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

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
This is the me Eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely,
bug bitten, and in my case, underware. Listening past, you
can't predict anything 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,

(00:30):
no shortcuts, just gear that works. Check it out at
first light dot com. That's f I R S T
l I t E dot com. Join today by author
Mark Lee Gardner, expert on all things wild West. But first,
the Bob Kratchett Report.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Do you think the audience looks forward to the Bob
Cratchitt Report every every Monday.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
That's the thing I've been worried about. Yeah, you think
maybe no one cares, uh huh as much as I care.

Speaker 3 (01:03):
I think you're onto something there.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
How's it going? How's how's it going? As Bob cratch
It just real quick, Phil's just so everybody knows. People
just discovering the show. Phil is he's uh, he's been
cast into Christmas Carol.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
Yeah, it's true. We just dad tiny, Tim's Dad. Rehearsals
are rolling, they're going well. Uh, it's always fun watching
watching it come together. You know, it's it's show business. Baby,
We're We're.

Speaker 4 (01:31):
I don't have a whole lot to add, Steve.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
If you in case you you do, you get like groupies,
groupies theater groupies, like girls that want to come talk
to you.

Speaker 3 (01:41):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
The first time someone asked me to sign their program
in the alley behind the theater, I was taking up.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
I was telling about getting bugged.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
They they do exist, but they are they are very
they are few and far between.

Speaker 5 (01:55):
Yeah, Phil, do you use a special Bob Cratchit voice
in the show?

Speaker 1 (01:59):
Yeah? How do you say it's up?

Speaker 3 (02:01):
I do? I do have an English accent?

Speaker 4 (02:03):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (02:03):
I think you guys could just not do that.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
You just think we should go full American and just
spanning all different regions of the United States.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah, like I was saying, you would do US currency.

Speaker 3 (02:13):
US Yeah, because that's confusing and.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
Just have have you ever watched Death of Stalin.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Oh yeah, that's the guy from who created Veep did
that phenomenal movie.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
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.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
In the movie.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
I've never I've never been a Russian in a movie.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
But yeah, they don't they don't do all that. Yeah,
and it's like Steve Bushmi, but he talks like he's Steve. Yeah,
that's good.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
I think you are are masking your love for theater
and spectacle. You 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.

Speaker 3 (02:58):
I think you're in the wrong line of work.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
Frankly, 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 land everywhere? But I know

(03:20):
it's hurt.

Speaker 3 (03:21):
My wife is the exact same thing to me.

Speaker 5 (03:23):
I hate to tell you this, but that might be
a universal tactic because I tend to the same.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
I like mom did oh oh it was mom? Okay, Okay,
just don't like to see that. Just make sure it's
not you. Guys.

Speaker 6 (03:40):
By the time this airs, you and I will probably
be coordinating our outfits for to go see Bob cratching
the matinee.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
I don't having science as I'm here for cratching love it.
Mark Lee Gardner's the author historian of The Weast Musician.
I didn't know this Turkey hunting enthusiast.

Speaker 4 (03:58):
I'm an addict, seriously, Yes, every spring.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
Huh rare book collector.

Speaker 4 (04:05):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
And I heard that you compete with Random in the
state sales.

Speaker 4 (04:11):
I do, yes, if there's one. If there's one today,
I'll be there right, but they're usually not on Tuesdays.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
Author of many books. You know, you know I liked it.
You did a lot. You did that thing where you
did what's that thing called? Where you do like you
take questions like wild West questions. It's that it's on
Uh what the hell was that?

Speaker 5 (04:29):
Wired?

Speaker 1 (04:30):
Yeah? Wired? Where you like field? You like the helpline
and you field wild West questions. Dude, you got a
lot of breadth when it comes to wild West history,
like good wild West details.

Speaker 4 (04:42):
Well thanks, yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
Uh. Here's some of Mark's books. What are we sitting here?
Right front. Right here, we got in front of me,
I got shot all the hell Jesse James, the Northfield
Raid and the wild West Greatest Escape. We got brothers
of the Gun sitting in front of us. Wider Doc
Holliday and a Reckoning and Tombstone also the author of

(05:05):
Wagons for the Santa Fe Trade. That sounds very detailed.

Speaker 4 (05:09):
It's very detailed. I think it's sold like three hundred copies.
It's a very specific. It's the definitive book on wagons.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
That's like, but that's like hard history.

Speaker 4 (05:20):
Hard history. That's what they call a material culture study.

Speaker 1 (05:23):
Yeah, okay, and explain that to folks real quick, Like
what will they learn in that book? Wagons for the same.

Speaker 4 (05:28):
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 eighteen twenties up through when the trail
ended in eighteen eighty. How many mules you know, what weight?

Speaker 7 (05:39):
You know they'd.

Speaker 4 (05:39):
Averaged six 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 Traill has made a
National Historic Trail by the Park Service. But it's also
the only book on Santa Fe Trail freight wagons.

Speaker 1 (05:59):
So you got to hell on a Fast Horse, The
Untold Story of Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett. That's
a good one. We talked about shot all the hell.
You got a book on Roosevelt.

Speaker 4 (06:11):
I do on the rough Riders.

Speaker 1 (06:12):
Rough Riders, Theodore Roosevelt, his Cowboy Regiment, and the Immortal
Charge up 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 custers

(06:34):
on it bringing everything again.

Speaker 4 (06:38):
Yeah, it would be the only shirt like that in
the world.

Speaker 1 (06:43):
That that book. I haven't read years on this, but
i'd like to The Earth is all that lasts? Crazy
Horse sitting Bowl in the Last Stand of the Great
Sux Nation? Does that cover like this the Summer of
seventy six?

Speaker 4 (06:56):
And yeah, I mean I have a whole chapter on
just the battle itself, but it's there. It's their life story.
It's a dual biography of both these Lakota leaders. But
but yeah, I have a lot of information about the battle,
and I just stopped there on the way up here.

Speaker 1 (07:08):
Actually yesterday, isn't it haunted? Mass 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

(07:28):
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.

Speaker 5 (07:37):
Yeah, although I got a couple ancestors that were in
that battle.

Speaker 1 (07:43):
Yeah. If you look at the dead, Brody's all over there.

Speaker 4 (07:46):
Oh well, it's a very moving site. I'd 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 uh dust the sunset and nobody's there then and
you just stand on a Last Dan Hill or go
to Reno Hill. You know, it's just a very moving
h you know, just a neat experience.

Speaker 1 (08:08):
Yeah, a lot of suffering that day. But you know,
the thing you can't get over is just the absolute
exuberance that must have been felt by the Northern Cheyenne
in the Sux to be like just after like all
these just stunning defeats and massacres, to just that one day,

(08:32):
one time, just well and bring it to them, you
know what I mean? Like, how good for them, How
good that day must have felt.

Speaker 4 (08:42):
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 gonna hurt them,
and they were protecting their families and their mothers and sisters.

(09:04):
And they did it. And then there's all this booty
they got, you know, springfield carbines and cult revolvers. 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 they're doom. But they disobeyed
the vision, and some Lakotas field that that was the
downfall of their people. But yeah, the vision told him,

(09:27):
do not take booty, do not take souvenirs or whatever.
But how could you help, you know, not help. There's
all this stuff, ammunition and the horses and so, yeah,
they took plenty of booty.

Speaker 1 (09:40):
Have you ever read the account of Wooden Leg.

Speaker 4 (09:44):
It's one of the best accounts shining accounts.

Speaker 1 (09:46):
Yeah, he like he leaves the battlefield. He like face scalped.
A guy at the battlefield tried to give it to
his mom or grandma. She didn't want it, like a
side burned scalp splits. They all take off the cavalry.
The other the survivors, the surviving cavalry guys come up.

(10:08):
They like scour the whole battlefield, bury everyone. Wooden Leg
and his buddies go off to the west to go
hunt for crow Indians they like. They don't find any crow.
They find like one family and decide not to kill
him for some reason. He hasn't explained why they decided
not to kill him. And then they come back to

(10:30):
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 like were kind of like coming back through
looking for stuff just wild.

Speaker 4 (10:49):
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 royal washes
out and they find a canteen and one guy, I
mean this was involved a court case. It was like
maybe in the nineteen sixties or seventies found a pair
of binoculars, you kid, Yeah, and then of course he

(11:10):
told people about it and he was arrested. It was
a huge no kid, Yeah, you're not supposed to take anything, sure,
the National Park Service sites or federal land.

Speaker 1 (11:20):
So have you read Plainsmen of the Yellowstone.

Speaker 4 (11:23):
Yes, but it's been a long time so.

Speaker 1 (11:24):
It's a hell of a book. But there's an interesting take. Like,
like I said, I've always been a big, little, big
horn buff, you know, and Plainsmen of the Yellowstone he
treats it like he's like a lot of like to
summarize his view, he's like, you know, everybody loves it,
everybody writes books about it. It didn't matter. It was

(11:46):
a non event. It was a non event. This all
lands where it was gonna land where it landed. They
were gonna kill them all and bring them onto 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

(12:09):
to talk about. What it didn't matter.

Speaker 4 (12:10):
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 soldier to
Civil War. I mean, he earned all the accolades that
he got, and he's this darling you know the American
Army and Michigan man. Yeah yeah, yeah he uh, the
Michigan Brigade, the fighting Wolverines, all that stuff. So but anyway, yeah,

(12:34):
I mean, if if it had been some other officer,
maybe it wouldn't have been as big a deal or
as 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 Washitas, so you know
the story about they no one knew who he was,
that the La Cosaa giants didn't know it was that's contested.

Speaker 1 (12:57):
It is contest a little bit, but some of the
women and that there's a Southern Cheyenne woman that was
visiting and was there. She said she recognized him.

Speaker 4 (13:13):
She did this, that's in my book. Actually, yeah, yeah,
she she they were going to scalp and mutilate him
and she said, no, no, stop, that's that's he's the
husband of Mona Sita, who you know. She claimed that
Custer had buried.

Speaker 1 (13:26):
But anyway, and it was her that took the sewing all, yes,
and punctured his ear drums.

Speaker 4 (13:31):
Right, yeah, because that goes back to when he after
the Washton in Oklahoma, he met with some Chayan leaders
and one of the shy leaders dumped some ashes from
his pipe, you know, on his boots, and he said
that was so that he would remember next you know,
he keep his promise that he would not go against
their people or whatever. And and so the reason for

(13:51):
puncturing the all into his ear drum was so that
he would hear better in the other world now.

Speaker 1 (13:56):
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.

Speaker 4 (14:08):
He was he wasn't apparently, you know, he had like
a finger tip cut off, and but he wasn't mutilated
like all the other bodies. I mean, Tom Custer was
just unrecognizable. 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.

Speaker 1 (14:27):
Yeah, there's that move of like slash, make it so
you can't run, sure, yeah, make it so you can't
shoot your ugly, make so you can't make love.

Speaker 4 (14:35):
Right, So, but no, he was apparently it was very
you know, yeah, in good shape.

Speaker 1 (14:42):
I believe there was two guys that weren't touched. One
guy was under a pile of dead horses, so that
doesn't seem like they found him. And the other guy
was Captain Keyo. And Captain Keo had on a he
was some I don't know, some like branch of Cathalois
and I can't remember, that's right, Yeah, And he had

(15:02):
on 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, 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

(15:22):
on this this religious peace.

Speaker 4 (15:24):
I think he was in a papal guard at one
time or something. And it might have been they had
to do with that.

Speaker 1 (15:29):
In't anyways, They're like he might be They felt that
he might be some kind of religious figure and didn't
messle them.

Speaker 4 (15:36):
Well, he was a highly respected officer. He was one
of the more well liked officers in the seventh Cavalry.

Speaker 1 (15:41):
I think his horse is the only thing that survived Comanche.

Speaker 4 (15:44):
Well, the Lakotas and Chyenne survive.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
Sorry, only like the only I shouldn't see the only
thing that survive. What am I trying to say.

Speaker 4 (15:52):
Of the men with Custer and their horses? I guess
they wound up stuffing that horse and then they did.
You could go see it in Lawrence, Kansas. Is that
it's a the Natural History Museum. Yes, oh yeah, and
they've not too long ago they kind of refurbished Comanche.
But no, yeah, so he's there because he was at
Fort Riley in his last years in Kansas. And uh

(16:15):
and yeah, he's fully it's mounted, and he's got a
you know McClellan saddle, and uh yeah, yeah, and uh.

Speaker 1 (16:21):
He had some arrow holes in him and some bullet
bullet holes. I think crippled up pretty he was.

Speaker 4 (16:25):
Yeah, I mean he was, but apparently he was. They
felt he would survive. He was in good enough shape,
so uh yeah, so they they made sure they kept him,
took him back.

Speaker 1 (16:35):
This has nothing to do with that. We'll get on
with this in the meant 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 to Day came out to do to
put together museum collection. And he comes out and starts
scouring the country between the Yellowstone, Missouri and eastern Montana,

(16:56):
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.

