Legends of the Old West - TOMBSTONE Ep. 2 | Lawdogs

Episode Date: August 19, 2018

Wyatt Earp and his brothers arrive in Tombstone, and immediately clash with the Clantons and McLaurys. Doc Holliday journeys to Tombstone and quickly makes enemies with important businessmen. Curly Bill Brocius kills Tombstone's first town marshal. Join Black Barrel+ for early access and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join For more details, visit our website www.blackbarrelmedia.com and check out our social media pages. We’re @OldWestPodcast on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Make your nights unforgettable with American Express. Unmissable show coming up? Good news. We've got access to pre-sale tickets so you don't miss it. Meeting with friends before the show? We can book your reservation. And when you get to the main event, skip to the good bit using the card member entrance.

Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by car and other conditions apply. This episode is brought to you by Lego Fortnite. Lego Fortnite is the ultimate survival crafting game found within Fortnite. It's not just Fortnite Battle Royale with minifigures. It's an entirely new experience that combines the best of Lego play and

Fortnite created to give players of all ages, including kids and families, a safe digital space to play in. Download Fortnite on consoles, PC, cloud services, or Android and play Lego Fortnite for free. Rated ESRB E10+. A buckboard wagon tore down the dusty road from the tiny hamlet of Charleston toward the boomtown of Tombstone.

The driver, George McKelvey, slapped the reins and urged the horses to run faster. The passenger, a young, thin man, was white as a sheet. The wagon charged down the road, spitting dirt and raising a torrent of dust in its wake. George checked over his shoulder, but he could see nothing through the dust. He was the constable of Charleston, and the small man next to him was his prisoner, and he was shackled and terrified. When George turned back around, he spotted a man on a powerful horse trotting toward him. He recognized the man and he recognized the horse,

but he had never seen the two of them together. It didn't matter. He didn't have time to study about it right now. He yanked back on the reins and brought the horses to a skidding stop. Dust swirled around the group as he shouted to the man on the horse, help us, they're after him to lynch him!

Virgil Earp looked down at the two men. He recognized the prisoner as the tin horn gambler known as Johnny Behind the Deuce. Get up here, Virgil, yelled to Johnny. Johnny scrambled out of the wagon and climbed up behind Virgil. Virgil wheeled the horse around and kicked him. The gallops tore tombstone. They charged into town and Virgil turned the horse onto Allen Street. They pulled up in front of the Wells Fargo office, where Wyatt was waiting.

Wyatt could not have been pleased. The horse Virgil was riding belonged to him, and he had let his older brother take it out for an easy ride only after Virgil browbeat him into it. Now, here he was, racing into town. He and the horse were covered in sweat and dust, and there was another man with him, whom he recognized as that little gambler who always bet on the deuce in a pharaoh game. But Wyatt quickly shoved all of that aside as Virgil told him about the situation. A mob from Charleston was right behind them. They wanted to string up

Johnny. There was precious little time. Wyatt turned and disappeared into the Wells Fargo office. When he stepped back out onto the boardwalk, he had a shotgun in his hands and a plan forming in his mind. One that would add another layer to the legend of Wyatt Earp. As a podcast network, our first priority has always been audio and the stories we're able to share with you. But we also sell merch. And organizing that was made both possible and easy with Shopify. Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you sell and grow at every stage of your business. From the launch your online shop stage,

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

I'm your host, Chris Wimmer, and this is the second episode in a five-part series on Tombstone and the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. This week, Wyatt Earp and his brothers become lawmen in Tombstone. They have their first run-ins with the Clantons, the McClourys, and an infamous outlaw named Curly Bill Brocious, who kills the town marshal in the middle of the street. Doc Holliday comes to town and immediately causes trouble. And a handsome, likable fella named Johnny Behan arrives at about the same time and becomes everyone's favorite do-nothing sheriff. This is Episode 2, Law Dogs.

