01x08 - The Last Vendetta

[bunniefuu]

Narrator: Previously on "The American West"...

In the years since the country was ripped apart by Civil w*r, America has blazed a trail west, but it hasn't been easy. As the railroads cut across the landscape, they triggered bloody conflicts with Indian nations and became targets for outlaws.

Stay in your seats. Do not move.

Narrator: But as men like Jesse James and Billy the Kid terrorized the nation, lawmen like Wyatt Earp emerged, determined to bring order to the frontier. But now the battle for the West has reached a breaking point. In Missouri, after returning to a life of crime, Jesse James has a bounty on his head and can no longer tell who to trust.

This is my brother, Robert, the one I told you about.

Narrator: While in Tombstone, Arizona...

What do you want?

I want my $3,600.

Narrator: Wyatt Earp's feud with notorious outlaw Ike Clanton has led the lawman to a showdown that will change his life and the West forever.

(g*nf*re)

(theme song playing)

Narrator: On October 26, 1881, Deputy Sheriff Wyatt Earp leads his brothers Morgan and Virgil, along with gunslinger Doc Holliday, on a mission to confront a g*ng of ruthless outlaws led by Ike Clanton, who are waiting for a fight near the place called the "O.K. Corral."

David Eisenbach: The Earp brothers and Doc Holliday are hearing how Ike's out to k*ll them and that Ike and his friends have g*ns.

So when they start marching towards the cowboys to disarm them, the cowboys who are half-drunk, all right, you got a recipe for disaster.

And that's really what happens.

Give us your g*ns.

(clicks)

Throw up your hands!

You boys wanna fight, we'll give you a fight.

I'm not gonna ask again.

Kiefer Sutherland: Things happen so fast.

And if something is allowed to escalate to the point where people are actually reaching for weapons, it just takes one person to panic, and all of a sudden, people are dead.

Narrator: In a matter of 30 seconds, 30 rounds are fired, three cowboys lay dead, including Ike Clanton's brother Billy. Wyatt's brothers and Doc Holliday are wounded... while Ike Clanton gets away.

Anne Collier: In the end only one man was left standing and only one man was unhurt, and that was Wyatt Earp.

Narrator: Wyatt's uncanny ability to escape harm at the O.K. Corral will become a part of his legend. News of the gunfight makes headlines around the world. But rather than becoming a story of the lost triumph over outlaws, Wyatt and his men are portrayed as criminals.

Ann Kirschner: It was covered as far away as Australia.

It's a tale of unbelievable lawlessness.

As time went on, there was more and more concern about Tombstone as the symbol of v*olence at the American frontier, and that had the business people very worried.

Narrator: In the rapidly developing West, it's becoming clear that Wyatt Earp's brand of frontier justice is beginning to wear thin. Ike Clanton, the man who brought on the gunfight, sees an opportunity to finally get his revenge on the Earp brothers.

Andrew Isenberg: Ike Clanton and his friends try to prosecute the Earps in court.

They bring charges of m*rder against the three Earp brothers and Doc Holliday.

Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday spend two weeks in jail, but the judge decides that there's not enough evidence to go forward to a trial.

Narrator: The charges against Wyatt and his brothers are dropped, but their image as noble lawmen has been irreversibly damaged.

I don't believe Wyatt Earp ever woke up in the morning and said, "I'm gonna go k*ll someone today."

He's trying to marshal a town. And he's, unfortunately, the guy who's gotta keep it somehow civil.

And eventually people are gonna wanna go after him.

They don't want us here, they don't want us.

What do you recommend that we do?

A lot of folks are moving to California.

Maybe we should, too.

No. It'll look like they're running us right out of town.

That's right.

We're not going anywhere.

If we leave Tombstone, it's on our own terms.

This is where we belong.

Here's to the unflappable Wyatt Earp.

To Tombstone.

Together: To Tombstone.

