Day 7: Related to Outlaws

Getting Clean

After four days of no personal hygiene other than brushing our teeth and washing our faces, we were going to get clean. At a rustic campsite this takes awhile, especially when one has spilled one's only gallon jug of water in the back seat of the car. The head-washing routine included:

pump a gallon of water out of an extremely shallow stream
heat a pot of water
pour the warm water onto the first person's head
soap up the scalp
in the mean time, heat up another pot of water
rinse the head
dry
repeat all of the above for the second person

I attempted to retain my ladylike comport by shaving my legs, which was simpler than washing a scalp, but not as easy as doing so at home.

Tombstone

Wet weather had been predicted for today so we were planning a visit to the historic town of Tombstone, site of the shootout at the OK Corral. We were also considering a visit to some newly-discovered caverns in that general direction. So far, the weather looked very promising. The sky was cloudless and the day was warm.

Tombstone was a least a hour away and we also had to cross the valley to reach the highway, which would add another half-hour. This journal began its life on this drive. After a long time of writing, as we drew near to Tombstone, I began watching the scenery again. The landscape had changed. Although there were still mountains on both sides of us, the flora had changed.

As we had expected Tombstone was mostly a tourist venue. We started at the most serious attraction, however; the courthouse cum museum. This historic building contained a tremendous amount of historical information about the inhabitants of the courthouse and about happenings such as conflicts and truces between the whites and the Native Americans.

The McLaurys

There were plenty of visual displays, from photographs to clothing to weapons. What took me by surprise was the graphic blow-by-blow account of the shootout at the OK corral. The names of two of those gunned down were McLowery, according to the display. I wondered immediately whether that might be a variation on McLaury, the old family name of Ian's clan. His great grandmother had been a McLaury.

The seven or eight grey-scale water colors depicted the different positions in which the seven shooters took in the course of the 30-second long shootout. Textual explanation accompanied the drawings. I still found it difficult to follow the action because I could not keep track of the names or the bodies to whom they were attached.

The next exhibit provided more detail about the shootout, but spelled the name "McLaury". I felt an immediate thrill! We have never heard of anyone outside Ian's family being called McLaury. We did not yet assume that there was any blood relationship, other than a possibly distant one, from the old country. Still, this was an exciting find.

The shootout had been between the "lawmen" (in name only) and the bandits. The lawmen were the Earp brothers (Wyatt, Morgan, and Virgil) and Doc Holliday. The bandits were the McLaury brothers (Tom and Frank) and Billy Clanton..

A later exhibit showed the photographs of Tom and Frank, along with a man named Newman Hayes Clanton, the father of Billy Clanton and his brothers Ike and Phineus. I was even more thrilled to see Ian's and my family names linked together in history, even in the capacity of the outlaw life.

The Rest is a Blur

After seeing history about these McLaurys, the rest of the museum was a blur. There were many very good exhibits, but most of my energy was spent.

[more on Tombstone to come...]

Introducing a New McLaury to the Museum

We were parked by the courthouse museum. Before we left I could not resist bragging about Ian's possible relation to the McLaury brothers. I asked the ranger at the front desk whether they had many McLaurys passing through. If he had said "yes", I would have dropped the matter.

However, he thought for a moment, and said "No, we don't." So I pulled out Ian's driver's license and showed him where it said "McLaury" (as his middle named). I explained that Ian's paternal great-grandmother had been a McLaury. I further explained that since the McLaury name had been buried by marriage, the name had been passed down via the middle names of the men in the family.

The ranger asked whether the relationship might have been through a Will McLaury, a lawyer who resided in Houston. I had no idea. Will, apparently, was not a terribly nice man. When he was unable to prosecute some Arabs, he simply put out a bounty on their heads. I also learned that the McLaury boys who showed up in Tombstone had been nice people. Tombstone's bad influence had changed them, however.

Best When Dead

Throughout our visit to Tombstone I tried hard to find a postcard depicting the McLaury brothers. I knew that photographs existed because I had seen some in the museum. However, the only photos I could find were of their tombstones and of their bodies in open caskets, along with Ike Clanton's. Apparently, no one cared to know what they looked like in life. Yet there were plenty of postcards of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, despite the fact that they were outlaws (albeit cloaked in respectable titles).

I was very disappointed. However, we found photographs of two outlaws featured in Larry McMurtry's "Streets of Laredo", one of our favorite books: John Wesley Hardin and Judge Roy Bean. The Roy Bean photo was only of his saloon, but that saloon had been the scene of a very good story.

[to be continued]
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