The Real Story Behind Wyatt Earp And Doc Holliday’s Lifelong Friendship

Few relationships in American frontier history are as mythic — or as misunderstood — as the bond between Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. In his new book, Brothers of the Gun, acclaimed historian and author Mark Lee Gardner brings their story together in a way no one has quite done before: as a dual biography rooted in original research, newly surfaced primary sources, and on-the-ground archival work. We spoke with Gardner about why these two larger-than-life figures remain inseparable in both legend and legacy, what drew him to revisit one of the West’s most retold sagas, and how friendship — fierce, flawed, and deeply human — stands at the heart of their story.

Transcript

Cowboys & Indians: Mark, you've written acclaimed works about a number of Old West figures, from Jesse James and the Rough Riders to Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull. What drew you to focus on Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday this time around?

Mark Lee Gardner: Part of it is actually the market itself in book publishing. I can think of all kinds of things that I would love to write about that many people would not want to read about. They're very obscure. And so as a trade book author, I look for big stories that are going to have mass appeal, and really that's kind of forced upon you by publishers. They don't necessarily want to take a chance on something obscure, even though an obscure figure might be very significant. For instance, I for years tried to do a book, a biography of Jim Beckwourth, the Black Mountain Man, and editors said he's just not really well known enough and he's not as iconic. And it's a great story. He had an incredible life, but I just couldn't get that past these various editors who were making the decisions. So when you ask what drew me to these, sometimes you have to pick things that are iconic.

It's kind of forced upon you if you want to keep making a living. That's why you keep seeing books on Abraham Lincoln or George Custer. It's really the market. It's why movie producers or companies keep redoing hits. They're like a sure thing. You're going to keep seeing Jurassic Parks forever, I'm sure. So part of it is market-driven, but the other part is that I don't take on a project unless I think I can bring something new to it, and I insist on doing original research, traveling to historic sites. If I don't think I can find something new or bring something new, then I'm not going to be interested. And with Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, I mean, you can't tell one story without the other, but nobody has really done it that way before. And I think when you read about Wyatt Earp — Doc Holliday's this larger-than-life figure — and it's like, oh man, I'd like to know more of him.

Or you read a biography of Doc Holliday and there's all this Wyatt Earp, and wow, now I need to read the Wyatt Earp book. Well, I combined that as a dual biography, but also incorporated the latest research and findings that scholars have turned up — some incredible things in just the last few years. So now it's all in one place. And my goal — I never set out to necessarily change the story — I do set out to enrich the story. And I feel like I've done that with some of the things I've found with both Wyatt and Doc.

C&I: Can you discuss your decision to frame the book around their friendship rather than just a retelling of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral?

Gardner: I think the friendship is actually the most fascinating part about both individuals. I mean, as I said before, you can't tell a Wyatt Earp story and leave out Doc Holliday. You can't tell a Doc Holliday story and leave out Wyatt Earp. They're linked. I did a previous book on Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett. It's the same thing. They're irrevocably linked forever in time and legend. You can't separate them. And I think anybody — if we speak of movies again — that's really the thing that fascinates you when you watch a film, whether it's Tombstone or Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. It's this relationship between Doc and Wyatt. And so to me, I thought that would be the most interesting thing — to talk about that friendship, that relationship. And it's such an odd friendship, too, that makes it so compelling. They're very different individuals in some ways, very similar in other ways — and we can talk about that. But they stuck by each other and they just formed this bond. And it's, to me, the greatest friendship story of the American West. So that's why you would write about it, I think.

C&I: Can you talk first about your personal history with Wyatt and Doc and their lives, and how much of writing this book was research-driven, and how much of it was just your collective knowledge from being an Old West historian?