Newman Clanton was a wanderer like Nicholas Earp. Nicholas, the father of the Earp boys, had dragged his family from the Midwest to California, back to the Midwest, and then back to California. Newman, known as Old Man Clanton, did the same thing. He started his family in Missouri, then took them to Illinois, Texas, California, and finally Arizona. In 1877, as Ed Sheflin was chasing the origin of the silver deposit he'd discovered, old man Clanton settled on a spread outside the hamlet of Charleston just a few miles away. He'd started a ranch in the desert, and his middle sons Phineas and Isaac were his chief workers, though his youngest son William was 15 and fully capable of helping the family.

A year later, two brothers drifted into the area from Iowa and signed on with the Clantons. Tom and Frank McCleary soon became close friends with Finn, Ike, and Billy as they toiled in the blistering sun on the Clanton Ranch. But at that point, word was out about the incredible silver strike in the area. Soon, the San Pedro River Valley would be flooded with people trying to get rich quick, and they would need something to eat. The cattle business started gaining steam, and Old Man Clanton wasn't too particular about where his cattle came from. He made legitimate purchases from legitimate drovers, but he also had no problem buying cattle from suspected rustlers.

The Mexican border was only about 30 miles away, and it was common practice for rustlers on both sides to raid each other's land and then race back to their home countries. The McClowry brothers soon split off from the Clanton Ranch and built their own operation. According to one author, they became the Fences of the Frontier. Rustlers arrived at their ranch with stolen cattle. The beefs were then rebranded and driven to local markets for sale. In 1879, that market was Tombstone, and the people of Tombstone didn't really care where the beef came from either. In the early days, few questions were asked, and the

townsfolk couldn't distinguish legitimate ranchers like Henry Hooker from those on the shadier side of the line like the Clantons and the townsfolk couldn't distinguish legitimate ranchers like Henry Hooker from those on the shadier side of the line like the Clantons and the McClourys. In the final days of 1879, the Earps arrived in Tombstone, and it took only about six months before they were enlisted to square off against the Rustlers and the Clantons and McClourys. When Virgil and Allie, Wyatt and Maddie, and Jim and Bessie rolled into town, Tombstone had been around for only nine months, and it was still raw. Two months after they arrived, Clara Brown came to town.

She was the wife of a mining engineer and also a correspondent for the San Diego Union. In an early dispatch, she described America's last great boomtown. The camp is one of the dirtiest places in the world, she said. The soil lies loose upon the surface and is whirled in the air every day by a wind that almost amounts to a gale. It penetrates the houses and covers everything with dust. The temperature gallivants around in the 90s. We cannot obtain desirable food for the hot weather. But she closed on a happier note. The camp is considered a remarkably quiet one. Only one murder since my arrival. This was Tombstone as the Earps pulled into town.

It was a machine that thundered with the sounds of hammers and saws, laughter and excitement, shouts and curses, and the horses, mules, and cattle that jammed the streets. The Earps went right to work. Virgil already had a job. He'd become friends with the U.S. Marshal for Arizona up in Prescott, and he arrived as the Deputy U.S. Marshal of the Tombstone District. Jim went straight into the saloon business, as always. He was a bartender at Vogan and Flynn Saloon, which had a bowling alley. Wyatt's first plan was to start a stagecoach line to service the area, but when he arrived, it was clear that that need had already been filled. So instead of owning stagecoaches,

he spent the first eight months of 1880 riding shotgun on them. But this was all temporary in the minds of the brothers, except maybe Virgil. He seemed to have a genuine commitment to law enforcement. But Wyatt, Jim, and later Morgan wanted good times and pockets full of money. They didn't know it yet, but in the end, they would get neither in Tombstone. They didn't know it yet, but in the end, they would get neither in Tombstone. By the summer of 1880, Tombstone barely resembled the mining camps the Earps rode into six months earlier. Nearly all the canvas tents were gone.

