Wyatt Earp and The Cowboy War (2024) s01e04 Episode Script

1
[bells jingle]
["Jingle Bells" playing]
[Ed Harris] As strange as it may seem,
people in the Old West
celebrated Christmas
pretty much the same as today.
Yep, Christmas trees,
decorations, presents.
And in Tombstone,
people had even more reason to celebrate.
The Earps had been acquitted,
and Ike Clanton
and the Cowboys had been defeated.
["Jingle Bells" continues]
[Ed] And the strange thing
[music fades]
[Ed] The Cowboys kind of just disappeared.
I mean, nobody had seen any of them.
The rumor going around town
was that the Cowboys had disbanded.
But there was another rumor.
That the Cowboys were regrouping
and were about to get their revenge.
[ominous music playing]
[music fades]
[Ed] Tombstone was once again
a peaceful town.
Silent night ♪
[Ed] And it was all thanks to the Earps.
Morgan and Virgil
had recovered from their wounds,
and people talked about Wyatt
as if he was already a legend.
♪is bright ♪
Round yon ♪
[Ed] Even Doc was being praised.
Before the gunfight, he was a lowlife,
someone you crossed the street to avoid.
And now, here he was,
mingling with the top brass.
I think if the verdict in the courts
would have gone the other way,
we would be remembering them
as the murderers of the O.K. Corral.
But instead,
they were found, uh, innocent.
And hence,
their status as heroes ran high.
[glass clinking]
Ladies and gentlemen.
Here we go.
It is my honor to welcome back the heroes
who took a stand against the Cowboys
who have plagued this town.
[applause]
[Ed] Meet John Clum,
the mayor of Tombstone.
Clum was a New Yorker
who'd come to Tombstone to get rich.
And he did,
thanks to his share in the silver mines.
Then he used those profits
to start up a newspaper.
[Casey] John Clum started The Epitaph.
He would then be editor,
postmaster, and mayor,
all at the same time.
When the good people of Tombstone
[Ed] Clum had stayed quiet
during the trial.
But once the Earps were acquitted,
you couldn't shut him up.
These men risked their lives
and their freedom
[Ed] He was of those people
who only becomes vocal
once someone else
has knocked the bully down.
to bring back peace to this town.
Please, raise your glasses. To the Earps.
[all] To the Earps!
To the Earps!
[tense music playing]
[Clum] This is a token of our gratitude.
The whole town really, really appreciates
what you boys have done.
- Thank you.
- Thank you.
No, thank you.
[funky music playing]
[Ed] If you're wondering what is going on
between Wyatt,
Josephine, and Sheriff Behan,
well, some say Behan kicked Josephine out.
Others say she left him.
Either way, she was free to be with Wyatt.
Albeit secretly.
[funky music continues]
[tense music playing]
[Clum] You backed the wrong side.
So what?
The people want you gone.
Mm-hmm.
Well, I'm still here.
I ain't going nowhere.
["Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" playing]
[man] Johnny Behan thought
his political ambitions were in trouble
after the trial.
There was an election coming up
for county sheriff in another year.
Johnny Behan could not stand to have
this kind of stain on his reputation.
He was going to have to do something.
[Ed] Faced with being
run out of Tombstone,
Behan went to find
the one person who could help him.
["Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy"
continues]
[music stops]
Where's Ike?
No idea.
[bartender pouring drink]
[tense music playing]
[Ed] Yeah, where was Ike?
I mean, one minute,
he was everywhere.
[laughter]
[tense music continues]
[Ed] And now he was nowhere.
[foreboding music playing]
[Ed] Shortly after the trial,
Ike left Tombstone
and headed back to his ranch.
He needed to think.
[David] For any criminal organization,
whether it's the mafia
or whether it's the Cowboys,
they think they can do whatever they want,
and it's never gonna catch up with them.
Well, what the trial kind of showed,
they're not above the law,
and maybe their day is over.
[Ike] Goddamn.
Twenty men.
Give me 20 men, and I'll get 'em.
No more open battles.
No more gunfights.
We're going back to the old ways.
This road leads out of Tombstone.