Gardner: I think most of it was research-driven. And I mean, I discovered many things that made me realize there was a connection I had that I didn't know about before because — and that's another thing about taking on this — I really don't want to go back and revisit subjects or books, although I will be with this next book and we can talk about that. But I want to learn at the same time. And I read about Wyatt — in fact, I have a book from when I was a child. It was one of those Golden Books. It was The Story of Wyatt Earp. I mean, you can't grow up in America without hearing the name Wyatt Earp. But I discovered that I was born and raised in Missouri, and then I realized that, oh man, Wyatt Earp was a constable in Lamar, Missouri, not very far from where I grew up. And then just even not very far to the north, he grew up as a child in Pella, Iowa — and the house is still standing. I didn't know that. So yeah, it's research-driven, but it's also driven towards kind of enlightening myself about these various figures and characters. And — do you want me to talk about the research, or...

C&I: As the first dual biography of Wyatt and Doc, what new sources or research allowed you to break new ground? Because you mentioned that that was so important when you set out to write this book.

Gardner: One of the things that's happened in recent years — and it actually started when I got a contract to do To Hell on a Fast Horse (the story of Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett) — a librarian at my library in Colorado Springs pointed me toward this new service. This is back in 2007, so it's been a while. But a librarian — really great guy — he said, "Mark, our library has subscribed to this new service. It's called NewspaperArchive.com, and there's all these digitally scanned historic newspapers." And it's like — wow. All my research before, going back decades — I spent most of my life in front of a microfilm reader, going through microfilm. And you're really on a fishing expedition. You don't always know there's something in those newspapers, but you're going through the years — oh, maybe there's something on Jesse James here or whatever. But now with character recognition and digital scans of newspapers, I could type in William H. Bonney, Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett — and all of a sudden I'm getting all these articles that no one has seen in a hundred years. And so my book To Hell on a Fast Horse was really the first to make use of this burgeoning resource. And now today, years later, there are several more online websites that have everything — from GenealogyBank to Newspapers.com to Chronicling America, which is the Library of Congress. And they keep adding papers to these sites. There are literally millions of pages of 19th-century newspapers. So one thing about research is that I was able to access more information that was published at the time, and I'll give you an example of the way this snakes around. In wanting to learn more about, say, Dodge City in 1878 or Tombstone in 1881, I didn't just go to those newspapers. I didn't just look at the Tombstone Epitaph or the Dodge City Times. What I did was put in “Tombstone” or “Dodge City,” and it turned out that there were letters written from those places to hometowns — like in Pennsylvania — describing, “Oh, I'm in Tombstone, and there are so many thousands of people here,” and it would give these great descriptions. And because they were published in newspapers in other states, historians hadn't really accessed those. So it helped me to paint a picture of these places by accessing these letters that were published in papers — guys sending back home. And so that was very cool to do. That was a large component.

But another component is that you still can't do a book properly — a history — without visiting archives and museums and institutions, because unlike the newspapers, your archives don't have the funds or the personnel to go in and digitally scan every manuscript that they have. They just can't. And they may never — the Arizona Historical Society — they may never be able to scan everything they have. So you have to go to those places to look at the letters and diaries.

And very recently, I've told people that if you're an author and you're writing a book just by reading other books, you're going to be out of a job because that's what AI does. AI reads other books, and it can write books, but it can't access things that are not online. So you want to make sure you go. And anyway — I mean, you want that information anyway. Again, it enriches your story. You're going to find nuggets and things that other authors maybe didn't see or didn't have the time for or whatever. And I'll give you another example of an obscure source that I happen to know about but is not available online. Dun & Bradstreet is a big company, and they do credit ratings. So in the 19th century, their name was the Mercantile Agency, and they would hire local attorneys and lawyers in towns across the U.S. to give them — well, it's like a review — because in the 19th century a lot of business — shipping goods — was done on credit. So-and-so in St. Louis would like to order a thousand dollars' worth of merchandise from a business in Philadelphia. Well, do I trust him? And they would normally operate on credit. Do I trust this guy in St. Louis? So they would go to the Mercantile Agency: Do you have a report on this individual? And it would have all kinds of really interesting details — if they drank, if they'd gone through a rough marriage, if they were reputable. I mean, really insightful.