They were replaced by wood and adobe structures. There were plenty of saloons, as always, but now restaurants, stores, and butcher shops were springing up all along Allen and Fremont streets. The town was still full of dirt and grit, and garbage still blew through the streets, but now the Grand Hotel had opened to cater to the rich investors from California, and the Cosmopolitan Hotel was ready for business. was ready for business. A little more than a year later, the Cosmopolitan would be an Alamo of sorts for the Earp family as they were under siege from the Cowboys, but for now it was just a swanky joint for travelers and businessmen. That summer, as big shots from California rubbed shoulders with cow hands from Texas, Ike Clanton and some friends shot up the towns of Maxey and Safford, and the Earp brothers confronted the McClourys for the first time. Ike Clanton and a couple companions drove a herd of cattle toward the San Carlos Apache Reservation.

It was mid-July and the sun was fierce. Dust choked the air. It had been a long drive up from the Clanton Ranch, and Ike was ready to make the sale and get gone. But the purchasing agent for the reservation hesitated. He believed the cattle might be stolen, and he wasn't as lenient about such things as the merchants in Tombstone. Ike and his pals were furious.

They rode away and let loose on the town of Maxey. They fired shots into random houses until the supervisor of a nearby mill confronted them and ripped Ike's pistol away from him. Ike wasn't naturally inclined to tolerate this offense, but the supervisor's shotgun made a compelling argument to leave town. They headed down the road to Safford, which was the home to the mill where the supervisor worked. They shot out the lights in a supervisor worked. They shot out the lights in a saloon. They shot up a house. Then they broke into a store and shot up the merchandise.

Then they turned their attention to the mill itself. They blazed away while forcing the mill workers to feed them cartridges. When they'd had their fun, they rode away. The mill supervisor implored his workers and the men of the town to form a posse to arrest Ike and his friends. But after what the men had just witnessed, they wanted no part of it. This action in July didn't result in bloodshed, but something very similar would happen on the streets of Tombstone in October, and the consequences would be fatal. and the consequences would be fatal.

Back in Tombstone, a much more hardened posse was assembling to pay a visit to the McClowry Ranch. Six mules had gone missing from Camp Rucker, and the U.S. Army wanted them back. Deputy U.S. Marshal Virgil Earp had received a tip that the theft had been pulled by the McClowry brothers and their friends Billy Clanton and Pony Deal. The army recruited Virgil, Wyatt, Morgan, and a Wells Fargo agent to join four soldiers to bring back the mules. Morgan had just arrived in town after a long trek down from Montana and he gleefully jumped into the mix. The eight men rode out to the McClowry ranch and found exactly what they were looking for. The six mules were right there, and the thieves were in the middle of changing the brands. They were reworking the U.S. brand to look like a D-8.

A rancher named Frank Patterson was overseeing the work, and he warned the posse that if they tried to take the mules by force, there would be gunplay and bloodshed. The army lieutenant who had organized the posse cautiously agreed to a compromise. The thieves would bring the mules to Charleston the next day. The posse went to Charleston and waited. They waited all the following day in the sweltering heat of late July. The thieves did not arrive as promised. The second day of waiting wore on, and finally, Patterson, Billy Clanton, and the McClowry brothers rode into town, without the mules. They apparently gloated over their trickery. They had no intention of returning the mules. They just wanted to get the posse off their backs. According to Virgil, the mules were never found.

The army lieutenant was irate. He posted notice in the newspapers calling out three thieves by name and charging Patterson and Frank McClowry with harboring and helping rustlers. This infuriated Frank. He rode into Tombstone with his brother Tom to set the record straight. He took out a full-page ad in the Tombstone Nugget to declare his innocence. He turned the tables on the army lieutenant and accused the man of stealing his own mules. This was the opening salvo in a campaign of misinformation the cowboys spread through the

Nugget. Over the next year and a half, they continuously used the newspaper as a mouthpiece to portray themselves as common citizens who were being unfairly targeted by the Earps. After Frank took out the ad in the nugget, he and Tom went directly to Virgil and asked if he had anything to do with the notices posted by the lieutenant. Virgil said he didn't, and then Frank's tone turned dark and threatening. Frank told Virgil that if he ever followed him that closely again, he'd have to fight. Virgil squared up. He responded that if he ever had a warrant for Frank's arrest, he would not compromise like the lieutenant.