Speaker 4 (17:15):
You know, Theodore Roosevelt went into the bad lands, he
would just had to kill a buffalo, you know, and
later he becomes you know, later he's wanting to preserve
the buffalo. But he did it after after he got
his buffalo.

Speaker 1 (17:28):
Him, he's like, yeah, preservation stars. Now he killed two.
The second one he regretted a little bit. I think
he killed one uh Medora, right outside of Manora, then
killed one outside the park somewhere. I believe, didn't he.
Randall Rail's got PhD in history. Do you got one
of those?

Speaker 4 (17:47):
No? I don't know.

Speaker 1 (17:49):
His is right up there. It's a smaller one underneath
my very big one.

Speaker 4 (17:52):
Oh nice, nice.

Speaker 1 (17:55):
Think of that.

Speaker 6 (17:57):
Yeah, it's almost like a to scare replica.

Speaker 1 (18:01):
I don't even know why you have that there, because
because like guests like you come in will get intimidated.
Oh okay, you'd be like, oh the big guns. Now
yours is a nice frame.

Speaker 4 (18:15):
Yeah you large it?

Speaker 1 (18:19):
Yeah, I know, I just photo.

Speaker 4 (18:22):
Large it.

Speaker 1 (18:23):
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 quest Yes, can
we hit you with some Old West questions?

Speaker 4 (18:30):
Mold worst questions. I don't know if I'll have the answer,
but I'll try.

Speaker 1 (18:34):
Is there any reason to believe? Is there any reason
whatsoever to believe that people would Uh. Any is there
like a famous case example of someone getting shot and
falling over a balcony rail like that is like trope
of Westerns. I can't Is there like a famous story

(18:55):
that inspires all those scenes?

Speaker 4 (18:56):
Nothing famous. I mean there may be you know, this
may have happened sometime in the Old West, but I'm
not aware of any famous.

Speaker 1 (19:03):
So just they just like it and it became like
a it became a trope, and.

Speaker 4 (19:07):
I think, so yeah, yeah, now I'll probably get lots
of emails. Yeah, oh yeah, you know Frank James knocked
that guy off the balcony. No, I don't know of
any famous case.

Speaker 1 (19:19):
Were those doors, the swinging doors? Was that a thing?

Speaker 4 (19:23):
Well, I got in trouble for that, so I didn't
think it was.

Speaker 5 (19:27):
What are they call him batwing doors?

Speaker 4 (19:29):
Yes, and I you know, I look at historic photos
and could not find, you know, these swinging doors, but
apparently they were used late in the nineteenth century. But
for instance'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

(19:51):
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 he walked in the door. Yeah, and
it had glass in it.

Speaker 1 (20:00):
So they don't picture anyone knock here.

Speaker 7 (20:03):
No.

Speaker 4 (20:03):
Yeah, But anyway, but apparently there were, you know, late
in the nineteenth century, you did start to see them introduced,
and the idea was behind it. They didn't want like
children looking in being able to see, and you know
in the summertime that's so it kind of blocks their
view and also let some air in because I'm sure
it was filled full of cigar smoke.

Speaker 6 (20:23):
And I was going to say, it seems like a seasonable,
a seasonal yeah style.

Speaker 4 (20:28):
And then a lot of these salute that had the
swinging doors, they had both doors. They had a door
you could close, but also they had to swinging doors
as well. So, like you say, in a little privacy screen,
it's kind of a privacy screen. Yeah, But I just
don't see it prevalent, like in the eighteen seventies Dodge
City or Wichita. I just I have not seen any
evidence that it was.

Speaker 1 (20:46):
That's a good to look at all those old photos
and didn't see them or not exactly.

Speaker 4 (20:50):
Yeah, and go through the newspaper account. I mean you
could even go through advertisements in historic newspapers and oh yeah,
here's the new swinging door. You need it for your
saloon or whatever.

Speaker 1 (20:59):
But that doesn't this or it does exist.

Speaker 4 (21:01):
Well, it does exist. Oh the mean the ads ads. No,
I have not come across. 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 if they swing back and for I mean, you
would have to have something, you know, to make it
do that.

Speaker 1 (21:18):
I guess if I ever built a house some scratch
or do a big remodel, I was already planning on
putting in a urinal. Okay, do them damn doors there
you go? Yeah, okay, huh, well.

Speaker 5 (21:30):
Kind of yearnal like a trough or like like like
a communal one or.

Speaker 1 (21:36):
What's kind of their alone, Yeah, next to the toilet.

Speaker 4 (21:40):
I've actually been in restrooms and houses that had those
swinging doors or whatever.

Speaker 7 (21:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:44):
Oh yeah, but see, I want to create tension. We're
I'm gonna have a very modern home, old swinging doors
all right, do you know what I mean? Like it'll
like like it creates a power balance between the two
motifs for the bedroom. That would be good, right, yeah, yeah,
okay Rin Krin was saying, you got some insights into

(22:07):
you got some insights into cowboy hats. Yes, oh okay,
cowboy hats.

Speaker 4 (22:12):
What do you want to know?

Speaker 1 (22:13):
Like did everybody Okay, let's got yeah, Like what would
you regard to be? 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?

Speaker 4 (22:25):
I when when you don't see horses on the streets anymore,
that seems to me that that era is gone, you know,
so when.

Speaker 1 (22:32):
When it was like that that you were just pointing out,
there's ways people defined exactly like some people will say
like barbed wire, right, like the open range closed land
was owned, it was fenced. The West died and you
had to you had to take that, like you view
it like when the horse ceases to be the primary
mode of transportation.

Speaker 4 (22:52):
Yeah, and and it I just think the horse is
so interwoven with the American West. I mean, uh, you know,
cowboys and you know, buggies, you know, and the mules
of course, pulling wagon. 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

(23:13):
a cowboy without a horse. Yeah, I mean there's no
cowboys that are just afoot. I mean they're on horseback.
And same with the planes 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
as kind of the end of what you could call
the Old West. Now you could argue, is that nineteen thirties,
I mean nineteen forties, because you know he's in some

(23:35):
places of Wyoming and Montana. I'm sure people are still
riding their horses into town. Sure in the nineteen forties,
maybe even the fifties.

Speaker 1 (23:41):
Yeah, they're all like working on the Manhattan Project and
dudes are riding around on horses.

Speaker 8 (23:45):
Sure, twenty minutes from here, I saw a guy get
off his horse and go to Stacy's right in Geluton Gateway.

Speaker 1 (23:53):
Was he being cute?

Speaker 4 (23:54):
No think I.

Speaker 8 (23:56):
Think he had the proper jeans and the proper boots,
so I don't.

Speaker 5 (24:00):
And his driver's license was suspended.

Speaker 1 (24:06):
I like to play that game.

Speaker 6 (24:07):
Whenever we see an adult on a bicycle.

Speaker 1 (24:11):
What are those little scooter you know, those little like
hover hoverboard. Yeah, but there's no handlebars on one of
those are called hoverboardsboards? Yeah, their day just not far
from here. On Kagi is the guy going down the
road on one of those with a white cowboy hat

(24:31):
on the phone.

Speaker 8 (24:35):
Taking a picture of that and sent it to us
CRUI No.

Speaker 1 (24:39):
He wasn't like no, I was the world wasn't a
hipster vibe. Let's get more of a crazy guy just
like everything about it. I was like a local eccentric. Yeah,
I'm trying to weigh stereotypes to the reality real quick.
Just gy have a handful of these. You go to,

(25:00):
let's pick a your eighteen seventy Okay, is it really
like in eighteen seventies? It really 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.

Speaker 4 (25:18):
Yeah, I don't think so, No, No, I don't. I mean,
you know, your cowboys in the seventies, they're gonna have
some kind of a wide brimmed hat. But I think
that they're 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. Yeah,
you know, the lily crowns are creased. I mean, there's
just a lot of difference. Uh So, I just don't

(25:40):
think you can say there's one standard. You can probably
look at what's work.

Speaker 1 (25:44):
I mean, I mean the broader family of like like
a hat with a body of a hat and then
a wide circular brim.

Speaker 6 (25:54):
Yes, a hat that a tourist would buy on vacation.

Speaker 4 (25:56):
Yeah, yeah, that's pretty standard.

Speaker 1 (25:58):
It's like like when you leave home in eighteen seventy,
if you're a man, you're not bald at you like,
you're not hatless.

Speaker 4 (26:05):
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
the triangle, ringing a bell behind him and kind of
harassing them or whatever because they stuck out.

Speaker 1 (26:25):
You know, they were a little bit What was he calling
them out about.

Speaker 4 (26:28):
I think because they were like a newbie or like
a dude or you know, it's just maybe a little
uppity or something or this kind of latest fashion, and
so he's going around. But you know, apparently he was
reported as word a Derby hat later a few years later.
So I don't know how if that looks like it's
a bowldy, you see, I'm true.

Speaker 1 (26:46):
Like a lot of the later gunfighters had those kind.

Speaker 5 (26:49):
Of well often there's like an English villain in the
kind of movies that wears a.

Speaker 4 (26:54):
Bold yeah, and you know bat maaster Center. I think
there's a photo of him wearing a Derby hat, you know,
later in his.

Speaker 5 (26:59):
Career, where slip on cowboy boots with jangly metal spurs
that announce their presence.

Speaker 4 (27:07):
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 mulear boot. Have you heard of this?
So on the sides, instead of having the leather loops
that you would pull, there's a long leather strap on
each side that you could grab onto and pull you

(27:27):
and they called a muliar boots.

Speaker 1 (27:29):
You can just just a strap, not a loop, just a.

Speaker 4 (27:32):
Strap, Yeah, a long strap maybe like that long that
you would grab hold of. Those were fairly popular.

Speaker 1 (27:36):
And then you tuck them inside.

Speaker 4 (27:37):
No, you leave them on the outside. They're flapping on
the outside.

Speaker 1 (27:40):
Oh, hence the name muleers.

Speaker 4 (27:42):
Yeah. Yeah, And I you know, there's different theories, uh
in the I mean these boots, you know, they could
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.

Speaker 1 (28:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (28:02):
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 and his
stocking feet, and 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 to walk over here, across the corner and
get that slab of meat and just leave the boots behind.

Speaker 1 (28:24):
So 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 there's a side of beef hanging in the courtyard.

Speaker 4 (28:40):
Well, no, it's not a matter of course, but he
had been told. So he gets in really late to
this house at fourt summer, this adobe building, and he's hungry.
And the woman in the house, who is Pat Garritt's
sister in law, 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

(29:02):
for sure, but he was staying there and she had
a husband he was there too, But anyway, she tells
him that there's a sight 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 gonna 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

(29:24):
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 he 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 ke and s ke and s you know who
is it? And John Poe, one of the deputies, is saying, Okay,
calm down, friend, you know we're not gonna hurt you
or whatever you and but they don't know it's Billy.

(29:46):
And that's when he gets up on the porch. She
backs into the room. Pat Garrett is on the side
of Maxwell's bed and he recognizes Billy's voice, as does
Pete Maxwell. He says, that's him and Pat Garrett. Now
here's the thing. You know, people are on Pat Garrett's like,
oh you shot. You didn't give Billy a chance to
kill you?

Speaker 1 (30:03):
You know.

Speaker 4 (30:04):
Well, you know, Billy the kid had said he was
gonna kill Pat Garrett the next time he saw him,
and he'd already killed a Lincoln County sheriff in a
Lincoln County deputy. And why would Pat Garrett give this
guy a chance? You know? It's like it was Billy
the kids. So he shoots right away. Sure, the first
shot gets him in the heart. Uh, and then he
fires a second shot. You know, there's there's it's a
moonlit night. But if you fired a Colt revolver, black

(30:27):
powder smoke, I mean this 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
clasped 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, and don't don't
shoot that's Pete, you know whatever. And then they get

(30:47):
a they light a candle, put it in the window,
and they see his body inside and they've got Billy
the Kid. But but anyway Pat Garrett was saying, is
pet Grett wrote a book later called The Authentic Life
of Billy the Kid, and he says, people, if accused
me of hiding behind a cat couch, and he says,
if third bit of couch I would have been hiding
behind it, why would I You know, I'm not an idiot,
you know.

Speaker 1 (31:06):
Oh yeah, but that whole thing of like being a
chivalrous around shooting. I mean the way we hit dudes
now we do it from outer space.

Speaker 4 (31:16):
Oh yeah, yeah, well this is.

Speaker 1 (31:21):
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.

Speaker 4 (31:27):
In your boat.

Speaker 1 (31:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (31:29):
But well here's Steve. Here's the thing about that. It's like,
and I think what's so amazing about White Herb. 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

(31:51):
policeman sees a gun, they shout gun and the fireworks start.
You know, I mean, you're gonna be dead. But Wider
went up to these guys and he would physically disarmed
then and usually his technique he was hit him in
the head with the you know, the barrel of his revolver.
But he was so close quarters time and again in
disarming these guys. And you know, he had no training.

