View from my hotel room in Monterey.
I took a stroll down Cannery Row in Monterey, California today, then sat for hours listening to the waves push into the shore. The beauty of the picturesque locals were not lost on me, but I admit I was thinking about Tombstone, Arizona, Dodge City, Kansas, the Reno Gang, the Dalton brothers, my brother, Kid Curry, and Wyatt Earp. I’ll be writing about all those locations and people over next few years. While doing research on the Earp book I came across a conversation Wyatt reportedly had with a wagon master he met while on his vendetta ride. The exchange between the two men was included in the movie Tombstone, but it appeared in a scene with Wyatt and Doc. The real life conversation went like this: After the wagon master found out that Earp’s brothers had been gunned down he told Wyatt, “Ain’t got law, ain’t got nothing’. Only thing between us and the animals. Always the way it goes, though. Only way to down an Illinois man is from behind. The dogs don’t dare face ‘em. Mr. Lincoln, Wild Bill, now your brothers. Illinois men all and all downed from behind by dirty dogs and democrats. Guess an ordinary man’d be out for vengeance but I don’t figure that’ll answer here. It’s a reckoning you’re after.” “If the Lord is my friend,” Wyatt responded. “Let not your heart be faint, let your arm be steel—that’s all you need of the Lord,” the wagon master encouraged him. Nothing stands in the way now from the book about my brother being released. Once the literary attorney approves the text, a date for the release will be set. In the meantime I’ll be posting one or two items from the book on the site each week. As I do that I’ll also be holding on to the wagon master’s words to Wyatt before he got rid of the men that hurt his brothers. Let not your heart be faint, let your arm be steel. That’s all you need of the Lord.
