Riding With Doc Holliday

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According to Kate: The Legendary Life and Times of Big Nose Kate, Love of Doc Holliday

The main thoroughfare of Sweetwater, Texas, was so crowded with hunters, trappers, wagons, teams of horses, and soldiers that passing streams of people jostled each other, and some walked shoulder to shoulder.  The air was charged with excitement.  Rumors that Tom Sherman, Kate Elder, Mollie Brennan, and the other five members of the Seven Jolly Sisters were on their way had caused a mild panic, and lonely men desperate for female companionship had flocked to the burg.

Sweetwater was a trading post along the Jones Plummer Trail.  That trail was connected to the major cattle drive town of Dodge City.  Sweetwater was a destination for bullwhackers, buffalo skinners, and cowhands.  Troops from Fort Elliott, eleven miles from town, enjoyed time at Sweetwater, too.  The fort was established [in 1875] to protect the buffalo traders from being raided by Indians.

For Kate, the busy town provided a fresh crush of people to meet and with whom to do business.  Soiled doves relished a change of scenery from time to time.  They liked the possibility of enticing new patrons in a different location.  It also brought renewed business when sporting girls returned to the town where their house of ill repute was located.

The August 24, 1876, edition of the Dodge City Times described the setting where Kate and the other entertainers arrived as a “thriving hamlet overrun with tradesmen.”  Fourteen wagon loads of buffalo hides for a general outfitter in Dodge City known as Chas. Rath & Co. lined the sides of the dusty roadways.  A report that a band of twenty-one hundred Indians south of Sweetwater had been spotted rattled some of the citizenry, but, as long as the soldiers remained in town, panic was abated.

Tom Sherman and his help erected a canvas tent, set up a makeshift -stage, and the Seven Jolly Sisters went to work.  Among the many individuals who spent time with Sherman’s employees was a twenty-three-year-old buffalo hunter and army scout named Bat Masterson.  In late 1875, Bat had taken a job as a faro dealer at the Lady Gay Saloon.  After Sherman’s outfit arrived, Bat could either be found in the saloon or with Mollie Brennan.

On January 24, 1876, Kate and Mollie concluded their dance routine and set off to explore additional business.  They ventured to the Lady Gay for a drink.  The two ladies met Bat at the bar, and he bought them a drink.  Once their drinks were finished, Bat and Mollie retired to his room.  Kate recalled the couple hadn’t been gone long when Sgt. Melvin A. King, one of the men with whom Bat had been playing cards earlier in the evening, charged toward Bat’s room.  King was furious with Bat over what he perceived as “underhanded dealings.”  With a loaded gun in hand, King pounded on Bat’s room door and waited for an answer.  Assuming it was Kate wanting to join the pair for a nightcap, Bat unlocked the door.  Sgt. King burst into the room and opened fire.  Mollie came between Bat and one of the bullets and was critically wounded.  Bat was shot in the pelvis, but he managed to grab his gun and kill King before collapsing.

Despite his best efforts, the local physician could not save Mollie.  An army surgeon was called to the scene to remove the bullet from Bat’s lower mid-section and stayed with him until he recovered.

To learn more about Kate Elder read According to Kate