[Ed] Ike wanted to send out a warning
to all the people of Tombstone
that the Cowboys were as powerful as ever.
All right.
["God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" playing]
Well, take care with this.
Can we drop these flaps?
Yah!
[suspenseful music playing]
[music fades]
[tense music playing]
[Ed] On December 14th, 1881,
Mayor Clum's stagecoach
was brutally attacked by the Cowboys.
But incredibly, Clum survived.
Not only that, but he wrote about it
in his newspaper, The Epitaph.
[tense music playing]
[man] "On December 14th,
there was an assassination attempt
on Mayor Clum."
"But miraculously, he survived."
"The townspeople of Tombstone
are known to be fearful for their lives."
"Mayor Clum"
[Ed] Now, you can imagine
Ike was pissed that Clum wasn't killed.
After all, he'd organized the hit.
[tense music continues]
"Fearful for their lives."
[Ed] But Ike realized
it didn't matter that Clum survived.
All that mattered was the town
was once again living in fear.
And fear was exactly what he needed
to regain his power in Tombstone.
[operatic music playing]
[Ed] Ike decided to make this Christmas
an unforgettable one.
Instead of Christmas cards,
Ike sent out death threats.
[operatic music continues]
[Casey] At the end of the year,
the Cowboys issued anonymous threats
to Judge Spicer,
to Tom Fitch, and probably others,
notifying them that they were
on a hit list,
and they were out to get them.
[operatic music continues]
It was getting very dangerous
in Tombstone at that time.
[operatic music continues]
[Ed] It was the final straw
for Mayor Clum.
He left town,
and moved to California.
[operatic music continues]
[Casey] The Cowboys were attempting
to intimidate and scare Spicer and Clum,
and anybody else who fought them.
That would put them in more of a position
of power to control the area.
- Cheers.
- [Josephine] Cheers.
Cheers.
[laughter]
- Cheers.
- [knocking on door]
[bell tolls]
- [Virgil] Let's do another one.
- [laughter]
[Virgil] Pour a round. Here we go.
[bell tolls]
Who's it from?
Ike.
[foreboding music playing]
[Mark] The Earps saw
their future in Tombstone.
To be run out by a lawless element,
it just went against
everything they stood for.
These were lawmen,
and you're gonna stand up for yourself.
You're not gonna be run out of town.
It's principle.
[Ed] When Ike heard
the Earps weren't going anywhere,
he had no choice but to up the ante.
[tense music playing]
What we do know is Virgil was told
that the Cowboys had come together
and met and written out an oath
to murder all the Earps.
And it was written
in the blood of outlaw Curly Bill.
[tense music continues]
[music fades]
Oo-wee. That's how you do it.
There you go. Nice one, Morg.
- Double or nothing, Virg?
- Nope, don't even try it.
I am going home.
All right, Virg.
And don't let
this young gentleman help me.
All right.
- [man] Good night, Marshal.
- Gentlemen, good evening.
All right, Wyatt, you're up.
[Virgil splutters]
[somber music playing]
Virgil. Virgil.
Go get help. Go get help.
[Paul] Virgil is ambushed.
Out of the darkness, uh, with shotguns.
Terribly wounded.
Of course everyone knew
the Cowboys were behind it.
[horse neighs]
[tense music playing]
We should have got all three.
- You wanna go back?
- [Ike] No.
One dead Earp is enough for tonight.
[tense music continues]
[horse neighs]
[music fades]
[Ed] After being shot multiple times,
Virgil Earp was barely hanging on to life.
His left arm was shattered.
Other shots had torn into his back
and struck his kidney, liver, and spine.
Virgil was being cared for
by George Goodfellow,
the same doctor who treated him
after the gunfight at the O.K. Corral
just two months earlier.
I found this.
[ominous music playing]
[laughter]
[ominous music continues]
[gunshots]
[Mark] Ike flees after shooting Virgil,
and he leaves his hat.
Who leaves their hat behind?
I mean, who does that?
But that's what happened,
and that's how Wyatt came to believe
Ike was one of those
that pulled the trigger.
[tense music playing]
[Ed] Incredibly,
Virgil Earp survived the shooting.