The two men sized each other up. The line had been drawn. And a war was brewing. After the confrontation with the McClourys, Wyatt Earp put on a badge and tombstone for the first time. Charlie Shibble, the sheriff of Pima County, made Wyatt a deputy in charge of the area around town. Charlie was based in Tucson,

so Wyatt and fellow deputy Newton Babcock ran their own show. Wyatt welcomed the regular salary, even though he had said he was done with law enforcement. But the bad blood that was rising between his older brother and the cowboys may have helped change his mind, and the steady wages were certainly better than riding shotgun on stagecoaches or dealing pharaoh. Wyatt didn't have to wait long to earn his keep. In late July 1880, right after he became a deputy, Roger King killed Tom Wilson after an attempted robbery. That was the third killing in the first two months of the summer. In June, Frank Leslie had killed Mike Killeen in a dispute over a woman. In early July, E.L. Bradshaw had killed a good friend of his, Tom Waters, in a dispute over a shirt.

Bradshaw and King were tried in Tucson, but Leslie's trial was held in Tombstone. It was a protracted affair full of absurdities that ate up the summer. But as August turned to September in 1880, the fun was just getting started. In mid-September, the Kinnear and Company stage line rolled into Tombstone. Doc Holliday and Kate Elder stepped down into the dusty street and surveyed yet another riotous town in the West. They had seen a lot of them, but this one was different. Yes, it was dirty, and it thrummed with activity and was packed with saloons, which Doc liked. But it also had a

library inside a cigar store, and a fire department, and a hospital, and a waterworks, and two daily newspapers, and investment companies, and mining operations, and professional offices for a variety of services. And it also had Doc's friend Wyatt Earp, who had been a deputy sheriff for two months. Doc's friend Wyatt Earp, who had been a deputy sheriff for two months. Doc and Kate had finally made their way down from Prescott, and Doc wasted no time getting up to his old tricks. He started gambling and drinking, and less than a month after his arrival, he got into his first dust-up.

He was deep in a card game with Johnny Tyler, a gambler he'd probably known in Dodge. They were in the Oriental Saloon, operated by Milt Joyce. An argument broke out and they leapt to their feet. Several men stepped in between them to stop a brawl. A bartender grabbed Doc's pistol and tucked it away under the bar. Johnny Tyler backed off and left the saloon, but that wasn't the end of the affair for Doc. Milt Joyce berated Doc for causing the disturbance. Then he threw him out of the saloon. Doc stormed back inside and demanded his pistol from the bartender. The bartender refused. Doc marched toward Milt spewing curses and now he produced a second pistol and fired at Milt from

less than 10 feet away. The bullet caught Milt in the hand and it only enraged him further. He launched himself at Doc and crashed a pistol into his head. More shots were fired, though no one knew how many or who fired them. Town Marshal Fred White ran in with a deputy and pulled Milt off a dock. The lawmen separated the saloon owner and the dentist and immediately confiscated their guns. Milt's hand was bleeding. Doc's head was bruised and throbbing. William Parker, one of Milt's partners in the bar, had been nicked in the big toe of his left foot.

But the melee was done, and no one had been killed. Within a month of his arrival, Doc had made enemies with Johnny Tyler and Milt Joyce. Both adversaries would have run-ins with Doc's friend, the deputy sheriff, down the road. As Milt's status and power in Tombstone grew, so did his hatred of Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp. In his first four months as a deputy sheriff, Wyatt discovered that Tombstone was a completely different animal from Dodge City. sheriff, Wyatt discovered that Tombstone was a completely different animal from Dodge City. In Dodge, he mostly patrolled the city streets and kept the rowdy Texas cowboys in line. The town couldn't survive without the cattle drives, so he had to find a balance between being tough but not too tough.

