This past weekend, I watched "Tombstone" on AMC. I've seen pieces of it before, but for the first time I watched it all the way through from beginning to end. It had always spoken to me of the meaning of loyalty and true friendship. As I watched it more attentively, it did so again, over and over. That's what I would like to share, but first let me set the stage.
For those not familiar with the movie, it's the (somewhat romanticized) story of Wyatt Earp; his brothers, Virgil and Morgan; and Doc Holiday facing down the leaders of the outlaw gang known as the Cowboys at the OK Corral.
There are MANY lessons about loyalty and relationship leading up to that point. The Earp brothers had brought their wives out to Arizona to get away from being peace officers and the associated responsibility and dangers. Doc Holiday had joined them because of his long-time, deep friendship with Wyatt. When Virgil could no longer stand to watch people live in fear and the terror caused by the Cowboys and finally accepted the position as Marshal, the others joined him, one by one. Loyalty won out over their desire to not get involved. Blood is thicker than water.
I must digress here briefly. For us with our western culture mindsets, we often misinterpret that statement. Most believe it means that the blood shared in a family relationship is stronger than other more "watery" relationships. That is not the true meaning of the phrase. It's a covenant analogy. It means that the bond between those who had entered into covenant relationship - historically done with some sort of shedding of blood - is stronger than the bond shared by those who have passed through the water of birthing by the same mother. In other words, true covenant relationships are stronger than natural DNA, family relationships. There's a similar proverb in one of the African cultures, "Blood is stronger than milk," meaning covenant is stronger than the bond between those who nursed from the same breast.
In the movie we see both types of bonds, both types of relationships in action. There is a definite love and "tie that binds" between the Earp brothers. But I believe there was an even stronger tie between Wyatt and Doc Holiday. I am sure that neither in the movie nor in real life would they have called it covenant. It boiled down to Doc's statement: "Wyatt is my friend." But now I'm getting ahead of the story, so let me return to it.
Unfortunately, when a gang is 100 strong and you kill three of them, you have kicked a hornets' nest; retaliation (revenge) will follow. Virgil, who is the marshal with Morgan and Wyatt as his deputies, is shot on a dark street on a stormy night and loses the use of his left arm permanently. Morgan is shot in the back through a window and dies. At that point, Wyatt puts Virgil, still recuperating from his wound, on a train with the three Earp wives (one now widowed) to head further west to California.
Wyatt and Doc stay behind to finish the job of liberating the area from the reign of terror of the Cowboys. Some called it revenge. Doc called it "a reckoning." At this point they are joined by three others for whom the Cowboys have now crossed the line as well and they know they must join their long-time acquaintances and try to stop the reign of terror. Great! Instead of the odds being two against nearly 100, they were now improved to a mere 5:100.
As the movie progresses, the leader of the Cowboys is killed and a new leader takes charge. The new leader is Johnny Ringo, a notorious gun fighter. As the story continues, McMasters (one of the three who joined them) is brutally murdered, Doc's tuberculosis has gotten so bad he is bedridden at a ranch, and Ringo has challenged Wyatt to a 1:1 gun fight - winner take all.
There are two problems with Ringo's challenge. One is that they know that if Wyatt wins, it's not all over; the Cowboys will select a new leader and continue to try to kill them as well as continue their reign of terror. The other is that the chances of Wyatt winning are slim to none.
As Wyatt is leaving his friend, Doc, in bed at the ranch to head out to face Ringo, you can see in his eyes he believes he is seeing his friend for the last time. He asks Doc if there is any chance he might beat Ringo and his friend is honest with him. Doc Holiday was the noted gunfighter, not Earp. But even if he weren't bed bound, the challenge is with Wyatt, not Doc. Doc knows Wyatt's integrity would not allow him to take his place. Even if Wyatt should manage to survive, you can tell he is also concerned that the TB is about to take it's toll on his friend.
Wyatt leaves Doc in the care of the ranchers who promise to protect him with their lives and rides off with his two remaining partners - with obvious anticipation of heading to his death and likely the death of his two friends who, loyally, accompany him "to the end." I wonder how many of us have friends who would make that ride with us?
I want to stop here to backtrack in the story a moment. There is a scene much earlier in the movie where Doc has been continually winning at a faro (card) game that had been running for hours and he is being accused of cheating. In those days in the "wild west" (there was more than one reason for that name!), this issue was often settled with one or both parties dead. As his accuser gets testy, the camera pans so you can see under the table where Wyatt (the dealer for the game) has a pistol pointed at the accuser and has it cocked and ready to fire. I point this out because it's a glimpse of how these two men always watched out for one another and were always ready to defend the other.
Similarly, Doc joined the Earp brothers on the march to the OK Corral not because of his sense of justice for the Cowboy vigilantes, but because of his friendship with Wyatt. If his friend was heading into danger, so was Doc. Doc was not a lawman as the Earp brothers had been and now were again. Doc was a gambler and gunfighter - a skill that often proved invaluable to the gamblers of that day. His reputation was well known and earned. It was his friendship that caused him to walk that street that day - not his innate sense of justice. Now back to Ringo's challenge...
