Crow Killer: The Saga of Liver-Eating Johnson

by Robert Bunker, Robert Bunker

The movie Jeremiah Johnson introduced millions to the legendary mountain man, John Johnson. The real Johnson was a far cry from the Redford version. Standing 6’2” in his stocking feet and weighing nearly 250 pounds, he was a mountain man among mountain men, one of the toughest customers on the western frontier. As the story goes, one morning in 1847, Johnson returned to his Rocky Mountain trapper’s cabin to find the remains of his murdered Indian wife and her unborn child. He vowed vengeance against an entire Indian tribe. Crow Killer tells of that one-man, decades-long war to avenge his beloved. Whether seen as a realistic glimpse of a long ago, fierce frontier world, or as a mythic retelling of the many tales spun around and by Johnson, Crow Killer is unforgettable.

Genres: History, Biography, Nonfiction, Westerns, American History, True Crime, Historical

200 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1959

Reviews

[Esteban del Mal · Rating 3 out of 5]

All of the Conrad, none of the guilt!

A sight met her passengers which was certainly calculated to shock the nerves of any eastern tenderfoot. Along the brink of the river bank on both sides of the landing a row of stakes was planted, and each stake carried a white, grinning Indian skull. They were evidently the pride of the inhabitants, and a little to one side, as if guarding them, stood a trapper, well-known throughout eastern Montana by the sobriquet of 'Liver-Eating' Johnson. He was leaning on a crutch, with one leg bandaged and the day being hot his entire dress consisted of a scant, much shrunken, red undershirt, reaching just below his hips. His matted hair and bushy beard fluttered in the breeze, and his giant frame and limbs, so freely exposed to view, formed an exceedingly impressive and characteristic picture. -- Peter Koch of the steamer Huntsville

Equal parts Paul Bunyan, Hannibal Lecter, Horatio Alger, and Wild Boy of Aveyron, this book presents itself as a work of historical non-fiction, but is nothing more than a mash of anecdotes surrounding the life of one of the American frontier's more formidable mountain men. The authors trace his thread through the pioneering mythology of the west, the bits of dialogue reading like some sort of Treasure Island pidgin. While the neutered language may frame the action in a way to make it palatable to the delicate sensibilities of its audience, the action itself would give pause even to Old Testament Yahweh. The technique proves jarring, and the resulting narrative is more a window into the mid-century mindset than that of the nineteenth it professes to chronicle.

Liver-Eating Johnson, apparently inured to both pain and preternatural gore, really only wanted to trap beavers and play house with his squaw wife until a group of young Crow warriors butcher her. Johnson, his inner sociopath triggered, declares war on the entire Crow nation and systematically dispatches them wherever they can be found. His preference is to humiliate them by kicking them and eating the still warm livers from their corpses when time allows. The Crow become the laughing stock of the plains until years later, when they and Johnson make peace.

In the meantime, the frontier is giving way to Anglo-Saxon moxie. Railroads, mining towns, brothels, ranchers and the like begin to displace both the mountain men and natives. Readers are invited to mourn this dislocation in some sort of knee-jerk romanticized Golden Age way, but this invitation, jocularly couched in the homespun witticisms of scalp hungry psychotics, belies the (and I quote) "mechanical precision" with which Native Americans had previously been slaughtered by Johnson and other mountain men. You see, it isn't so much that violence in and of itself is bad, merely the disposition of those who would practice it. The mountain men, libertarian Übermenschen all, were justified in their actions -- it was, after all, a cottage industry. It's not as if they had been exploiting unspoiled nature to sell it back to the eastern dandies they professed to so abhor and, in so doing, laying the groundwork for exploitation on an industrialized level.

Johnson supposedly never liked to take credit for his manly feats, instead deferring to others. In this, he would likewise be proved unknowingly prescient: Hollywood, in 1972, used the story of the man's life as the basis for the movie Jeremiah Johnson. Regrettably, the deranged Santa of yore would be portrayed by the voguish tenderfoot of the day.

[Lord Battle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Crow Killer has invited me to a personal fantasy I never knew I had. John Johnston is a real life Conan the Barbarian who haunted the hills of Montana in the mid 1800's. His life as illustrated by this book is a chronological collection of Robert E. Howard-esk short stories and I'm now obsessed.

I've taken a little time to reflect on why I'm so smitten with this book, and I honestly think it's just because it's a recounting of real stories. Real stories that back up the possibility of adventures I've co-authored in table top games as a player. Seriously, Mountain Men are true frontier heros and not in the sense that they're helping people (although they often did) but in the way that they were impressive.

If escaping from India capture with only a loincloth, flint / tinder, knife, and human leg is something you think sounds interesting, but this book.
Spoiler - he uses the human leg as food, a tool to scare off a mountain lion, and a club to fight off a bear!

I continue to regret rating all these previous books five stars, as Crow Killer needs to be separated from the others as being superior.