Some are very brief, but these reports have been preserved, and they're at Harvard University at the Baker Library. And so I found — I've done research there before for other subjects — but I contacted the librarian, and they'll allow you to give them a list of names and they'll look in the books. Well, son of a gun if there weren't credit reports on Wyatt Earp's father in Illinois; there were credit reports on Doc Holliday's father in Georgia. And is it a huge thing? No, but nobody had seen those before, and it just added a little bit more insight into who these people were at the time. So things like that haven't been scanned. So you've got to do the extra work, and it makes your book better. So, like I said, no longer can you just write books by reading other books, because AI's got you beat on that. You need to do the original research — go to the archives.

C&I: Speaking of these unique sources and the nuggets that you were able to find, were there any surprising discoveries that changed the way you understood Doc or Wyatt?

Gardner: Yes. One of the things that surprised me — a couple things. I mean, one of the things that surprised me was — and I was just writing about this recently — how dangerous it was to be a lawman in Wichita and Dodge City. Now, that might seem like a given, but each of those towns, including Tombstone as well, most of the boomtowns had anti-gun laws. They had laws that you had to check in your guns. You could not carry a gun in the city limits of Wichita, Dodge City, or Tombstone. Well, that's the law. And guess who has to enforce that law then? So Wyatt Earp — the majority of his time, he's disarming unruly, rowdy cowboys or testosterone-filled gamblers, and it's very, very dangerous. And today you can go on YouTube and see this all the time, and with modern police work, somebody sees a gun, they shout "Gun!" and bam-bam-bam — and it's over. The guy's dead. Well, Wyatt didn't do that. He would go up to them, physically clobber them on the head with the barrel of his gun, remove their weapon, take them to jail. They'd have to pay a fine. And there's a police court docket that has survived from Dodge City, and there are multiple cases where he's arrested someone. He got like $2 as the court cost for each arrest. But to me, realizing how often he put himself in danger by going up to someone who's drunk and taking their gun — to give an example of how dangerous it was, Marshal Ed Masterson was mortally wounded in relieving someone of their gun in Dodge City. Sheriff Fred White in Tombstone was mortally wounded when taking Curly Bill Brocius's gun. It was very, very dangerous. And just the bravery to go up and do that — to me, I found that to be just incredible.

C&I: Another thing that you mentioned that AI can definitely not do is spend time at these historic sites, which you mentioned was an important part of your research. How did being there help to shape the storytelling for your book?

Gardner: There's always this anticipation or excitement that you're going to find something that no one's seen, or else you're going to find something that someone has not interpreted correctly or whatever. But I mean, to hold letters that were written by Wyatt's wife, or to hold a letter by Wyatt himself — I mean, that's really what historians live for. You're touching history. And when you hold a letter that Wyatt Earp wrote, I mean, they're no longer just something in the past; they're real. The same thing happened — I mean, even more profound — when I was researching Sitting Bull at a museum or archives, and they had some cabinet-card photographs that had been removed from his dead body, and they had his bloodstains on those. And it's like, I'm holding an item that has Sitting Bull's blood from his murder. And it's a moment that — like I say, you live for those, but it can also have great sadness and all kinds of emotions when you're doing that. And you feel so fortunate. I mean, I held Theodore Roosevelt's diary from San Juan Hill. I mean, who gets to do that? You can go to the Houghton Library and you can go get those things, but very few people do. And so you're touching history in the process of working on these books. So to me, that's the thrill.

C&I: Having spoken with so many historians on this podcast, the tireless and tedious work that goes into these stories can't be downplayed. Do moments like that help to keep you going when you're in the midst of research and it's nowhere near complete?

Gardner: Oh, yes. The other thing that keeps you going is time — limited time. And these trips are expensive. You've got to pay for a motel, and there's never an archive within a mile or two of your home. You've got to go to these places. So I went to San Marino, California, to go to the Huntington Library where the Stuart Lake papers are kept. And one thing that really helps — so these and other authors or historians will criticize how poorly Stuart Lake did his biography. It was published in 1931. It really is a very worshipful biography of Wyatt Earp. But the thing is, the guy did his research. He wrote letters to people who knew Wyatt, people who lived in Dodge City, and he preserved it. So it makes it much easier for us coming behind. We can go access his collection and find things that maybe he didn't use, or, again, that he might've misinterpreted — we can reinterpret.