(32:11):
There was no police academy. Then the goat 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 and
Dodge City. He was killed disarming a cowboy.

Speaker 1 (32:32):
Fred he.

Speaker 4 (32:34):
Was a brother, 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. Bat

(32:56):
Masterson said, Whiter 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.

Speaker 1 (33:05):
So what do you what do you take of the
I see here that Wyatt's six shooters up for sale
right now? Yes, okay, yeah, it's being auction. Yeah, I
haven't pulled up the link yet.

Speaker 4 (33:18):
Yeah, well you know it's Uh, it's one of those
things where the auction says it comes with a binder
full of providence, and the providence is this, So this.

Speaker 1 (33:30):
One I'm looking at sight right, Okay.

Speaker 4 (33:31):
So this man was a friend of whiteb and also
a friend of Josephine. But who is White's wife's forty five? Yes,
and it was purchased in They have the cult letter.
So it was purchased in Los Angeles at a store
in nineteen twenty two. WHITEERB doesn't die till nineteen twenty nine.
So this man who is a friend of Wyatt, he dies,

(33:53):
but then his son remains close to Josephine, Wyatt's wife,
and the son got the revolve 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,

(34:14):
the grandchildren are saying, you know, here's our you know,
and they signed 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.

Speaker 1 (34:28):
You know.

Speaker 4 (34:28):
Jesse James's mom did the same thing. She would buy
guns and oh yeah, this belonged to my son, and
she ah, and she would make money. She actually this
is funny. So they would they would sell at Jesse
james grave. He was very next to the house there
in cart near Carney initially, and they would sell pebbles
from the grave of Jesse.

Speaker 1 (34:50):
I'd buy one of those.

Speaker 4 (34:51):
Oh I would too. But then when they ran out
of pebbles, they went to the creek and got more
pebbles and put up on the grave. So I get
you know, it's still from his grave, but it might
wasn't there a long time? A short time. So every
white erp gun, there's a question on providence. I mean,
it's you're just not sure. And to me, it may

(35:12):
very well be true. You know, that story may be true.
But like I said, I you know anymore, uh, anymore,
you would almost have to have somebody dig up white
and put the gun out of his grave to say,
you know, yeah, that was for sure.

Speaker 8 (35:27):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (35:27):
And it's the same thing with all of these Old
West figures and outlaws. And there's such a big money
involved in One of the bangs of a historian's existence
is that courthouses have been rated of documents with white
Earth any.

Speaker 1 (35:41):
Earth versus just the documents valuable.

Speaker 4 (35:43):
Yeah, yeah, I mean they'll clip the signatures and and uh.
And I know of the case is when I was
researching this book that you know white Earp's you know
certificate where he commissioned is a law a lawman in Missouri.
Nobody knows where it is. Fortunately there's a there's a
microfilm copy of it. But people have gone in and

(36:03):
these county courthouses that are not well protected or secured,
especially the remote ones Lincoln County, New Mexico, a lot
of government legal documents with Pat Garrett's name on it
have 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

(36:26):
they approached the auction company and said these belonged to
us and the family. In order to avoid they just
donated him 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 a league like

(36:46):
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 belongs to that county or the state or wherever
it can from. But a lot of collectors he just
can't resist. Oh, I gotta have this. It's got Pat
Garrett's signature on or whatever. But anyway, it makes a

(37:08):
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 that 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.

Speaker 1 (37:27):
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. He was down
in Colorado. He'd been an oil he'd been an oil engineer,
oil executive. I came here with he like came up
through engineering, became an executive, but was a big arrowhead

(37:48):
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 a story. He
he's at some kind of a state sail or yard
sale or something or another, and he sees a fulsome
point bolo tie, Oh wow, and like something about the

(38:14):
patination on it, like he knew it was a foalsome 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 falsome point glued to the
just like you got on right, Okay. I wish I
remember where it came from. He telled me the whole story.
He buys it for next to nothing, peels that falsome

(38:36):
point off there and on it is still the museum
coding number.

Speaker 4 (38:42):
Oh wow.

Speaker 1 (38:43):
And he found the home for it.

Speaker 4 (38:44):
Oh nice.

Speaker 1 (38:45):
Somebody just walked away and it was like, rolls it
over and it's like I'm making this up, like a
zero one one nine or something where they do like
white out and then put a thing on there and
then and then like nail polish over.

Speaker 4 (38:59):
It or whatever. Yeah, No, that's that's the boy stuff.

Speaker 1 (39:02):
Well, it's just like like you're saying, like people was walking. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (39:05):
Well, you know, my wife was a curator at the
City of Colorad Springs Museum several years ago and she
had a woman come in and it was with a
Van Bige Vanbrigil vase and Van Bergel 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,

(39:26):
looks at the bottom and there's an accession number on
it and it's from their museum, and my wife's my
wife says, this is an accession number. The lady grabbed
it out of her hands and ran out of the buildings. Yeah,
she got it like a yard sale or something. But anyway,
they tracked her down and a lawyers were involved, but

(39:46):
we got they got the vase bag. But no, it's
like the lady, I mean, she did not want to
hear this. I mean because those pots, those faces. It
was probably like a thirty or forty thousand dollars van
brigle Vase. But no, she rap it and took off.
It's like I'm out of here, you know.

Speaker 1 (40:04):
Uh. The other day, a couple weekends go, I was
at my buddy's wedding down in New Mexico, Jeremy Romero.
He's getting married. I you know his wife, Shannon. I
saw it. Never clicked her made 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

(40:25):
throw a nod to Grandpa Art mm hmmmmm yeah, And
I said, do you mean like the later when you're
supposed to say congratulations? Later we're supposed to congratulations. I'm like,
does that mean like the IRPs? And she didn't know
where everybody fit with, like the irt family.

Speaker 4 (40:42):
Suddenly he became very interested.

Speaker 1 (40:44):
Yeah, does anyone have any objections to this union? Actually,
more of a question here got perked up during the ceremony. So,
so you your new book Wider Doc Holliday and a
reckoning in Tombstone. Oh, let me hitt you with this
one further. Do you feel that what Doc Holliday, that

(41:06):
the script was wrong? They screwed the script up in Tombstone.
Doc Holladay should have been saying, I'll be your huckle bearer.

Speaker 4 (41:21):
That's that's an urban legend, huckle bearer. Oh yeah it is, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (41:26):
That's what I I didn't say, that's what it said. No, no,
check me on answered yeah yeah. But he did it
like an accusation.

Speaker 7 (41:33):
Oh yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (41:34):
I was not implying that you that you were wrong. True, yeah, no,
it's not. No, no, hell is he talking about? Well
you can find that. I mean, actually that came up
recently and I looked through newspapers dot com and like
one of the first references is in the eighteen fifties
and it was regarding like so and so we're gonna,
you know, he wants you to be you know, or

(41:56):
have a shooting match. And the guy goes, yeah, I'll
be your huckleberry, Like yeah, but not huckle bearer, No,
not huggle Because.

Speaker 1 (42:03):
The urban legend is that they used to use like
huckle wood for the rails on a what do you
call the grave thing, a box a castin that the
coffin had like handrails, and the handrails they would use
like huckle wood, like a huckleberry. Well, I don't make
any sense.

Speaker 4 (42:21):
Yeah, I don't even know what a huckle tree looks like.

Speaker 1 (42:24):
So well it's if it's a huckleberry tree, it's a
mighty thin ra Yeah.

Speaker 4 (42:29):
But no, that's that's that's not true. That's not true.
And I have heard that that story about the huckle bearer,
but no huckleberry, you know, And.

Speaker 1 (42:36):
What does it mean, I'll be your huckle boy.

Speaker 4 (42:38):
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.

Speaker 1 (42:47):
Or whatever you like out like a trout in like Flynn.

Speaker 4 (42:49):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (42:50):
Maybe you're looking.

Speaker 6 (42:51):
There's the idea that you're looking for huckleberries.

Speaker 4 (42:54):
And what I found and I didn't even I don't
even know.

Speaker 1 (42:58):
I don't even know if the people spitball in here.

Speaker 4 (43:00):
I don't even know if the people that said it
knew what it knew where it came from. And that's
one of those phrases where oh yeah, I'm here, and
people just started using Now. I don't think it was
that common, but it was. It was at least in
the nineteenth century. It was used now I have never
seen Doc Holiday at a contemporary source saying I'm your huckleberry.
But Kevin Jar, the scriptwriter, was a brilliant screw. I mean,

(43:24):
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 Tonbestone is there are lots I mean, Kevin Jar
found lots of quotes. For instance, uh, you're a daisy
if you have or you're a daisy. That actually is

(43:46):
in the testimony from after the Ok Corral gunfight, Kurt
Russell says, or one of the one of the Earth
says it's a regular slaughter house. Well, that came from
the diary of John Parson, who is a minor. I mean,
so there's Jar did his research and there's lots of phrases.
And I have to agree with Kurt Russell who said
before that, you know, the thing that stands out about

(44:08):
Tombstone is all the quotes. It's one of the most
quotable westerns ever.

Speaker 1 (44:12):
You know, you know, you know what, 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

(44:37):
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 Wes Moreland
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

(44:59):
about he cruise around with Errol Flint's kit, shean Flynt,
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? And you don't lead him as much?

Speaker 4 (45:20):
Oh God, yes?

Speaker 1 (45:22):
From the movie right, which is from the book it's all.
It's all stuff dudes say to her hair. Howard Avery
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 Jack. So it's an interesting deal with
this guy that like those great quotes like I'll like
I'll be your huckleberry, right becomes just no one knew

(45:45):
what the hell that mant No, but it's like it's
because it was the thing.

Speaker 4 (45:49):
And it's on T shirts now you can buy a
T shirt that says I'm your huckleberry. But is Michael
here the one 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.

Speaker 1 (46:03):
The war kind of killed him in a way. He
didn't do much, like he reached like his zenith. He
even explains and the end of Dispatches how hard it
was to come home because he is from Berkeley, and
he came home 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

(46:26):
the dude that wrote dispatches. You know, like the book
killed him. It was like true mc capodi, like writing
in Cold Blood kind of killed him. Talk about wider
like as a kid or whatever. You don't like, where's
the guy like that come from.

Speaker 4 (46:43):
So he's born in Illinois eighteen forty eight. 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 it's Midwest farming family. His father, you know, ran
a kind of a grocery store in Monmouth, Illinois. Then
they moved to Pella, Iowa. I mean, really, there's nothing

(47:04):
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 Earth is that the only
stories that we really detailed stories about his childhood come
from him when he's dictating. I mean, you would think
somebody in Mama, oh yeah, they live next to us,
the guys that fought at the OK Corral. Yeah, they

(47:25):
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.

Speaker 1 (47:33):
But and he wasn't tangled up in the Civil War thll.

Speaker 4 (47:35):
No, his brothers were. He had three brothers that fought
for the North, but he tried to join. Is a
famous story. He was like fourteen years old and he
runs away from home at fourteen. Yeah. Yeah, well his
brothers were in and it's like, you know, so so
different from wars today. Everybody wanted to join. Everybody wanted

(47:56):
to go to war. I mean, you wanted to be
a hero. You wanted to you know and fight, you know,
fight the ReBs and the other side the same thing.

Speaker 1 (48:03):
So U I gotta hold you up on that, Okay,
I'm just curious, not just gonna cough. Oh sure is
that that? That's like there was there was an enthusiasm
to fight that war. Oh yeah, I mean well because
that was that war. That was no joke.

Speaker 4 (48:19):
No it was not.

Speaker 1 (48:20):
But you're getting you get involved in that war, you're
got a very good chance something's gonna happen to you.

Speaker 4 (48:23):
Part of it is expectation. I mean, you're you're a
young man, You're expected. You know, you're you're gonna go
to war. You're gonna fight for your country. But also
part of it is is is looked at. I mean,
it's the glory. Uh. 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.

(48:44):
You you you win at war. So it was expected.
And then if you want 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 congressmen and senators, and so it was
a whole different mindset in the nineteenth century. And then

(49:06):
everything you read as a kid, well, for instance, Theodore
Roosevelt born in eighteen fifty nine, all through the Civil War,
I mean he seeing Harper's Weekly and Frank Leslie's and
they've got these giint 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 drip,
you don't see the men beheaded by a cannon ball.
I mean it looks so glorious and thrilling, and so

(49:28):
there's all this kind of manliness involved. Yet let's go
off and we're gonna fight and we're gonna become heroes.
And of course they realized later that it's awful. It's horrible,
it's ugly. So no, they're they're you know Whyatt 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 plant that stupid
cornfield that he hated. You know, he didn't want to

(49:50):
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 white Events
is like, you know, well, I'm gonna starve with them
because I'm going to go fight the revs. And he
runs away from home. His father tracks him down and
he's you know why, it's all excited. He's already got grounded,
he got well, yeah, essentially. But he sees his father

(50:12):
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 attend to the cornfield. And so that
was it. And then the family ends up leaving during

(50:33):
the war and going to California. And I think the
reason was Nicholas Irp. 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.

