And he's just sick of these threats. I mean, you know, after a while, it's like, you know, you can keep saying, I'm going to kill you. I'm going to kill you. And, you know, pretty soon you're kind of done with that, right? Because the guy might kill you. You don't know when the threat ends and when it becomes real. But mainly, they're breaking the law, so I'm going to disarm him. So they around the corner.

And they see the, you know, they see the clans and they see the Macquarie's up there. And they see the horses. There's a couple horses. And they see Johnny Behan. And Johnny Behan's been talking to him. And Johnny Bean starts rushing towards Earps and Holiday, and he keeps looking back over his shoulder. He's scared. He's going to get shot at the back.

Well, not that he gets shot at the back. He's scared of what's going to happen. And he says, Virgil, don't go down there. They're going to, you know, there's going to be a battle. There's going to be war. Don't go down there. And Virgil says, I'm going to disarm him. And then Johnny Bean lies.

He says, I've already disarmed him. Well, he had not disarmed him. And really all Johnny Bean had to say, if he wanted to prevent this, he could have said they're leaving town. Because if you're leaving town, you can have your. guns. He doesn't say that. In fact, he asked him to leave town, but they said, oh, we're going to hang around a little bit longer. So anyway, he lies to him. He's trying to get, you know, I've already disarmed him. And so this kind of breathed a little air of relief into herbs and Doc Holliday. Oh, okay, they put their guns away, you know. Oh, they believe them. Oh, yeah, they believe him.

Yeah, because, uh, but Virgil's still going down there. But he had his, uh, he had his revolver in his waistband at the front where he could grab it easily. So he pushes it back around or whichever side it was. and he takes that he has this cane that was Doc Holliday's cane he was carrying and then he had given his shotgun to Doc Holliday who was supposed to hide it under his long coat which he did

but they're not pulling out their guns and like I said White put his he carried his gun in a coat pocket which is an aside is a very odd all the movies that were in gun leather but not at the OK Corral these I mean White had his in a pocket Doc Holliday had a revolver in his pocket

and Virgil had his gun in a waistband It wasn't even a gun holsterer belt. So anyway, they're relieved, okay, we're still going to go down there. But they think that there's no guns. You think they think that? They think that, yes, because they mentioned how they had put their guns away. They believed the sheriff, you know, why would he lie to us? He says, I've already disarmed him.

I don't want to overplay this part, but at this point, how many of these people do you think are in some degree intoxicated? Well, Ike is definitely intoxicated. I don't know that Doc Holliday was intoxicated. Some people believe that he might have been, but from what I've read, I mean, he had just gotten up a short time before. I mean, there's no accounts of him carousing in the bars and all that stuff. So I don't think he was inebriated, but he might have had a few drinks. I mean, I don't know.

But they're like, there's like a, there's a clear headed quality. Yes, Wyatt Earp. And Wyatt Earp wasn't known to drink. I can't say he was a teetotaler, but some people do. but he abstained for the most part. Virgil hadn't been drinking. Morgan probably hadn't been drinking. And I really don't think either the Macquarie brothers,

Frank or Tom, have been drinking. Okay. Or Billy Clanton, who was just, you know, like 19 years old. But Ike was definitely, I mean, he was way over the top, out of control drunk. And like I said, it was all his ranting and raving threats that really brought this to a head. So they get close.

And now keep in mind, this lot that they're in near the OK Corral is they say from 15 to 19 feet wide it's a very constricted space there's actually a couple of horses there they come down there and the first thing they see is these guys have their guns they are armed and uh so the first thing virgil says boys i want your guns well they immediately reach for their guns and virgil says hold i you know i don't want that he holds the cane up and white erp admitted in his testimony that he was the first one to fire he fires at frank lucari he said i fired first because he considered frank to be the best shot and the coolest under fire. So he wants to take

him out first. He hits him in the stomach, doesn't kill him right away. So Wyatt Earp actually opens the gunfight there at the OK Corral. After that... If he hadn't shot, do you think there would have been shots fired? I don't know. I do know

that Wyatt Earp thought that they were going to be shot or he wouldn't have done that. He felt that it was imminent. In fact, they even talked about, they kept bringing up the word fight. You know, they talked about fight. You know, what if they fight, you know, well, we'll shoot their horses and, you know, all this kind of stuff. They were kind of thinking about me, you know, Wyatt said, you know, we were pretty sure they were going to fight. And so when they looked like they were going for their guns, not to just turn them over, but they actually, you know, kill.

