Livestock Thefts
A few days after Wyatt Earp's arrival in Tombstone in December 1879, one of his prized horses was stolen. He heard several times that the Clantons had his horse. Almost a year later he got a tip that it had been seen at the Clanton's ranch near Charleston. Earp rode to their ranch and saw the horse being ridden down the street and placed in a corral. He stabled his horse at another corral and telegraphed James Earp in Tombstone to send up ownership papers for the horse to Charleston. Warren Earp brought the papers out that night. Earp testified in a later court hearing, "While I was waiting for the papers, Billy Clanton found out that I was in town and went and tried to take the horse out of the corral. I told him that he could not take him out, that it was my horse. After the papers came, he gave the horse up without the papers being served, and asked me if I had any more horses to lose."
In July 1879, several rustlers attacked a rancho in northern Sonora, Mexico, killing several of the inhabitants. Hunting the murderers, Mexican Rurales led by Commandant Francisco Neri illegally crossed the border into Arizona and were ambushed. Johnny Ringo later said that Old Man Clanton and his sons Ike and Billy were among the murderers.
On August 13, 1881, Billy's father was killed in an ambush Guadalupe Canyon by Mexican Rurales. The Clanton sons continued operating the ranch. On October 25, 1881, Ike, Billy, and the McLaury brothers headed to Tombstone after working to gather scattered cattle, lost during an earlier Apache raid. The events that transpired over that night and the next day have various versions.
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