Eventually the situation came to a climax in the great Earp-Clanton gun-fight, and there was a long period when this battle was brewing. During this period whenever they came to town the desperadoes used to stay at the Grand Central Hotel; and Bob Hatch’s saloon, where the Earp boys and their friends were accustomed to take their “morning’s morning,” was directly across the street. Things came to a pass where the noon hour would often find a group of outlaws on the sidewalk before the hotel and a number of the Earp faction in front of the saloon, both outfits heavily armed, 137 the members of each glowering across the street at those of the other.
Now Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and others of the law-and-order party had come here with big reputations from Dodge City, where they had taken part in more than one affair when the lead was flying. They had sustained those reputations by their deeds in Tombstone; they were champions––“He Wolves.” And so one noontime when he was standing on the sidewalk among his fellow outlaws, John Ringo was seized with an idea.
He looked across the street at the members of the Earp party, who were regarding the desperadoes in ominous silence. The idea grew more powerful, until it owned him. He stepped down from the sidewalk’s edge into the roadway, crossed it, and came to a halt within a few feet of his enemies. Addressing Wyatt Earp by name––so goes the story––
“This sort of thing,” John Ringo said, “has been going on for a long time now. Pretty soon there’s bound to be a big killing if it keeps up. Now I’ve got a proposition. You, or Doc Holliday if you’d rather have him, step into the street here with me, and the two of us will shoot it out, and, if you’re game, why we’ll do it holding the opposite corner of a handkerchief in our teeth. I give my word, my gang will stand by the result.”
Wyatt Earp made no answer. What temptation that offer held to him one can judge only by the fact that he was a bold man who had a long record of large deeds to his credit. But also he was the recognized head of a 138 movement for law and order, a movement which had already stopped indiscriminate street-shooting in Tombstone; just at this time he was being groomed in certain quarters as a candidate for sheriff, and the banner of his party was emblazoned with the word Reform.
It is easy enough to see how John Ringo was behind the times when he made that proposition on Tombstone’s main street. It is easy also to imagine his feelings when without a word by way of answer or acknowledgment the members of the Earp faction stood regarding him. He turned his back upon them and he recrossed the street, and when he had gained the opposite sidewalk they were gone within Bob Hatch’s saloon.
Johnny Behan was sheriff then, politically an enemy of the Earps and politically friendly to the outlaws. He was sitting in his office with young William Breckenbridge, his diplomatic deputy, when some one brought word that John Ringo had made a gun-play and was holding down the main street with drawn revolvers.
“Go and fetch him in,” the sheriff bade Breckenbridge.
The latter found the outlaw pacing up and down before the Grand Central Hotel after the fashion of the cow-boy who has shot up a saloon and driven all hands out of the place. The two had met months before when the deputy was out in the eastern part of the county collecting taxes with Curly Bill as his guide and protector.
“What’s up?” the youthful officer demanded, and John Ringo recited his version of the affair.