But he'd be maimed for life.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Ed] In no time, Wyatt assembled a posse
to bring Ike in
for the attempted murder of his brother.
[suspenseful music continues]
[Johnny] Wyatt!
[music fades]
The hell you going?
Where do you think?
- Wyatt. Wyatt!
- [Wyatt] Hyah!
Wyatt!
I swear to God, Wyatt!
Wyatt!
[suspenseful music playing]
[music fades]
[Ed] Wyatt had gotten word
that Ike was holed up at his ranch.
[tense percussive music playing]
Wait here.
[tense percussive music continues]
[music fades]
[Ed] But Ike and his gang had moved on.
And this is where the story
takes another turn.
[dramatic music playing]
Ah!
[Ike laughs]
[Ed] Because the Cowboys
started robbing stagecoaches.
[dramatic music continues]
[Ed] You see,
unlike the first stagecoach robbery
that wasn't sanctioned by Ike,
he was fully behind these.
And Ike took robbing stagecoaches
to another level.
On January 6th, the Cowboys attack
a Wells Fargo stagecoach leaving Tombstone
and steal a strongbox
containing almost $7,000.
A day later, they rob
another stagecoach heading into Tombstone,
this time robbing all the passengers,
including Wells Fargo's
own chief detective.
The Cowboys robbed somewhere
between six and eight stagecoaches
in Arizona territory.
For Wells Fargo,
this made people
not want to use their express company.
It was just very bad for business.
[music fades]
[Ed] And that made it very bad
for J.P. Morgan.
He was still in London
trying to close a deal
to get money from investors
so he could take over
the railroads in America.
But everything was now on hold,
because investors thought America
was a dangerous place to put their money.
Morgan couldn't understand
why the president
wasn't doing anything about it.
He knew his only chance
of getting his deal back
was if he returned to America
to sort out the mess.
[dramatic orchestral music playing]
[music becomes quiet]
[Ed] Back in America,
J.P. Morgan used one of the favorite
weapons of the wealthy.
His influence.
You see, Morgan helped put
President Chester Arthur into power.
And that bought him a lot of influence.
[David] Just like today,
whoever writes the checks determines
the policy, even for presidents.
And in the Gilded Age,
uh, that man was J.P. Morgan.
[dramatic music playing]
A band of armed desperadoes
known as the Cowboys
[Ed] And strangely enough,
shortly after J.P. Morgan
returned to America,
President Arthur suddenly decided
to make a speech to Congress
to ask their permission to let him
send in the army against the Cowboys.
He needed their permission
because, well, it was illegal.
Let me explain.
To keep the peace between
the North and South after the Civil War,
the government passed
the Posse Comitatus Act.
[David] The Posse Comitatus Act
stops federal troops
from being used as law enforcement
within the United States of America.
It's a basic sort of bedrock principle
of keeping the US military
out of civilian affairs.
[Ed] But the whole thing
blew up in his face.
[Yohuru] The speech is a disaster.
President Arthur's party, the Republicans,
don't have a majority in Congress.
And there's no way Southern congressmen
could have supported this,
which effectively
would have been tantamount
to sending an army into Arizona,
which is seen as a Southern stronghold.
[Ed] But it got worse.
When the newspapers
got hold of Arthur's speech,
they whipped up hysteria
by saying America was involved in a war.
The Cowboy War.
This is one of those important,
unknown chapters in American history.
President Arthur thinks
he's doing the right thing
by asking Congress for the authority
to send in the army
to deal with the Cowboys.
But this move backfires.
[Ed] President Arthur's speech to Congress
played right into Ike Clanton's hands.
[Ike] Democracy, my ass.
[Ed] Newspapers across the South
started to see the Cowboys
as part of their cause.
"The Cowboys
are the true voice of America."
Hell yeah.
[David] So the president's speech
really divides the nation.
On one hand, you had many in the North
and the business interests
that saw the Cowboys as a bunch
of criminals that need to be eliminated.
And then, many in the South
identified with the Cowboys
as fighting for freedom
and living free out on the frontier.
[Ed] And you can imagine
Ike was loving this.