But you have to travel to these places. It's expensive. And knowing that you have a limited time — and here's the other thing that's changed. Years ago, I would make reams of paper copies — hundreds, thousands of pages. Well, now I can take my iPhone and I can take a picture. And if you're traveling from out of state, that saves you time and money, and you take a picture of everything — you get home, now you can spend the time and go through it. And I think it really helps because you don't have to spend as much time reading through it carefully. You've got the information; go home and you can work on it there. Yeah.

C&I: You mentioned those early biographies were worshipful, and that black-and-white hero-or-villain painting that Doc and Wyatt often get in popular culture obviously is fabricated in a lot of ways. What shades of gray did you uncover in their lives through your research?

Gardner: The shades of gray were always there. Other people have uncovered those things in recent years. I did incorporate that into my book, but one of the things that I found interesting — we know now that Wyatt Earp operated a small bordello in Illinois. And his wives — he had several wives — and I think all of them except his first one were prostitutes at one time or another. But what interested me was how Wyatt played such a role in shaping his story and also covering up his story. For instance, when he was in Lamar, he absconded with tax monies he had collected. He ends up in Arkansas, and you probably know the story now — he's arrested for stealing a horse, and then he escapes jail and kind of starts his career over again. But he had written a cousin when Stuart Lake was researching for his book, and he told his cousin, "Don't tell anything to Stuart Lake about Lamar — my time in Lamar."

So he actually was shaping the story, covering up things. And both Wyatt and his last common-law wife, Sadie — she later went by Josephine — did the same thing when she was telling her story. She had asked a couple of nieces or distant relatives of Wyatt's to write her story, and they couldn't get her to talk about Tombstone or when she was in Prescott. I mean, she was a prostitute in Prescott. And she made up an elaborate story about how she had been traveling with this acting troupe and came to Arizona. But the details that involved her living with Johnny Behan, the sheriff, and then having the affair with Wyatt — I mean, she wouldn't talk about it. And the publisher who wanted the book said, "Where's the information on Tombstone? There's nothing on Tombstone in here." So yes, everyone — Doc as well — had things in their past that they weren't proud of.

I mean, as I write in the book, they were human. And that was something that I tried to present. Very balanced — yeah, they made mistakes. When Wyatt left Lamar, he was like 21. He was young. He left with the monies. We don't know — did that tax money, did he give it to his dad to help him? His dad was in debt and his wife died — whatever his emotional state was. But he was a very young man. And as he got older, he changed quite a bit. And one of the great things about the American West — and I've heard other people you've interviewed mention this — you can reinvent yourself. When you were arrested for being a pimp in Illinois, that didn't follow you to Wichita, Kansas. It didn't follow you to Dodge City. And I'm sure Wyatt Earp thought, "No one will ever know those things about me."

But all these serious scholars and researchers — we found the records and the reports and the newspapers and all that — but you could reinvent yourself. And one of the things that I found very interesting about Wyatt was after the O.K. Corral gunfight, when there's a hearing to determine whether they should be put on trial for murder, he got these really laudatory letters from the citizens of both Wichita and Dodge City just praising him to the stars, and what a wonderful lawman he had been. And he truly had been. He earned that praise. And when he was in Tombstone, he did a great job — again, trying to uphold the law, trying to chase stage robbers. I mean, whenever there was a posse going after lawbreakers, you could almost always count on the Earps being part of it. So he matured, and — now, he was a gambler, and he followed the booms from place to place, whether it was Idaho or Alaska.

But there were some shining moments. And I think those years between Wichita and Tombstone were his best years and his most reputable. And he deserves the acclaim he has for his time. I mean, just arresting these guys — the Dodge City papers were constantly praising him and his work. And people tend to forget that, because today it seems like everyone wants to knock these big icons: "Oh, Wyatt Earp — man, he was a pimp, and he wasn't a good person." And yeah, he abandoned one of his wives and could be cruel at times. But then, on the other hand, there's a reminiscence of a child in Tombstone, and she said, "W. Earp was like a father to me. I loved him." They were next-door neighbors. And that's what I try to present in the book. There's more than one side to Wyatt Earp. Sure, there are some shades of gray, but to some people, they loved him and they respected him, and he was a good friend. Mattie Earp — she wouldn't say that because she committed suicide. She said Wyatt ruined her life. Maybe he did. But he's multifaceted. Just like anybody alive today, there's not one shade — there are multiple shades. There's not one side — there are many sides. And maybe you like him, maybe you don't. But a lot of people liked Wyatt — Bat Masterson probably most of all — and Doc Holliday. They thought he was great. That has to mean something, I think.