Speaker 1 (50:48):
And what he wanted to be about, well, he thought it.

Speaker 4 (50:51):
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.

Speaker 1 (51:01):
So you're like a democrat and you don't want to
be involved in the war about slavery.

Speaker 4 (51:05):
So not an abolitionist, no, oh no, that's and that
was what they were really opposed to, the abolitionists stance,
because they felt they felt they became a war about abolitionism.

Speaker 1 (51:14):
Which they didn't care about.

Speaker 4 (51:15):
No, no, And and you know Nicholas Irp, 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 opposed the war,
but he's also taking his sons out of harm's way.
He's getting white you know why it 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

(51:37):
eighteen sixty four. They don't know how long this war's
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
why it's closest encounter with the Civil War was his
attempt to join up, but he got caught.

Speaker 1 (51:56):
Any of his brothers get killed there.

Speaker 4 (51:57):
No one brother. Jim was so badly wounded in his
arm that it was his arm was unusable, so he
kept his arm, but he just you know, couldn't use it.
And the Virgil I don't think he was wounded in
the war. And then he had a half brother, Newton,
and he survived the war.

Speaker 1 (52:15):
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 began to be associated with, did.

Speaker 4 (52:26):
Yeah, he met bat Masterson on the buffalo planes. Of course,
you know it's a little murky as to the chronology
because he claimed. Now you know Whyett'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.

Speaker 1 (52:42):
Such as what.

Speaker 4 (52:43):
Well, so he's he's a constable in Missouri for just
about well less than a year, and he loses his
wife there. He absconds with tax moneys he had collected
that were supposed to go to the county and gets
his family in trouble because his father and uncle had
signed sties on this bond, thousand dollars bond. He ends
up getting arrested for stealing a horse in Oklahoma.

Speaker 1 (53:07):
Is he a pimp for a while?

Speaker 4 (53:08):
Well, that's what I'm getting to. So, so from that
horse theft thing, he escapes from jail, he says at
that point, and he never mentioned 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 five thousand dollars in hides
or whatever. Well, there's an interval in there where he
went to Peoria, Illinois and he's living in the home

(53:32):
of a prostitute. There's a prostitute that claims to be
his wife, and he's actually running a brothel. According to
the arrest records, he's he's arrested as a pimp and
one of his his last brothel operation, which I think
is kind of hilarious. It was a floating brothel on
the river.

Speaker 1 (53:49):
So, yeah, was it to get out of like the
like like how you would have to gamble on the
river to get out state regulation?

Speaker 4 (53:55):
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 uh, anyway, joke. Yeah,
So so he got arrested a few In fact, one
time he got.

Speaker 1 (54:08):
He had a boat, yes, like what kind of like
a keel.

Speaker 4 (54:11):
I think it was like some kind of a flat
boat or it wasn't an extravage. It wasn't like not no, no, yeah,
it wasn't. 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, uh, it was
going to charge him like forty four dollars and he
didn't have the money, so he chose to be in jail,

(54:32):
him and his brother Morgan. So they sat out there there,
you know, time in jail, and then they went back
to doing the same thing. That's when they got the
boat or whatever.

Speaker 1 (54:41):
I want to narrow one on his boat. Okay, why
are they running a uh like, why are they running
a cathouse on a boat?

Speaker 4 (54:51):
Well, I think it's the mobility moving target. Yeah, yeah,
that's 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 conduct your business.

Speaker 1 (55:10):
So but but it's funny that we laughed so hard
about this years ago. Is uh, you'res to call there's
this whole dispute in this town where like this town
is trying to ban ice fishing. Okay, remember this, Yeah,
this town is trying to ban ice fishing. There's like
this city councilman who is given like the speech at
the at the town meeting, and he's talking about, well,

(55:33):
if you allow ice fishing, then people are gonna have
ice shanties. Okay, if you bring in ice shanties, that'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

(55:54):
just can move around.

Speaker 4 (55:55):
Yeah exactly, Yeah, and who knows. I mean maybe it
was a really inexpensive rather than have a you know,
go to some building in town. But like you say, yeah,
you're mobile, and uh, maybe you're here one night and
the next night you tell you tell your guys they
were gonna be on here five miles or whatever.

Speaker 1 (56:11):
Was his wife like, would you imagine was his wife
a madam or was she an actual worker?

Speaker 4 (56:18):
Well, so he had four wives and or significant he
only there's only one legal record marriage record for his
first wife, but the wife he had in Peoria, she
apparently was not a madam but was actually a work girl.

Speaker 1 (56:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (56:33):
Now later yes, later apparently uh this uh this wife
when he was in Wichita because she came with him,
and apparently she was a madam or running a brothel.
And you know, it's it's it's it's it's really sad
because these are one side of affairs. I mean, uh,

(56:55):
you know, let's say Doc Holidays, you know, big nos 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 while
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.

(57:17):
You're not really doing much work of the protection. So
it's it's a sad. It's uneven, I should say, as
those relationships predatory exactly. Yeah. So but anyway, I the
way I look at so so White had these unseemly
things about his past, but he was in his early twenties.
I mean, and uh, you know, I a little sympathetic

(57:40):
because he he grew out of that, he became different,
he aspired to something better, uh and when he ends
up in Wichita as a policeman, even though his wife
is still a prostitute. Uh, He's 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 for county sheriff. I mean he's

(58:01):
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.

Speaker 5 (58:19):
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?

Speaker 4 (58:28):
Like why did he bounce it? 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, who for sheriff, and this man had said
some unsavory things about why Ittt'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.

(58:50):
Almost immediately there after, the mayor of Dodge City learns
that Widrop's available, and so he sends him a letter
offering in more pay, you know, and the the cattle
herd trade had shifted west. They have you heard of
the deadline? You've heard of the phrase called the deadline.
So yeah, So there was a tick born disease called

(59:14):
Spanish fever, and the Kansas legislature they had a line.

Speaker 1 (59:18):
Not a livestock disease, but a human disease.

Speaker 4 (59:20):
No livestock, and they did not want these Texas cattle
infecting the herds and the more settled places of Kansas.

Speaker 5 (59:28):
They're worried about coming back.

Speaker 4 (59:29):
Now I don't know, I haven't heard about that.

Speaker 1 (59:33):
So anyway, there's Texas fever. Well they kept they use
that they spray those nilghai with that automated spray gun
to try to like get the tick off right.

Speaker 4 (59:42):
Okay, Well, it was a tick born 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

(01:00:03):
go there to make money. In fact, he he said
that he bought a concord coach, a stage coach, and
he thought they we might need a stage line, and
so his idea was, I'm going to take this coach.
When he got there, there are 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

(01:00:25):
mining claims. He's first a deputy sheriff there in the county,
and then uh, you know he's wanting to run for
this that when they when they create coaches county, Uh,
he wants to run for the county sheriff. He really
is looking to advance, uh, to better himself, I mean,
to really settle down. You know, he's like thirty three
or no, he's like thirty or well, I can't remember

(01:00:46):
thirty three. I think at that time, and uh, there's
opportunity here. And he got there right at the berth.
I mean Tombstone was just starting to boom, and so
he did have you know, he did have a real
opportunity to make a difference, 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,

(01:01:09):
when somebody was killed or you know they needed somebody.
You know, White Earth 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 us Marshall and became chief of
police in Tombstone. But he was really looking to change
and to make himself better. And even the Earth women,

(01:01:29):
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 could say this is
my wife, you didn't question him. They just called her
missus irp. I mean there was no this stuff didn't
follow you. So they really had hopes for a new
beginning in Tombstone.

Speaker 5 (01:01:48):
Were his brothers like was it always like a family
business or did they not join him until Tombstone.

Speaker 4 (01:01:55):
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 RP was in Tombstone, but
he wasn't involved with White. He was, you know, a
barkeep there at one of the saloons. Virgil RP. He
didn't invest in the gambling concession that Whitett had at

(01:02:18):
the Oriental. You know, he was the deputy us Marshall
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 they tend
to stay together as a family. And you know, Morgan
comes down from Montana when he learns that Wyatt and

(01:02:39):
the other brothers are in Tombstone and joins him there
and he gets it. He takes White's job as a
sitting shotgun on a stage coach. After Whyatt becomes the
deputy sheriff or whatever. So they just, you know, they
they navigate together because they're family you know.

Speaker 1 (01:02:55):
The thing that in reading about this era and different
figures that that I've written about, and the Randalls researched
about what you're talking about, you get these guys that
are with these incredible drifters. Like when we talk about
the mountain man era nowadays, someone might think of like

(01:03:17):
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.

Speaker 4 (01:03:26):
I think that's a History Channel show, isn't it.

Speaker 1 (01:03:28):
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, criss crossing the country, right, And you think
this is a time when you could be a farmer
and spend your whole life in a twenty mount radius

(01:03:50):
right in certain areas, like it's not easy to get around.
These guys get around unbelievably well, Like if you look
at all the like how much do Irp's move would it?
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

(01:04:13):
coast and back.

Speaker 4 (01:04:14):
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 now. A mining boomtown
is different than a cattle boom town. So you know,
when when gold or silver, Tombstone is a silver place,
you know, people are coming all over to think they're
going to make their riches. And you know, what's what's

(01:04:37):
odd is that there was one newspaper account where a
guy's write in a letter from Tombstone and he says
most of the and like at one point there was
like twenty 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

(01:04:58):
as you know, you could if if you're a miner,
you could get like working mine, or 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 what you can find elsewhere.
I mean, like a sack of flour and Tombstone with

(01:05:20):
six dollars, you could get it in Kansas for less
than three dollars, you know, or a bushel or whatever.
So yeah, so it's 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

(01:05:40):
about these different claims. And anyway, in eighteen eighty was
an election year and it was Garfield and I can't
remember who he's running against, but somebody mentioned Garfield and
they said, oh, where's that claim and how much does
it pay? You know, they thought it was a mining
claim or whatever. And then another thing that it's just
really horrible. Actually, the diary is George Parson. We have

(01:06:03):
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's struck
there because there was a large load of metal in
that spot and kid, Yeah, they were talking about the
guy that was killing them all. It's like, I wonder, yeah,

(01:06:24):
if there's some silver there. It's like, oh, yeah, who
was that guy that was good? They didn't even care
about him.

Speaker 1 (01:06:28):
So yeah, uh, walk us through, walkers through Doc Holliday,
Like people kind of carry it in their head that
these guys are that these guys are our buddies became
buddies but totally different upbringings.

Speaker 4 (01:06:40):
Oh yeah, yeah. Uh, Doc had a little more advanced
education than than why it 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

(01:07:01):
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 Yeah, she definitely
had Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:07:11):
There you go.

Speaker 1 (01:07:12):
Yeah, why did she have burned letters?

Speaker 4 (01:07:14):
She didn't want anybody to see. I mean, you know,
she'd 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.

Speaker 1 (01:07:34):
You know, was a doc.

Speaker 4 (01:07:35):
He was a doc. He was a dentist. He actually
went to a dental The most prestigious dental school in
the country at that time was in Philadelphia, the Philadelphia
Dental School, and he got a degree. He went there
in eighteen seventy. He got his dental degree. One of
the few photographs we have of him was taken in Philadelphia,

(01:07:56):
and we think it was like a graduation photo or whatever,
and it has his to get you're on the back
and it says, you know, J. H. Holliday, d d
D or whatever. But anyway, so he also comes down
with tuberculosis. His mother had tuberculosis, and their speculation that, well,
you know, he probably got it from her. In the

(01:08:16):
nineteenth century, people didn't know was contagious. So you know
today if somebody, oh, I got TV and you're coughing
over the places.

Speaker 1 (01:08:24):
That's what I got right now.

Speaker 4 (01:08:26):
I don't know if you're taking some fit of silling. Yeah,
but anyway, yeah you would. I mean people didn't know
that because they call it consumption y, yes, exactly. Yeah.
Or they called him a lunger. What is it in
the movie Tombstone and 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 is that they encourage him to go west

(01:08:48):
because of his health, you know, to go out to
a different climate. It's odd because he goes to Texas,
which is Dallas, which is not that much different from
where he is as far as humidity and all that stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:08:59):
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

(01:09:19):
probably is in the same camp in the Guala Su camp.
Probably in the same camp with Crazy Horse from crazy horses,
like thirteen years old and he's out there on his
like doctor's recommendation.

Speaker 4 (01:09:31):
Yeah, it was called the Prairie cure. Yeah they believed. Yeah, now, yeah,
it was called the Prairie cure.

Speaker 1 (01:09:37):
And they see reference to it so much.

Speaker 6 (01:09:39):
You've got to get away from the miasmas.