[Gregg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unbelievable story. I sought out this book after seeing Jeremiah “Liver-Eating” Johnson’s grave site at the Old Trail Town in Cody, WY. I was not disappointed. He is an 1800s real-life version of The Punisher. He was also a mountain man, sheriff, and Civil War Union soldier. This book from a different era really highlights how savage Native Americans were and how contentious the interactions between the settlers and the Native Americans was. This book was a bit choppy, sacrificing flow for brevity in a few spots and it thoroughly dehumanizes Native Americans—hence the 3-star rating. I look forward to seeing the 1972 film featuring Robert Redford based on the story.

[Eric Ruark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating book. I love the movie Jeremiah Johnson. This was the book that they based the film on. The book is a fascinating study of what it was like to be a "mountain man" at the height of the fur trapping era. It is also a powerful story of love/hate and if I said any more, I would have to fill this review with spoilers. By the way, it is not a book for the faint of heart. The men involved were capable of great cruelty to match their unbelievable bravery.

[Jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

The final credits for the pretty terrific 1972 Pollack/Redford film Jeremiah Johnson mention that the story was based off this 1958 book, which is what persuaded me to order it. I have to say, the movie hewed pretty close to the book, though it only covers events in the first half of the book. Does that mean the film was historically accurate? Sadly no, as explained in the introduction to this 2016 edition by Western scholar Nathan Bender.

In his own original preface and acknowledgements, author Raymond Thorp takes pains to assure the reader that, although the book is based almost entirely on stories and reminiscences of people who knew the original John Johnston (or people who knew those people), and very little on documentary evidence, he has done enough cross-checking to enable him to compile this very detailed history of the famous mountain man's exploits. (He then handed his work off to novelist Robert Bunker to spice up the prose.) But Bender shows how little of the story is actually provable, and how much of it is provably embellishment, or mythology, or just plain wrong.

I was disappointed by this, hoping to read a strongly researched, well-presented history of a slice of the West comparable to, say, Andrist's The Long Death about the Plains Wars. I have to say, though, it is written in such an entertaining style that I enjoyed it immensely anyway, even knowing that every episode of hardship or adventure had to be taken with a grain of salt.

That's how I would recommend a reader approach this book: recognize that it is based on real people and events, but that no single event can be assumed to have actually happened. Revel in the spirit of freedom and exploration of those days of the 19th Century fur trappers and mountain men; understand the casual racism towards the Indian population that was woven into every day life; and wonder at the hardiness of the people who chose that kind of life.

This book gets an extra good mark from me for the map at the beginning. While not of the highest quality, every location, river, mountain range, and fort mentioned in the text can be found on it, along with points of interest like certain people's cabins and so forth. Had it not been for this map, reading the book would have been an excruciating exercise in going back and forth between the text and a map from some other source. It also would have diminished the awe the reader feels at the casual undertaking by the mountain men of long journeys across incredible distances of forbidding terrain.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good friend recommended this book for a quick read. He thought I'd enjoy the historical action of this. He was right. I had seen "Jeremiah Johnson" the Robert Redford movie years ago and was curious what was behind the "Hollywood" initiative to make a movie out of this hunter/trapper of the mid 19th century. What I can say, is that Hollywood did not do this guy any justice. Liver-Eating Johnson was one hell of a badass. Period.

[Blake · Rating 2 out of 5]

Even when read as the introduction suggests - that is, from a postmodern understanding that although John Johnston was a real person we have photos of and even relocated the bones of once Robert Redford played him in a movie, "Liver-Eating Johnson" has more in common with Beowulf or Paul Bunyon than he does with Kit Carson or Jim Bridger, and that stories about him are primarily valuable as case studies of the semi-historical-heroic-legend-creation that societies transitioning from the nomadic to the sedentary tend to get into - this loosely novelic pseudo-biography strains credulity at every turn, glorifies genocide, takes a little too much pleasure in repeating the preferred racial epitaphs of its characters, and makes it seem as though mountain men were all anti-social loners and serial killers with trapping as a secondary hobby rather than as pragmatic and put-upon workers for a major industry, their occupation mostly chosen because it was one of the few relatively lucrative and independent things you could do other than keel-boating in the frontier of the early to mid 19th century, at least without connections or capital.

The authors are just too joyous about the gruesome horrors and credulous about nearly everything they collected, all of which comes third hand from latecomers to a career field where building outsized reputations was professionally incentivzed and the passing on of "news" (read: tall tales) was a form of currency.

For a far more appropriately dark and infinitly better written mythologizing of real life full-time killers on the unsettled frontier, read Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. For far more accurate portrayals of life on the upper Missouri during the reign of the mountain men, check out the memoirs of Charles Larpenteur and Russell Osborne.

Simply put, there's a lot out there on the topic, and you can do better than Crow Killer.

[Don · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written for a 1940s audience, this is pretty much a tall tale of the legends of Liver-Eating Johnson, which is not to say it's unentertaining. It's fun, even if it's not true.

