Transcripts For CSPAN2 Dodge City 20170409

Booktv, television for serious readers. Welcome to watermark books and cafe spirit is my great pleasure tonight to introduce tom clavin. He is has written a book about dodge city kansas and were thrilled about that. I want to just give you some of the accolades hes already seen. Someone said it is a musthave for history buffs. Another critic says fans of western u. S. History or lovers of Larry Mcmurtry should covet this nonfiction book. Nancy was the former mayor of dodge city and former chairwoman of tourism and Historic Preservation in dodge city agreed. I think that its very high price that she said this. You will enjoy this book even if you dont read history. It just flows along. Tom clavin is a number one New York Times bestselling author. Hes worked as a newspaper and website editor. Is a magazine writer, tv and radio commentator, and a reporter for the New York Times. Hes received awards from the society of professional journalist, the marine corps heritage foundation, and a National Newspaper association. His books include the heart of everything that is, which was a book about red cloud. The typhoon, reckless. I think one of the reasons that this prose flows so well in the narrative drive of the story is so compelling is because he is a Pulitzer Prize winner and he does have look at the stack of books. It is my great pleasure to welcome from sag harbor new york, tom clavin. [applause] gimmick i appreciate being here. Its a great prose to be in wichita. A great privilege to have everybody show up, booktv, generous of them to be here. Im always fascinated by writers who can give a good reading, give a good talk. I will include i dont necessarily myself because we think about almost all our time talking to ourselves, not only occasionally out loud. So to make that transition from sin in a room by yourself, most of your life and then coming out and interact with people. So ill do the best i can pick one of the things that helps in that situation is to make notes. I made all kinds of notes and have notes stuck in here and everything. But then sitting here thinking, im in wichita and im going to take these notes, throw them down there. Im just going to tell you the story, kelly have the book came about and what its about, what happened, who the characters are, some of the stories from it and then see what questions you have. So lets make it kind of informal, loose and well go from there. I had done, ive done several books with a coauthor named bob was a wonderful writer and one of my best friends. We had done a book that some of you may be familiar with, it was just mentioned. Its about the lakota sioux indian later red cloud who was the only American Indian leader to defeat United States in a war. Not just a battle, sitting bull one the battle of the bighorn. I dont think anyone will challenge that. But red cloud what a war and thats what our book was about. We were very fortunate that the book sold very, very well. We had done the book with simon schuster, and i wanted to go right back into another book about the American West, the frontier, the 1860s 60s into the 1870s. Michael author and the publisher both said we are really looking to come back into 20 century. Do you have any good world war ii stories . Actually did. That was the last book that we did, but while we were working on that i couldnt shake the idea of going back to the frontier and to the west. And sometimes when i find ideas is just by trolling around. I remember, i read something was about a dodge city ward. I had heard of it. I did know what it was, which is my fault. Nobody elses fault. It is a significant. I also remember that ive come across couple things about Bat Masterson. That intrigue me because i would say the majority of people in this room, you say Bat Masterson, immediate name recognition how many of you i know what his life was like and what he did . Those of us of a certain age remember gene barry. [laughing] the hat and the cane and being the dandy. Some of us may have remembered Bat Masterson as being portrayed in a couple of hollywood pictures. Usually he was a second banana. He was a supporter of the real sheriff, almost a buffoon, Bat Masterson. So thats the image meme may have had. I started doing research into flight and if i dont he had had this amazing life that was full of adventure, and yet its really hard to find that kind of information. Then it comes to wider. I did want to do a book about wyatt earp because i didnt think it was worth it to write another book about wyatt earp. Some of you may be smart with the biography they came out about 20 years ago, terrific book. Why do another one . Everything is in their. Its a well researched book. Another book called inventing wyatt earp which takes a different tactic. Its a biography but its talk about all the myths that have been perpetrated over the years. I didnt think there was room for that but i started to put some of these elements together. The wyatt earp that most of us know or think we know is tombstone wider. The gunfight at the okay corral. The middleage white almost because when you think that all the movies that have been done, you go back to my darling clementine, john for picture, and before plays wyatt earp and use pop in his 40s. I gunfight at the okay corral, Burt Lancaster plays wider. Doc holliday is played by kirk douglas. More recent years you have Kevin Costner played wider. Kurt russell played wyatt earp. So its almost like wyatt earp was born in tombstone. A few weeks before the okay corral. And i started to fit these pieces together Bat Masterson, wonderful adventures life, and wyatwyatt