Road Gambler Johnny Hughes
Monday, 24 June 2013
Doc Holliday Part 3.
By Johnny Hughes
With its lush carpet, chandeliers, mirrored bar, live violin and piano music, and all the latest gambling equipment, The Oriental Saloon was amongst the fanciest gambling joints in the Old West and it hosted one of the biggest poker games. Milt Joyce, one of the owners, was a powerful man and he gave Wyatt Earp a fourth of the gambling concession to provide security because the joint’s competitors had been sending troublemakers to disrupt play and drive off customers. Wyatt hired Doc Holliday, Bat Masterson and Luke Short as dealers and with these celebrities on the floor the Oriental quickly became the most successful gambling house in the town. And with these gunfighters around, only a madman would disrupt it. So Doc did.
One night when he was very drunk, Doc got into an argument about his guns. He shot Joyce in the hand and another owner in the big toe, although it was probably an accident. Wyatt stood up for Doc and he got off with a small fine when no witnesses showed up. Joyce became Wyatt's serious enemy, but the gambling went on, and Doc paid a small fine and continued in the Oriental poker game.
When the Benson stage was robbed, Milt Joyce and Sheriff Johnny Behan, another Wyatt enemy, got Kate Elder very drunk and made her sign a false statement that Doc had admitted he helped rob the stage. She later recanted. Doc asked Wyatt if he wanted him to leave town. Wyatt asked him to get Kate to leave.
The events leading up to the gunfight near the OK Corral were most complicated and have been covered in our September 2012 issue in an article on Wyatt Earp. Suffice to say that this 30-second shootout left three dead and led to nationwide news for weeks. After a long hearing, Wyatt and Doc were cleared of the murders of Billy Clanton, Tom McLaury and Frank McLaury. In revenge, Virgil Earp was shot from ambush and lost use of one hand. Morgan Earp was murdered from ambush.
To seek revenge Wyatt formed a posse of deputy federal marshals funded also by Wells Fargo, and some mine owners. They carried Wells Fargo shotguns and conferred with Wells Fargo agents and executives all the way. The posse included his brother Warren, Doc, and four or five others. Over a period of time, they tracked down and executed three or four men.
When Curly Bill arranged an ambush, he and Wyatt faced each other with Wells Fargo shotguns, Bill's stolen. Wyatt returned Bill’s fire and shot him dead. The national newspapers were covering this on a daily basis, and some were for and some were against Wyatt's famed “Vendetta Ride”, after which, Wyatt's group fled to Colorado, as fugitives indicted for murder.
Bat Masterson was the city marshal and had a faro bank in Trinidad, Colorado, so they headed there. Wyatt appealed to the governor of Arizona for a pardon and announced he planned to return to Tombstone and run for sheriff, but no pardon ever came. During the Vendetta Ride, Wyatt and his posse had funding from, as well as Wells Fargo, the Santa Fe Railroad, the Tombstone vigilantes and the US government.
Wyatt and Warren opened up faro banks in another boomtown, Gunnison, Colorado. Doc, meanwhile, went on to Denver where a confidence man named Mallon, posing as a detective, arrested him. He was jailed, awaiting extradition to Arizona for murder, as reported in the National Police Gazette. Wyatt asked Bat Masterson to help Doc and the miracle man swung into action. He had saved Billy Thompson, Ben's brother; he helped save Wyatt and Luke Short, and now Doc.
Bat went to Denver and got up a pro-Doc press campaign with the three newspapers. Doc did interviews. Bat got in to see the governor, and saved the day. Wyatt had made sure that Wells Fargo, the Santa Fe Railroad and his allies were in Doc's corner. The San Francisco home office of Wells Fargo issued a long statement of support for Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday.
This was all a follow-up story to the gunfight and Vendetta Ride, so it was national news. Doc Holliday and Bat Masterson convinced the nation, truthfully, that Doc Holliday would be killed if he was returned to Arizona.
Bat had fabricated a warrant saying Doc was wanted in his jurisdiction for a minor bunko, or fraud charge. The governor refused to extradite but Doc made bond on the lesser charge. In Colorado legal circles, bonding out on a lesser charge is still called “Hollidaying”. Doc Holliday was now the most famous gambler in Colorado, a state he could not leave. The West's most troublesome man had to stay out of trouble. Doc was getting old enough to mature some, so he was charming and well liked in Colorado. He moved on to the biggest boomtown of them all, Leadville, and soon he was playing in the famed stud and draw poker games at the Board of Trade Saloon, and making powerful friends.
He got a job dealing faro and was an ideal employee, drawing customers who pointed at him in awe and whispered to each other. Things were swell, but his tuberculosis was growing progressively worse, and soon he could not work. Doc had to be on his best behaviour to avoid extradition. A few of his old enemies bullied him, and he was broke.
He borrowed $5 from a bartender which he could not pay and the man went around town making threats. Finally, Doc told a friend, “I'm just going to wing him”.
He hid a pistol at the end of the bar in a place he had worked, and waited. When his adversary entered with his hands in his pockets, Doc shot him in the arm, just as he'd said he would. He was tried and acquitted. At trial, Doc said he weighed 122 pounds and his opponent over 170. A number of prominent citizens helped with his bond and legal defence.
Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp met one last emotional time in the lobby of the Windsor Hotel in Denver in 1885 or 1886. Wyatt's common-law wife, Josephine Earp, was with him and has written about it. Josephine said she had never seen anyone as happy as Doc at this meeting.
The old friends laughed and cried together and Wyatt thanked Doc again for saving his life. Doc had a persistent cough and was unsteady on his feet as he gamely walked away, frail, grey and gaunt.
He died in 1887 at age 36. The Denver Evening Times reported “Doc Holliday died with his boots off” because no one ever thought that he would. On his tombstone it says simply, "He died in bed."
Johnny Hughes is the author of Famous Gamblers, Poker History, and Texas Stories which is available from Amazon.