In the fall of 1878, Doc Holliday and “Big Nose” Kate Elder decided to leave Dodge City, and take the train to New Mexico. Doc and Kate had previously been in Dodge for several months, plying their trade of gambling during the peak times when the large cattle drives from the south arrived. After arriving in Dodge, the cattle would then be sold and shipped by rail to the packing houses in the east.

When the trail cowboys were paid off in Dodge, they had lots of money in their pockets, and a strong desire to “loosen up” after a hot, hard and hazardous drive. And usually that meant spending some time at the saloons and occasionally in the local red light district.

Doc and Kate had been most willing to assist the cowboys in seeking at least part of their entertainment – Doc at the faro and poker tables, and Kate (let us just say) in various and sundry ways. Doc several times had tried to get Kate to stop hanging out at saloons, but she couldn’t do without the excitement and action at such places. It was a source of many arguments and fights for the couple.

Doc, whose formal name was John Henry Holliday, was born in 1851 and grew up in Georgia. As a young adult, he trained to be a dentist at the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery, and graduated in 1872. However, he had likely contracted tuberculosis (at the time known as consumption) from his mother, who died from the disease when he was 15. His violent coughing fits discouraged patients, and kept him from making a living solely as a dentist.

As a result of his illness, he sought other ways of earning money and soon developed a penchant for gambling, where his innate intellect and talent for quickly figuring odds made him a natural. But because he faced a dismal fate if he died from his disease, he became fatalistic, moody and extremely caustic, and consequently was a very dangerous man to provoke.

Taking a trail hand’s (or miner’s) hard-earned pay from him at the poker table could easily turn violent. As a consequence Doc’s self-defense arsenal eventually included a gun in a shoulder holster, another gun on his hip, and a large knife. His ability to handle a gun during conflict is well known, but he several times quickly grabbed his knife to ward off attackers. In one case of defense with his knife, he almost severed an angry gambler’s head – who almost miraculously survived. Yes indeed, getting into a confrontation with Doc was not likely to do anything positive for one’s health and well-being.

Kate on the other hand was not about to back down from an altercation with Doc. She was reputed to be the intellectual equal of Doc, and some people (perhaps with some visual allowance) described her as attractive but temperamental. She spoke with a German accent, and was known by several names, one of which was Mary Catherine Elder Haroney.

She and Doc met at Fort Griffin, Texas, where he was dealing cards at Shanssey’s Saloon, and she already was an experienced “soiled dove.” Thus began a lengthy off-and-on relationship that was filled with arguments and fights. Several times the couple registered at various hotels as Mr. and Mrs. Holliday. But whether or not a common law marriage was formed doesn’t seem to have become a major issue.

Returning to the date of October 1878 and the town of Dodge City, the cattle drives, which provided the major source of the couple’s income, had begun to taper off in the fall. With the cooler weather and fewer cowboys, the couple decided to head for a healthier climate for Doc, and settled on the drier air at the higher altitudes of eastern Colorado and New Mexico. During their trip, they also planned to include a visit to the mineral-charged Montezuma Hot Springs, located five miles north of Las Vegas, New Mexico. At the time, the Springs were reputed to be something of a natural cure for tuberculosis and all other kinds of similar ailments.

Doc’s condition had drastically worsened by the time the couple arrived in Trinidad, Colorado, in late December. Occasionally it snowed, but after a short stay Kate nevertheless decided to join a wagon train, and continue on to the luxurious comfort of the St. James Hotel in Cimarron, New Mexico. This meant that they would have to traverse the hazardous Raton Pass south of Trinidad in the dead of winter, while Doc lay near death in their wagon, virtually helpless.

Today going over Raton Pass from Trinidad to Raton in a modern air conditioned car takes less than half an hour. But in a covered wagon in December of 1878, it was a fearsome five day undertaking.

A traveler’s wagon first had to be winched up the rocky trail to the pass’s 7,834 foot summit, using ropes that had been anchored by metal rings driven into the trees. And then coming down, the wagon had to be lowered by the reverse procedure. All the time, a traveler would nervously try to put out of his mind the large number of shattered wagons that had their ropes break, winding up as broken hulks in deep canyon bottoms.

(Next time: Finishing the trip to Montezuma Hot Springs, and a lady gambler who once took Doc for $30,000 at the poker table.)