(glasses clink)

Narrator: What Wyatt doesn't realize is that by staying in Tombstone, he's making himself an easy target for Ike Clanton and his g*ng. Twelve hundred miles away in Missouri, Jesse James is settling back into life as an outlaw. Despite having a $5,000 bounty on his head, Jesse's planning his next big heist with the two remaining g*ng members he thinks he can trust... Robert and Charlie Ford.

Mark Lee Gardner: Jesse James had big, big plans. He was focused on this bank robbery that he was planning with the Ford brothers.

He was gonna rob the Platte City Bank.

And, you know, it was typical of Jesse, because he alluded to them that this is something that's... it's gonna be big in the papers.

You know, it's something that's publicized.

So I think that was exciting for Jesse.

We gotta be careful.

We have to look after each other.

All right?

Narrator: Jesse James' latest string of robberies has turned him into America's most wanted criminal. But what he doesn't realize is that it's not the law he should be afraid of. It's one of his own.

Morgan: I don't remember you being this good.

You don't remember a lot of things, Morgan.

Narrator: Months after the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Wyatt Earp and his brothers Morgan and Virgil are still in Tombstone trying to carve out a new life for themselves.

Eisenbach: Wyatt sticks around 'cause he's got financial investments in town.

And those financial investments have just started to make some money.

So, you know, as far as the Earps go, right, that was just some unfortunate incident. It's time to move on.

But the Cowboys weren't letting it go.

Ten dollars. You still owe me ten dollars.

(thunder rumbling)

Cowboy: Virgil.

All right, let me show you how it's done.

I'm waiting to see it.

Because you're my brother, I'm gonna be easy on you, all right?

So what you want is...

(g*nsh*t)

(g*nsh*t)

Wyatt.

Somebody call a doctor.

Morgan.

Morgan.

Oh, God.

Narrator: Ike Clanton and the Cowboys m*rder Morgan... and cr*pple Virgil in retaliation for the three men who d*ed at the O.K. Corral.

Kirschner: Ike Clanton couldn't get his revenge in court, and so they basically had hit men out for the Earps.

This was the moment of change for Wyatt.

He felt that the law would no longer protect him... and decided that he would take the law into his own hands.

Wyatt...

are you sure you wanna do this?

You going soft on me, Doc?

No, sir, I am not.

This is for my brothers.

Lead the way, sir.

Narrator: To help him avenge his brother's death, Wyatt calls on his trusted friend Doc Holliday. Together, they form a posse to track down and take out Clanton's whole crew.

I think one of the things we have to understand about Wyatt is that he was capable of impulsive v*olence.

After his brother Morgan was k*lled, he kind of snaps. Morgan Earp was assassinated. This was not something that just happened.

And Wyatt's reaction is just as planned and just as premeditated.

You give me a name, and I'll let you live.

You go to hell.

You first.

Robert Redford: I think Wyatt Earp, when he went on the other side of the law, it was really about revenge.

There wasn't anything to justify or redeem the k*lling, then it had to be taken in the hands of certain individuals.

Narrator: After k*lling cowboy Frank Stilwell, Wyatt and his g*ng continue their hunt through the Arizona territory, tracking more of Ike Clanton's men, including Charlie Cruz.

Pick it up.

Narrator: As Wyatt continues his quest for vengeance, he's turning from a man of justice to a cold-blooded k*ller.

Narrator: Jesse James has reemerged from a life on the run, and with the help of his trusted g*ng members Charlie and Robert Ford he has reestablished himself as a feared outlaw. In hopes of ending Jesse's crime spree, Missouri governor Thomas Crittenden has put a $5,000 bounty on his head. And it isn't long before the opportunity he's been waiting for comes to him.

You the governor?

And you must be Robert Ford.

You ride with Jesse James.

You see this $1 coin, Mr. Ford?

Well, that's you.

But this $10,000 coin, that's Jesse James.

A good gambler could turn that one dollar into 10,000.

Are you a good gambler, Mr. Ford?

I want the reward and immunity for me and my brother.

k*ll Jesse James and you'll get the money.

Narrator: Robert Ford knows that by working with Jesse James, he and his brother are now prime targets, too.