Speaker 1 (01:09:41):
Yeah, the bad air, the.

Speaker 4 (01:09:42):
Well And there's some amazing survival stories of a Josiah
Gregg who wrote a book called Commerce of the Prairies.
He was advised to go out west. This is in
the eighteen thirties and along the Santa Fe Trail. He
started his journey as an invalid, he could not walk.
With in a few weeks, he's up and walking, he's
eating buffalo meat, and he's like, fully he fully recovered.

(01:10:05):
What was his affliction, We don't know. I mean, we
don't know, but he was. He was so bad off
that he couldn't even walk.

Speaker 1 (01:10:11):
I mean, 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 and also now he's out there eating
nothing but meat. No, you didn't believe in It's totally
I believe in that. I don't believe in gluten in tolerance.

Speaker 4 (01:10:31):
Okay, but what what.

Speaker 1 (01:10:33):
I believe in it as a partisan disease. It's a
political disease.

Speaker 4 (01:10:38):
What what history?

Speaker 1 (01:10:39):
Totally joking?

Speaker 4 (01:10:40):
What some history? What's some historians think to it was refuted.

Speaker 1 (01:10:45):
I used to feel just I said something in sandiary,
I got to clean it up. I used to feel
that it was a just with all due respect to
everyone else. No, I'm a believing. I came up with
this theory based on just nothing, that gluten intolerance was

(01:11:06):
a left wing affliction.

Speaker 4 (01:11:10):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:11:10):
I was like, why 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

(01:11:32):
leaning ghost He's like ghosts and I'm like, definitely left wing.
He's like no, no, if your right wing, you're more
inclined to believe. So anyways, once he walked me through,
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

(01:11:53):
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, okay,
because I don't want to rehash. I don't want to opens.

Speaker 4 (01:12:05):
I'm glad you did a statistical study that.

Speaker 1 (01:12:07):
Well, that's the problems I did. Oh but my friend
did what caused you to rethink? And you challenge a
lot of my assumptions, and then my theory fell apart,
as many theories do. That's all the Prairie cure. Yes,
so we don't know what Josiah greg No, we don't
what is affliction. But but I believe it was CELIAX.

Speaker 4 (01:12:30):
Okay, all right, Yeah, well they could very well be.
I mean I have I can't say either way, but
a lot of historians think that 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 turriculosis can go into remission as well. So

(01:12:50):
so but but but you're right though, I mean, doctors
were constantly referring, you know, go west or whatever, and.

Speaker 1 (01:12:56):
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 TV.

Speaker 4 (01:13:09):
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 cold smoke, and
that certainly isn't going to make your TV any better.
So I think it was helpful. And and you had
all kinds of sanitariums popping up in the late nineteenth
century early twentieth century. Colorado Springs was a huge place

(01:13:32):
for sanitariums, and they had little huts and you're supposed
to get out in the sun, which is helpful, you know,
getting sun lights on where Oh it's it's a huge
complex for treating patients with tuberculosis, with like dozens and
dozens of hundreds of individual huts. Yeah, and you would
go I would.

Speaker 1 (01:13:49):
Have thought it meant like an insane asylum, a sanitarium.

Speaker 4 (01:13:52):
Yeah, sanitarium. Yeah, do you know this random? Mm hm.

Speaker 1 (01:13:55):
They covered that when the doctorate I mean glen Wood Spring.

Speaker 6 (01:13:59):
I believe Hot Springs used to be a sanitarium.

Speaker 5 (01:14:05):
Always springs, They're always hot springs.

Speaker 8 (01:14:07):
Yea.

Speaker 1 (01:14:07):
I know this because I would have raised my hand
like in trivia. I would have been like.

Speaker 5 (01:14:12):
But what that is was was Doc Holliday already like
before he left the East to go west? Was he
already like a ne'er do well gambler and drinker and
all that?

Speaker 4 (01:14:25):
Well, there's some 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 that counters the tuberculosis story.
There was this fishing hole along.

Speaker 1 (01:14:45):
The river where this is a euphemism.

Speaker 4 (01:14:48):
No, no, it's a real no, I'm sorry. It was
a swimming hole. Sorry, a swimming hole. And uh anyway,
it was enjoyed by both black swimmers and white swimmers.
I've heard, yes and so so. The white swimmers, including
Doc Holiday, did not want the black swimmers in their
swimming hole, and they threatened them and says, you're going
to have to go someplace else. Well, the black young

(01:15:08):
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
them all to get out, and then as they're clamoring
out of the fishing of the swimming hole, he unloads
both barrels and apparently kills two of these young men.
Yeah Holiday, Yes, and the story yeah, that's right. Yeah,

(01:15:30):
did his quate? So?

Speaker 7 (01:15:32):
Uh?

Speaker 4 (01:15:32):
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 and until
things settle down or whatever. The family does have stories
of this incident, but they say Doc Holliday fired over

(01:15:55):
the heads of the swimmers. I can tell you that
there are no legal documents known or newspaper reports that
mentioned this episode.

Speaker 1 (01:16:05):
Or isn't Does it seem like a thing that would
have been reported on.

Speaker 4 (01:16:08):
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 could

(01:16:29):
escape your past. That story stuck around. People knew that story,
got it. 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 saying 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 believable.

Speaker 1 (01:16:49):
So when he left, when he leaves Georgia, and whether
it's it's because he's got consumption, whether it because he's
worried about getting arrested. Yeah, he leaves dentistry.

Speaker 4 (01:17:01):
No, no, he sets up a uh he has a
partner in Dallas, Texas and they have a dental He
has a partner. His name is Cigar, Yes, Segar. And
this is this is the cool thing. I mean, there's
a there's a local fair, the Texas Industrial Association. They
get a prize for like the best false teeth. Oh

(01:17:23):
you know, 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 twenties,
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 uh you

(01:17:45):
know group of uh you wouldn't call it aaa, but
it was, you know, a temperance organization. And uh. But
then he says, uh that I swayed you know, uh
something from rectitude or whatever. And so yeah, he started gambling.
Bat Masterson says, you know, there was gambling was rampant

(01:18:06):
in Dallas, and he says that was the one way
to sure make money in Dalla because of all the
places where you could gamble. We know that Doc was
arrested there for gambling in Dallas, and apparently you know
Doc's life as a gambler.

Speaker 1 (01:18:18):
Well.

Speaker 4 (01:18:18):
In fact, bat Master 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.

(01:18:39):
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. Yeah
it says, you know, John h Holiday dentist. But after
that we have no record that he actually practiced as
a dentist. For instance, he was in Pressate, Arizona for
a while. He was gambling. He was definitely not practicing dentistry.

(01:19:02):
In Tombstone, he was a full time gambler. But the
funny thing is in the eighteen eighty census for Arizona,
his occupations linisted his dentist, but he wasn't doing I mean,
you know, it's kind of like this is the other
weird thing the Irt brothers. In the same census, they're
listed as farmers. They weren't farming. White hated farming. But

(01:19:23):
you know, I guess you tell the census taker what's
your occupation? Oh I'm farmer. Yeah I don't. But anyway,
I just thought that that census taker had to chuckle
when Doc said, yeah, put me down his dentists because
he was not doing dentistry. In Prescott Arizona.

Speaker 1 (01:19:36):
God if he if he if a guy like Doc
Halladay filled out like his tax forms at the end
of a year a gambling like he's he's showing like
a gain. He yeah, I mean, like when when you
read all these guys like he was a gambler, professional gambler,

(01:19:57):
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.

Speaker 4 (01:20:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:20:04):
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 well, prostitution or whatever the hell you got.

Speaker 4 (01:20:20):
Well, sometimes you're actually just being paid as a dealer
in a in a gambling establishment, and you're not necessarily
taking part of the women's or winnings or you know,
you get a concession. You can run this Pharaoh table
and you'll give so much to the guy that owns
the place, and you keep so much.

Speaker 1 (01:20:38):
God, But the thing is, it's not like that you
need to win more than you lose. There's other ways
a turn a problem. There's other ways a turn a
living as a gambling.

Speaker 4 (01:20:47):
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. This incident, well, here's an example in Leadville.

(01:21:07):
He borrowed like five dollars from this guy and he
wasn't paying it back and a guy kept harassing him.
You know, I want, 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. He had a few
possessions that were sent back to his family. There were

(01:21:27):
no guns that were sent back, so he probably sold
those long before. There was a stickpin, a gold stick
pin that had a diamond in it. The diamond was gone,
so he probably locked the hat and sold it. I mean,
why the hell did he? I mean, it was sad.

Speaker 1 (01:21:42):
I was like, why did he get like, why did
he get out of why not this be a dentist?

Speaker 4 (01:21:46):
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 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 laudanum.
Any kind of tonic that you took had all kinds

(01:22:08):
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 and he was quick to get angry
and get into fights. And his wife said, you know,
Doc was his own worst enemy, and that was one
of the things that kind of this bond that they had,

(01:22:28):
you know whyet kind of and the brothers kind of
took care of Doc when 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 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 and he didn't have that that you know, that
family really to you know his other brothers. They were

(01:22:49):
they were kind of like siblings in a way. Doc
was three years younger than Wyatt. But but uh, anyway,
it was really for Doc at the end. It was
very sad. But but people that wrote about him said
he was always a meticulous dresser and he didn't dress
over the top or what.

Speaker 1 (01:23:05):
But he's just.

Speaker 4 (01:23:05):
Particulous 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, yeah, he'll be able to see
me once I'm dressed or whatever. And so he got
all dress. He had a cane, he had an overcoat
and it was a very sharp you know, it looked
took real pride in his appearance.

Speaker 1 (01:23:22):
If you were hanging out with Big Nose Kate, would
you say, excuse me, Big Nose Kate.

Speaker 4 (01:23:29):
I don't think she liked that at all. Yeah. Well,
and uh that's a name. Here's the this is what's
so interesting That name comes from one person whiter said.

Speaker 1 (01:23:40):
She was always a bully too.

Speaker 4 (01:23:41):
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 worse. Now, here's here's an interesting theory behind

(01:24:02):
that name though. A buddy of mine, Ron.

Speaker 1 (01:24:05):
Hanson, she's Hungarian, right, yes she is.

Speaker 4 (01:24:07):
Yeah, my buddy mine, Ron Hanson, who wrote the Assassination
of Jesse j Dude.

Speaker 1 (01:24:10):
That is an unbelievable Look.

Speaker 4 (01:24:11):
It's a great parties with him.

Speaker 1 (01:24:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:24:13):
Yeah, he's a friend of mine and he wrote a
blurb but it's on the back of that book. But anyway,
Ron uh 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 brabl the Italian term bonio, because Bonyo was
a brothel. He thinks they called her Bonyo Kate and

(01:24:34):
it it got corrupted into big Nose just to kind
of irk her. That's his theory, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:24:38):
So I mean, I don't know. I mean, you know,
I don't want to be rude to her, but you've
seen pictures of her.

Speaker 4 (01:24:43):
Yes, yeah, but that's like that's later life. That's a
later life.

Speaker 1 (01:24:48):
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 was the car nowadays?

Speaker 4 (01:25:05):
I'm sure it's not that she.

Speaker 1 (01:25:07):
Wouldn't say, oh wow, she's tell her hook called.

Speaker 4 (01:25:10):
Well, you know, she was a perpetual I say in
the book, a perpetual IRB hater. And that tells me
how oh yeah, she hated it, But it tells me
how close that bond was between White 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. Beteaen her and Doc.

(01:25:32):
You know, White just said, well they were always a
quarrelsome couple. That was all he had to say about it.

Speaker 1 (01:25:36):
But she a big booze er.

Speaker 3 (01:25:38):
Two.

Speaker 4 (01:25:39):
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 IRBs. She thought that was the end

(01:25:59):
of their relationship. She thoughts at how everything went wrong
and they turned Doc wrong, and 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 Been, and implicated Doc in the Benson
stage robbery. She said, oh, yeah, boyfriend, Yeah, her boyfriend.
And then she later said this was my way of

(01:26:19):
getting him away from the herbs. Well, she could have
he could have been hung, you know, because there was
a guy, 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 the prosecuting attorney once he heard the story and
there was no evidence, he said, he just asked the
judge dismissed the case. He said, there's no evidence whatsoever

(01:26:42):
that what she's saying is true. There's nothing 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.

Speaker 1 (01:26:51):
All right. Set up? How set up? How it comes
that like rather than like the way you talk about
these guys, rather being like there's a like super slick,
you know, virtuous right, white hatted Western heroes. It's there
kind of just like drifters make and do well in

(01:27:16):
a drinking.

Speaker 4 (01:27:18):
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 Flies f

(01:27:41):
l y. Their last name was fly cs. Fly was
a famous photographer and he had a photo studio behind
the boarding house. And anyway, so Doc had had 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 could say, hey,
would you come be it like to see you again?
She came back at like three different times she came

(01:28:04):
back to see him. There was this off and on
again relationship, but she couldn't stand the herbs. So I
think that she couldn't stand to be in Tombstone for
very long.