C&I: Speaking of Doc — as much as he's remembered as this deadly gunman and gambler, he was also dealing with his sickness — all of the things that he carried with him before his time in Tombstone. Can you talk for a second about Doc and separating myth from reality in his story?

Gardner: I mentioned earlier that Wyatt and Doc in many ways were very similar. And when I went through the accounts, I found certain words like "quiet," "modest." Now, you don't necessarily think of that with Doc Holliday, but the thing is that the difference between Wyatt and Doc — Doc drank; Wyatt didn't drink very much. So when Doc was drinking, it was like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He was a different personality. But when he wasn't drinking, he and Wyatt were — like I said, the people that described him said, "Oh yeah, quiet, really didn't stand out much," or whatever. But when he drank — I mean, all bets were off. He could get very wild and crazy. And I remember one person who remembered when Doc Holliday and Wyatt were both in Gunnison, Colorado, after the shootout, and the Earps kind of took care of him like a little brother. They said, well, when Doc would get silly, they would just kind of usher him away. And they kind of knew that he had these spells.

And of course, Doc is more of a tragic figure than Wyatt because Doc had tuberculosis, and there's a great mystery: why did he really go West — was it because of his disease? He knew he had the disease when he was in Georgia, but there was also an incident in the book — talking about really dark shades — in Georgia where there was a shooting. He may have killed some African Americans, which prompted a move out West. But anyway, he's a tragic figure because of his illness. And I think that fascinates us, and certainly it's really made a big deal in any movie about Wyatt — you've got the coughing Doc Holliday. He wasn't like that all the time. But anyway, he came from a slave-holding family. He lost his mother very young to tuberculosis. He apparently didn't have a good relationship with his father. He becomes a dentist and he goes to Pennsylvania — it was considered the best dental school in the country. So he was a very smart person. He got his degree. When he started out in business, he had a partner in Dallas, Texas, and they actually won awards at this regional fair for their dentistry. So in his twenties, he's an award-winning dentist. But he has this addiction, which is gambling, and he just cannot stop. And eventually it causes — he loses the partnership and he floats around from place to place. So, like I said, he's just hard to figure out. He's got an addiction to gambling. He's got tuberculosis. He drinks. Now, maybe he drinks for medicinal purposes — to help soothe pains and that kind of thing.

But on the other hand, he's almost worshipful of Wyatt Earp. He saves Wyatt Earp's life. He didn't have to — and I know you're familiar with this story. He's in Dodge City; he sees Wyatt's in trouble. Doc comes out the door of the Long Branch with two revolvers and gets the guys to put their hands up, and they march off to jail. And Wyatt Earp — he was loyal to Doc then for the rest of his days. And he mentioned more than once, even in the Spicer hearing, "I'm friends with Doc Holliday because he saved my life." But the relationship — I get the sense it's more that Doc is about three years younger, and he's just kind of enamored of Wyatt Earp. And that friendship is so tight — this is what tells me how tight it is: Doc's lover, Big Nose Kate — Kate Elder — she was just absolutely jealous of that relationship. And that tells me how strong the friendship was. She wouldn't be so furious and so jealous if it wasn't tight. And she hated Wyatt Earp, and she hated the control that Wyatt had over Doc. It's like, if Wyatt said, "Well, let's do this or that," well, Doc was all for it — "I'm going to do whatever Wyatt says." "Come down to Tombstone." "Okay, yeah, I'm on my way," or whatever. And she just hated that she felt like she was competing with Wyatt Earp for the affections or attentions of Doc Holliday. So there are so many things about him — his relationship with Wyatt, his tuberculosis, his alcoholism, and that addiction to gambling. I mean, he could not stop gambling at all.