You see Wyatt leave his companions to walk alone to the secluded location of the showdown. Then you see Ringo watching as someone emerges from the shadows. But much to your surprise and Ringo's dismay, it's not Wyatt; it's Doc Holiday. As Doc will later tell Wyatt, he wasn't as sick as he pretended to be. He knew two things: 1) He stood at least a reasonable chance of beating Ringo where Wyatt did not and 2) Wyatt would never allow him to go to meet Ringo in his place. So he knew to save his friend he had to get to Ringo first. While we don't know how he did that, apparently undetected by either Earp and his companions or by the Cowboys, he was there, stepping out of the shadows to challenge Ringo.
When Ringo realizes that it is Doc Holiday rather than Wyatt Earp approaching him, he begins to try to talk his way out of the situation. He knows he stands only a slightly better chance against Doc than Wyatt does against him. He does not want this confrontation, but he realizes Doc will not back down. Ringo had previously threatened him that they would have it out and "the reckoning" time had come.
All of this (finally!) brings me to the dialog exchanged that so got my attention. Ringo asks Doc, "Why you doin' this, Doc?" Doc responds simply: "Because Wyatt Earp is my friend."
There is so much in those six words. Doc, sick as he really was, had acted somewhat deceptively to his friend to provide the cover to go before him and meet his enemy, risking his own life in at least three ways in order to save his friend's life. THAT is a true friend!
- "Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends." John 15:13
How many of us have a friend that would go to such measures for us? Most of us would consider ourselves fortunate to have friends as close as the two who rode out with Wyatt. They were risking their lives to do even that. But the dialog continues.
Ringo retorts laughingly, "Friend? Hell, I got lots of friends." The implication is that none of his friends were there in his place - and that Doc must have some other motive, because people simply don't put their lives on then line like that for a friend. Doc replied in his usual slow, direct fashion: "I don't."
Once again, Doc said much with few words. He had lots of acquaintances. He even had at least a few relationships that we would call friends - like Virgil and Morgan and maybe even the three men who had joined he and Wyatt on the mission to break up this gang of thugs. But Doc knew he had one true friend - one who would have put himself in harm's way to protect him just as Doc was now doing for him.
If you understand how covenant works, it's easy to see it at work in this relationship. Doc knew his gun fighting skills were superior. While nothing is certain - an ambush was not out of the question - Doc was bound by his love for his friend to get to Ringo and eliminate the threat of the 1:1 encounter between him and Wyatt. As quoted above, there is no greater expression of love than being willing to die for his friend.
Most of our friends are like the disciples who scattered when Jesus was arrested. Only two, Peter and John, followed to where He was taken. Only John was present at the cross when He was crucified. John referred to himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved. It's pretty obvious that he's also the disciple who truly loved Jesus.
Getting back to the movie, as they say, "The rest is history." Even in his weakened condition (the TB was in advanced stages), Doc waited for Ringo to make his move to draw and did, as we expected, beat him in that draw and take him down. Wyatt arrives at the area upon hearing the shots fired. To his utter amazement, he sees Doc squatting over Ringo's dead body. His look of amazed bewilderment is classic.
From there the four ride on to "finish the job" of breaking up the Cowboys, whose numbers had now dwindled to around 30. Many had abandoned the group when "the reckoning" had started. (I guess their loyalty to each other wasn't all that strong!)
We later learn that Wyatt's wife, Mattie, died shortly after leaving Tombstone with Virgil, his wife, and Morgan's widow. Her cause of death is the long-expected overdose of laudanum to which she has been addicted for quite some time and for which she has refused to seek help.
Without the obligation to Mattie, Wyatt is free to stay with his friend in Colorado, where Doc finally checks into a Sanatorium due to his advanced stage of TB. We are shown their last visit. It's apparent that Wyatt has come every day to see his friend. It's also apparent that Doc is at the end of his journey in this life. When Wyatt asks how he's doing, Doc responds, "I'm dying, how are you?"
Wyatt gives him a booklet he's written and had published entitled, "My Friend, Doc Holiday." Doc, in their typical candid way with each other, lets Wyatt know how much he's meant to him, and then asks him to leave. For whatever his reasons, Doc does not want his friend to stay and watch him die. You can tell Wyatt does not want to leave him. But, in faithfulness to their friendship, he continues to put his friend's desires ahead of his own and walks away to leave him to die as he prefers, alone.
All too often when we come to the end of the road with a loved one, we put our desires for those final memories ahead of theirs. Wyatt's love and respect for his friend enabled him to walk away and allow him the dignity of dying in the manner he preferred.
The depth of love and mutual respect between these two men is what ministered to me in the midst of this shoot 'em up movie. I've learned about myself that loyalty and respect are key ingredients for me in a relationship. If those two things are not there, then I know there are boundaries on the relationship and it is not the type of friendship these men shared.
Without the depth of loyalty and respect, your "friend" may or may not be standing with you in a time of need or when your back is against the wall. It may simply be because they are busy with other, more pressing matters. It may be that they were forced to choose sides and are now standing against you (or are agreeing with and even spreading the rumors they really know not to be true). Or they may have refused to take sides and are waiting to see who is left standing (which person has the most to offer them after the dust settles). Are any of these sounding familiar?
None of these are true friends in the way that Doc used this term about his friend, Wyatt. Doc was literally "willing to take a bullet" for Wyatt.
The recent tragedy in Aurora, Colorado, has shown that such friendships still exist today. There were several reports of those who put themselves in harm's way to literally "take the bullet" for their friend or loved one. Others stayed by their friend, working to keep them alive, leaving themselves in great danger to do so.
These are true, covenant relationships. And, while they do exist, I submit to you that they are rare. If you have one, treasure it and continue to cultivate it.