[tense music playing]
[Ed] There was only one problem.
He was still wanted
for the attempted murder of Virgil.
And Wyatt had gotten wind
of where Ike was hiding out.
[tense music continues]
- [Ike] How many of them?
- Seven.
[tense music continues]
Now, I can buy you time, but
I can't stop him.
He's coming for ya.
[Ed] Ike may have felt emboldened
by the press,
but the fact remained
he was scared of Wyatt.
[jaunty music playing]
[Ike] Arrest me.
[jaunty music continues]
[Ed] Now, why would Ike turn himself in?
One reason was
that it protected him from Wyatt.
But there was another reason.
[court official] All rise.
- This court is now in session.
- [gavel bangs]
Mr. Clanton, where were you
on the night of December 28th, 1881,
when Virgil Earp was brutally shot?
[man] We should have got all three.
No. One dead Earp is enough for tonight.
I was in Charleston.
[people murmur]
[Ed] Ike got seven witnesses
to confirm his alibi.
[dramatic music playing]
Mr. Clanton this hat was, uh,
found near the crime scene.
Do do you recognize it?
[tense music playing]
Yep, it's my hat.
[voices murmuring]
I lost it some time ago.
Reckon it was stolen.
[Casey] Ike's hat was actually found
where the shooter of Virgil Earp was.
And yet, alibi witnesses testified
that Ike was down in Charleston,
so there was no way to hold him over.
[Ed] And that was it.
The case was thrown out.
And Ike was free to go.
[Morgan] What happened?
The whole goddamn thing is rigged.
[reporter 1] Uh, Mr. Clanton.
Can we get your statement?
Today was a great victory,
not just for me, but for American justice.
I was falsely accused of attempted murder.
But we all know
there is only one murderer in this town.
[ominous music playing]
[Morgan] Wyatt, don't.
- And here he comes.
- [Morgan] Don't!
Wyatt! It's not worth it.
[music fades]
It's not worth it.
Gentlemen, thank you. Let's go.
[tense music playing]
[horse neighs]
[David] It doesn't take much more
than a seemingly open-and-shut case
where Ike Clanton leaves his hat
at the scene of the crime
and still gets away with it.
That would shake
anybody's, uh, view of justice.
[tense music continues]
[Ed] Wyatt must have thought
the world had gone crazy.
Ike had gotten away
with trying to kill Virgil.
While Wyatt, an honest lawman,
was being called a murderer
in some circles.
[tense music continues]
[laughter]
Bang, bang. [laughs]
[Ed] And as for Ike,
he was sitting pretty.
Samantha.
[Ed] As far as he was concerned,
he was back in control of Tombstone.
Maybe we should go back
[Ed] I mean, he eliminated Virgil,
the town's marshal.
And he had one other advantage.
[tense music continues]
[Ed] With Behan in his back pocket,
Ike was untouchable.
[tense music continues]
[music fades]
We just gotta find one good witness.
Like that guy Sills.
Yeah.
It's not gonna happen.
No, there's gotta be a way.
[Ed] And that was Wyatt's problem.
He really thought
he could just get Ike back into court
and justice would be served.
It's like he needed
to have it spelled out for him.
[Wyatt chuckles]
You're never gonna get that in.
Watch and learn.
Morg!
[tense music playing]
Morg. Shit.
[tense music continues]
[music stops]
[panting]
Morg. Morg! Morg. Morg!
Hey! Stay with me.
Jesus.
It's all right. You're gonna be all right.
[somber music playing]
[Ed] Dr. Goodfellow
was there within minutes.
[somber music continues]
[music fades]
[Morgan] Wyatt?
Do you do you know who did it?
Yeah.
I'm gonna get him.
[somber music playing]
[music fades]
[somber music playing]
[Ed] Within the hour,
Morgan Earp was dead.
[somber music continues]
[Casey] Morgan's death
was crushing to Wyatt.
It just tore him apart.
It was the worst thing
that happened in his life.
[ominous music playing]
Goddamn Cowboys.
I'm gonna kill
every one of 'em.
[ominous music intensifies]
[music fades]
[somber Wild West music playing]
[music fades]