Lady at the O.K. Corral by Ann Kirschner Read Free Book Online Page A

the women were consumed with the difficult communal life of the wagon train, especially the challenges of everyday tasks like child care, laundry, food preparation, caring for the sick, and hygiene. It was the women who counted the horrifying number of roadside graves and recorded the terrors of the journey in their journals and letters.
    By the time Nicholas Earp’s wagon train had arrived in San Bernardino, California, in December 1864, the accompanying families were grateful to have reached their destination—and eager to say good-bye to the demanding Nicholas Earp.
    Despite the ardors of the trip, the Earp family stayed on the West Coast only a few years before returning to the Midwest. They took up residence in Iowa, and then in Lamar, Missouri. At twenty-two, Wyatt ran for election as the town constable, and fell in love with the local hotelier’s daughter. He married Aurilla Sutherland on January 10, 1870, with Nicholas Earp presiding as justice of the peace. Of the four women who would eventually take the name Mrs. Earp, only Aurilla would celebrate with Wyatt in a public ceremony.
    With a legally sanctioned marriage, a responsible job, and most of his family gathered around him, Wyatt bought a house and showed every sign of being ready to settle down and become a pillar of the community.
    Less than one year later, Aurilla died in childbirth during a cholera epidemic; her son was buried with her. Wyatt never spoke publicly about his young bride, other than to acknowledge that he had been married. He never admitted that his wife’s death set off a personal crisis as well as a family feud.
    The next few years would prove to be the darkest of Wyatt’s life. The grieving young widower brawled in public with Aurilla’s brothers, stole horses, and served a month in jail before skipping town. By the time his official biography was published, it would not mention any of his times in “the cold and silent calaboose” as a gambler, pimp, and thief. Josephine may have known only the most general facts about these years. Without acknowledging the aftermath of his brief marriage, she shaped the timeline around his years on the plains, where an unusual fraternity of some ten thousand buffalo hunters honed their drinking and shooting and gambling skills and spawned lifelong friendships. It was here that Wyatt met Bat Masterson, whose career would parallel Wyatt’s, and who would become Josephine’s friend and admirer. However, during these years, Wyatt was at least as familiar with brothels as he was with buffalo and Bat Masterson.
    In cities like Peoria, Illinois, and Wichita, Kansas, prostitution was publicly frowned upon but privately tolerated and regulated as an important source of revenue. It was common practice for mayors and police officials to impose monthly fines or jail terms, castigating the offenders with loud public outcries. A few days later, these revenues safely stored in the city coffers, business would go back to normal. The city treasuries relied on the prostitutes’ contribution, and local merchants depended on the “sporting houses” to keep visitors happy and the town lively.
    Wyatt was arrested at least twice in Peoria before leaving for Kansas, where he ran brothels with his brother James and James’s common-law wife Bessie. In Wichita he entered into a second relationship, though this one had no officiating justice of the peace. He lived for more than a year with Sally Haspel, who was probably the daughter of a local madam who worked with Bessie. Newspaper accounts identify “Sarah Earp” as depraved but good-looking. Both Bessie and Sally endured a grueling cycle of arrests and fines until the spring of 1875, when Wyatt joined the local police force. At this point, the monthly payments ceased, and Sally disappeared from the public record.
    Wichita and Dodge City were major hubs in the Kansas cattle trade and temporary homes to throngs of young