This is Wyatt Earp's first attempt to tell his version of his life and times in Arizona Territory. Forrestine Hooker, Henry Hooker's ex-daughter-in-law, wrote children's books in Los Angeles, California. They reacquainted there and Wyatt Earp dictated those famous years in Tombstone, as he saw them. This work has previous been published, but in very limited quantities. Don Taylor, the Tombstone City Historian, has edited this version so it can be read by many, instead of the few.
THE INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER "Tombstone is written in a distinctly American voice." —T.J. Stiles, The New York Times “With a former newsman’s nose for the truth, Clavin has sifted the facts, myths, and lies to produce what might be as accurate an account as we will ever get of the old West’s most famous feud.” —Associated Press The true story of the Earp brothers, Doc Holliday, and the famous Battle at the OK Corral, by the New York Times bestselling author of Dodge City and Wild Bill. On the afternoon of October 26, 1881, eight men clashed in what would be known as the most famous shootout in American frontier history. Thirty bullets were exchanged in thirty seconds, killing three men and wounding three others. The fight sprang forth from a tense, hot summer. Cattle rustlers had been terrorizing the back country of Mexico and selling the livestock they stole to corrupt ranchers. The Mexican government built forts along the border to try to thwart American outlaws, while Arizona citizens became increasingly agitated. Rustlers, who became known as the cow-boys, began to kill each other as well as innocent citizens. That October, tensions boiled over with Ike and Billy Clanton, Tom and Frank McLaury, and Billy Claiborne confronting the Tombstone marshal, Virgil Earp, and the suddenly deputized Wyatt and Morgan Earp and shotgun-toting Doc Holliday. Bestselling author Tom Clavin peers behind decades of legend surrounding the story of Tombstone to reveal the true story of the drama and violence that made it famous. Tombstone also digs deep into the vendetta ride that followed the tragic gunfight, when Wyatt and Warren Earp and Holliday went vigilante to track down the likes of Johnny Ringo, Curly Bill Brocius, and other cowboys who had cowardly gunned down his brothers. That "vendetta ride" would make the myth of Wyatt Earp complete and punctuate the struggle for power in the American frontier's last boom town.
In another time, America is still young. A criminal organization fights to control the politics, newspapers and justice system of Arizona. Some are carefree outlaws, living by their own rules. Others are captains of industry, building family empires from deception and thievery. They call themselves the Cowboys.Lawman, outlaw and vigilante, Wyatt Earp is a man few can pin down. Turning his back to his troubled past, he ventures into wild boomtowns in search of wealth, true love and adventure. But just when his dreams are within reach, Wyatt and his brothers find themselves at war with the criminal elite. The Cowboys use guns, politics and even the system of law to crush their enemies. At last deciding to fight back as a vigilante, Wyatt risks losing everything he has in a quest for justice.
The Gunfight at the OK Corral on 26 October 1881 is one of the most enduring stories of the Old West. It led to a series of violent incidents that culminated in the Vendetta Ride, in which Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and several other gunslingers went after their rivals the Cowboys. Like most tales of the Wild West, the facts are buried under layers of myth, and the line between good guys and bad guys is blurry. Wyatt Earp, leader of the so-called “good guys”, was charged with stealing horses in the Indian Territory in 1870 and jumped bail. Becoming a buffalo hunter and gambler, he got into several scrapes and earned a reputation as a gunfighter. Several times he helped lawmen arrest outlaws, but usually his assistance came more because of a personal grudge against the criminal than any real respect for law and order. He even got fired from a police job in Wichita for beating up a political rival.
What can be learned from another retelling of the Tombstone saga? Recent revelations challenge the traditional view of Wyatt Earp's campaign against the Cow-boy confederation as a bloody personal feud a la western fiction. It was a seek and destroy mission sanctioned by the United States attorney general, the U.S. marshal and the Arizona Territory governor, following a year of corrupt law enforcement in league with the Cow-boys' livestock raids, stagecoach holdups and other atrocities. Presented in three sections, this book establishes the major players involved in the convergence on Tombstone, provides an account of Earp's activities during the 18 months prior to the final action and discusses the provenance and credibility of the "Otero Letter." Discovered in 2001, the letter--believed to be written by New Mexico Territory Governor Miguel Otero--offers evidence that Earp's party was given government aid. The author examines the details of the letter, including the shotgun dual between Earp and Curly Bill, the split between Earp and Doc Holliday, sanctuary for the Earp posse in Colorado and Holliday's extradition fight, Earp's covert assault resulting in Johnny Ringo's death, and the controversial courtship and marriage of Earp and Josephine Marcus.
The work of a lifetime reveals what really happened and why. The reason that Wyatt Earp came to Tombstone, why Josie Earp whitewashed the truth, the identities of the hired assassins who tried to wipe out the Earps in Tombstone and much more.
Arizona Territory, 1881. Having left cattle-war-torn Wyoming the year before, Tom Keene has now found supposed tranquility for his family in the once sleepy town of Tombstone. Swirling around his bright future as a rancher, however, is a growing struggle between outlaw elements in the area and Wyatt Earp and his brothers, who have vowed to bring them to account for their crimes. Try as he might to remain only an observer, Keene is eventually drawn into the conflict with unforeseen consequences.