He decides, I'm going to take out. And that's what he testifies. I took him out first. And there's just that very split second. In fact, they say that Wyatt shot and the shot from Frank, which missed, were with a split second. I mean, they thought it was a single shot. It was very close. And then there was this brief hesitation or pause.

It was like, it was almost like this second where is this really happening? It's like they're kind of processing this. We've actually started this thing. And then it just gets crazy. 30 seconds, 30 shots. Doc Holliday fires his shotgun at Tom McClahery, who's kind of hiding behind a horse. Wyatt ends up hitting the horse. The horse jerks away.

And then Doc Holliday hits him one. once in the side with the one barrel and Tom McClahery starts running away and collapses like less than a block away. He sent like 14 pellets right into his chest cavity. Doc tried to shoot his second time. Something malfunctioned with his gun. He throws it down. The shot gun, he throws it down. He goes for his revolver. By this time, we have Frank McClary. He's wounded in the stomach. He's kind of holding on to this horse, getting out to the middle of the street. The horse breaks away. and Doc Holliday is getting ready to shoot. That's when Frank says, Doc Holiday, I have you now, or whatever.

And Doc Holliday says, you're a daisy if you do. And Doc Holliday fires, but also before Doc Holley get fired. Back up. Okay. Why does he yell Doc Holliday, I have you now? Because he had his gun on him. You know, Doc Holliday's out there in the street. He has no protection.

But he decides us to advertise this. Yeah, he says, I have you now. And then Doc Holliday, and this is in the testimony. he says you're a daisy if you have and but morgan erp he ends up shooting frank and hits him in the head and frank just goes down immediately and uh there's a big scuffle i mean as people people are starting you know it's 30 seconds people are starting to gather and they're gathering around frank mcclary who's down here on the ground and and doc hollady's starting to yell he tried to kill me i'm going to kill that sob or whatever and they're pulling him back morgan erp he was hit

across his shoulder blades but he's the one that even on the ground he raises his revolver he's the one that kills essentially the killing shot of frank mcclory there's one other individual billy clinton he's up against the wall of this building on the side of the lot and he's wounded several times and as he's kind of you know sliding down against the wall he's trying to he's fiddling with his revolver and c s fly the gallery owner he has a henry rifle he goes up to him and he takes the revolver way and and billy clinton says can you get me more cartridges You know, he's saying, I need more cartridges or whatever. Yeah, and they take him to a building, and he has a gruesome death.

I mean, people are coming in and get the people away, you know, get the crowd away. And, yeah, it was not a pleasant death for him. Hey, folks, Steve Ronella here. It's that time again, the Meat Eater Black Friday sale. From November 20 through December 1, you can save up to 50% across the entire Meat Eater family of brands. First Light, FHF gear, Dave Smith decoys, Phelps, and the Meat Eater store. Whether you're chasing elk, setting decoys, or just gearing up for camp, this is the time to upgrade the kit that carries you through the season.

Visit your favorite brand site to find your deal, and don't miss the Meat Eater Black Friday Sale. What about Drunk Ike? What was going on with him? Oh, that's a good question, yes. So that's what, in fact, that's one of the big things in the gunfight, you know, Ike suddenly soberes up and he runs up to Wyatt after those first shots and he says, I'm unarmed, I'm unarmed, you know, he says, well, you know, the fight is commenced. Get out of here. The fight is commenced. And so Ike takes off running. Yeah, he just runs. So Wyatt has a chance just to shoot him. He could have shot him, yes, but he says the fight is commenced and get out of here or get armed or whatever. I can't remember the exact phrase, but he does say, The fight has commenced, and he pushes Ike away. These guys have things they say that just people wouldn't say nowadays.