earp. How did he end up, forget tombstone, what was like before . How did it, it turned out that he and Bat Masterson as young men, still in the 20s when dodge city at the same time in the 1870s. Im not saying nothing is ever been written about that. Certainly over the years you could find articles that deal with some aspects of it, true west magazine, wild west magazine, things like that but i started to get more and more into it. Fortunately, the great folks at Saint Martins press said okay, why dont you do this book on your own . This is the story you want to tell. Lets tell it. I said great. That became a threeyear project. The reason why it took three years, writing was the easy part. Once i started writing it went very, very swiftly because i realize i had a lot of information about fingertips at a just wanted to tell one story after another. And have it read, its nonfiction but have it read like a novel. You want to end the chapter with Something Interesting so people would say what happened, what happened . But the research, and the big reason why the research was so laborious and timeconsuming is that theyre so much out there thats not true. Theres a lot of these tall tales, a lot of these myths about these iconic western figures that easy to find. Thats the problem. If you just want to do a book quickly and easily, you just take whats been perpetrated over the decades and take that and put it together and about, add water and voila, you have the book. I did want to do that. As i get more and more research i found something, what was remarkable to me happening, then the real story of wyatt earp and Bat Masterson, free tombstone, pre1880 was just as exciting if not more exciting and more interesting that a lot of the myths that have been perpetrated. Im going to jump forward quickly unfolded but we talked about one of those myths. Bat masterson in his later years, all these dimestore novels have been done, newspaper headlines, things like that and they always refer to as bloodthirsty Bat Masterson because he killed 22 men is his career as a law fighter. Not true. But bat was the kind of guy who would be reluctant to burst anybodys bubble. Most people dont know which i thought was really sitting last chapter of the fight because his remarkable, by seeking use of his life he spent as a newspaper reporter in new york city. That was his occupation. He was a new york employer. He wrote about sports. He wrote three columns a week of boxing. He loved boxing. So he would bang out is column during day and at night he would go to a ballgame or go to boxing match. People would come from out of town, and very quickly, one of his proteges at the newspaper was a man named damon runyon. That may might be familiar. Eventually the story that he will became eisen dolls. What was his main characters name . Sky masterson. That was his treatment to his idol, Bat Masterson who taught them how to be a newspaper reporter. Every so often you have somebody come to new york at the saloon with trying to come meeting the legendary, bloodthirsty Bat Masterson whose hands were dripping with blood from all the guys he killed, who always carried his colt 45 with 22 notches in it. Some outoftown guys would say bat, please, please sell me your gun. Imagine what it would be like and what a big shot i would be if i went back home and i had the gun that tamed the west. That killed all the outlaws. And bat would be reluctant and say he cant do it. Finally got to the price were bat would say okay, okay. Dont tell anybody i did this but lets do the deal and leave town with a gun. They would fork over the money and on the next train back home, the next day bat would go to his favorite. While he was in lamar a job opening, he took the job. And it was something different, Something Interesting. He made a few dollars and the other thing that happened was he fell in love. A woman named amarillo, he fell madly in love with her and the courtship was brief and they got married. Wyatt brought a piece of property for 75 with a house and she got pregnant and that was going to be his life, he and his wife would raise their kids and he was going to be a constable and maybe become something else. And his wife was about eight months pregnant and she died, the baby died with her. And wyatt earp was crushed by grief. Everything was dashed and he went on this downward trajectory. Got in worse trouble, was arrested for robbery. He was arrested for not repaying alone, hewas getting into fights and his brothers had to find him and bail him out. Then he got arrested for being a horse the and thrown in jail. He really looked like if we had ever known wyatt earp is because he became a famous outlaw, not a famous lawn and but he came to wichita and theres is one passage i want to read that i dont normally read from the book because i prefer to tell the story, rely on my notes but because of this one i want to do it because this is where wyatts life turned around. When wyatt finally arrived in wichita in 1874, the town was at its peak in transporting cattle. With one reasonable estimate being 80,000 of them packed into Railroad Cars and sent off to the slaughterhouse. Years before, the site had been little more than tall waving prairie grass on the back of the Arkansas River and now it was a bustling, noisy eden for ranchers selling their animals. Wyatts older brother james married to a woman called bessie had already settled wichita working at a saloon. Bessie operated a brothel. In a sentence taken the following year, bessies occupation was listed as supporting. With a steady flow of cowboys into town, saloons were springing up on every corner. Officials