Morning of October 26th 1881

IKE SPEAKS HIS MIND


The poker game had just finished and Virgil was headed home to bed when he had a bit of a conversation with Ike Clanton. According to Ike he was displeased with Virgil at the way he sided with Doc Holliday the night before, and if they wanted to fight him he was "In town." Virgil's view of their conversation was different. Virgil would testify that Ike approached him and wanted him to relay a message to Doc Holliday : "That Son of a Bitch has got to fight." Virgil refused because he was a lawman and would never give such a message to Doc. Virgil then returned home and went to bed, Ike should have done the same.

Ike was very angry at Doc, Morgan and Virgil at this point. The run in he had with Doc Holliday was eating him up all night while playing poker, he also had no sleep and I assume he also had a few drinks, a poor, poor combination. What Ike would do in the next few hours was an act of lunacy and in my mind the reason things came to a head and that the three cowboys lost their lives. To make a long story short Ike Clanton had armed himself and was telling anyone who would listen that he was going to shoot the Earps and Holliday on sight. That is a fact, and I believe that is why this gunfight was viewed by the public and Hollywood for years to come as the Clantons waiting at the OK Corral to gun down the Earps. What Hollywood doesn't tell us is that a few more interesting things took place before the battle. Remember to till this point the Frank Mclaury and Billy Clanton had not arrived in town and Tom Mclaury was running his errands in town and was hoping he could distance himself from Ike and Tombstone in the very near future. Ike Clanton was hoping for a showdown with Doc Holliday and was seen armed at Fly's Photography which was very close to Doc's hotel room, the time would have been a little after twelve.

We can assume at this point Tom Mclaury knows what Ike was up to that morning and more then likely did not want a part of it. However knowing that he was involved to some degree, a he decided to arm himself and I don't think anyone could blame him. We also know that Doc Holliday was aware of Ike's rants as was most of the town. Deputy Bronk went to Virgil's home, woke him up and told him that Ike was threatening to kill Holiday and the Earps name was also mentioned. Many more people told Virgil about Ike's threats, the whole downtown core was a buzz at this time because of Ike's big mouth. So the fighting Earps, and Holliday are aware of the threats made by Ike and Billy Clanton with Frank Mclaury were riding into town unaware of what was happening in town courtesy of Ike Clanton's mouth.