Yeah, that's true. In a fight. Yeah. It is so. I've got you now. Yeah. We can bring that back. Yeah. It's so surreal also because, I mean, you know, there's black powder smoke.

There's flame coming out of the barrels of these pistols. And Ike is up there with Wyatt trying you. It's like, I'm unarmed, you know, and don't shoot me. And he's the reason they're there. He's the reason they're there. Yes. and he runs away. He doesn't help his brother.

His poor little brother is getting murdered. And gets out of there un-hurt. Unscathed, yes. Yeah. And then I later, of course, he presses charges against the herbs and a holiday. And that's how we have this hearing. It's called the Spicer Hearing. And it's pages and pages of testimony.

And it's some of the most confusing reading. I mean, it's like one person says one thing. The other person was the other and their eyewitnesses. Nobody really agrees with one another. And my favorite quote is from the dressmaker across. the street and she saw the whole thing and they asked her a specific question he goes i don't know it was all confusion it was and even for the people that were involved it was confusion i mean it was just a total chaos in those 30 seconds exactly yeah but guess who's not hurt white erp the one guy

that doesn't get you know other than ike not a scratch on white irp and he's right in the middle of it virgil erps wounded doc holladay gets a flesh wound and his hip uh morgan erps gets a pretty serious wound in his shoulder. And then later, Doc Holliday goes up his room and Kate elders there, Big Nose Kate. And she writes about this and he starts crying. And he says, it was awful, just awful. What didn't you like about it? I think the killing. I think, I mean, even though he's a, even though Doc is angry, it's like, you know, when you kill somebody, I think that's a whole different layer, right? Yeah. You know, I think it's, I think, you know, these men. I mean, I didn't, I didn't mean that like that. I thought there's

some other, because when I said that, what was you crying about? Like, none of his body's got killed. Yeah, no, no, but it's, I think it's just the fact these men were killed. And they had, I mean, they had to, I mean, but you know, it wasn't about his wound. I mean, it was just this, it was horrific to him that they, you know,

I mean, he sent, you know, 14 pellets into the chest cavity of Tom McCarrey and, you know, he's dead. So, I mean, it's, it was I think, very sobering. But yeah, I, like, I, Ike Clanton is the villain in all that. He's the one that really egged things on.

And, yeah. And I, Clanton gets killed himself, oh, a few years later. And again, he's running away. He was, there were some guys looking for him for rustling cattle and, and looking for him for something unrelated. Yeah, unrelated to this. And he approached his cabin. He didn't know that these guys are in there. And as soon as he does, he jumps on his horse and starts, you know, skedaddling.

And this is, nobody's afraid to shoot somebody in the back if you're a lawman. blaze away at him and he tumbles off his horse and it's the one time he wasn't able to run away so oh dude that's a great uh i now understand straight things out good good good there's the pre and post understanding yeah steve well it's more clear in the book i'm a much better writer than i am a narrator so that must mean you're pretty hell of a good writer oh well thanks i hope so yeah what's your next book you're doing so the next book is um uh focusing on jess and Frank James in the Civil War is Bushwhackers and under Bloody Bill Anderson and their Civil War time.

Yes. And how that leads to their outlawry. And I'm going to talk a little bit about the birth of the American outlaw because they're really the quintessential outlaw, Jesse and Frank James, the James Younger Gang. So the book is called Bushwackers, actually. So it's going to focus on that period. But like I say, take us into how that led to their outlaw career. We just spent some time reading about, because this project we're working.

on about the buffalo hide hunters one of these main one of the main buffalo hide hunters that wrote a very good account of his time he was involved in those like those borderland civil war scrimishes and man that was like

yeah the paramilitary shit the border ruffians like yeah this the kind of like the plain closed paramilitary aspect of the Civil War, is gruesome. Well, you know, Bloody Bill, he earned that appellation.