In Tombstone, he dealt with real criminal activity, and he was busy. He chased horse thieves and cattle rustlers and killers, often enlisting Morgan or Virgil, or both, as his deputies. But all that would change as the fall of 1880 faded into winter. Wyatt couldn't have recognized the signs, but they were set in motion the second Johnny Behan stepped off the stage in mid-September. Johnny was a handsome fellow, warm and good-natured. He quickly became well-liked around town, and he became everybody's friend. He was the opposite of the cold, unsmiling, ruthlessly efficient Wyatt Earp. Within two months, Johnny would take Wyatt's job as deputy sheriff of Pima County, but that was just the tip of the iceberg of the changes that were in store for Tombstone.

The changes began in October with the killing of town marshal Fred White. It was October 28, 1880, almost exactly one year before the shootout at the O.K. Corral. The weather was cool and fine, and it was a rowdy night in town. The saloons were full, and the whiskey was going down easy. The stars would have been brilliant in the night sky over the Arizona desert, with no smog and no big city lights to dampen or compete with their glow.

Shortly after midnight, a liquored-up group of fun lovers took the party out into the streets of town. It was time for target practice. They were going to shoot the stars out of the sky. They fired away, laughing at the thought of the townsfolk scrambling out of bed at the sound of the gunshots. But City Marshal Fred White was not entertained. He was 32 years old, and his job had grown more dangerous by the day. He ran out into the street to shut down the shooting. The group scattered, and Fred chased a man into a vacant lot that would eventually become the home of the Birdcage Theater.

Wyatt was gambling in a saloon when he heard the first gunshots. He dashed outside, unarmed, and saw Fred race down an alley between Allen Street and Toughnut Street. He saw a pistol flash and then heard several more gunshots. He ran toward the shooting and met up with Morgan and a man named Fred Dodge. He asked Morgan for his gun, but Morgan was unarmed as well. Fred tossed his pistol at Wyatt. Wyatt ran down the alley and heard Fred White bark an order to someone in the darkness.

I'm an officer, he said. Give me your pistol. That someone turned out to be Curly Bill Brocious, an outlaw known for his work with a gun and as a leader of the Cowboys. Curly Bill pulled his weapon from his holster. Fred grabbed the barrel. Wyatt ran up behind Curly Bill and started patting him down to check for more guns. Fred growled, now you goddamn son of a bitch, give me that pistol. And he yanked

the barrel away from Curly Bill. The gun went off and a bullet slammed into Fred at point-blank range. He fell to the ground and the gun dropped to the dirt. Wyatt cracked Curly Bill over the head with his gun and scooped up Bill's pistol. He grabbed Bill under the collar of his coat and hauled him to his feet. Wyatt, Morgan, and Fred Dodge dragged Curly Bill to jail while the men of the town rushed Fred Wyatt to the doctor. The whole town was awake and buzzing. Friends of Curly Bill started gathering in the street. They were not yet recognized as an outlaw organization,

but they would soon become known as the Cowboys. The lawmen of Tombstone braced for a riot and a lynching. Curly Bill's friends might not want him to languish in jail or stand trial, and the people of Tombstone might not want to wait for due process to take its course. Wyatt stashed Bill in the jail and assigned Morgan and Fred Dodge to watch him. They questioned anyone who approached the jail in an attempt to stave off frontier justice. Meanwhile, Wyatt rounded up a team to walk the streets and keep order in the wake of the shooting. Virgil, Doc, and Turkey Creek Jack Johnson joined Wyatt on the patrol. Tempers were hot in town. There were no more flare-ups in the immediate

