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Katie
Elder and Doc Hollidayby
Maggie Van Ostrand |
Page
1
By
1878 Kate had moved to Fort Griffin,
Texas. There she met and hung out with Wyatt Earp and it was through him that
she began her long-time involvement with Doc Holliday. Considering the probable
low IQs of cowboys and outlaws on those days, it's possible that the educated
Doc reminded Kate of her father. |
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Wyatt
Earp told a colorful tale of how Kate got Doc out of trouble in Fort
Griffin: Doc was dealing cards to a local bully by the name of Ed Bailey,
who was accustomed to having his own way without question. Bailey was unimpressed
with Doc’s reputation and in an attempt to irritate him, he kept picking up the
discards and looking at them. Looking at the discards was strictly prohibited
by the rules of Western Poker, a violation that could force the player to forfeit
the pot. Though Holliday warned Bailey twice, Bailey ignored him and picked up
the discards again. This time, Doc raked in the pot without showing his hand,
or saying a word. Bailey immediately brought out his pistol from under the table,
but before the man could pull the trigger, Doc’s lethal knife slashed the man
across the stomach. Bailey lay sprawled across the table, his blood and guts spilling
over the floor.
Knowing that his actions were in self-defense, Doc did
not run. However, he was still arrested and imprisoned in a local hotel room,
there being no jail in the town. Bully or no, a vigilante group formed to seek
revenge. Knowing that the mob would quickly overtake the local lawmen, “Big Nose”
Kate devised a plan to free Holliday from his confines. Setting a fire to an old
shed, it began to burn rapidly, threatening to engulf the entire town. As everyone
else was involved in fighting the fire, Kate, a pistol in each hand, confronted
the officer guarding Holliday, disarmed him, and she and Doc escaped. (Much later,
in 1940, Kate herself explicitly denied that it had ever happened. Then again,
by that time, she was nearly 90 years old and her memory might have been somewhat
faulty.)
Hiding
out during the night, they headed to Dodge City, Kansas on stolen horses the next
morning, registering at Deacon Cox’s Boarding House as Dr. and Mrs. J. H. Holliday.
Doc so appreciated what Kate did for him, that he was determined to make her happy
and gave up gambling, hanging up his dentist’s shingle once again. In return,
Kate promised to give up the life of prostitution and stop hanging around the
saloons. Neither resolution lasted.
Kate and Doc spent the next few years
together on the road. They went to Dodge City, Kansas, Deadwood, South Dakota,
Las Vegas, New Mexico Territory, and Prescott, Arizona Territory. Their relationship
was allegedly turbulent and sporadic.
It is known that Kate rented a
boarding house in Globe, Arizona Territory. In 1880, she also stayed for a time
in the booming silver town of Tombstone, Arizona Territory, where she prospered
by running a bordello. An inveterate gambler, Doc Holliday, had a great run playing
faro and poker in Tucson, joining Kate in Tombstone later that year. The two renewed
their relationship, and things returned to the erratic romance they had previously
had.
Here's
the real skinny about how Kate came to betray Doc, thereby losing him forever.
Holliday, who had been friendly with one of the actual robbers, was suspected
of participating in a stagecoach robbery and murder that occurred near Tombstone,
on March 15, 1881. Holliday's enemies discovered that he and Kate had just had
a fight. They got her drunk and persuaded her to swear that he had been involved.
Holliday was arrested based on her testimony. The next day, a sober Kate recanted
her story, and Holliday was released from jail. Their relationship never fully
recovered despite her recantation.
Kate went back to live in Globe, and
in 1887, she traveled to Glenwood Springs, Colorado to see Holliday before he
died. He actually spent some sick time in a cabin owned by one of Kate's brothers
near Glenwood Springs, but he ultimately went into town to die, and Kate went
with him. Since Holliday is known to have been destitute by this time, it is probable
that Kate helped support in his final months.
After
Holliday's death, Kate married George Cummings, a blacksmith by trade, in Colorado.
The marriage lasted about a year and the couple split up. Kate found work in Cochise,
Arizona for awhile, before taking a job with John Howard as a house keeper in
Dos Cabezas, Arizona, where she worked until his death in 1930.
Using
the name Cummings, Kate, increasingly frail, applied to the Arizona Pioneers Home,
a state establishment in Prescott for elderly and destitute Arizona residents
from frontier days. She was finally accepted after a six month wait. Kate had
never become a citizen of the United States.
While there, the paparazzi
of the day swooped down to find out about her life with Doc and their time in
Tombstone. Kate wanted money to tell them, but they refused to pay, so most of
her story will never be known.
When
she was 89, however, she wrote a letter revealing that she was with Doc in his
room in Fly's Boarding house, next to the O.K. Corral, and that she actually witnessed
the shootout. Many details were included in her writings that strongly suggest
she was telling the truth. >
next page - O.K. Corral...
Copyright
Maggie Van Ostrand
"A Balloon In
Cactus" - May 26, 2006 column
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