Page 65 - All About History - Issue 12-14

WYATT EARP’S WILD WEST

out of his sickbed. It seemed things were falling Arizona now or he would be the next to be taken
into place for Wyatt. He just needed to ensure out. At the same time the coroner Dr DM Mather
his brother’s safe passage out of Arizona and the held an inquest into Morgan’s death and discovered
vendetta ride could begin. However, his plans that Marietta Duarte, the wife of well-known outlaw
were shaken to their foundations as the very night Pete Spence knew something and was ready to
Virgil started walking again, his younger brother talk, as she had been habitually abused by Spence.
Morgan was set upon at Tombstone’s Campbell Duarte told Matthew that the day before Morgan’s
& Hatch Billiard Parlor. He was shot through the assassination she had overheard her husband
establishment’s window, the bullet shattering his talking with Florentino ‘Indian Charlie’ Cruz.
spine and sending him shuddering back into a Apparently, Morgan had walked by and she had
billiard table. heard Spence say to Charlie, “That’s him, that’s him.”
Wyatt rushed to the parlour where he was forced Duarte also said that this same night, Indian
to listen as his brother slowly bled to death. The Charlie and Frank C Stilwell came to Spence’s
outlaws had gone after two of his brothers, injuring house, armed with pistols and carbine rifles, and
one and killing the other. Wyatt swore that those that they all talked outside for a while in hushed
responsible would be brought to justice and that he tones. The following morning, when Marietta
would be the one to deliver it. confronted Spence about the night’s activities, she Before he became a man of the law, Wyatt
Earp worked numerous jobs, including as
The following day he decided that, regardless recounted that Spence hit her and threatened to
a buffalo hunter and saloonkeeper
of Virgil’s still-weak state, he had to get him out of shoot her if she spoke to anyone about what she

In the Wild West saloon bars were
often where vendettas were settled

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