aftermath, but Wyatt didn't want to take any chances. He hurried Curly Bill out of town under the cover of darkness and delivered him to the authorities in Tucson to await trial. Fred White, the first town marshal of Tombstone, died two days later. The next day, November 1, 1880, a thousand people crowded the streets for his funeral. It was the largest ever held in Tombstone. Virgil Earp took over as the town marshal temporarily, but he lost the job to Ben Sippy in a special election 11 days later. But the debate

over the town marshal job was small potatoes compared to the political upheaval that was in store for Tombstone in the November elections of 1880. The town barely had time to catch its breath after the death of Fred White before it walked unknowingly into the most turbulent year of its existence. Wyatt resigned as deputy sheriff of the Tombstone district during the political turmoil of the November elections, and the most hotly contested race of the Tombstone District during the political turmoil of the November elections, and the most hotly contested race of the election was that of Pima County Sheriff. Charlie Schibble held the job and had appointed Wyatt six months earlier, but Charlie was viewed as more of an administrator than a lawman. Wyatt ended up supporting the challenger, Bob Paul.

Bob was an imposing man at 6'4 and had a good record as a tough officer in California. In those days, the two major political parties were the opposite of what they are today. Democrats were conservatives, and Republicans were progressives. In Tombstone, most of the big ranchers in the area were Democrats, and they wanted candidates who wouldn't crack down on their operations. Most of the businessmen in town were Republicans who wanted tougher law enforcement. The two major newspapers in town chose sides. The Nuggets sided with the Ranchers, the Cowboys, and the Democrats. The Epitaph supported the Earps and the Republicans. The race for Pima County Sheriff pitted Democrat Charlie Schibble against Republican Bob Paul,

and it was an absolute mess. The Democrats employed Ike Clanton and Johnny Ringo as election officials. The ballots were cast, and Charlie Schibble won. Not surprisingly, there were cries of fraud and election tampering. Appeals were filed in court. Witnesses testified for and against tampering. Appeals were filed in court. Witnesses testified for and against both sides. The ballots were recounted. The case slogged its way through the system. In the meantime, Wyatt felt he couldn't work for the incumbent while he supported the challenger,

so he turned in his badge. While the legal wrangling continued, Charlie Schibble was still sheriff of Pima County, and he needed a new deputy. He appointed everybody's pal, Johnny Behan, as his deputy for Tombstone. The shady ranchers and the criminals who would become the cowboys now had political protection in the sheriff's office. Wyatt was out of a job, but it wasn't all gloom and doom, and he and Johnny Behan weren't enemies in the beginning. Rumors swirled out of the job. But it wasn't all gloom and doom, and he and Johnny Behan weren't enemies in the beginning. Rumors swirled out of the territorial capital in Prescott that a new county

would be carved out of the massive acreage that was Pima County, and Tombstone would be the county seat. The new county would obviously need a sheriff and deputies. In those days, county sheriffs could get rich. They were tax collectors as well as peace officers, and they took a cut of all the taxes collected. As the wealth skyrocketed in Tombstone, so did the taxes that could be collected. Johnny and Wyatt both wanted the new sheriff's job when it came online, so Johnny offered Wyatt a deal. If Wyatt agreed not to run for the position,

Johnny would appoint him under sheriff and they would split the tax profits. Wyatt agreed, the deal was struck, and they anticipated their new jobs would take effect in January, 1882. They just had to hold their deal together until then. Even without a badge, Wyatt stepped up when called upon. It was mid-January, 1881.

A judge in Tucson would make a ruling on the sheriff's race in two weeks, but for now, Charlie Shibble was still sheriff, Johnny Behan was still deputy, and Wyatt Earp was still out of law enforcement. On the morning of the 14th, Virgil wanted to go check on a mining claim about three miles south of Tombstone on the road to Charleston. Wyatt's favorite horse needed exercise, and Virgil pestered his brother to let him take the horse on this short errand.