went so far as to post signs on the trails leading in that red everything goes in wichita. At night, walking through the dry air and aligned with the stench of pentup cattle were the scent of beer and whiskey, cheap perfume and men who had gone too long between bats. The tinglingof pianos came from the saloon background from the laughter and occasional crashing sound when a fight broke out. It took a lot of rambunctious miss to put a cowboy in jail where he could not spend his money. In addition to alcohol, that money was taken by the card players being glued to chairs as saloon gaming tables. Young women offered songs and other favors. In wichita, prostitution was legal as long as late the ladies were license. The city gained a reputation that would soon be reapplied and exceeded by dodge city. Wichita resembled a hell after sundown said the st. Louis republican. Breath and moving it up, harlots impact drivers yelling and cursing, pistols going off, bowl whackers cracking their wits. Saloons open wide their doors and females on pianos and the dulcet tones andmarkings files to invite the boys in. There you have it, wichita. What happened . The, there were a lot of people in wichita who they could see the advantages that kind of economy. But they also worried about wichita descending into chaos of lawlessness and they started, theres a guy named mike major who became marshall. Another man named jim smith and wyatt has an opportunity to work for the police force in wichita and he did a parttime at first and then he became a fulltime member of the Police Department and this was a redeeming event for wyatt in wichita because he started to see himself as not just a bad guy. Who, it was okay because he lost his wife did not care about anything anymore, he started to care again and he started to take seriously being a long and and he started to take seriously the idea that he wanted to be on the right side of the law instead of spending his life doing that. He wasnt a quiet boy. He also was a bouncer for a brothel. Along with one of his brothers. But he started to see a different way of life and it was at that time that there was an election going on, both smith and mike mayhew were vying to become the new marshall and smith during the campaign insulted wyatts brothers. Wyatt beat him up and make your got reelected but even he and city council said youve got to get rid of wyatt earp. You cant have somebody who enforces the law beating somebody up in the street so he was fired and thats when he got the offerof one of his brothers had moved on in dodge city and said why dont you come here and check it out . This is happening place though so thats when wyatt got there. That , Bat Masterson, its so interesting, thats what i like about the book its dumping about other places. There were six earp brothers and five masterson brothers and most of them became law men. And they worked together. One would be in dodge city years later, ed masterson was a marshall, wyatt worked for him. In los angeles, the sheriff of ford county and Jim Masterson worked as a law man, virgil worked as a law man so that was one of seven children and hes always been reported that bat was also born in illinois but he was from qucbec, he was canadian which he never admitted to or confirmed because he would never be an american citizen, he should never have been in federal office whichhe did more than once. So many years later , the detective work found out he was a canadian but stanley ended up in kansas, i think about 10 or 14 miles outside of wichita. His father, was the one who ran the farm and bat, his brother ed was theolder brother and they came back , bat was protective and his older brother was a mildmannered, likable guy in the family always thought he was too nice to survive so bat was always the one under his brother and the time came back up, do you want to be a farmer and he heard there was money to make an buffalo hunting so he persuaded ed to come with him and they became buffalo hunters which was a grimy, dirty, filthy, hard work but it paid well because at that time there were a lot ofbuffalo. You could skin them and make some money. It was during one of those early years that he actually met wyatt. There are disputes about that but both wyatt in later years would say thats when they met each other and they immediately became friends as buffalo hunters. Did buffalo hunting for a while and then he decided to get out of that. He became an army scout. And one of the stories in the book is sergeants for the movie the searchers with john wayne, he was chasing, he went through the whole picture. It was kind of inspired by, and adventure that Bat Masterson had when he was only about 20 and an army scout. It was a family that was attacked by indians and the parents were killed and there were four daughters with kids in the house and the indian band split up into two bands and one band took two of the donors. And bat went after them. He was going to find them and it took him a year. But he eventually tracked down both separate bands of indians and recovered all four daughters. But you never heard that story before but that was part of the adventurous life Bat Masterson had. Another invention they had was building walls, they had it up in the battle of adobe walls in 1864 with kit carson headed to a group of comanches which took place in north texas. 