Crow Killer

After finishing The Real Wild West, and knowing that I was getting Massacre at Mountain Meadows for Christmas, I needed a quick read in between. I picked up Raymond W. Thorp and Robert Bunker's Crow Killer: The Saga of Liver-Eating Johnson a few weeks back at the local used bookstore (COAS in Las Cruces; one of the best bookstores I have ever set foot in...) Both my dad and my brother had read it and told me a few things about it. The movie Jeremiah Johnson was loosely based on John Johnson (or Johnston), the character in this book. The book paints a much more gruesome tale than the movie does, however. Of course, it's hard to separate the myth from the reality in this book. It's more fiction than history, but at the same time it provides a romanticized version of the American West that people crave. It paints the mountain man as the last hurrah of the frontier, and the rest involved with the making of the west as mere "tenderfoots." Johnson is a larger-than-life character, not afraid of a fight, even with a grizzly bear. His nickname, Liver-Eating, stems from his call sign, that of eating the liver of Crow Indians he has killed in avenging his wife and unborn baby's death. It's a fantastic read, and of course has to be taken with a grain of salt, but what it is not disputed is that the Mountain Men were an essential piece in the making of the West, both real and mythical, and John "Liver-Eating" Johnson is not a man I would want to have on my bad side.