Wyatt had already had one horse stolen while he'd been in town, and he was hesitant to let anyone use his animals, even his own brother. But he finally relented. Virgil trotted out of town toward Charleston. He was nearly at his destination when he spotted a cloud of dust rising in the distance and a wagon charging at him from the cloud. The driver yanked back on the reins and stopped the wagon in the road. Virgil recognized the man. He was George McKelvey, the constable of Charleston. Then he studied the passenger, whose color had drained from his face and whose hands were manacled in front of him. The young man was a gambler whose name was probably Mike Rourke,

but everybody called him Johnny Behind the Deuce because of his favorite pharaoh bet. George pleaded with Virgil to take Johnny to Tombstone. Virgil's powerful horse could move faster than the wagon, and there was an angry mob on their tails that was ready to string up the gambler. Young Johnny had killed Philip Schneider, the manager of the Tombstone Mining and Milling Company's San Pedro smelter. Schneider had been robbed, and he suspected Johnny was the culprit. Schneider had confronted Johnny at Smith's restaurant. They exchanged heated words, after which Johnny left the room. Johnny claimed later that Schneider had threatened him with a knife, so when Schneider walked outside, Johnny shot and killed him to protect his own life.

George couldn't hold off the mob that wanted justice at the end of a rope, so he had thrown the young man in the wagon and raced toward Tombstone. Virgil shouted at Johnny to get up behind him. Johnny scrambled onto the horse, and Virgil spun around for Tombstone. Wyatt was standing in front of the Wells Fargo office when Virgil charged into town. Wyatt frowned.

Virgil was pushing the horse much harder than he said he would, and there was a second man on the animal, too. What in the world was going on here? As Virgil pulled up in front of the office, Wyatt recognized the second man as the young tin horn Johnny Behind the Deuce. Johnny said he'd killed a man in Charleston in self-defense, and there was a mob on its way to lynch him. Wyatt grabbed a shotgun from the Wells Fargo office and rushed Johnny across the street to Vogin's Saloon, where Jim Earp was tending bar. They made it just in time. The lynch mob from Charleston flooded Allen Street

between the Wells Fargo office and Vogin's Saloon. Wyatt's friends hurried to the saloon to improve his odds. Virgil, Morgan, Doc Holliday, Fred Dodge, and a few others gathered around the terrified young gambler. They had to get Johnny to Tucson to stand trial, but they had to get him out of Vogin's saloon first. When they were ready, Wyatt turned toward the door and led the posse outside, shotgun in hand. The mob was waiting for them. Wyatt leveled the shotgun at the crowd and issued a command in a cold, hard voice. Stand back there and make passage, he said.

I'm gonna take this man to jail in Tucson. The posse started forward. The mob inched backward but wouldn't yield. Wyatt focused the shotgun on Richard Gerd, the assayer who had helped Ed Sheflin begin his mine two years earlier. Wyatt made it clear to Richard and the mob that if anyone made a move, Richard would be the first to die. The posse pushed forward. The mob eased backward. Wyatt led his group to a livery stable mounted up and delivered Johnny to Tucson unharmed

Johnny never stood trial in Tucson he escaped from the jail and disappeared from history but the episode became a pillar of the legend of Wyatt Earp he hadn't been a deputy sheriff for two months but he helped rescue a young man from vigilante violence nonetheless. The sheriff's race finally got sorted out in April 1881.

The Arizona Supreme Court ruled in favor of Bob Paul and made him the sheriff of Pima County. But not before he nearly got killed in the event that started the dominoes falling toward the most talked about 27 seconds in the American West. Wyatt was drawn back into law enforcement to help his brothers as they and Doc Holliday shot it out with a group of cowboys in a vacant lot behind a livery stable. The gunfight at the O.K. Corral is next time on Legends of the Old West. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed the show, the best way to help is to give it a rating and a review on iTunes. Recording and sound design for this series

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