Original subtitles

As strange as it may seem,

people in the Old West celebrated Christmas

pretty much the same as today.

Yep, Christmas trees, decorations, presents.

And in Tombstone, people had even more reason to celebrate.

The Earps had been acquitted,

and Ike Clanton and the Cowboys had been defeated.

And the strange thing...

The Cowboys kind of just disappeared.

I mean, nobody had seen any of them.

The rumor going around town was that the Cowboys had disbanded.

But there was another rumor.

That the Cowboys were regrouping

and were about to get their revenge.

Tombstone was once again a peaceful town.

♪ Silent night... ♪

And it was all thanks to the Earps.

Morgan and Virgil had recovered from their wounds,

and people talked about Wyatt as if he was already a legend.

♪...is bright ♪

♪ Round yon... ♪

Even Doc was being praised.

Before the gunfight, he was a lowlife,

someone you crossed the street to avoid.

And now, here he was, mingling with the top brass.

I think if the verdict in the courts would have gone the other way,

we would be remembering them as the murderers of the O.K. Corral.

But instead, they were found, uh, innocent.

And hence, their status as heroes ran high.

Ladies and gentlemen.

Here we go.

It is my honor to welcome back the heroes

who took a stand against the Cowboys who have plagued this town.

Meet John Clum,

the mayor of Tombstone.

Clum was a New Yorker who'd come to Tombstone to get rich.

And he did, thanks to his share in the silver mines.

Then he used those profits to start up a newspaper.

John Clum started The Epitaph.

He would then be editor, postmaster, and mayor,

all at the same time.

When the good people of Tombstone...

Clum had stayed quiet during the trial.

But once the Earps were acquitted, you couldn't shut him up.

These men risked their lives and their freedom...

He was of those people who only becomes vocal

once someone else has knocked the bully down.

...to bring back peace to this town.

Please, raise your glasses. To the Earps.

To the Earps!

To the Earps!

This is a token of our gratitude.

The whole town really, really appreciates what you boys have done.

- Thank you. - Thank you.

No, thank you.

If you're wondering what is going on

between Wyatt, Josephine, and Sheriff Behan,

well, some say Behan kicked Josephine out.

Others say she left him.

Either way, she was free to be with Wyatt.

Albeit secretly.

You backed the wrong side.

So what?

The people want you gone.

Mm-hmm.

Well, I'm still here.

I ain't going nowhere.

Johnny Behan thought his political ambitions were in trouble

after the trial.

There was an election coming up for county sheriff in another year.

Johnny Behan could not stand to have this kind of stain on his reputation.

He was going to have to do something.

Faced with being run out of Tombstone,

Behan went to find the one person who could help him.

Where's Ike?

No idea.

Yeah, where was Ike?

I mean, one minute, he was everywhere.

And now... he was nowhere.

Shortly after the trial,

Ike left Tombstone and headed back to his ranch.

He needed to think.

For any criminal organization,

whether it's the mafia or whether it's the Cowboys,

they think they can do whatever they want, and it's never gonna catch up with them.

Well, what the trial kind of showed,

they're not above the law, and maybe their day is over.

Goddamn.

Twenty men.

Give me 20 men, and I'll get 'em.

No more open battles.

No more gunfights.

We're going back to the old ways.

This road leads out of Tombstone.

Ike wanted to send out a warning to all the people of Tombstone

that the Cowboys were as powerful as ever.

All right.

Well, take care with this.

Can we drop these flaps?

Yah!

On December 14th, 1881,

Mayor Clum's stagecoach was brutally attacked by the Cowboys.

But incredibly, Clum survived.

Not only that, but he wrote about it in his newspaper, The Epitaph.

"On December 14th,

there was an assassination attempt on Mayor Clum."

"But miraculously, he survived."

"The townspeople of Tombstone

are known to be fearful for their lives."

"Mayor Clum..."

Now, you can imagine Ike was pissed that Clum wasn't killed.

After all, he'd organized the hit.

"Fearful for their lives."

But Ike realized it didn't matter that Clum survived.

All that mattered was the town was once again living in fear.

And fear was exactly what he needed to regain his power in Tombstone.

Ike decided to make this Christmas an unforgettable one.

Instead of Christmas cards,

Ike sent out death threats.