10 years later, that was part of the group of people going down towards this place called adobe walls. They were hoping to put a settlement there and use it as a trading post for people who were still buffalo hunting and they set up there, only about 30 of them. What they didnt quite realize is that they were entering the territory that was controlled by quan parker. That name ring a bell . Remember that wonderful book empire by sam quinn, that was the mark of a great comanche, great young comanche leader. And so cointreau parker got his comanche warriors together and allies and they set out to wipe out the settlement because we cant let them speak so we attack and there was this huge battle and Bat Masterson was one of the survivors on it and one of the heroes of it that help them survive it and again, the story is unknown. This is a fairly young man. He finally , he stays in texas, ended up in a town called , it was called moby texas and it became sweetwater and he said the gambling, deciding he is going to spend his life and likewise he falls in love. And its a saloon girl named Molly Brennan and they are totally smitten with each other. And who knows what different course his life with taken. The problem was there was an Army Sergeant was in love or thought he was in love with Molly Brennan. He was jealous, jealous man who had been in and out of the army being kicked out for violence. And he got really drunk one night and came to the saloon, there was molly dancing and he birthday with a gun and shoot bat and wounds him in the groin. And thats why Bat Masterson forever walked with a and kerry mccain because of his injury. Bat masterson probably shouldve died and he was going to make sure because he gave it back and was going to fire again, the last molly throws himself in front of the report and was killed. And Bat Masterson takes his gun out and kills cain. And he almost died. It was a miracle, Bat Masterson weather guy with a strong constitution, it was the only thing that saved him and took him a few months recovering and then the was a grieving guy. One of his brothers said to him come to dodge city, its a happening place. So he goes to dodge city. And basically thats where hes reunited with all his friends, they call themselves best friends, with wyatt earp and their career in dodge city began and what was happening in dodgecity is that there was a Railroad King in 1872 , only dodge city darted to become squalid as only Texas Rangers now drives heading up there. And get to dodge city, the railroad is there. They could put their cattle on the trains and chicago, every place. And theres a lot of money to be made and suddenly dodge city was expanding by leaps and bounds because people wanted to start this and cater to the cowboys there at the end of the trail, it paid off and there was a lot of cash. The saloons, the brothels, people were starting businesses there because it was so many people coming out of there. It became a place that people were coming to or passing through including outlaws. So it became a rather dangerous place because people, the violence was always breaking out. Inevitably because people were carrying guns, there was a lot of liquor being consumed and people from different walks of life were suddenly thrust together in a relatively small place like i say. And the more forward thinking people in the Business Leaders and our city said we have to do something about this. The first year after dodge city became the railroad there. It was 15 People Killed and we cant have that, people are not going to want to raise their families for this cant be, it got the reputation as the wickedness to town in the American West. Newspapers in washington dc in new york and San Francisco and chicago, they proudly referred to it. There was one story published about a train on its way to dodge city and he was feeling very morose and the conductor said where are you going . The guy said to hell i expect. And he pulled up in dodge city. Got that reputation. So the first stab they talk, they hired a guy named boley brooks as marshall of dodge city. And that, they didnt quite understand that it was a bad idea. They didnt understand that they just put a bachelor psychopath. Because he had his first few months in office he killed four people. So its all like, it sort of backfired. They hired a killer. To start stop the killing. That didnt work. So the organization came in and hired a sheriff, and bart was his name and he was actually a reputable guy. Some say that he was good at tracking people down. Some say he was the model for the character Brewster Cogburn in a true grit. But he wasnt marshall who was going to patrol the streets. So he had heard about this man named wyatt earp in wichita and he contacted, the mayor contacted wyatt earp and said are you interested in being an assistant marshall. And he was looking for a fresh start. And he said sure, ill try. And maybe because hes a marshall and so afterwards, he comes into town but Bat Masterson, they needed another deputy so wyatt said, lets Work Together and thats where the other phase of the book begins because they were not the only ones. But they were really representative of the fact that there were still killing, other long in. But what i found fascinating about that and wyatt earp, they had each others backs. They trusted each other completely. They were both in their 20s and bat a couple years later got elected sheriff of Colbert County at 22 years old. But what really intrigued me was that your were two guys, educated men, intelligent and yet they basically found themselves at the forefront of trying to impose or create a system of law and order on the frontier. Because whatever they could do in dodge city there was a good chance of translating elsewhere. The other frontiersmen, they worked in dodge city, it might work elsewhere. It was probably not going to happen elsewhere too. And they were not, there was no