Gardner: Bob Ford decides there's a big reward, so he had an incentive.

But there was a real fear with Bob Ford.

You know, "I'm a little afraid of Jesse James."

Narrator: Now the Ford brothers have to find the perfect opportunity to make their move.

Eisenbach: Looking at it logically, you might wonder,

"What was Jesse James thinking trusting the Fords?"

I mean, anybody can make a name for himself as well as a lot of cash by putting a b*llet in his head.

This is gonna be the best one yet, boys.

Easy money.

Eisenbach: But you get to the point where you get reckless because you've survived through all these scrapes. You kinda think of yourself as being bulletproof.

And I think that that's what happens to Jesse James.

Jesse, your breakfast is getting cold.

No!

I'm not done yet.

Zee... thank you.

I'm gonna go check on those horses.

That farmer's out on his porch.

You probably don't wanna walk around with that g*n on your hip.

Hmm.

Yeah.

(clicks)

We gotta go.

We gotta go. Come on.

(door opens, closes)

Zee: Jesse! No!

(sobbing) No.

No!

Jesse James is sh*t in the back of the head by one of his own g*ng.

You know, Jesse's criminal career came to an end because of Bob Ford... some, you know, riffraff, some boy.

(sobbing)

Narrator: News of Jesse James' m*rder makes front-page headlines across the country. And three days after his death... more than 2,000 Americans flocked to Clay County, Missouri, hoping for a final glimpse of the outlaw legend, Jesse James.

You know, Jesse James is already a her to many people.

When he's k*lled, he's now a martyr. And it's the way that he's k*lled.

Had he been captured, been tried, and had he been ex*cuted, it would have been much different.

But this is a collusion between the governor of a state and a g*ng member who sh**t his leader in the back of the head.

Narrator: Robert Ford never escapes his reputation as the man who m*rder*d Jesse James, and is sh*t down in a saloon 10 years later. But as years go by, Jesse James' legend only continues to grow.

Gardner: Jesse reaches incredible new heights in the American imagination... as a hero, as a martyr and as a representative of the defeated South.

But I grew up in Jesse James country.

When I was a kid, Jesse James was a hero.

Now I see Jesse as a tragic consequence of an awful, awful w*r, which was a tragic consequence of an awful, awful institution.

Narrator: Jesse's story captures the imaginations of Americans across the country. And tales of his exploits are enshrined in dime store novels, onstage, and eventually in western cinema... leading him to become one of the most notorious figures in American history.

Sutherland: Americans, for better, and sometimes for worse, truly cut their own path.

And I think that that's why we always idolize Jesse James.

Jesse James said, I'm not gonna take this, and went and grabbed what he wanted.

I think there's a place in America's heart for those people.

Narrator: But while another ruthless outlaw may be gone... there's still one man causing chaos in the West.

Narrator: In the territory of Arizona, Wyatt Earp rides to avenge the m*rder of his brother, Morgan. Earp and his posse have k*lled two cowboys already... and are now hot on the trail of another member of the g*ng, William "Curly Bill" Brocius.

James Caan: The code of the West, there were certain things permitted, and there's certain things that weren't permitted.

But there was no law and order, and usually the guys that kept the order, the Wyatt Earps of the world, they were stone-blooded K*llers.

Come on.

Whoa.

(horse nickers)

(nickering)

(horse whinnies)

Saddle 'em up.

Let's move.

Cowboy: You're a dead man, Wyatt!

Collier: Wyatt sh**t Curly Bill dead. The heel on his cowboy boot gets sh*t out from underneath him.

He's got holes all through his jacket.

He leaves completely unscathed.

Gets his man and leaves without a b*llet hole once again.

Narrator: Wyatt and his men survive the sh**t, but after brutally executing four men in two weeks, his actions begin to make headlines. But instead of being seen as a hero, he's branded an outlaw.

Eisenbach: You got a lot of people saying, "Wait a minute.

This guy running around, sh**ting people in cold blood?

This isn't justice."