I mean, he had scalps tied to his horse's bridle. I mean, they scalped the soldiers that they killed. I mean, the hatred was so deep. Yeah. I mean, so deep. And the things they were doing to one. I mean, one of the things that led to Jesse joining up with the Quantrell or Bloody Bill was, you know, these federal militia came to the home of his

stepfather and mother and they whipped him trying to get information where frank was and then they strung up his stepfather dr rubin samuel some people think that that actually caused brain damage they strung them up they didn't kill him and that you know it was so painful that the stepfather actually did tell him where frank and the other bushwhackers were but i mean to see that as a teenager um you know and then the things he experienced uh as a teenager in battle and to see his friends killed to kill people I mean he was indoctrinated to this violence sure it just the right

age to become a way of life um Ron Ron Hanson yes yeah uh you know what he says in his book

that I don't know if it's true maybe you can tell if it's true or not I ask I've asked a lot of people this the guy okay so uh his book is the assassination of Jesse James by the coward Robert Ford.

So a guy, Robert Ford was then assassinated. Yes. So Robert Ford kills Jesse James. Then a guy comes to kill Robert Ford. Ed Kelly. And Robert in his book, in Hansen's book, he says that the guy that kills Robert Ford has a coach gun. Not only is the coach gun loaded was shot, but he takes a bunch of pipe filings. he explains he takes little sections of pipe and takes a cold chisel

and starts knocking off pipe fragments and uses a funnel to fill the barrels full of pipe fragments and and you hear different accounts Robert Ford gets cut in a half near the neck or gets cut in half near the waist is that true so the pipe filing story I just looked at the reports from Creed Colorado up that were published in the papers in 1892. And I've seen no mentions of the pipe filings.

So Ryan Hanson maybe made that up. Maybe, yeah. And then, but as far as the reports do say, it, like, severed the juggler. It was in the neck area and just ripped it out. It said that, you know, Ed Kelly, it was kind of interesting because Ed Kelly was kind of standing at the entrance to the bar and that he had a confederate or somebody that came up and handed him the shotgun he didn't walk up with the shotgun in his hands someone handed him the shotgun and then he raised it up and he said hello bob which is what billy said billy said that

you know too and bob turns around and he said bob for it started to go for his vest or hip pocket and just as he was reaching down that he let go with the shotgun and it said you know it knocked bob for it back and it said he rolled over on his side and died just like that with his hands still on his hip and there was apparently Ed Kelly walked up and there was a gun a revolver there and Ed Kelly took the gun but Ed Kelly ends up getting killed you know Oklahoma later you know he goes like Russian nesting dolls and gunshot he goes he goes to prison um but all these people he just killed Ford just to be the guy that killed Ford I think so yeah well some people say he might

have had some kind of connection uh with Jesse but here's the cool thing guess who showed up at the funeral of Bob Ford and Creed Frank James What? Yes, Frank James went to Pay his respects To make sure I think that Bob Ford was dead I mean

And I also think just to stand over him And say, you know, you killed my brother And not to pay his respects Yeah, not to pay his respects No, but yeah, he made the trip from Missouri to Creed But anyway, yeah, Ed Kelly is killed Well, you know, these people All these people write a letter

to get him released from prison a few years later, and he's released. But then he's, I can't remember the town in Oklahoma, but he's kind of a belligerent character, and he gets in a few with the local policeman, and then they have a fight, you know, and they're grappling with one another, and he's trying to get the policeman's gun. Ed Kelly fired all his bullets and was out, and actually hits himself in the leg, but they're still grappling, and his policeman's trying to, you know, get his gun back. And so apparently a bystander went up and grabbed Ed Kelly's arm so the policeman could get his gun, And then he shoots and kills Ed Kelly.