C&I: You mentioned that pivotal moment that began their friendship in Dodge City when Doc saves Wyatt's life. Why was that such a pivotal moment for their friendship, and why did it bind these two men together so tightly? 

Gardner: Yes. This happens in August of 1878. Wyatt Earp — Dodge City — is surrounded by a bunch of these rowdy cowboys. And one of the things that Bat Masterson said about Wyatt — he says Wyatt was the bravest man that he had ever, ever encountered in the American West. And that's saying a lot. But I think that Wyatt truly believed in that moment that his life was in danger. He truly — as brave as he was — felt that his life was over. And for Doc Holliday to come out and save him — and he said, "Doc Holliday saved my life." And I think any person — anybody that feels like so-and-so saved my life — you feel like you owe them for the rest of your life. I mean, you owe them for what they did. And if you're a good person, you're eternally grateful for what they did. So because Wyatt truly believed that he was going to die in that moment, the fact that Doc Holliday risked his own life and came out there — that sealed a bond forever.

But also, I should say that from that moment on, too, they did enjoy each other's company. They did like to be together. I wonder — when they were sitting gambling together or talking together — what did they talk about? What was their conversation? We don't really have that. And one of the things about their friendship that makes it so intriguing — it makes you want to know more — is that they never really talked about it at length. Wyatt Earp did say more than once — he said, "I was Doc Holliday's friend because he saved my life," but he didn't go on about, "Oh yeah, Doc, man, he told these great jokes, and he was so fun to be..." I mean, he didn't go on and on about it. And Doc Holliday was the same way. When he was interviewed in Gunnison about the relationship, he said, "You know the Earps, right?" He goes, "Yes, we are friends." And then another time — they had a little bit of a falling out in Albuquerque — and he was interviewed and he said, "Well, we had a little difference, but it didn't amount to much." And that's the way friends are. It's like, yeah, we had an argument, but it's done now; it's over. But they didn't really talk at length. I mean, we would love a memoir where he's talking about, yeah, Doc did these things that I liked, or he always — this really irritated me, or whatever. Wyatt did say about Doc that Doc was his own worst enemy. And I think that was true. In the book, I say that there was one constant with these two guys — I said, "Trouble seemed to follow Wyatt; Doc made his own," which is true. He would get drunk and he would get mad and they'd have a little shooting altercation or whatever.

But anyway, to get back to that moment of truth — this guy risked his life to save you. And I think that explains the bond, right? You don't really have to go further. Now, you can also see later — who's with Wyatt at the O.K. Corral? It's Doc Holliday. Doc Holliday could have stood back and said, "I think you guys can handle this." No — he was eager to be a part of it, and there were probably many reasons why he did. I mean, they'd made threats against Doc as well. But he gladly volunteered to be part of that group that went to the O.K. Corral, and then afterwards, during what they now call the Vendetta Ride, he's riding with Wyatt, and the guy's got TB and they're riding all over southern Arizona. So I think — as I say in the book — actions speak louder than words. What they did for each other — sure, we'd like to have those accounts and have a little more information — but what they did for each other tells you just how strong they were. And also how jealous Kate Elder was tells you how tight that was as well.

C&I: When you mentioned the gunfight at the O.K. Corral — which obviously is ingrained in cultural memory in the United States — and the blurb mentioned this as one of the clearest accounts of what actually happened at the O.K. Corral, what myths about that gunfight did you want to correct in your book?

