As a young man, William Claiborne worked as a cowhand and remuda rider for John Slaughter and helped him drive cattle from Texas to the Arizona Territory in 1879.

Harry Queen, the saloon owner and eyewitness reported on the event: I was present when James Hickey was killed.

Hickey was standing close to the table where a game of cards was being plaid (sic) in my saloon.

He turned to walk out at the same time this young fellow they called The Kid was coming into the saloon.

Hickey turn (sic) partly around after the report of the pistol and fell on his face and left side.

Hickey was not well-liked and when a jury was finally convened, Billy was found not guilty and set free.

On the morning of October 26, 1881, Ike Clanton was carrying his rifle and revolver in violation of a city ordinance.

Witnesses reported that Wyatt drew his revolver from his coat pocket and pistol whipped Tom McLaury with it twice, leaving him prostrate and bleeding on the street.

Angrily, Frank said he would not drink, and he and Billy left the saloon immediately to seek Tom and Ike.

"[13] At about 2:30 pm the Earps and Holliday found Frank and Tom McLaury and Ike and Billy Clanton gathered near the front of an empty lot off Fremont street, next to C.S.

[14] Wyatt testified afterward that he saw "Frank McLaury, Tom McLaury, and Billy Clanton standing in a row against the east side of the building on the opposite side of the vacant space west of Fly's photograph gallery.

Ike Clanton and Billy Claiborne and a man I don't know [Wes Fuller] were standing in the vacant space about halfway between the photograph gallery and the next building west.

[7][16] When the shooting commenced—nobody could be certain who fired first[17]—Ike Clanton ran towards Wyatt and pleaded that he was unarmed and did not want a fight.

Endicott Peabody announced he would preach a sermon in Charleston in early February, 1882, against alcoholism, Claiborne wrote warning him to stay away from the subject.

Peabody replied that he would preach on any subject he chose at any time and heard no more from the bullying Claiborne.

He told a friend that he was "working double shifts to get enough money to go to Tombstone and kill Frank Leslie."

[20] "Buckskin" Frank Leslie was tending bar at the Oriental Saloon on November 14, 1882, when Claiborne, who was very drunk, began using insulting and abusive language.

Leslie later testified, I was talking with some friends in the Oriental Saloon when Claiborne pushed his way in among us and began using very insulting language.

He came back again and began using exceedingly abusive language, when I took him by the collar of his coat and led him away, telling him not to get mad, that it was for his own good, that if he acted in that manner he was liable to get in trouble.

When Leslie stepped outside, he saw "a foot of rifle barrel protruding from the end of the fruit stand."

[23] The Cochise County, Arizona Coroners Report for Billy Claiborne is number 39 for the year 1882.

The report reads: "In the matter of the inquest held on the body of Wm Claiborne, deceased.

(Arizona, County Coroner and Death Records, 1881–1971) Billy Claiborne is buried on Boot Hill cemetery.

[citation needed] A website chronicling the life of Nashville Franklin "Buckskin Frank" Leslie made the assertion that Billie Claiborne was William Floyd Claiborne, born 21 October 1860 in Yazoo County, Mississippi.

William Floyd Claiborne married Hattie Barnton on 27 January 1887 in Yazoo County, Mississippi.

Mr. Earp was a great-nephew of the original Wyatt Earp;[24] and the Star Trek episode Spectre of the Gun, in which Pavel Chekov and crew stood in for members of the Clanton Gang during a loose depiction of the gunfight at the OK Corral, in a fatalistic simulation contrived by aliens as an elaborate scheme to condemn the Star Trek crew to death.