So that's the mice of Kelly, yeah. So did anybody then avenge? No, I don't think so. I don't think so. I think that's what the story ends. Wow, I didn't know that detail. Yeah. But, you know, the Bob Ford, it's a sad story.

He thought he was going to be a hero for killing Jesse James. And, you know, his brother, Charlie, commits suicide. And I think he commits suicide because he's dealing with the effects of, you know, having been a part of this. And, you know, they have a stage play. they go around in their mood and you know it's really a lot like the movie actually i think the movie's great i think brad pitt's the best yeah the best jesse james ever um but no it's it's uh yeah he he thought he was going to be wealthy and he was killing this famous outlaw but uh you know nobody thought that was cool yeah yeah well here's the thing steve i mean this was like a

political a paid political assassination you know he wasn't arrested i mean he hadn't been tried Uh, you know, the governor was in cahoots and actually, you know, organized this assassination. It was a government funded assassination. I mean, Billy, Jesse had been convicted of no robbery whatsoever. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah. And then, you know, Jesse had always said and Frank says, all we want is a fair trial or whatever. And, uh, oh, yeah, but those guys are cold blood. Well, they were, but here's my point. So, Frank James, because, you know, he sees the writing on the wall. You know, he thinks, who's going to come after me? He says, I could be out chopping wood and somebody's going to shoot me or whatever.

So he arranges this surrender to the governor. And Frank has tried twice for a crime in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and also for the gallop in Gallatin for the crime of a train robbery where a man was murdered near Winston, Missouri. And he's acquitted. in both things. He never committed a crime for the rest of his life. He actually did exactly what he was going to say. All I want is a fair trial. He got it and he was a perfect citizen. And this is the other bizarre thing about Frank and Jesse. A lot of people think of as like

cyclopass. Like you said, they're murderers or whatever. Man, their wives, after they were dead, both of them said that was the best husband you could ever have. I mean, they swore. They were just the most gentle, the best husband that you could ever have about Frank. Frank and Jesse. Had met me. Well, that's right. Well, you know, here's what I think about it. Have you read the book American sniper by Chris Kyle? No. I'm familiar with it. Okay. Well, Chris Kyle writes about how the war in the Middle East, he was a sniper and how it can numb you to the violence and the killing. And there's one point in here where he talks about at a distance, he shoots this enemy on a motorcycle and there's a guy with him a spotter. And he, the guy falls off his motorcycle kind of funny. And they're laughing about it. You know, laughing about murder, killing this guy. He's become numb. He's over there.

He's seeing us. He's killing people. And I think that's what the Civil War did to Frank and Jesse. They did so much killing that they were just numb to the violence. And yet they could still, you know, Jesse had two children. He could be a loving father. But if you threaten me or you get in my way, he had no hesitation about killing you. I mean, it meant nothing to him to kill somebody.

So it's this weird dichotomy. You know, you can be a family man, but yet you can kill at the, you know the flip of a switch yeah i like those understandings though i mean it's just like uh the complexities of people's motivations we we get into that a fair bit and talking about these like these like i keep talking about this hide hunter thing sure just how much people have put these guys like these like they're just doing it for the killing buffalo for the purpose of denying the future of the animals you know i mean when it was like a much more complex picture of civil war economics right now is that an audio book or yeah it is okay and when's that

coming out it's already out oh cool go listen right now brother i'll have to listen to it wherever it gets your audiobooks you know okay well uh tell me some banjo jokes grab that banjo and tell me you said you know more banjo jokes i know a lot of banjo books so uh what do you call a pretty gal on a banjo player's arm i got nothing a tattoo what do you what do you say to a banjo player in a three-piece suit will the defendant please rise

those are really old jokes so I'm glad you'd never heard of him before no no I haven't heard those so this is a five-string banjo a vaguer 1963 the style I play is a historic style it's called frailander claw hammer but it's an African style

I mean the banjo is an African instrument did not know yeah it's called it was called a Bonzar Abanja. And anyway, the knowledge of the banja was brought here by the enslaved. And, you know, it's, it's, they tried to take everything from their humanity. But once they got to the new world, they made the things from their culture. And the banjo was one.