So the bigger issues of frontier law versus justice now become wrapped up in the story of Wyatt Earp.

Narrator: Authorities in Tombstone assemble a posse to track down and arrest Wyatt Earp. Now that he's a fugitive, Wyatt Earp decides to give up on his hunt for Ike Clanton.

Kirschner: Wyatt finally realized that he had had enough and disbanded the posse and escaped Arizona, where things were getting mighty hot for him.

Narrator: With his reputation tarnished, Wyatt Earp vanishes from the public eye.

Isenberg: I think Wyatt Earp is remembered less for being a lawman than for being a vigilante.

What people find appealing about the Wyatt Earp myth, what always shows up in most of the films, is that when the law is unable to bring justice, Wyatt Earp takes the law into his own hands. And so it's as a vigilante, as a guy who embodies a kind of higher law that he's most famous.

Eisenbach: The sad thing about Wyatt is that in his heart, he just wanted to settle down and make some money.

But he winds up getting himself into one situation after another.

And so he never stakes down the roots that he wanted to stake down.

And so we have this kind of myth of Wyatt Earp as being the guy who just did it on his own.

He was the cowboy, that individual... that was not what he wanted to be.

Narrator: Wyatt Earp's quest for justice has come to an end. But the legendary lawm still hasn't made his final mark on the West.

(whistle blows)

After returning from exile in Canada, Lakota Chief Sitting Bull has been traveling across America with Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show... hoping to preserve what's left of his culture. But after four months of touring modern cities in the East, Sitting Bull has become disheartened by what he's seeing and decides it's time to go home.

(whistle blowing)

Larry Pourier: I don't know how an Indian would have gone East and gone home and felt better.

That has to be the most hopeless feeling in the world, to know that your land is now gonna look like that in about 50 years.

And if you're alive in 50 years, that's probably what you're going to be living in.

Narrator: But when Sitting Bull returns to the reservation... he finds something unexpected. A new movement has taken hold of his people. A ritual that they believe could restore the Lakota to their former way of life. It's called the "Ghost Dance."

Jacoby: The Ghost Dance movement is something that emerges in the 1880s.

If you do these rituals, you can make time go backwards.

White people would disappear, the buffalo would come back, and Indian peoples would be restored to their former prominence.

It's a very appealing vision.

Narrator: But as the movement gains momentum, government agents fear it's leading to an uprising.

Jacoby: A lot of the people who are most active in the ghost towns are difficult to get to and so, seemingly, the reservation authorities decide, "Instead we'll arrest Sitting Bull because he's close by, he's in his cabin. We know where it is." And they decide to send a recently created Lakota police force.

Narrator: In December of 1890... the U.S. sends 40 armed guards to remove Sitting Bull from his home. But the chief's followers are determined to protect their leader.

Lower your w*apon.

I will not go!

Narrator: The great Lakota chief, Sitting Bull, who fought for over 30 years to preserve his people's way of life, is k*lled at the age of 59.

Pourier: The death of Sitting Bull was the death of our culture, at that moment.

We had faith in one man, and he's doing everything he can to keep you alive and to keep your way of life alive and to protect you, and he dies a violent death instead of a natural death.

You know, you've lost your leader on top of losing everything.

Narrator: In the wake of Sitting Bull's death, many of his followers flee the reservation and set up a temporary camp in South Dakota at a place called Wounded Knee. But the U.S. government remains fearful of the possible uprising and sends the 7th Cavalry to track them down. Jacoby From the U.S. Army's perspective of hostile from non-hostile Indian, is they basically decide, "Well, anyone who's off the reservation is potentially hostile, and we'll treat them this way."

Narrator: Just two weeks after Sitting Bull's m*rder, 200 more Lakota men, women and children are k*lled by American troops at Wounded Knee.

Jacoby: It's a very disturbing event. They begin to throw in these howitzer shells into the encampment at a rate of 50 sh*ts a minute.

It's quite clearly a disproportionate use of force against a community that was not in any way clearly, um, violent towards the United States.