Gardner: It wasn't necessarily about correcting; it was trying to tell it accurately and clearly. And the problem is that there are so many contradictory — I mean, this is what the eyewitnesses — there were a lot of "eyewitnesses," but they all tend to disagree with one another. And I made a bit of a conscious decision because of the Spicer hearing, where Wyatt presented a written statement; Virgil testifies; bizarrely, Doc Holliday does not testify. It would have been great to have his testimony. But I decided I couldn't get all these accounts to jibe. I mean, it was just — so I decided I'm going to go with essentially what Wyatt and Virgil and others that matched up — what their story was — and try to tell it from their point of view as things are happening. But anyway, as far as clearing up myth — and there are some small things that are — I mean, they might seem nerdy or whatever, but one of the things that surprised me was that in all the movies, at the gunfight you see Wyatt and Virgil and Morgan — they're all pulling their guns from leather holsters. They're wearing gun rigs. Well, at the O.K. Corral gunfight, Wyatt had a revolver in his coat pocket; so did Doc Holliday. And same with Virgil — he had his pistol in his waistband. So there were no quick-draw holsters at all at the O.K. Corral gunfight. And yet every movie — they're pulling it from this leather gun rig or whatever. I thought that — again, it's nerdy — but I thought it was interesting, the way you wear or carry a gun. I also think — and I'm just speculating — that if you're wearing a holster and a leather gun rig, it's very obvious. You can't use the excuse, "I'm not armed." Somebody will say, "I don't have a gun," so they don't know that you have a gun if you're walking around the streets of Tombstone if it's in your coat pocket. And I actually found references to — in the late 19th century — tailors would advertise to sew gun pockets into your clothing. It was a thing. So yeah, you could get a gun pocket in your pants. You know how they have these concealed-carry things now? Well, they were doing it then too. And according to one account, Wyatt's coat — the inside was lined with canvas in that pocket — kind of an oversized pocket, and apparently to facilitate pulling out so it doesn't get caught on the cloth or whatever. So anyway, that was — to me — interesting. I don't know if it's worth me spending all this time talking about it. But another thing that I also thought was interesting about this confrontation — and this is portrayed in films as well — so the McLaurys and the Clantons, the Cowboys, they're in this vacant lot that's near the O.K. Corral, and Virgil Earp is determined — and we're getting back to these anti-gun laws — these guys, they've been making threats all day; they're carrying their guns. And Virgil's finally had enough — it's like, "I'm going to disarm them. I'm the chief of police. They're breaking the law. It's an insult to my authority. So I'm done. I'm going to go down and take their guns. Come on, Wyatt. Come on, Morgan. Doc, take the shotgun," whatever. They get down there, but before they get down there, Sheriff Behan, who knows about this situation, comes rushing up — and he keeps looking over his shoulder because he's scared what's going to happen — and Virgil says, "I'm going to take their guns." And Sheriff Behan says, "I've already disarmed them." So they kind of relax, and Wyatt puts his gun back in his coat. And what I thought was interesting about that is what Sheriff Behan could have said — he could have said, "They're leaving town. If you're leaving town, you can have your guns." But he didn't say that. He said, "I've already disarmed them." So some people who have sided with the Cowboys said, "Well, they were trying to leave town, and they were just shot down and murdered." Well, that's not what Sheriff Behan said. That would have defused the whole thing. "They're leaving town." That's all he had to say. But he didn't. He said, "I've already disarmed them," like they were staying. So anyway, we could go ahead — I'm sorry —

C&I: There’s so much to interpret, I think, from a modern perspective about a lot of the actions, and one of the most controversial was Wyatt's Vendetta Ride after Morgan's assassination. How did you choose to interpret his choices in those days of revenge?

Gardner: I certainly understood the choice he made. I didn't try to sugarcoat it, essentially. And he actually admitted this in his own dictation. This was what was happening: whenever they tried to try any of the Cowboys — Ike Clanton — I mean, Ike Clanton — when Virgil was maimed on the streets of Tombstone — they tried to kill him — and Ike Clanton's hat was found where the people were shooting from. That's hard evidence. Well, Ike Clanton and his fellow buddies — it's like, "Oh no, Ike Clanton was with us when that happened," and he had an alibi. And then after Morgan was killed, Wyatt knew that this was just going to be an ongoing thing. There was always going to be an alibi. And so he says this in his dictation — and I quoted it in the book — he says, "I decided there would be no more alibis on me. I'm going to get every one of those guys." And yeah, he was a U.S. deputy marshal. He was representing the law. But he admitted he took the law into his own hands because he knew that the law was broken. And so, yeah — and there was a murder warrant issued against him. It caused him a lot of problems later. But he got some of the men that he wanted to get before he fled Arizona. So I didn't sugarcoat it. Personally, I'm sympathetic — if the law is broken, this is how vigilantes are born if you can't get justice. And so Wyatt decides, "I'll make my own justice." And he did.

