1. AN EARP IN TIME
July 7, 1900. That’s the day my younger brother, Warren, was killed. My name is Earp,
Wyatt Earp.
By the time he was in his teens, Warren’s older brothers, myself included, had gone off.
Warren was at home in Colton, California to care for and be cared for by our parents.
Colton was, as my sister-in-law would describe, “a sleepy little town out on the desert
from Los Angeles, and not far from San Bernardino – just a stretch of cactus with some
trees along the creek.” Working the land and tending bar in our father’s saloon was not
the life for Warren. He longed for the adventures of life in the big city.
When Warren heard that his brothers were at a fast-growing silver mining town in
Arizona territory, he jumped at the chance and moved to Tombstone. There, he lived
with our brother Virgil and his wife, Allie. Virgil was a Deputy U.S. Marshall. Bowing to
Warren’s desires to wear a badge and gun, Virgil would sometimes allow him to guard
prisoners, deliver papers and join posses.
On October 26, 1881 my brothers Virgil and Morgan, a special policeman along with our
friend John “Doc” Holliday and I, the sheriff, got into a gunfight with Bill Clanton and
Frank and Tom McLowry over by the O.K. Corral in Tombstone. After the smoke
cleared, those three mule-stealing s.o.b.’s were dead. Warren wasn’t there. He did not
share in our battle that day. Instead, he was with our sister Adelia in Colton
recuperating from a wound he got while fighting with rustlers on the Mexican border.
We were acquitted on grounds that we acted in self-defense. But that did not go well
with the surviving Clantons and McLowrys.
About six months after that fateful shootout, Virgil was attacked and badly wounded.
Warren returned to Tombstone and moved back in with Virgil and Allie to help care for
Virgil who had lost the use of an arm.
Killers struck again and Morgan was shot. Warren rushed to his aid, but there was
nothing he could do to save his brother. I was certain it was the Clantons and the
McLowrys who were responsible for this. Warren, Doc and I took our vengeance, and
in a bloody series of events we managed to kill the men I suspect were behind Morgan’s
murder. In danger of being arrested, we fled to Colorado where we parted ways.
Warren, who had longed to be a lawman like his brothers, was now branded a criminal.

2. Warren eventually returned to California a bitter and disillusioned man. A heavy drinker,
he lashed out at anyone he perceived to be an enemy. Being that our father was, at the
time, a well-respected judge, the press loved Warren. At first, he was treated lightly, but
the incidents grew more frequent and violent. One newspaper reported him as being
“one of the most quarrelsome of the Earp brothers.”
Warren wandered around the West for several years until returning to Arizona.
On July 7, 1900, he was at the Headquarters Saloon in Wilcox when he had a little too
much to drink and became abusive to the customers. Tension between Warren and a
ranch hand named John Boyett had been brewing for some time. Warren challenged
Boyett to a gunfight. Warren was shot dead. Boyett was tried for murder and acquitted.
Not guilty by reason of self defense.
Warren now lies in an abandoned cemetery on a hill near Wilcox, his grave overgrown
with weeds. A lone wooden plaque marked with a cross bears his name and the day he
died.
Requiescat in pace (re-kwee-es-kaht in pah-che), my dear brother. May you rest in
peace.