Narrator: Led by General James W. Forsyth, the m*ssacre at Wounded Knee is the last major att*ck by the U.S. government against the Lakota people.

I think Wounded Knee was so devastating that it really did k*ll the spirit of a lot of people because they were fighting something that we don't agree with. And Wounded Knee was basically the end of that life.

Narrator: For decades, American Indians have fought to keep their place in the West. But now the Indian population, once estimated at over 300,000, has been cut in half.

Redford: Characters like Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, they fought to the end.

And, of course, eventually, the end did come.

Pourier: I'm honored to be Sitting Bull's relative.

You know, we're actually to a point now where we can survive and thrive, so we need to do that in order to honor our ancestors, to honor Sitting Bull, because they didn't want to lose their way of life.

And we fought and d*ed to keep our way of life, and we still have it.

Narrator: By the end of the 19th Century, outlaws like Billy the Kid and Jesse James no longer terrorized the West. And the w*r between the U.S. Army and the Indians is effectively over. With the frontier wide open, the Government frees up 1.9 million acres of former Indian territory in Oklahoma. And within hours, 50,000 settlers pour into the land. It will come to be known as the "Oklahoma Land Rush." By 1890, the West has been settled to the point where the U.S. Census Bureau can declare the frontier officially closed. In a span of just 25 years, America has gone from a country divided by w*r to a nation united by land.

H.W. Brands: What happened was the West eventually came to look more like the East.

Before 1860, if you went West, you dropped out of sight, and people couldn't hear from you.

All of a sudden, you could go through much of the West in the 1890s, and you could keep almost instantaneously in touch with what was going on in the East. And that made all the difference in the world.

Narrator: But while the frontier has been tamed, there's one place where the spirit of the West still lives on.

Director: And cut!

Was that good for you?

That was perfect.

Narrator: Decades after escaping Arizona, Wyatt Earp reemerges in Hollywood, California, as a consultant in one of America's newest industries... motion pictures.

Kirschner: Wyatt Earp had the advantage of living to a ripe old age. He simply outlived everybody else.

So, you know what they say, his history belongs to the victors.

Wyatt Earp: We used to drive cattle into Dodge City that would stretch as far as the eye can see.

Thousands of cattle coming into town.

Just trample everything in their path.

Narrator: By telling stories about his past, Wyatt Earp immortalizes the Old West in film.

Isenberg: Wyatt Earp decides that if his life can be made into a film the way he wants it made, then the legacy will be the one that he wants remembered.

And in a lot of ways, that's exactly what happens.

First day on the job?

Yes, sir.

I'm a big admirer of yours, Mr. Earp.

Narrator: Earp even inspires a young production assistant named Marion Morrison, who will go on to become an actor, taking the stage name John Wayne. John Wayne uses Wyatt Earp as the model for many of his Hollywood roles, creating an iconic image of the Western hero and becoming one of the most prominent western stars in movie history.

Danny Glover: The attachment to westerns were certainly, I think, an important part of this country's evolution, it's sense of it's identity, it's sense of freedom.

Narrator: To this day, the West is remembered as an era of v*olence and lawlessness defined by larger-than-life figures like Jesse James, Crazy Horse, Custer, Billy the Kid, Sitting Bull, and Wyatt Earp.

(woman screams)

Narrator: They were men who took what they wanted and fought for what they believed in.

Brands: The outlaws were in some ways the ultimate individualists. No one could tell the outlaws what to do.

A lot of Americans could imagine, "Boy, if things had been different, I could be as bold and brave as daring as Jesse James or as Billy the Kid.

Tom Skerrit: The Old West engaged your imagination in a way nothing else has ever done.

And it really is that eternal American figure, that guy who faces adversity and comes through it.

Narrator: The story of the West is the story of a country evolving and growing through the sheer will and courage of its people.

I believe that it is truly American to strike out in a new life, in a new existence. The hardships on those individuals is amazing. And despite all the obstacles, we've populated a nation that is now and always has been one of the great experiments in history.