Speaker 5 (01:28:13):
How did Doc Holliday and Wider? Like, how did it
all start? Was Doc Hall just gambling out his establishment
at Wider's establishment and they got to know each other
that way or like?

Speaker 4 (01:28:23):
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.
So what happened was is that Doc and White had
first met about eighteen seventy seven in Fort Griffin, Texas.

(01:28:46):
And why it was down there he was being employed
by the Action Sepeak 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. Whitet asked him. He says, hey,

(01:29:06):
you know, I'm looking for these guys. And he says, well,
if anybody would know, it'd 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, show 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 going a few leads that didn't

(01:29:28):
pan out. But 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 Kde
at that time. And so Doc ends up in Dodge City.
And you remember I said he placed that ad for
a dentist's office. But one night, and this was happening

(01:29:49):
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 arp on the street near the long A
Saloon by himself, and they quickly surround him, and they
got their guns and they're they're said, we're gonna get
you now, you know what. They just didn't like him,
you know, he was the law and they were drunk,

(01:30:10):
you know, and so we're gonna, we're gonna 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
Holiday's backs. 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

(01:30:30):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:30:37):
His gun and a barbed gun, kid's.

Speaker 4 (01:30:38):
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 them up. So Wyatt
set this more than once, and he said, from that
day forward, I was Doc Holliday's friend, you know, with
the friends. I mean, he's he considered his life saved

(01:30:58):
and he thought he was dead it. 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 and Tombstone. They even tried to use Doc
against him by 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,

(01:31:21):
if they make Doc look bad, well how we're not
gonna elect White Herb. He's a friend of this crazy,
you know thief, you know, Doc Holiday. But that really
says something to me about White Herb. You know that
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, what happens, We're friends. And that's the way
it was until you know, they separate eventually after the

(01:31:44):
Vendetta ride. Uh 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 why her Trinidad is staying at
the hotel here. That was news and Doc Holliday read
that and he went down to meet him at the hotel.

(01:32:07):
And Josephine R. 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 man. But you know whyatt just had this
not I don't think like that. But anyway, I know
it's Steve your friend or yeah, but uh, anyway, they

(01:32:34):
embrace and they go us to a table to the side,
and they're chatting and uh, 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 you know
that that I would be the first to go or

(01:32:54):
whatever between us and and uh, anyway, they.

Speaker 1 (01:32:57):
He's prophesizing his death, yes.

Speaker 4 (01:32:58):
He is, and and uh, white Earth comes back to
the table and there's tears in his eyes.

Speaker 1 (01:33:04):
Huh.

Speaker 4 (01:33:04):
I mean there is no other account of white Earth 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 gonna ever see him again.

Speaker 1 (01:33:15):
Huh. Yeah, explain the mash up that occurs around the okay,
corall 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.

Speaker 4 (01:33:31):
Well, I'll try to make it byzantine. A lot of
it has like.

Speaker 1 (01:33:36):
Like he's mad about this and mad about that and
was hired by him. It's not like like.

Speaker 4 (01:33:43):
Well, there's lots of under there's lots of undercurrents. I mean,
the Irk Brothers, they were on the side of law
and order and uh whyaet earp 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 uh,
the stage had been robbed, the Benson stage had been robbed,

(01:34:04):
and two people have been killed, the driver and a passenger.
So we're now this is the obskirts of Tombstone. Yes,
so the stage coach was robbed and everything, and.

Speaker 1 (01:34:13):
This is a way, this is like a scheduled piece
of transportation into Tombstone.

Speaker 4 (01:34:18):
Well, going out of Tombstone and it's robbed of what Well,
it wasn't robbed because it went it went bad. So, uh,
the guy that was the you know, the guy riding
shotgun you know when the when the when the robbers
say hold, uh, he goes I hold for nobody and
they start blasting away and the drivers killed instantly. He

(01:34:38):
falls down between the lines. So we got a runaway coach.
They shoot at the coach as that's going away. They
kill a passenger on top, you know. A mile or
two or several miles later, they finally get this, you
know this the coach stopped, so they know who the
robbers were. They were three men and there was a
big hunt for him, Doc hollow They started initially, but
Wyatt's involved, ViRGE Warps Involvedohn beings involved, and they go

(01:35:02):
out for miles and days.

Speaker 1 (01:35:03):
I got a quick question. Okay, this is where I
started getting confused. Oh, how in the world is it
Doc Holliday's business.

Speaker 4 (01:35:11):
Cuz Doc Holliday, this is something that Virgil Orb said.
Whenever there was a posse formed, Doc Holliday was always
there to help out.

Speaker 1 (01:35:18):
It's like, yeah, He's like, I'm sick, I'm half dead,
I'm drunk.

Speaker 4 (01:35:21):
Yeah, yeah, no, he he's needed. Well, plus his buddies
are there, you know, Well there's Wyatt, there's Morgan. He's
the same agent.

Speaker 1 (01:35:29):
So he just gets excited when there's a posse, like
your buddy drew a tag, you know.

Speaker 4 (01:35:34):
Maybe, well, I think he also thought it was the
right thing to do and they need to help, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:35:38):
So he's like, he's one of the guys that likes
to be in the posse.

Speaker 4 (01:35:42):
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 Coachese County sheriff. He thinks, if I catch these robbers,
I you know, that's gonna had a lot of credence
to me and I'm going to be a hero. So

(01:36:03):
he approaches this is the bad idea. He approaches one
of the cowboys, Ike Clanton, who's in cohoots with all
that he knows everybody he's in codes with him. He's
considered a leader of the cowboys actually, and he says
a proposition. He says, you know, wells Fargo is offering
five thousand dollars for the capture of these guys. If
you help me capture them, I'll give you the five
thousand dollars. All I want is the glory. So just

(01:36:24):
lead them to some place where we can get So
Ike agrees, you know, he's he's going to turn in
you know, these people that he knows for the five
thousand dollars. Well later, uh, it gets a little complicated,
but but yes, yes, but Ike Ike fears he fears
that Wyatt didn't keep his secret because Ike said, you know,

(01:36:46):
I want to find out if you'll if it's if
that award 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 debt or alive. But
he doesn't tell the Wells Fargo man what's going going on.
But he reads the telegram and so he just kind
of assumes that that he's doing that Ike is doing
something with White, and he approaches. Ike is, oh, yeah,

(01:37:08):
you know you're gonna go get Scott.

Speaker 1 (01:37:10):
I got Scott too confused. I have to understand I
have to trust the other people. Are you confused? Uh,
I'm I'm.

Speaker 5 (01:37:18):
Waiting to hear Gang is like making sure he's not
screwing him over exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:37:23):
But who sent the telegram?

Speaker 4 (01:37:25):
Whyatt sent the telegram to the will?

Speaker 1 (01:37:27):
Mike says, I the Ike, the inside man. Yes, he goes, hey,
is that I get five thousand bucks? Dead or alive? Yes?
And so they said, let me check. Yes, Whyatt telegrams
the bank. Yes, well what's now the bank? Wells Fargo.
They say, no problem, Dead's fine, But then what well,
because I understand, like the then well.

Speaker 4 (01:37:48):
The Wills Fargo man sees the telegram from Wyatt, from
Wyatt and back, and so he makes the connection, oh
he and he's he sees he saw Wyatt 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.

Speaker 1 (01:38:08):
So he goes, oh I understand you're working Yeah yeah Wyatt.

Speaker 4 (01:38:13):
Yes exactly. Because Ike is fearing for his death because
this happened to got men of the cowboys who got
caught or 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 get you.

(01:38:36):
You weren't supposed to tell about this. And and then
he gets drunk and he starts keeps ramting and raving
all night long and he's he says, you know, and
then the next the next day, and I'm skipping over
a lot of stuff, but it's mostly Ike is the
problem here. The next day, uh, he's saying, you know, uh,
he's telling people. As soon as those brothers get up,

(01:38:57):
I'm gonna get him, you know, or I'm gonna get
Doc Holiday and interrupt you.

Speaker 5 (01:39:00):
Like, the cowboys are Ike's gang, right, like.

Speaker 4 (01:39:05):
A loose Yes, it's a loose amalgamation. And some people
look at Ike as a leader or one of I
just there wasn't just one leader, but it's one of
the leading men. But yeah, the cowboys are all and
you know, not all the cowboys were stage robbers. Mostly
they were just rustlers.

Speaker 1 (01:39:20):
Are they like they're like a mafia? It's style, yeah,
get away.

Speaker 4 (01:39:24):
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 and that's why so many people
and merchants and Tombstone tended to let things with the
cowboys go because they were making money off of them,

(01:39:47):
and the herbs were kind of a you know, monkey
wrench and this whole you know, they were they were
putting to stop those kinds of things. So anyway, I
Ike is.

Speaker 1 (01:39:54):
On a ranch, You're doing a phenomenal job.

Speaker 4 (01:39:57):
Oh thanks.

Speaker 1 (01:39:57):
Anyway, like the first time in my life I've ever
understood this.

Speaker 4 (01:40:00):
Oh well good, yeah, well, I prefer you read the book.

Speaker 1 (01:40:03):
But no, no, I will. That's why I've never understood this.

Speaker 4 (01:40:07):
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 IRBs, So the McClary brothers, they
had threatened him in the past. So, uh, Doc Holiday
arrives in town. He'd been in Tucson and Ikes gets
at argument with him, and they're threatening each other.

Speaker 1 (01:40:27):
And what's there? What are they arguing about?

Speaker 4 (01:40:30):
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 earth, he's running with the herbs,
and he's in And Whyatt's you know, so.

Speaker 1 (01:40:39):
These guys are like they're drunk, they're drunk, they're accusing
each other stuff.

Speaker 4 (01:40:43):
And Whyatt had Doc come in to explain because White
tells Ike, 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 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.

Speaker 1 (01:41:02):
I think that if someone had said, let's all get
together and talk this through, maybe let's let's just.

Speaker 6 (01:41:09):
Go forward with the five thousand dollars planning, Yeah, that
we had lined out.

Speaker 4 (01:41:12):
Well, speaking of lines from the movie toostone, this is
where it comes from. The So the night before the
okay corral, your 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 them either. That's
that kind of threats that are going on.

Speaker 1 (01:41:27):
But guy, I don't have my gun.

Speaker 4 (01:41:28):
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 and so Ike spends all night up
and he's gambling and he's drinking, he's not shaving. He's
for a 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

(01:41:49):
late and they sleep late. So all these guys that
are involved, like the IRPs, they're getting up like at
noon or what I mean, that's that's the normal day
for them. They're sleeping until noon. So people are waking
up Virgil and White and said, Mike's going around here
and he's threatened to kill you guys, and he's you
and why it's saying Okay, I'm gonna sleep a little longer.
And then they weren't too worried. It's Virgil is the

(01:42:09):
same way.

Speaker 6 (01:42:10):
So I'm still saying that the Western trope of showing
a showdown at high noon is largely derivative of the
Yeah yeah, I had.

Speaker 1 (01:42:19):
I dated a girl for a while. She was a
flight attendant and a gambling addict, very erratic sleep hours.
Got a double whammy there. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:42:28):
So anyway, finally they get up and and Virgil he says, Okay,
I'm gonna go take care of Ike, and he finds
he goes, He finds.

Speaker 1 (01:42:36):
Him, but take care of him in what way?

Speaker 4 (01:42:38):
Well, and arrest him, you know, and take his gun
away because he's armed. You that's supposed to carry gun.

Speaker 1 (01:42:42):
So he's like, Ike's wanding around town hungover.

Speaker 4 (01:42:45):
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 abandoned.

Speaker 1 (01:42:54):
But then they's like a comic quality dog there is,
so they take I'm not making fun of the book,
like up up until the shooting, there's like, yeah, there's
like a comic.

Speaker 4 (01:43:03):
Oh yeah, yeah, because I mean it's it's crazy. But
they take him to the court in Tombstone and uh
so Ike is there and Wyatt's in there, and uh,
you know he's gonna get fined at course, but that's
where I says, you know, he starts yelling at White,
and he says, all I want is four feet of ground,
you know, and you took my guns away, give him
all my guns and and uh there'll be a reason

(01:43:25):
for a corner's in quote. I mean, he just gets
goes on and on hands 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.

Speaker 1 (01:43:37):
Uh, why it didn't have to say like what does
that mean?

Speaker 4 (01:43:39):
No, exactly, yeah, and so uh anyway, then the McClary
brothers arrived, or the McCary at one of the brothers
arrives in town. And after this incident with Ike, uh,
you know, the mccary's had also been making threats. And
why it comes up to uh to Tom mccrarury, who's outside,
and Tom McClary says something like, well, if you want
to fight, I'll fight you right now. Well, White gets

(01:44:00):
his revolver and hammers them over the head. Took the
fight right out of Tom McClary. But then when Frank
McClary gets the town. It's like, why did White hit
my brother? You know? And so so now the McClary's
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 White and Morgan, they're kind of wandering around

(01:44:22):
the streets. There's a lot of people in the streets,
and people keep coming up to Virgil says, there's these
guys that are going to kill you, you know, they're
threatning 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 and say there's like this
vigilante group or minute men, and it says, hey, I
can get like, you know, so many men together if
you want help or whatever. Verre just no, no, I
don't want any help.

