No search for Curly Bill’s body was ever made. No corpus delicti to prove the tragedy was ever produced. A story became current in Tombstone that the outlaws had taken Curly Bill’s body to Charleston and buried it secretly by night. But no man, except possibly the outlaws who officiated at the clandestine funeral rites, ever knew the location of Curly Bill’s grave.
An account of the death of Curly Bill was printed in the Tombstone Epitaph the day after the fight took place. It was based, the paper said, on the story of an eyewitness whose identity was not revealed. It agreed in all particulars with Wyatt Earp’s version. Brighton Springs in the San Pedro Valley a few miles southwest of Tombstone was given as the scene of the battle. But in its next day’s issue, the paper said the statement that the fight occurred at Brighton Springs was intentionally wrong and had been made in a spirit of good sportsmanship to give the Earp party its chance to depart unmolested from Arizona. The Epitaph was friendly toward the Earps. Iron Springs is given here as the scene of the fight on the authority of Wyatt Earp himself.
The Nugget, taking the side of the outlaws, ridiculed the story that Curly Bill had been killed. A heated controversy developed between the Nugget and the Epitaph. The Nugget offered a reward of $1,000 for proof that Curly Bill was dead. The Epitaph answered this challenge by offering $2,000 for proof that Curly Bill was alive.
The story that Curly Bill settled down to peaceful pursuits in old Mexico persists to the present time. Old-timers will tell you that, ten years after his supposed death, Curly Bill was a prosperous cattleman “somewhere in Chihuahua,” with a Mexican wife and a flock of little Curly Bills playing about the patio of his comfortable hacienda. And, these old codgers will add, Curly Bill may be living today.
Soft shadows of legend fell about Curly Bill. Purple mists of romance enfolded him. But after the fight at the water hole, the outlaw rode no more on his raids across the Mexican border. No more did his stolen herds storm thunderously through the valleys of the San Pedro and the San Simon. Mexican smuggler trains with aparejos bursting with gold and silver threaded the mountain defiles in safety. Vanished utterly was Curly Bill. Never again was he seen in Arizona.
Criticism burst about Sheriff Behan’s ears because of the personnel of his posse of sixteen men organized for pursuit of Wyatt Earp and his followers. The posse included Ike and Finn Clanton, John Ringo, Hank Snelling, the two Tyle brothers, and a number of other hard characters, termed by the sheriff “cowboys,” but by persons of less euphemistic phrase denominated outlaws. These men had all been friends of Billy Clanton and the two McLowery boys and were bitter enemies of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. Ike and Finn Clanton had a brother’s death to avenge, and John Ringo the death of three friends. The presence of these outlaws in the sheriff’s posse held a hint of ugly possibilities. It suggested that the purpose of the pursuit was as much to pay off personal animosities as to comply with the demands of law and justice, and at the outset, it seemed more than likely that the chase would end in a battle of hatred and vengeance rather than in the capture of the fugitives.
In defense of his men, Sheriff Behan, in an impassioned but unguarded moment, referred to this “sharked up list of landless resolutes” as his “posse of honest ranchmen.” Whereupon Tombstone burst into uproarious laughter. Even the sheriff’s faithful friends had to join in the mirth. John Ringo and Finn Clanton as “honest ranchmen” certainly were immoderately funny. Tombstone papers, on the opposite side of the political fence, seized upon the expression and harped upon it with merry vindictiveness. The “posse of honest ranchmen” became one of Tombstone’s immortal jests, and beneath the relentless jibes, Sheriff Behan quickly must have repented his rhetorical flourish in agony of soul. The sheriff’s pursuit of the Earps added nothing to his laurels. His expedition missed by a hair’s breadth being turned by an unhappy phrase into a joke.
An electric hush settled upon Tombstone. In feverish suspense the town awaited news. Sheriff Behan and his posse had gone out on the trail. For days the desert that had swallowed them gave back no word. What had happened out there in the vast silence? Had a battle been fought? Had the Earps been captured? Were the victors bringing the prisoners home in triumph? Then, suddenly, were the heavens opened and bulletins and communiqués from the sheriff came in a cloudburst over the telegraph wires: … The scent is growing hot. … The sheriff is close on the heels of the Earps. … Capture of the desperate criminals is imminent. … The Earps are trapped. … They must surrender or be killed. … There is no chance for their escape. … And so on. These messages from the front kept Tombstone for a time on tiptoe with excitement. But, strangely, the imminent big event never happened. Something went wrong with all the traps. The Earps were not captured. Neither were they killed. Tombstone began to lose interest. Portentous bulletins were greeted with a smile.
The Earp party, after the fight with Curly Bill at the Iron Springs water hole, rounded the Whetstone Mountains on the north, and rode east across the San Pedro and on through Dragoon Gap to Willcox. A letter from Wyatt Earp dated and mailed at Willcox was printed