marshall school, there was no sheriffs academy. They basically had to find within themselves a reason to do the right thing. And that was to do the right thing becausethey wanted to make dodge city a place where people can live, go to school. Build churches, that businesses could thrive. So there was a part of them, i dont think they even articulated it but there was a part of them that realized that what they could do in dodge city is sort of like the future of america, future of the American West and if you ask them to write an essay they would have done three minutes but they started to enforce the law. Sometimes the law didnt exist, sometimes the budget didnt exist but the way in which wyatt said, the way i got hired not to kill people, i got hired to not kill people. They took very seriously being called peace officers, that workpiece was important. The idea was they had to do, they had to make dodge city a Peaceful Place and you dont do that by killing people. So the myth that sprung up later about them shooting people down being foster on the draw the bad guys, that was untrue. There was an economic reason for it, as you can imagine being a law man, that did not pay well. There was no ira, there was no medical benefits. But the supplemented their income by the Justice System such as it was paying them 200 . 50 per rack. You didnt get paid if the guy died. You actually had to arrest somebody and put them in jail and then you would get paid. So they had to do is figure out how are we going to make money and do the right thing and enforce the law, there was a practice called by following and wyatt was becoming an expert at it you. But wyatt was about this control, today we got the six as well. X that was taller than the average person. So when he thought something might go the wrong way, he whipped out his gun, crack the top of their head with the butt of his gun. He would wake up the next morning with a headache and jail and before the judge paid his fine and off he went. It was quite rare that there was gunplay, that there was an actual shootout. Illtell you one exception , two stories that i want to juxtapose. There was a guy named george, cowboy shooting up the town and wyatt and one of bats brothers, Jim Masterson confronted him and told him to get out of town and he didnt listen and shot up the place and started to head out of townand wyatt shot at him and hit him. And he later died. The only time along in had ever killed anybody. And so sometime later i guy named clay allison came to town and clay allison was called ashootist. There was a john wayne movie by that name but theyactually called certain gunmen, especially the expert ones shootist. And clay allison would have a terrible reputation, terrible guy and he came to dodge city to kill wyatt earp in revenge for his friend. So hes Walking Around town with his gun and everything saying wheres wyatt, wheres wyatt and so wyatt earp finds him and confronts him and theres a standoff there. And basically the conversation was clay allison saying im here for you wyatt and wyatt saying i think the best thing you should do is get on your horse, turn around and leave, this is not going to end well. And what neither one of them knew was that bat had heard about this and a few doorways down was there with a shotgun and he later said if he had killed wyatt, i was going to kill him. Thats how they had each others back but count clay allison road out of town. This was wyatts personality and the idea that im not going to let you shoot up this town was kind of a turning point. There was an example of a different way to do things. Of course, he had a shotgun to so i if things had gone south, it still would have been nasty. But the other time there was actually a shootout that was one of the major events of dodge city at the time was dodge city had seen to that point is when bat was sheriff of ford countys brother ed was the mildmannered one, he was made marshall of dodge city and he was actually in a shootout and was badly wounded, took him several months to recover and he when he was back on the job again, there were shots fired on the side of front street and Bat Masterson ran over there and there was a bunch of drunken cowboys and a couple of them had guns and by this point they had imposed no guns. You leave your guns outside or if you come with a gun, if you are the bartender when you leave you get your investment and these guys had guns you so he said youve got to give your guns to the bartender and it looked like there could be a standoff but the guy said okay, we will give our guns to the bartender. Meanwhile somebody had run around theback at the Sheriffs Office and said your brother is taking these guys on , its a bunch of cowboys, they are drunk, they got guns, it could be a problem so he strapped on his guns and went running over there. Had left the saloon and hears a noise behind him, turns around and theres the two guys who have their guns together and and said i walked up and i got to snatch these guns and one of them put their guns up against a shell and he was so close he not only shot him but it turned out to be a mortal wound. But his vest lit on fire. So he staggers away with a mortal wound on fire and bat comes around the corner and sees whats going on, he takes out his gun and shoots them down. One guy survived, one guy died months later and they buried and in dodge city, biggest funeral the city had seen in its history but there was one of those rare examples of violence that broke out. But he couldnt help himself. But that was also a turning point because there were a total of five cowboys were part of that and the other three were right