NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 17liday. The sheriff tried to convince the
Earps to back off, but they pressed on,
finding the Clantons and the McLaurys
in a lot near the Old Kindersley Corral.
Shots erupted, but no one knows who
fired first. The fight was over as quickly
as it began. Billy Clanton and Tom and
Frank McLaury were dead. Ike Clanton
and two other cowboys had escaped the
same fate. On the Earps’ side, all survived,
but only Wyatt remained unharmed.
Under Tombstone law, policemen
were in the right if they shot armed oppo-
nents threatening to kill. After the shoot-
ing, Ike Clanton accused the marshal’s
group of firing at five unarmed men,
leading Sheriff Behan to arrest the Earp
brothers and Holliday, accusing them of
murder. During a preliminary hearing
that lasted a month, it was proven that
two of the cowboys had been armed. The
judge threw out the trial, but lingering
doubts about the Earps’ true intentions
that day would remain.
The shooting brought terrible con-
sequences for both the Earps and the
cowboys. On December 28, 1881, Virgil
Earp was ambushed and shot in the back
on his way home. His injuries left him
alive, but seriously injured. In March
of the following year, Morgan Earp was
killed. The assailants were never posi-
tively identified, but many believe the
two Earps were gunned down as revenge
for the events at the O.K. Corral.
Shortly after these events, Wyatt Earp
became a deputy U.S. marshal. He dep-
utized several men, including Doc Hol-
liday, and set out on a vendetta against
the men he believed responsible for the
death of his brother. Four cowboys, in-
cluding one of Sheriff Behan’s aides,
were killed. Behan acquired an arrest
warrant and pursued Earp and his men,
without success. Wyatt Earp left Arizona
Territory in April 1882, later settling in
California with his partner, Josephine
Marcus, Behan’s former girlfriend.Men and Myths
The story of the O.K. Corral soon be-
came part the frontier myth. Wyatt Earp’s
colorful life as a lawman, gambler, min-
er, pimp, and saloon owner made him a
natural target for colorful anecdotes, but
he was reluctant to discuss openly what
happened during those fateful seconds
in Tombstone.
In 1931, two years after Earp’s death,
Stuart N. Lake, a former press aide to
President Theodore Roosevelt, pub-
lished Wyatt Earp, Frontier Marshal, a
biography that included a dramatic tell-
ing of the shoot-out at the O.K. Corral
and other events in Earp’s life. The book
was extremely successful and elevated
Earp to almost mythic status by simpli-
fying the story. Lake made Wyatt the
hero and the cowboys the villains. The
truth, however—like the line dividing
law and vengeance in those wilder
times—is much blurrier.
—Fernando MartínIN BOOTHILL GRAVEYARD in Tombstone,
Arizona, headstones mark the resting
places of the three men killed in the 1881
shoot-out at the O.K. Corral.
DENNIS MACDONALD/AGE FOTOSTOCK