The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp

Wyatt Earp came to Tombstone as a land agent for the Earp Brothers, Inc. - voluntarily unarmed - and unwilling to heed the warnings of Doc Holliday, who maintained that Dodge City and its violence was mild in comparison to the lawless activities of Tombstone. Wyatt's encounters with Tombstone's silver miners and cowboys, and his narrow escapes from Death, bore out Doc's admonitions, and the revelation of Wyatt's true identity - while it temporarily saved him - only made him a better target for dangers to come.

When Wells, Fargo called on Marshal Wyatt Earp to put an end to stage robberies on its Charleston-to-Benson line, the Company was putting Wyatt's reputation in peril. During the times when Wyatt rode shotgun for Wells, Fargo, no road agent had ever gotten away with a dime of money shipments. But this was Arizona Territory where robbing stages was a highly organized business. In this instance, Wyatt outlined a daring plan - the outcome of which no one could be sure.

Every day the stagecoach rolled into Tombstone, bringing men from every corner of the world - from every kind of past. One such man was Dobie Jenner. His past had been a terrifying one, and it took a lot of maneuvering and quick thinking on Wyatt's part in order to keep Dobie alive to face his future.

Like all the mining towns in the West, Tombstone was a magnet to men and women from all over the world. It had a large foreign population, a large segment of which was Chinese. Several hundred, most of whom did not speak English, were newly arrived from China. It was inevitable that such a large group might bring trouble to Wyatt Earp.

Wyatt Earp had managed to stay alive in Wichita, Dodge City and Tombstone because he was more intelligent than the gunslingers, outlaws and hoodlums who hated him. But Old Man Clanton, who controlled Cochise County, Arizona, had never really worked at the job of killing him. To slay a John Law, even in Arizona Territory, was a last resort which sensible hoodlums shrank from. Marshal Earp, however, had become an intolerable menace to the Clantons and the Ten Percent Ring in Tucson. The time had come to kill Wyatt Earp and Clanton had no intention of failing.