there. Bat could have turned his guns on them too but he realized ive got a badge on, ive got a responsibility even though my brother is dead right here you rest them, put them in jail. And that was again a turning point, there wasnt going to be murder in dodge city even though he thought it was justified. So bat and wyatt had each others back. One of the things about dodge city they found out that day, it was ground zero. People from all over the frontier had some kind of connection passing through, a connection so thats why you will find in the book there are detours through buffalo bill cody,billy the kid, bell star. The famous outlaws, you might want to go on and he had a very memorable entrance to dodge city. That was talked about for years. John wesley hardin, Theodore Roosevelt makes an appearance in the book. And the time when both back and wyatt, basically they said our job is done here. I cant, dr young men, they still want to go out and make more of themselves in the world, why i always wanted to find a way to get rich so to the end of his days he never found it but he always wanted to do something was going to make him a rich man so he got restless and his brothers decided to head to arizona and there were going to start a business and make a lot of money. And wyatt earp decided im going to go to colorado for gambling, and this is what he did so they went their separate ways, i cant say they stayed in touch with each other, it was like the email regularly. But its interesting to note that when wyatt earp after the battle if you are familiar with the earth. When wyatt and doc, doctor had from the book because doctor and wyatt did not believe, doc and wyatt had, wyatt was in dodge city. He came to dodge city looking for wyatt because he had a posse after him. And he and his girlfriend, its explained in the book why its called that. But thats how they met, their friends began in dodge city. But after the earp vendetta and wyatt couldnt go back to arizona, he looked up bat in colorado to stay with him for a while. To restore him back to some kind of sanity after the bloodshed that had happened with his vendetta. Then in 1883, bat and wyatt get a telegram. Hes in dodge city and they were treating him really bad. There was a new administration there that wyatt and dodge city had gone back to its old wild west, wicked days and a lot of people didnt like that, that they were being railroaded, intimidated and thrown in jail and he said to wyatt, bat, i need your help. So wyatt and bat said lets go back to dodge city and if you have to clean it up again, we will. They werent longing, they were elected or anything. But they put on their gun belts and the shotguns and they rendezvoused in dodge city and thats what became the dodge city war. To find out how it ended you have to read the book. But it was the last time the two of them sidebyside went down the street. And forces in dodge city, this was 1883. The book does i think concisely give us what their lives were like, wyatt had a fourth wife, one of the things the book said, wyatt had a complicated domestic life. He had four wives, a couple of whom were concurrent. Bat was different that way. First of all, he didnt get married. So he had romances. He didnt go far enough to actually marry them, but wyatt had a romance and he felt like he was apparent but at one point when bat was the manager of the bonneville theater in colorado , they got married and they were together for 30 years for the rest of his life. And but wyatt and his fourth wife wandered around in arizona, california, alaska. They were constantly looking for that business that would make them a lot of money. It was even in san diego for a while and wyatt sat in hollywood, then he lived until 1929 and in his last years he was among other things a young director of silent westerns named john ford and thats how he finished out his days. That as i mentioned, he wandered around a lot and when he turned 50 and he was still serving as a long and in a capacity, he had met teddy raise roosevelt when roosevelt came out to be a rancher for a couple years and ultimately failed , it was terrible and they wiped out his cattle but they had become good friends and when that turned 50, roosevelt was president and he contacted roosevelt. They were staying in touch with each other and bat said ive got to go get out of here. He wanted to make a reputation, i killed Bat Masterson and roosevelt said ill make you a us marshall. Okay, that and his wife went to new york to start life over again. He was there a little while and i think it was joseph lewis was the publisher of the new york telegram said bat, why dont you do reporting . Write about sports, whatever you want. So that was how bat spent the last 15 years of his life as a newspaper reporter and in fact he had i think every journalist dream desk area he went out the night before at the saloons, he had a great idea for a column came and came in the next morning and wrote his column at noon that day, type the last word and died. And he was buried in the bronx. Wyatt is buried at the cemetery in california so i guess when i went to start the writing of the book, it came to me swiftly because i had spent almost 3 years sifting through all the clippings and tall tales and it was like prospecting. It was like sifting, maybe if youre lucky you get the best of that day. There were a couple nuggets there that you could rely on. It was definitely a book you couldnt write fast. You could take the easiest stuff and throw it in there. I wanted to write a book i hoped would be exciting. Full of stories, full action, adventure and exploits of iconic characters of