C&I: One thing that strikes me so much in thinking of names that live on as legend of the Old West — Billy the Kid, Jesse James — is, like you said at the beginning, the legend of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday is so intertwined. You almost can't think of one without the other. And obviously Tombstone, the Wyatt Earp movie, The Cowboys documentary — they've all reinforced that idea of these two men being inexplicably tied together. If you had to sum this up in one sentence or paragraph, what about those two and their relationship remains so magnetic for people today?

Gardner: I don't necessarily want to use the word "love," but the fact is that they really liked each other, admired each other. They were bosom friends. I mean, they were just dedicated to each other. Now, again, maybe Doc more so than Wyatt to Doc. But I think human nature — when we look at relationships — that's what's always kind of magnetic. I mean, so many movies are about relationships and how people interact — the human experience. And we see these two people who are in some ways alike, in some ways not alike. A moment of truth — an incident in 1878 — they're bonded together from that moment forward. Now, Wyatt could have decided, "Well, he saved my life, but I don't really have to do anything else." But no — he stuck by him, and he was rewarded by that — by sticking by him from then on, basically.

But that relationship is magnetic because it just seems touching in many ways. And in my book, I talk about their final meeting in Denver, Colorado, and Doc was very sick, but he had read in the paper — and I found the actual paper — where often, when people were visiting from out of town, the papers would list the guests at each hotel. So Wyatt Earp and his wife were at the Brunswick Hotel in Denver, and Doc read that in the paper. And so he was in Denver, and he went down to see him. And to me, that really summed up the relationship best of all. I mean, his wife writes of that meeting, and she says that Wyatt came back to their — they stepped aside and chatted because Josephine was with some friends — and Wyatt came back and he had tears in his eyes, and it was just very moving. You could tell that these guys loved each other. And so that's the magnetism — that kind of strong relationship, that love between two men. And I think we're drawn to that. And I hope that answers some questions about it in the book, too.

C&I: Brothers of the Gun comes out November 11th. Do you have a book tour planned, and what's that look like for you heading into wintertime?

Gardner: Yes, I do. It's a very busy November. So my daughter — we're getting our first grandchild a couple of days before the book comes out.

C&I: Congratulations.

Gardner: Thank you. Yeah, so she'll be getting her own tour — lots of people visiting. But no, on November 11th, the actual release date, I'm doing a talk and a book signing at the East Library in Colorado Springs. But then I'll be going down a couple of days later to Santa Fe and Albuquerque. And I've got book signings in both Santa Fe and Albuquerque that same week, actually. And that's pretty much going to be it. But I'm really excited for the book to come out and to do the signings. And I love talking to you and explaining the story behind the story.

C&I: I have to ask before we let you go — what's next? Are there any other figures of the American West that you're working on, and can you give us any insight into what might be coming our way?

Gardner: I’m under contract with Dutton, who's the publisher of Brothers of the Gun. I'm examining — or telling the story, I should say — Frank and Jesse James as bushwhackers during the Civil War, while riding with Quantrill and Bloody Bill Anderson, and how that experience led to their outlawry following the Civil War. Now, in a previous book, I focused on the Northfield raid — the James-Younger Gang — 1876 — 150th anniversary next year, by the way. So this one, I thought — and I was born and raised in Missouri — it was such a violent, awful, bloody, horrific time, and it really shaped — especially Jesse. And he was just a teenager as he was fighting these horrible battles and skirmishes. So it's called Bushwhackers: The Civil War, Jesse and Frank James, and the Birth of the American Outlaw.

C&I: We're eager to get our hands on that when it comes out. And obviously Brothers of the Gun — November 11th. Mark, thank you so much for your time, and we hope to have you on again soon.

Gardner: Oh, definitely. Look forward to it.