![]() However, Holliday returned to Dodge City in March and again in May 1879 to assist Masterson in the organization of a group of fighting men for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad during its dispute with the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad over the Royal Gorge in Colorado. ![]() They found relief in Las Vegas, a well-established community in that territory. Within weeks, though, Doc and Kate left Dodge for New Mexico Territory, in search of a healthier climate for Doc. ![]() “In an instant I had drawn my guns,” he recalled, “and the arrest of the crowd followed.”Įarp never forgot that moment. The move distracted their attention long enough for Wyatt to act. Drawing his own revolver as well, Doc stepped onto the sidewalk and ordered the cowboys to throw up their hands. Loving gave Holliday a six-shooter from a drawer. Quickly, Doc asked Frank Loving, the dealer, if he had a pistol. He recalled that Holliday was playing monte in the Long Branch Saloon when he looked out of the window and saw Wyatt alone and outnumbered. His pistol was holstered, and his life was in real danger. In one of them, Earp found himself facing a group of rowdy drovers alone. In August and September 1878, several dramatic incidents occurred on the streets of Dodge between the Texas cowboys and the local police. “It was during this time that he also made the acquaintance of Wyatt Earp,” Masterson added, “and they were always fast friends ever afterwards.” Wyatt himself explained why in a Tombstone, Arizona Territory, courtroom in the fall of 1881: “I am a friend of Doc Holliday because when I was city marshal of Dodge City, Kansas, he came to my rescue and saved my life when I was surrounded by desperadoes.” Doc to the rescue Bat Masterson, one of them, recalled, “During his year’s stay in Dodge at that time he did not have a quarrel with anyone, and although regarded as a sort of grouch, he was not disliked by those with whom he had become acquainted.” Holliday’s absence from police dockets and newspaper reports underscored his good behavior. Doc found something there he had not known since leaving behind his native Georgia and his family: a place in a circle of acquaintances whose lives would be linked to his through the years that followed. Holliday and his paramour, Mary Katherine Horony (aka “Big Nose Kate Elder”), left Texas for Dodge City, Kansas, in the spring of 1878 to take advantage of the upcoming cattle season. The two of them only had time for an introduction before Wyatt moved on. Thin, almost frail, with a persistent cough and a soft Southern drawl, Doc was a mystery. One looked the part of a frontiersman, tall and sure of himself the other looked out of place, though he already had a reputation as a man who would not back away from trouble. Both were gamblers, one with a growing reputation as a hardnosed cow-town lawman, the other still honing the skills needed to survive in the backwater hellholes he had chosen for his trade. There was nothing particularly memorable about it. They met in Fort Griffin, Texas, in the winter of 1877–78. ![]() The contrast energizes the legend but leaves unanswered how two such different men could become friends in the first place. John Henry “Doc” Holliday, by contrast, is portrayed as a profligate, cold-blooded yet charming killer dying of tuberculosis who, nonetheless, is devoted to Wyatt. In the legend, Earp is portrayed as a clear-eyed, stalwart lawman: tall, lean and calm-“the Lion of Tombstone”-who sees qualities in Doc others don’t. Their devotion to one another is all the more dramatic because they seem so different. How Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday Forged Their Deep Friendship Close ![]()
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