American History but also was as accurate as i can think of and to discover to me anyway. What really happened and true characters of these people, especially wyatt and doc. They were just as interesting if not more so. Then a tall tales that sprung up. So i like to think that somehow i feel guilty reading this book, like this is entertaining but its probably a lot of bs. I should be reading this stuff. I hope you find it entertaining but it really, its a great effort was made to make it off as authentic as possible and i do think that you will enjoy it and i thank you very much for listening to me for as long as you have, id be happy to answer any of your questions if you have any so thank you very much. [applause] i dont know what the mechanism is for somebody to ask questions. There is a microphone there, right find that gentleman so i guess if you have any questions, just make your way over or talk really loud. Yes sir. Dodge city was, im not quite sure what to tell you as far as where it is as a place, the population was probably under 1000 people. Obviously over time, they expanded because i think its interesting , and kind of symbolic that boot hill had been doing a Good Business for years. In the 1870s. And there was a little dark humor, it was like one of the wooden crosses that he died of lead poisoning. But when they finally boot hill came to a conclusion was because they exhumed the bodies and move them elsewhere and use that site. And i thought that was very symbolic because dodge city had reached that point. Where there were no families in there. Business people are coming in, and god said he was making that transition, especially after the dodge city war they failed things once and for all, they made that transition and they got to the bigger city but its a lot of big city by any means. Once the cattle business is over, yes. Im not surprised. But thats sort of put a limit on that kind of expansion but people are starting to, there a war outside. These businesses in a differentconversations. Yes sir. Im trying to separate fact from fiction. Well, one of the things that i did that i cant help as you try to go back close to the events as possible and thankfully, theres a pretty extensive archive of four county globes and im not saying that they were pulitzer or part of journalism. But they were reporting what was going on a weekly basis, what was going on on a weekly basis in dodge city so you could have a pretty good sense of what actually was happening and you found the story and what happened in dodge city of april and theres nothing about it, even participating, it probably didnt happen, why would they opened it up. Though theres also memoirs of people did, theres a lot of autobiographies and the name Robert Wright who was one of the first most successful Business People in dodge city and he wrote extensively about dodge citys early days. And he was pretty authentic. He didnt have any access until i met him. He took pride in writing about dodge city. Also, you go by what some other people had written about Bat Masterson which is not that much. Robert dartmouth did a biography but doc holliday and some of the other characters, you start to compare them. You go through them and some things match up the right way. Like okay, this would be enough evidence, and the supporting documentation but some of this other stuff, no, you cant support it. There are a few times in the book where i will say you know, it may not be exactly certain that this happened or happened in this way but it probably did and then theres things like, i dont even include in the book because i dont want to put something in there and say it didnt happen. There is one exception, if anybody ever heard the name ned but line. There is this story in the book perpetrated in movies when they would show wyatt earp with his gun called about life special and the story wasnt 76 there was a dimestore novelist and pray playwright who wrote about the west from his home in upstate new york. And theres a story that in 1876 he was so impressed with the preface of wyatt earp and some of their other deputies that he had the cold Manufacturing Company make this buntline special and he cameout there and presented it to him. And so that story has been perpetrated in book after book and it never happened. First of all, in 1876 nobody had ever heard of wyatt earp and Bat Masterson. That reputation was down the road and the other thing is if you look at the other activities that buntline was doing, he was in new york. He didnt make the trip out to dodge city. He was writing plays, he would write plays that completely fabricated things about the west. There wasone play that was kind of successful , the critics hated it but it was popular and buntline was absolutely correct about it, he said he wrote it in four hours of one of the critics said what took him so long . [laughter] other questions. I know youre out there somewhere. Maybe youre anxious to start reading the book. Anyway, if you dont have any questions and you are interested in having a book signed, then i right there. Preferably after taking the sign down so you can see the. Dont bother with that man, hes being encouraged but id be happy to sign any copies that you have and you have been so gracious and thank you very much. Thank you very much tom. Thank you all very much for coming, we have books for sale at the front desk and robin is going to come along by row and get you situated with your postit notes, and we will get this going as quickly as we can so thank you very much, and this will move methodically and wonderfullythank you very much, lets give them another round. [applause]