maddie blalock died in 1888, and that story had a terribly tragic ending, because she figured out --finally -- that wyatt earp was not coming back for her. how uncomfortable it must have been living with her, you know, sort of in-laws. she was not a woman who had any particular education or training, and so when she left his parents' house, she had no particular means of support. she became a prostitute, she was a drug addict, she ended up committing suicide and cursed wyatt earp on her final day. this was the second part of what josephine most feared for the rest of her life. she didn't want anyone to know that wyatt had left maddie for josephine and that maddie had come to such a sad end. so they went on to this extraordinary lifetime adventure, but josephine was always hearing the footsteps of tombstone behind her, always fearing exposure. and i did visit many of the places that they had been, but with apologies to san diego and cure delean and goldfield and various other places. i confess that as i followed josephine around, my favorite adventure was the three years that they spe

that is maddy blalock earp who was known as the common law wife of earp and they have been there -- married for several years. now you have the cast of characters. tombstone was a town very much on edge in 1881 in a series of robberies. there was an indian uprising. it was a hot, hot, hot summer, temperature hot and hot also in the political sense of political rivalries. fox and "msnbc" have nothing on the two rival newspapers in tombstone which were maniacally against each other. and the deepest rivalry was between wyatt and johnny bien. johnny bien have a job that wyatt wanted. he was the sheriff of cochise county which is an extremely lucrative job and there was a tax collector that came with being sheriff. johnny at the woman that wyatt wanted. even the josephine had left him, that didn't mean you wanted wyatt to have her. when we think about the gunfight at the o.k. corral there are deep political economic and social reasons leading up to the gunfight, republicans and democrats, the law men in the mining interests against the cowboys and ranchers. that is all true but what is also true