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I’ve Killed Men by Jack Ganzhom

1966; University of Nebraska Press; Volume: 1; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/wal.1966.0025

1948-7142

Ruth E. Keenan,

American Literature and Culture

Reviews 63 The Wonderful Country, John Williams’ Butcher’s Crossing, and Milton Lott’s The Last Hunt. No one would argue, I think, that The Log of a Cowboy is imaginative literature in the way that the forementioned works are. Still, Adams’ novel has proven to be perennially viable. It has appeared in numerous editions since its first publication in 1903. Now the University of Nebraska Press, in its Bison Books series, has brought out another edition. There is a certain justification of yet another edition of this work. The Log of a Cowboy has become a West­ ern classic of sorts. It is widely read and is almost sure to be included in college courses in Western literature. This is because, if it fails as imaginative litera­ ture, it succeeds as history. If it fails to give us a profound view of the cow­ boy’s humanity, it at least gives us a detailed picture of his work. By vast effort the cowboys of Adams’ novel drive a large herd of longhorn cattle from Mexico to northwestern Montana. In all of this, Adams preserves with an unos­ tentatious and quiet realism the techniques and details of cowboys at work We see them foil rustlers and outwit Indians. We see them head a stampede. We see them turn their thirst-crazed cattle back from an unending waterless desert. We see them swim and bridge flooding rivers, with the loss of horses and cattle and occasionally even men. It is this simple realism that brings readers back to The Log of a Cowboy. We can therefore be happy with the appearance of the Bison Books edition of this novel. This paper back is an attractive addition to the considerable bibliography of Westemalia offered by Bison Books. It is well bound, contains five illustrations by E. Boyd Smith, and sells for a modest price. L e v i S. P e t e r s o n . Weber State College I’ve Killed Men. By Jack Ganzhom. (New York: Devin-Adair, 1959. 256 pages, $5.00.) Frontier Arizona has counted no lustier son that Jack Ganzhorn, whose autobiography, I’ve Killed Men is a Western Americana classic. Ganzhom learned to shoot before he learned to read and write, and earned his reputa­ tion as “the fastest man on the draw” in a territory where this art meant life. Bom at Ft. Thomas on the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation in 1878, Ganzhom knew little but violence throughout his life. He credited his mother and stepmother, later two wives, for restraining him from drifting to the “wild bunch” altogether. The entire story of his life is the passionate struggle to stay on the side of the law, which he respected. His involvement in personal justice, however, constantly led him into scrapes and gunfights. He presents the tradi­ tional picture of the quiet man at the center of violence. Ganzhom’s account of the notorious O. K. Corral Massacre at Tombstone rings with truth, and is a stranghtforward condenmation of the Earps and Doc Holliday. In like manner he describes many of the better-known Western badmen of his day, but reserves praise and admiration for Buckskin Frank Les­ lie, his boyhood idol. It was this man, he said, who awakened the urge within him to thrill to the kick of a six-shooter in his fist. 64 Western American Literature The proudest association of Ganzhom’s life was his being one of Gen. Frederick Funston’s famous Scouts in the Philippine Insurrection. During this service he received a foot wound from which he suffered the rest of his life, and which prevented his fighting in World War I. Probably his keenest disap­ pointment was his not being chosen as one of the Arizona Rangers, a body organized to combat the lawless influx into Southern Arizona around 1900. Despite his celebrated draw, his Philippine record, and his known devotion to his state, Genzhorn did not have the political backing to become a Ranger. Until his death in 1956 he was successively a professional gambler, an investigator for the FBI, an undercover man for Remington Arms, a Hollywood actor, and finally a witer. His last...