Speaker 1 (01:44:41):
Like we'll get guys to help you beat up Yes,
exactly the rest of us.

Speaker 4 (01:44:45):
Yes, And Virgil says, no, no, you know, I can
take care of it. And finally, you know, Virgil just
gets so much of this and even Johnny Bean, who's
the uh, the sheriff, the County sheriff. Uh, Virgil says, well,
can you go and disarm Humber whatever, and Johnny being
I don't really want to do that, you know, And
so finally Virgil is fed up, you know, and after

(01:45:05):
the last time, somebody says, these guys are down there
by flies 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 just right right next to
where Doc lives. And so Virgil has 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 disprected the laws.

(01:45:27):
And I'm gonna go disarm him. And so he gets Wyatt,
he gets Morgan, who are all there, and then uh,
Doc Holliday, you're not gonna leave me out, are you?
And White 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 paid gig? What's that now?

Speaker 1 (01:45:45):
When Doc Holly joins a posse or Doc Holliday does this,
there's no financial.

Speaker 4 (01:45:49):
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 abould give
them money for the time they spent going after these individuals.
And that was also another kind of sore point between
the Irt brothers and Johnny Bean Johnny Been, who was

(01:46:09):
the county sheriff who was leading that posse after the
stage robbers. We talked about he paid himself and his men,
but he didn't pay the IRPs and the earth will
what about we were riding with you whatever? And finally
Wells Fargo, I guess coughed up some money for him.
But anyway, Virgil Arth decides I'm gonna 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,

(01:46:31):
we got Doc Holliday.

Speaker 5 (01:46:32):
And Virgil has the authority to do that because he's
a US Marshal.

Speaker 4 (01:46:35):
Well, it's mostly because at that time he's also the
Chief of Police of Tombstone, so he's both chief of
police and a deputy US 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 gonna kill you, I'm gonna
kill you, and you know, pretty soon you're you're kind
of done with that, right because the guy might kill

(01:46:57):
you. You don't know when the threat ends and when it
was I was real, But mainly they're breaking the law.
So I'm gonna disarm him. So they around the corner
and they see the you know, they see the Clantons,
and they see the Macari's up there, and they see
the horses. There's a couple of horses, and they see
Johnny Bean, and Johnny Bean has been talking to him,
and Johnny Bean keeps starts rushing towards IRPs and Holiday

(01:47:18):
and he keeps looking back over his shoulder.

Speaker 1 (01:47:19):
He's scared, you know, and he's shot in the back.

Speaker 4 (01:47:22):
Well not that you get shot about. He he's scared
of what's gonna happen. And he's says, Virgil, don't go
down there. They're gonna, you know, they'll you know, there's
gonna be a battle, there's gonna be a war. Don't
go down there. And Virgil says, I'm gonna disarm them,
and then Johnny Ban 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,

(01:47:43):
you can have your guns. He doesn't say that. In fact,
you know, he asked him to leave town, but they said, oh,
we're gonna 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 IRPs and Doc Holliday,
Oh okay, they put their guns away, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:48:01):
Oh they believe them.

Speaker 4 (01:48:02):
Oh yeah, they believe them. Yeah, because but Virgil 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 uh, he takes that
he has this cane. It 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

(01:48:23):
long coat, which he 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. It is a very odd all the
movies that were in gun leather, right, but not at
the Okay Corral. These I mean White had his in
a pocket. Doc Holladay had a revolver in his pocket,
and Virgil had his gun in a waistband. It wasn't

(01:48:44):
even a gun holster belt. Uh So, anyway, they're relieved, Okay,
we're still going to go down there. But they think
that there's no guns.

Speaker 1 (01:48:53):
Do you think they think that.

Speaker 4 (01:48:54):
They think that, yes, because that because they mentioned how
they had put their guns away. They they believed the sheriff.
You know, why would he lie to us? He says,
I've already disarmed him.

Speaker 1 (01:49:04):
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?

Speaker 4 (01:49:12):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:49:32):
I mean, I don't know, but they're like there's like
a there's a clear headed quality.

Speaker 4 (01:49:36):
Yes, And Whider wasn't known to drink. I can't say
he was a teetotaler, but some people do. But he
had stained for the most part. Virgil hadn't been drinking.
Morgan probably hadn't been drinking. And I really don't think
either the McClary brothers, Frank or Tom had been drinking,
or Billy Clanton, who was just you know, like nineteen
years old. But I was definitely, I mean, he was

(01:49:58):
way over the top, out of control drunk. And like
I said, it was all his ranting and Arabian 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 Okay Corral is they say, from fifteen
to nineteen 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

(01:50:19):
their guns. They are armed, and so the first thing,
Virgil says, boys, I want your guns. Well, they immediately
reach for their guns and Virgil says, hold, you know,
I don't want that. He holds a cane up and
White Irp admitted in his testimony that he was the
first one to fire. He fires at Frank McCary. He said,
I fired first because he considered Frank to be the

(01:50:41):
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 whyaet Irp actually opens
the gunfight there at the OK Corral after that.

Speaker 1 (01:50:53):
If he hadn't shot, do you think there would have
been shots fired?

Speaker 4 (01:50:57):
I don't know. I I I do know that whyatt
IRV 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 it. You know, White said,
you know, we were pretty sure they were going to fight.

(01:51:18):
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 testized, that I took him
out first. And there's just that very split second. In fact,
they say that Whyatt's shot and the shot from Frank
which missed, were with a split second. I mean they

(01:51:39):
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.
Thirty seconds, thirty shots. Doc Holliday fires is sh shotgun

(01:52:00):
at Tom McClary. He's kind of hiding behind a horse.
Wyatt ends up hitting the horse. The horse, you know,
jerks away, and then Doc Holladay hits him once in
the side with the one barrel and Tom McClary starts
running away and collapses like less than a block away.
We sent like fourteen pelus rude into his chest cavity.
Doc tried to sue shoot a second time. Something malfunctioned

(01:52:22):
with his gun. He throws it down the shotgun, 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 onto this horse getting out to
the middle of the street. The horse breaks away and
Doc Holiday is getting ready to shoot. That's when Frank says,

(01:52:43):
Doc Holliday, I have you now or whatever? And Doc
Holliday says, you're a daisy if you do, and Doc
Holiday fires. But also before dark callag get fired.

Speaker 1 (01:52:53):
Okay, why does he yell Doc Holladay, have you now?

Speaker 4 (01:52:56):
Because he had his gun on him. You know, Doc
Holladay's out there in the street, he has no protection.

Speaker 1 (01:53:01):
But he decides us to advertise this.

Speaker 4 (01:53:03):
Yeah, he says, I have you now? And then Doc
Holliday and this is in the testim he says, you're
a daisy if you have But Morgan irp. He ends
up shooting Frank and hits him in the head and
Frank just goes down immediately, and there's a big scuffle.
I mean, people are starting, you know, it's thirty seconds.
People are starting to gather and they're gathering around Frank McClary.

(01:53:24):
He's down here on the ground and Doc Hallady'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 Irp. 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 McLaury. There's one other individual, Billy Clanton.
He's up against the wall of this building, on the

(01:53:46):
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 fit. 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
away and and Billy Clinton says, can you get me
more cartridges? You know, he's saying I need more cartridges

(01:54:07):
or whatever. Yeah, and uh and they take him to
a building and and he has a gruesome death. I
mean people are coming in and get the people away,
you know, get the crowd away, and and uh, yeah,
it was not a pleasant death for him.

Speaker 5 (01:54:23):
What about drunk Ike what was going on with him?

Speaker 4 (01:54:25):
Oh, that's a good question. Yes, so that's what. In fact,
that's one of the big things in the gunfight.

Speaker 1 (01:54:31):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:54:32):
Ike suddenly sobers up and he runs up to Wyatt
after those first shots and he says, I'm unarmed, I'm
on arm, you know. He says, well, you know, the
fight has commenced. Get out of here, the fight has commenced,
and so I takes off running. Yeah, he just runs away.

Speaker 1 (01:54:48):
Has a chance to shoot he could have shot him.

Speaker 4 (01:54:50):
Yes, but he says the fight has 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 like.

Speaker 1 (01:54:59):
The guys have as they say that just people wouldn't say.

Speaker 4 (01:55:01):
Now, yeah that's true. Yeah, it is so so yeah. 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

(01:55:22):
shoot me. And he's the reason they're there, He's the
reason they're there. Yes, uh, And he runs away doesn't
help his brother. His poor little brother is getting murdered.

Speaker 1 (01:55:30):
He gets out of there unscathed.

Speaker 4 (01:55:33):
Yes, yeah, and then I later, of course, he presses
charges against the Herbs in the holiday, and that's how
we have this 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

(01:55:54):
my favorite quote is from the dressmaker across the street
and she saw the whole thing, and they asked her
a specific she 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 cotal
chaos in those exactly. Yeah. But guess who's not hurt.
White Herb the one guy that doesn't get, you know,

(01:56:15):
other than Ike not a scratch on white earp and
he's right in the middle of it. Virgil Herb's wounded.
Doc Holla Day gets a flesh wound in his hip.
Morgan IRBs gets a pretty serious wound in his shoulder,
and then later Doc Holliday goes up his room and
Kate Elder's there, the Big Nose Kate, and she writes
about this and and he starts crying, and he says

(01:56:37):
it was awful, just awful.

Speaker 1 (01:56:40):
Well, didn't you like about it?

Speaker 4 (01:56:41):
I think the killing, I think, you know what 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 these men.

Speaker 1 (01:56:55):
I didn't mean that like that. I thought there's some
other because I was when I said that, What was
you crying about? Like none of his buddies got killed?

Speaker 4 (01:57:01):
Yeah, no, no, but it's I think it's just the
fact that these men were killed and they had I
mean they had to. I mean, uh but uh, you know,
it wasn't about his wound. I mean, it was just this.
It was horrific to him that that they you know,
I mean, he sent, you know, fourteen pellets into the
chest cavity of Tom McCary and you know he's dead.
So I mean it's it was I think, very sobering.

(01:57:23):
But yeah, I I Clinton is the villain and all
that he's the one that really egged things on. And
uh yeah, and Ike Clinton gets killed himself. Oh a
few years later, and again he's running away. He was
he there were some guys looking for him for rustling cattle.

Speaker 1 (01:57:40):
And and looking for him for something unrelated.

Speaker 4 (01:57:42):
Yeah, unrelated to this. And he approaches cabin. He didn't
know that these guys are in there, and as soon
as he does, he jumps on his horse and starts
to know skidadling. And this is nobody's afraid to shoot
somebody in the back if you're a long man. And
so they blaze away at him and he tumbles off
his horse and it's the one time he wasn't able
to run away.

Speaker 1 (01:57:59):
So wow, dude, that's a great uh understand good?

Speaker 2 (01:58:07):
Good, there's the pre and post understanding.

Speaker 4 (01:58:10):
Ye, well, it's more clear in the book. Sure, I'm
a much better writer than I am a narrator.

Speaker 1 (01:58:16):
That must mean you're pretty hell of a good writer.

Speaker 4 (01:58:18):
Oh well, thanks, I hope.

Speaker 1 (01:58:19):
So, yeah, what's your next book? You're doing?

Speaker 4 (01:58:21):
So the next book is focusing on Jesse and Frank
James and the Civil Wars Bushwhackers and under Bloody Bill
Anderson and a trail their Civil War time, yes, and
how that 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 that

(01:58:42):
that the book is called Bushwhackers actually, so it's going
to focus on that that period. But like I say,
take us into how that led to their outlaw career.

Speaker 1 (01:58:50):
We just spent some time reading about because this project
we're working on about the Buffalo Hide Hunters. Uh, one
of these main one of the main Buffalo high Hunters
that wrote a very good account of his time. He
was involved in those like those Borderland Civil War that

(01:59:12):
was like yeah, the paramilitary shit.

Speaker 4 (01:59:16):
The border Ruffians like yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:59:18):
This kind of like the plane close paramilitary aspect of
the Civil War. It's gruesome.

Speaker 4 (01:59:28):
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, and 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 the up

(01:59:49):
with the Quantrille or Bloody Bill was. You know, the
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, doctor
Reuben Samuel. Some people think that it actually caused brain damage.
They strung him up, they didn't kill him, and that
you know, it was so painful that the stepfather actually

(02:00:10):
did tell him where Frank and the other bushwhackers were.
But I mean to see that as a teenager, you know,
and then the things he experienced as a teenager in
battle and to see his friends killed, to kill people,
I mean he was indoctrinated to this violence sure at
just the right age to become a way of life.