At the end of the year, the Cowboys issued anonymous threats

to Judge Spicer,

to Tom Fitch, and probably others,

notifying them that they were on a hit list,

and they were out to get them.

It was getting very dangerous in Tombstone at that time.

It was the final straw for Mayor Clum.

He left town,

and moved to California.

The Cowboys were attempting to intimidate and scare Spicer and Clum,

and anybody else who fought them.

That would put them in more of a position of power to control the area.

- Cheers. - Cheers.

Cheers.

Cheers.

Let's do another one.

Pour a round. Here we go.

Who's it from?

Ike.

The Earps saw their future in Tombstone.

To be run out by a lawless element,

it just went against everything they stood for.

These were lawmen, and you're gonna stand up for yourself.

You're not gonna be run out of town. It's principle.

When Ike heard the Earps weren't going anywhere,

he had no choice but to up the ante.

What we do know is Virgil was told that the Cowboys had come together

and met and written out an oath to murder all the Earps.

And it was written in the blood of outlaw Curly Bill.

Oo-wee. That's how you do it.

There you go. Nice one, Morg.

- Double or nothing, Virg? - Nope, don't even try it.

I am going home.

All right, Virg.

And don't let this young gentleman help me.

All right.

- Good night, Marshal. - Gentlemen, good evening.

All right, Wyatt, you're up.

Virgil. Virgil.

Go get help. Go get help.

Virgil is ambushed.

Out of the darkness, uh, with shotguns. Terribly wounded.

Of course everyone knew the Cowboys were behind it.

We should have got all three.

- You wanna go back? - No.

One dead Earp is enough for tonight.

After being shot multiple times,

Virgil Earp was barely hanging on to life.

His left arm was shattered.

Other shots had torn into his back and struck his kidney, liver, and spine.

Virgil was being cared for by George Goodfellow,

the same doctor who treated him after the gunfight at the O.K. Corral

just two months earlier.

I found this.

Ike flees after shooting Virgil, and he leaves his hat.

Who leaves their hat behind?

I mean, who does that?

But that's what happened, and that's how Wyatt came to believe

Ike was one of those that pulled the trigger.

Incredibly, Virgil Earp survived the shooting.

But he'd be maimed for life.

In no time, Wyatt assembled a posse

to bring Ike in for the attempted murder of his brother.

Wyatt!

The hell you going?

Where do you think?

- Wyatt. Wyatt! - Hyah!

Wyatt!

I swear to God, Wyatt!

Wyatt!

Wyatt had gotten word that Ike was holed up at his ranch.

Wait here.

But Ike and his gang had moved on.

And this is where the story takes another turn.

Ah!

Because the Cowboys started robbing stagecoaches.

You see, unlike the first stagecoach robbery

that wasn't sanctioned by Ike,

he was fully behind these.

And Ike took robbing stagecoaches to another level.

On January 6th, the Cowboys attack a Wells Fargo stagecoach leaving Tombstone

and steal a strongbox containing almost $7,000.

A day later, they rob another stagecoach heading into Tombstone,

this time robbing all the passengers,

including Wells Fargo's own chief detective.

The Cowboys robbed somewhere between six and eight stagecoaches

in Arizona territory.

For Wells Fargo,

this made people not want to use their express company.

It was just very bad for business.

And that made it very bad for J.P. Morgan.

He was still in London trying to close a deal

to get money from investors

so he could take over the railroads in America.

But everything was now on hold,

because investors thought America was a dangerous place to put their money.

Morgan couldn't understand

why the president wasn't doing anything about it.

He knew his only chance of getting his deal back

was if he returned to America... to sort out the mess.

Back in America,

J.P. Morgan used one of the favorite weapons of the wealthy.

His influence.

You see, Morgan helped put President Chester Arthur into power.

And that bought him a lot of influence.

Just like today,

whoever writes the checks determines the policy, even for presidents.

And in the Gilded Age, uh, that man was J.P. Morgan.

A band of armed desperadoes known as the Cowboys...

And strangely enough,

shortly after J.P. Morgan returned to America,

President Arthur suddenly decided to make a speech to Congress

to ask their permission to let him send in the army against the Cowboys.

He needed their permission because, well, it was illegal.

Let me explain.

To keep the peace between the North and South after the Civil War,

the government passed the Posse Comitatus Act.