It was a gourd of the stick attached. Oh, really? Yeah. So the banjo is a survivor of that really awful era. So what do you want to hear? Anything? Give me some options. Okay.

Well, I got old Dan. Tucker, uh, let's see old Dad Tucker. I'll just do one verse. Old Dan Tucker down in town, ride a goat and lean the hound, a how, gave a how, the goat gave a jump. The old old old Dan, a straddle a stub. Get out the way. Get out the way. Get out the way.

Get out the way. Old Dan Tucker, he's too late. Get a supper. Get out the way. Get out the way. Get out the way, old and Tucker. He's too late to get his supper. All right. There you go.

Hit this one another one. That was so short. Not so short. This was two more shorties. Okay, all right. Get out of the way. Get out the way. Oh, no, a different song.

Yeah, yeah, I heard some turkey in the straw. Yeah, turkey in the straw. Turkey in the head. Wolfrock Dance with Mother-in-Law. Play a little tune called Turkey and the Strong. Oh, that is a different song. Yeah, it is a different song. I sang it right.

Here's one. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you meant that I thought, I'm sorry, I thought you meant that I was asking for more Dan Tucker. Oh, no, I just messed it up. But here's one you'll like, I'll just do one verse. Let's see. If Jesse was your friend on him you could depend. If it be true, I am sure.

He always wore the belt that would equalize the wealth. He would rob the rich, poor the poor. It was with his brother Frank. He robbed the gallatin bank. Carry the money from the town. It was at that very place. They had a little chase, for they shot Captain Sheets to the ground. Jesse had a wife

The pride of his life His children They were brave But the dirty little coward That shot Mr. Howard Has laid Jesse James It is great Very good

He's speaking about Fort Yes Dirty little coward And Jesse James was living under the name Mr. Howard, yeah Wow Dude that's great man Oh thanks

So your work as a historian your interest in banjo playing, are they like hand in hand or was it different paths? No, it's hand in hand. Of course, I always, as a kid, was fascinated by the banjo. And then my first, and I was starting to take lessons. And anyway, my first summer job at the park service is at a place called Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site near LaHunton.

They were a big in the Buffalo robe trade on the southern plains. And so I had my banjo there, and I quickly learned that Scrugg-style planes, was not around in the 1840s. That's 1940s. So I started getting interested in the historic styles of playing the banjo and the historic music. And even today, when I'm doing research

in diaries and journals, if there's a reference to a song or a tune, you know, I make note of that. And so I'll do it in my programs. I'll do programs of historic music of the West. John Cook's memoir is full of songs. Oh, it is? I didn't know that. You did the definitive guide to the Santa Fe Wagon's. You ought to do the history of the ban show. Well, I'll work on that.

There's been some books on that, actually. So somebody beat me to the punch on that one. But to me, it helps bring history alive when you can play the music, you know, the Jesse James or Billy the Kid. You know, Billy the Kid was a huge fan of turkey in the straw. But he was actually, but he didn't call it turkey in his straw. He would tell the musician, he was a great dancer and went to the violets and Fandegos. He would say to the musicians, don't forget the gaiena. Don't forget to play the gaiena.

So in New Mexico, well, in the new world, the Spaniards did not have a term for the wild turkey. So they called it the gaina de la tierra, the chicken of the region or the earth. Yeah, but what about the wajolote? The wajolote? Yeah, like in Sonora, they call turkeys woholete. Oh, really? Yeah, I didn't know that. Oh, you didn't know. Okay.

No, but anyway, in New Mexico, they refer to the waltre as the gaiena. So when Billy the kids said, don't forget the gaiena, he meant turkey in the straw. Really? Yeah. Yeah. I got one last question for you. Because you strike me as a fell that would be able to do this. You beg turkey hunter?