Speaker 1 (02:00:31):
Mm hm. Ron Hansen, yes, yeah, uh. You know what
he says in his book that I don't know if
it's true, mate, any time, if it's true or not.
I asked, I've asked a lot of people this, okay.
So uh. His book is the assassination of Jesse James

(02:00:53):
by the coward Robert Ford. So a guy Robert Ford
was unassassinated. Yes, so Robert Ford kills Jesse James and
then a guy comes to kill Robert Ford, Ed Kelly
and Robert Hanton in his book. In Hanson's book, he
says that that the guy that kills Robert Ford has
a coach gun. Not only is the coach gun Loda

(02:01:16):
was shot, but he takes a bunch of pipe filings.
He explains that 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 you hear different accounts Robert Ford gets

(02:01:38):
cut in the half near the neck or gets cut
in half near the waist? Is that true?

Speaker 4 (02:01:43):
So the pipe filing story, I just looked at the
reports from Creed, Colorado up that we're published in the
papers in eighteen ninety two, and I've seen no mentions
of the pipe filings.

Speaker 1 (02:01:56):
But so Royan Hansen maybe made that up.

Speaker 4 (02:01:58):
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

(02:02:20):
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 it. Bob Ford started to go for
his vest or hip pocket, and just as he was
reaching down that he let go with the shotgun. And

(02:02:42):
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 hill.
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, he goes, he goes to prison.

Speaker 1 (02:03:06):
But all these he just killed for, just to be
the guy that killed for I think.

Speaker 4 (02:03:10):
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 Bob
Ford and Creed Frank James. What yes, Frank James went
to pay his respects to make sure I think that
was done. I mean, and I also think just to

(02:03:31):
stand over him and say, you know, you killed my
brother and respects. Yeah, not to pay his respects, no,
but yeah, he made the trip from Missouri to Creed.
But anyway, uh, 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,

(02:03:52):
but he's kind of a belligerent character and he gets
he gets in a feud with the local policeman and
then they have a fight, you know, and they're grappling
with one another, and 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

(02:04:15):
his gun, and then he shoots and kills ed Kelly.
So that's the de mice of Kelly.

Speaker 1 (02:04:20):
Yeah, so did anybody then Avenge, No, I don't think so.

Speaker 4 (02:04:24):
I don't think so. I think that's where the story ends.

Speaker 1 (02:04:27):
Wow, I didn't know that detail.

Speaker 4 (02:04:29):
Yeah, but you know the Bob Ford it's it's a
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 food
and you know, it's really a lot like the movie. Actually,

(02:04:50):
I think the movie's great. I think Brad Pitts the yeah,
the best Jesse James ever. But no, it's it's uh yeah,
he thought he was going to be wealthy and he
was killing this famous aut law but uh, you know
nobody thought that was cool.

Speaker 1 (02:05:05):
Mm hmm. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:05:06):
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 has been convicted of no robbery whatsoever.

Speaker 1 (02:05:27):
Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:05:30):
And then you know Jesse had always said and Frank says,
all we want is a fair trial or whatever, and uh.

Speaker 1 (02:05:36):
Oh, yeah, but those guys are cold blood well they were.

Speaker 4 (02:05:39):
But here's my point. So Frank James, because you know,
he sees the writing on the wall, you know, he
thinks who's gonna come after me? He says, I could
be out chopping wood and somebody's gonna shoot me or whatever.
So he arranges this surrender to the governor. And Frank
has tried twice for a crime and muscle shoals out

(02:05:59):
of and also for the gallop and galloped and for
the crime of a trained robber or 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.
You know, all I want is a fair trial. He
got it, and he was a perfect citizen, you know.
And this is the other bizarre thing about Frank and Jesse.

(02:06:22):
You know a lot of people think of as like
cycle pass. 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 and Jesse, well,
that's right. Well, you know, here's what I think about it.

(02:06:43):
Have you read the book American Sniper by Chris Kyle?

Speaker 1 (02:06:46):
Familiar with it?

Speaker 4 (02:06:46):
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 the guy
falls off his motorcycle. Kind of funny, and they're laughing

(02:07:09):
about it, you know, they're laughing about killing this guy. Yeah,
he's become numb. You know, he's over there 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

(02:07:29):
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.

Speaker 1 (02:07:40):
Yeah. I like those understandings though. I mean, it's just
like the complexities of people's motivations. We get into that
affair bit and talk about these like these, like I
keep talking with his hide hunter thing.

Speaker 4 (02:07:56):
Sure, just how most.

Speaker 1 (02:07:57):
People have put these guys these like they're just doing
it for the killing buffalo, for the purpose of denying
the future of the animals. Do you know what I mean?
When it was like a much more complex picture of
civil war economics? Right now?

Speaker 4 (02:08:12):
Is that an audiobook?

Speaker 1 (02:08:13):
Or it is?

Speaker 4 (02:08:14):
Okay? And when's that coming out?

Speaker 7 (02:08:15):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (02:08:16):
Cool, and go listen right now wherever you gets your
audio books, you know? Okay, Well, tell me some banjo jokes.
Grab that banjo on top o. You said you know
more banjo jokes.

Speaker 4 (02:08:26):
So what do you call a pretty gal on a
banjo player's arm?

Speaker 1 (02:08:34):
I got enough tattoo?

Speaker 4 (02:08:39):
What do you what do you say to a banjo
player in a three piece suit, Well, the defendant, please ride.
Those are really old jokes. So I'm glad you never
heard of you before.

Speaker 1 (02:08:52):
No, no, I haven't heard those.

Speaker 4 (02:08:53):
So this is a five string banjo, A Vega fulk
Ranger nineteen sixty three. The style I play is a
historic style. It's called frail under clawhammer. But it's an
African style. I mean, the banjo's an African instrument. It's
called it was called a bonzar, a banja and uh. Anyway,
the knowledge of the banjo was brought here by the enslaved,

(02:09:14):
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 won. It was a gourd at the stick attached. Yeah,
so with the banjo is a survivor of that really
awful era. So what do you want to hear?

Speaker 1 (02:09:32):
Anything gives?

Speaker 4 (02:09:36):
Okay, Well I got Old Dan Tucker. Let's see what
Old Dan Tucker. I'll just do one verse, Old Dan
Tucker down in town right to go and give all

(02:09:58):
to go, gave a jump throwed Old Dan Australia Stop
get out the way, Get out the way, Get out
the way, Old Dan Tucker. He's too late. Get a
supper and get out the way. Get out the way,
Get out.

Speaker 7 (02:10:10):
The way, Old Dan Tucker.

Speaker 4 (02:10:11):
He's too late to get a supper.

Speaker 1 (02:10:15):
All right, there you go. Is another one that was
so short, so short, shorties.

Speaker 7 (02:10:22):
Okay, all right, get out the way. Different.

Speaker 4 (02:10:39):
So yeah, I heard some turkey straw. Yeah, Turkey and
the Strong, Turkey and ahead Bullfrog as his mother in
law play a little too called Turkey in the Strong.

Speaker 1 (02:10:50):
Well, that is a different song. Here's what I'm sorry.
Here's what I thought you meant that. I thought I'm sorry.
I thought you meant that I was asking for more
Dan talking.

Speaker 4 (02:10:59):
Oh I just messed it up. But here's one you'll like.
I'll just do one verse at 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.

(02:11:23):
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 before they shot
Captain Sheets to the ground. Jesse had a wife, the
pride of his life, his children, they were bread. But

(02:11:44):
the dirty little coward that shot mister Howard has lei,
Jesse James and his grin.

Speaker 1 (02:11:53):
He's speaking about fort. Yes, dirty little coward and Jesse
James was living under the.

Speaker 4 (02:11:58):
Name mister Howard. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:12:01):
Wow, that's great man. Oh thanks, yeah, So your work
as a historian, your and your interests in banjo playing
are they are they like hand in hand or was
it different past?

Speaker 4 (02:12:10):
No, it's hand in hand. But of course I always
as a kid was fascinated by the banjo, and then
my first and I was started to take, you know,
lessons and anyway, my first summer job at the Park
Service is at a place called bent sold Fort National
Historic Site near La Hunt, and they were big in
the buffalo robe trade on the southern plains, and so

(02:12:31):
I had my banjo there and I quickly learned that
scrug style playing was not around in the eighteen forties,
that's nineteen forties. 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

(02:12:52):
do it in my programs. I'll do programs the historic
music of the.

Speaker 1 (02:12:55):
West, John Cook's Memoirs Full of songs.

Speaker 5 (02:12:58):
Oh it is, yeah, I do know that did the
Definitive Guide to the Santa Fe Wagons. You ought to
do the history of the banjo.

Speaker 4 (02:13:04):
Well there's been some books on that actually, so somebody
beat me to the punch on that one. But you know,
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 the straw. He

(02:13:26):
would tell the musicians he was a great dancer, went
to the violets and fan Diego's. He would say to
the musicians, don't forget the guyana, don't forget to play
the g 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 guyana de la tierra, the
chicken of the region, or the ear.

Speaker 1 (02:13:43):
What about the wahalloe, the wahllo te yeah, like in
Sonora they call Turkey's.

Speaker 4 (02:13:48):
Oh really, I know, yeah, I didn't know o no.
But anyway, in New Mexico they refer to the Walterra
as the Guyina. So when Billy the kids said, don't
forget the Guyana, he meant turkey in the straw. Really yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:14:01):
I got one last question, okay, because you strike me
as a felt that would be able to do this.
What you big turkey hunter are? Do you do you
mouth call? Natural, natural mouth call?

Speaker 4 (02:14:10):
No, I don't. Oh I have done natural mouth call sometimes, yes,
but it's not very good. It's it's just I mean,
I just throw that in usually I do think, yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:14:24):
Turkey hunting, they can tear it up.

Speaker 4 (02:14:27):
That's just in my you know tool box. Usually I've
got a I've got a wing bone call, I got
a slate call, then 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. But next time I have to
tell you the time I was attacked by a Cody Well,
I was turkey hunting. Just rip it right now, Okay,

(02:14:47):
that's what I'm I grew up at a town of
five hundred people, so most people know me. There's a
guy that got attacked by the code, not an author. Yeah.
So I'm set up with my back to a tree,
right and I've got my and I hear these couple
full of gobblers really far away. So I got this
box call and I'm holding it up here and I'm
trying to, you know, get this sound to him. And
all of a sudden, I see like this patch of

(02:15:09):
fur I just kind of appears here. And then I
hear this this pain on my arm, and then I
see bounding away this coyote just so it actually it
saw that movement. Yeah, and I had 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

(02:15:30):
so a few minutes later, the gobbler comes in and
I shoot my gobbler. Oh yeah. So and then I
get home, I get where I was seen with by
with By at 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 that bad
or whatever. And my mom says, you better call your
doctor or whatever. So I called the doctor and he says,
you got to get a Raby shot. And I said, well,

(02:15:51):
the kyudi looked pretty healthy. Didn't look like it. You know,
I didn't want to get a Raby shot.

Speaker 8 (02:15:55):
You know.

Speaker 4 (02:15:56):
He says, Mark, there's no cure. You know, either you
get it. I mean, who knows? So okay, I go
to the I go to the emergency room in Liberty, Missouri,
and they start the Raby shop process. You'll go around
the wound with all these different things. And I'm talking
to the emergency room doctor and I'm and he's tell
you know, he asked me, well, how does happen? And
then what do you do for a living? I'm a
history and blah blah blah. And he goes, you sure

(02:16:17):
lead an interesting life. You're an emergency room doctor. You've
got to have better stories than I do. 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.

Speaker 1 (02:16:30):
Yeah, yeah, sure, man, Yeah, you got a wedding ring on. Yes,
how long you been married?

Speaker 4 (02:16:34):
I've been married since uh since the early nineteen eighties.
I'm not sure what year, but anyway, yes, good run.

Speaker 1 (02:16:42):
I know.

Speaker 4 (02:16:43):
I'm sorry that hopefully my watch not listing there.

Speaker 1 (02:16:45):
What's the secret to a big, long marriage like that?

Speaker 7 (02:16:48):
You know?

Speaker 4 (02:16:48):
Uh, we my wife and I share a lot of interest.
She's a museum curator. She very interested in the history
in the past, and we love visiting historic sites together.
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,

(02:17:10):
and we find artifacts fascinating and the stories of real
people in the past, and we even find her own
family histories interesting. She's really big into her own genealogy
and her family made a real mark in ute past.
Colorado have been there for decades and decades.

Speaker 1 (02:17:29):
Mark Lee Gardner's brand speak any new book, Wider Dot
holl Day 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.

Speaker 4 (02:17:41):
Man Hey Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (02:17:42):
Thank you appreciate it.

Speaker 4 (02:17:43):
Thanks

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Steven Rinella

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