The Posse Comitatus Act stops federal troops

from being used as law enforcement within the United States of America.

It's a basic sort of bedrock principle

of keeping the US military out of civilian affairs.

But the whole thing blew up in his face.

The speech is a disaster.

President Arthur's party, the Republicans, don't have a majority in Congress.

And there's no way Southern congressmen could have supported this,

which effectively would have been tantamount

to sending an army into Arizona,

which is seen as a Southern stronghold.

But it got worse.

When the newspapers got hold of Arthur's speech,

they whipped up hysteria by saying America was involved in a war.

The Cowboy War.

This is one of those important, unknown chapters in American history.

President Arthur thinks he's doing the right thing

by asking Congress for the authority

to send in the army to deal with the Cowboys.

But this move backfires.

President Arthur's speech to Congress played right into Ike Clanton's hands.

Democracy, my ass.

Newspapers across the South

started to see the Cowboys as part of their cause.

"The Cowboys are the true voice of America."

Hell yeah.

So the president's speech really divides the nation.

On one hand, you had many in the North and the business interests

that saw the Cowboys as a bunch of criminals that need to be eliminated.

And then, many in the South identified with the Cowboys

as fighting for freedom and living free out on the frontier.

And you can imagine Ike was loving this.

There was only one problem.

He was still wanted for the attempted murder of Virgil.

And Wyatt had gotten wind of where Ike was hiding out.

- How many of them? - Seven.

Now, I can buy you time, but

I can't stop him.

He's coming for ya.

Ike may have felt emboldened by the press,

but the fact remained he was scared of Wyatt.

Arrest me.

Now, why would Ike turn himself in?

One reason was that it protected him from Wyatt.

But there was another reason.

All rise.

This court is now in session.

Mr. Clanton, where were you on the night of December 28th, 1881,

when Virgil Earp was brutally shot?

We should have got all three.

No. One dead Earp is enough for tonight.

I was in Charleston.

Ike got seven witnesses to confirm his alibi.

Mr. Clanton... this hat was, uh, found near the crime scene.

Do... do you recognize it?

Yep, it's my hat.

I lost it some time ago. Reckon it was stolen.

Ike's hat was actually found where the shooter of Virgil Earp was.

And yet, alibi witnesses testified that Ike was down in Charleston,

so there was no way to hold him over.

And that was it. The case was thrown out.

And Ike was free to go.

What happened?

The whole goddamn thing is rigged.

Uh, Mr. Clanton. Can we get your statement?

Today was a great victory,

not just for me, but for American justice.

I was falsely accused of attempted murder.

But we all know there is only one murderer in this town.

Wyatt, don't.

- And here he comes. - Don't!

Wyatt! It's not worth it.

It's not worth it.

Gentlemen, thank you. Let's go.

It doesn't take much more than a seemingly open-and-shut case

where Ike Clanton leaves his hat at the scene of the crime

and still gets away with it.

That would shake anybody's, uh, view of justice.

Wyatt must have thought the world had gone crazy.

Ike had gotten away with trying to kill Virgil.

While Wyatt, an honest lawman,

was being called a murderer in some circles.

Bang, bang.

And as for Ike,

he was sitting pretty.

Samantha.

As far as he was concerned, he was back in control of Tombstone.

Maybe we should go back...

I mean, he eliminated Virgil, the town's marshal.

And he had one other advantage.

With Behan in his back pocket,

Ike was untouchable.

We just gotta find one good witness.

Like that guy Sills.

Yeah.

It's not gonna happen.

No, there's gotta be a way.

And that was Wyatt's problem.

He really thought he could just get Ike back into court

and justice would be served.

It's like he needed to have it spelled out for him.

You're never gonna get that in.

Watch and learn.

Morg!

Morg. Shit.

Morg. Morg! Morg. Morg!

Hey! Stay with me.

Jesus.

It's all right. You're gonna be all right.

Dr. Goodfellow was there within minutes.

Wyatt?

Do you... do you know who did it?

Yeah.

I'm gonna get him.

Within the hour, Morgan Earp was dead.

Morgan's death was crushing to Wyatt.

It just tore him apart.

It was the worst thing that happened in his life.

Goddamn Cowboys.

I'm gonna kill

every one of 'em.