Okay. Do you mouth call? Natural, natural mouth call? No, I don't. Oh, I have done natural mouth call sometimes, yes. But it's the hell, it's not very good. It's like, ha, how, how, how, how, how, how, how. It's just, I mean, I just throw that in.

Usually I do. When I think of Missouri, turkey hunting, I think it can do is it can tear it up. That's just in my, you know, toolbox. Usually I've got a, I've got a wingbone call. I got a slate call. I got a giant box call. So I got those three. And then sometimes I'll throw in, you know, that other sound, which isn't as good as those other things.

Yeah. But next time, I'll have to tell you the time I was attacked by a coyote while I was turkey hunting. You just rip it right now. Okay. Okay. That's what I'm, I grew up in a town of 500 people. So most people know me there's the guy that got attacked by the coyote, not an author. Not an office.

Yeah. So I'm set up with my back to a tree. Okay. And I've got my, and I hear these couple of gobbers really far away. So I got this box call, and I'm holding it up here. I'm trying to, you know, get this sound to them. And all of a sudden, I see like this patch of fur to my just kind of appears here. And then I hear this pain on my arm.

And then I see bounding away, this coyote. So it actually, it saw that movement. And I had a gobbler decoy out there, too. So I guess he thought there were a bunch of turkeys. So he bites down on here. Then he bounds away. I didn't really think much of it because the pain went away quickly. And so a few minutes later, the gobbler comes in, and I shoot my gobbler.

So, and then I get home, I get where I was staying in my parents' house. And I take off my wool shirt, and there's blood. And I said, oh, well, you know, I didn't know it was that bad or whatever. And my mom says, you better call your doctor or whatever. So I called the doctor. And he says, you've got to get a rabies shot. And I said, well, the coy looked pretty healthy. I didn't want to get a rabies shot, you know.

He says, Mark, there's no cure. You know, either you get a, I mean, who knows. So, okay, I go to the, I go to the emergency room in Liberty, Missouri, and they start the rabies shop process, you know, go around the wound with all these different things. And I'm talking to the emergency room doctor, and he's, you know, he asked me, well, how does happen? And then what do you do for a living? I'm a historian, blah, blah, blah. And he goes, you sure lead an interesting life. You're an emergency room doctor.

You've got to have better stories than I do, you know. But anyway, that's my story. I got attacked by a coyote. And I tell people, I said, you know, I'm a pretty good turkey caller. I fooled a coyote. Yeah, for sure, man. You got a wedding ring on. Yes.

How long have you been married? I've been married since the early 1980s. I'm not sure what year. But anyway, yes. Good run. I know, I'm sorry. Hopefully my wife's not listening. What's the secret to a big long marriage like that?

You know, my wife and I share a lot of interest. She's a museum curator. She very interested in history in the past. And we love visiting historic sites together. other. I don't know that my children enjoyed that as much as my wife and I did, but we took them too, just like my parents took me. But, you know, it's really kind of a common shared interest in the past. And we find artifacts fascinating and the stories of real people in the past. And we even find her own family history's interesting. She's really big into her own genealogy. And her family made a real mark. And you past Colorado have been there for decades and decades. Okay. All right. Mark Lee Gardner's brand, a spikety new book, Wyatt Earp, Doc Holiday, and A Reckoning and Tombstone. Brothers of the Gun is what it's called.

Got a lot of other books. Fantastic storyteller. Thanks for coming on, man. Yay, thank you for having me. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thanks. Hey folks, Steve Ronella here.

It's that time again, the meat eater Black Friday sale. From November 20 through December 1, you can save up to 50% across the entire meat eater family of brands. First Light, FHF gear, Dave Smith decoys, Phelps, and the Meat Eater store. Whether you're chasing elk, setting decoys, or just gearing up for camp, this is the time to upgrade the kit that carries you through the season. Visit your favorite brand site to find your deal, and don't miss the Meat Eater Black Friday sale. This is an IHeart podcast, guaranteed human.