Tombstone

Sunday, May 06, 2007


TOMBSTONE

It started long before the OK Corral....bad blood between two segments of society, in 1881. One segment wore badges, the other didn't. The segment that wore badges were trained, hired, assassins, who were paid by the government to kill people. The other segment [known as the Clanton gang] was untrained, but were still assassins, paid by the people they protected. There wasn't too much difference between the two, really...they were both just bands of killers.

On a dry, dusty, windswept, cool day in October, Wyatt Earp and his brothers and a friend by the name of Doc Holliday [the town drunk] walked down Fremont Street in old Tombstone, Arizona, headed toward a place called the OK Corral, an establishment that boarded horses. There were five of them, all armed, awaiting them were four of the Clanton klan, only two of which were armed. They stood in a vacant lot aside the corral....

There wasn't time for shaking hands, the Earp group entered the lot with guns drawn, and blazing....it was over in about 30 seconds. Three of the Clantons laid dead in the dirt, Ike Clanton amazingly had somehow escaped, although wounded. I has been said that Doc Holliday was still firing shots at him, as he rode over a distant hill. But even the master dentist, the "Doc", and master killer, wasn't that good a shot. At least, not from that distance....

Virgil, Wyatt's older brother, was wounded, but was later "relieved" of his duties as a deputy U.S. Marshall for his participation in the "homocides" of the Clantons. He later moved to California, where he became a county sheriff, imagine that. Abhorred in one state, elected in another, ah well, I guess that's the way life goes, especially in the old West, where the ones that owned guns were the rulers, and the ones that didn't, weren't.

Enter Morgan Earp, who got himself shot in the back [and killed] while playing pool in a saloon. No one witnessed the event, no one saw who pulled the trigger, no one saw anything. Wyatt was a tad upset, shall we say, and rode off the next morning to bring those to justice that had killed Morgan....except justice had nothing to do with it. It was a vendetta, against those who he already had "bad blood" with; he "assumed" they were the killers, without actually having any proof. And, he was wearing a badge, a dirty rotten, U.S. Marshall's badge, that gave him a license to kill. His remaining brothers, and the Doc, rode with him.

Along the way, they killed several people; no wait, many people, including women and children. Hey, if you were a child, and standing in the way of their thundering horses, you'd best move, you hear me!

And so it went, through hill and dale, and mountain and valley, 'til at last the two "interested" parties drew near each other. The Clanton clan, led now by one known as "Johnny Ringo" sent an emissary to the Earp's, inviting Wyatt to meet Ringo alone in a secluded place, the outcome to settle all the differences between the two gangs, hopefully.

Too bad George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein couldn't have done this in our time. I don't think either one had the balls, though...

But, back in the old days, Wyatt agreed to the meeting, while slyly winking at Doc Holliday. I have to assume that Wyatt let the messenger live, so he could return his response to Ringo. I am also assuming that the response wasn't too polite....

In the cool of the morning, just after daybreak, Ringo leant up against a tree, waiting for his adversary to arrive. Contentedly, he sucked on a cigarette, and felt no apprehension. For, like most killers, he didn't care if he died today, or tomorrow, or whenever. The only thing he cared about was the game, the game that he and the Earp's were playing; he wanted to be the winner. Through half-lidded eyes, he dreamt of Maria, his wife back in old Ciudad Juarez, her beautiful dark curls framing her face. And, down at her knees, stood their two sons, born as twins on a February morn.... water splashed down Ringo's cheeks. He blamed it on allergies, but his heart knew better.

Then he heard a limb crack, and he became alert immediately. He saw a shadowy figure advancing through the early morning mist, coming straight at him. Quickly, his hand gripped the handle of his revolver, ready to go in an instant. Unfortunately, he was so preoccupied that he didn't hear the Doc sneak up behind him. Doctor Holliday leveled his gun two inches behind the back of Ringo's head, and squeezed the trigger. Ringo fell forward, into his own brain matter and skull pieces, alive no more.

Later, Doc and Wyatt went into town, and had a couple [or so] of drinks, and played some pool, and bedded two whores. They only slept about two or three hours, but got up in the early morning, to start anew. They shook hands and hugged, then Wyatt took off to California, 'cause he knew the law couldn't get him there, and Doc took off to Colorado, and checked himself into a tuberculosis sanitarium, 'cause he knew the law wouldn't touch him there.

Doc died in the sanitarium, and Wyatt didn't die until he was 80 [1929]. The good lord is the only one who knows why they didn't die sooner, or more violently. Sometimes, life is it's own excuse...



(c)BrazosMason 2007