[Gary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Historical novels are not for everyone, especially for those who deal with the taming of the West. This is one genre that appeals to this reader and this book did not disappoint. Western sagas are full of fact as well as stories that are told mouth to mouth, which can take on exaggerated details to enhance the narrative. The authors do address this in their introduction. John Johnson ( aka Jeremiah Johnson ) was a larger than life individual whose exploits are chronicled throughout this book along with his fellow mountain men. These men shared a relationship both good and bad with the natives that roamed these territories. As with the early settlers life was treacherous, deadly, burdensome, violent, and for the faint of heart, unbelievable in the context of how life actually was. Details of the savagery carried out by both the white man and the natives seems unbelievable but this was how it was, like it or not. This is a story about vengeance. About one man's quest for revenge against a band of Crow warriors who took the life of Johnson's native wife and unborn child. The movie with Robert Redford did not even come close to the details in this book. When I closed the last page, the one thought that crossed my mind was that he and his fellow mountain men deserve more national recognition as to their contribution to the West, no matter the method.

[Andrew Post · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is probably a collection of tall tales, but it's still a mighty entertaining read. And gives one insight into the origins of the character of Jeremiah Johnson from the 1972 film.

[Thomas Roke · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a... strange book.

The introduction (by another writer, written for 21st century audiences) recommends that you read it as a pastiche of the time it was written (mid-ish 20th century). The preface, by the original author, says that it should be read as essentially an American myth - the capturing in writing of the oral traditions of a nomadic people that become settled, in much the same way as happened for the European epics such as the Iliad, Beowulf, etc. Here, in place of Achilles, we have John Johnston, or Jeremiah Johnston, or Liver Eating Johnson/Johnston.

And here's why that doesn't quite work.

- The author, Raymond W Thorp, has a reputation for being elastic with the truth. Much of what transpires is clearly pulled from his own head.

- The primary source for virtually the entire book is White-Eye Anderson, a mountain man then in advanced old age interviewed by Thorp. Anderson is problematic because
a) By the author's own admission, he got most of his stories about Johnston from another mountain man, Del Gue, second-hand.
b) He was virtually at death's door when he was interviewed
c) He only knew Johnston briefly at the tail-end of his career, and was himself only a mountain man when the era was on the decline, and was likely eager to shoehorn himself into the tale of its glory days
d) Virtually all mountain men were famous embellishers, and were pretty loose with the truth, especially if it got in the way of a good frontier yarn to gullible tenderfeet.

What you end up with, then, is essentially a frontier literary version of barstool gossip of the "a friend of a friend told me" variety, but presented as historical fact. In it, JJ is a paragon capable of dispatching hundreds of foes in single combat, easily killing hardened warriors with his bare hands. Bearded and blond-maned, he supposedly towers 6'2'' and weighs 240-260lb. He also possesses a secret martial arts technique which he uses again and again to best his adversaries. That technique? kicking people really hard in the crotch (as far as I can work out from Thorp's sudden and uncharacteristic fastidiousness; he is quite prim about this one, despite describing scalpings and disembowellings in loving detail).

In summary, the book doesn't work as a work of history because if you GENUINELY believe John Johnston single-handedly dispatched hundreds of native americans, most of them in hand-to-hand combat, killed a bear with a bowie knife, was immune to pain, could snap bones with his hands and kill a man with one blow, and once fought off both a puma and a grizzly with the frozen, severed leg of a Blackfoot warrior, which he was using helpfully both as a snack and an improvised weapon (he had removed said leg from the man, incidentally, whilst he was still alive) well... then I have a bridge on the Thames to sell you.

It also doesn't work as a work of frontier mythology because Johnston as depicted in the book goes beyond being villainous and is just an out-and-out sociopath. While he is supposedly noble in his dealings with women (albeit the fact that he essentially purchased his wife from the Flathead Indians is glossed over) and kind to children, he callously slaughters and scalps scores of natives, including ones who were apparently minding their own business until Johnston turned up with blood in his eye. Although it's portrayed as either noble revenge or necessity, he butchers without compunction and even goes as far as leaving strychnine-laced biscuits for unwary Blackfeet to snack on, which is depicted as being the height of hilarity to him. He also hangs out with, and at one point leads, a gang of charming desperadoes who enjoy severing the limbs off their still-living native foes, among other things. And then there's the whole ritual disemboweling and liver-cannibalism, which even his contemporaries thought was a bit much. This man is meant to be a hero, mind you. We should judge people not by our values today but within the context of their time - were they good men by the standards of their age? Even with that lens applied, Johnston's actions were beyond the pale.

Problematic language and outdated attitudes in a book written decades ago don't bother me. Graphic depictions of violence don't bother me. The book is just not very well written. I didn't think I'd get bored of reading in loving detail about some poor soul getting scalped and then having his liver carved out, and yet here we are.

[Robert Cox · Rating 5 out of 5]

The relationship between this book and the film "Jeremiah Johnson" (which is based on the life of ole "Liver-Eating" Johnson) is similar to the relationship of a Grimm's Fairytale and its Disney adaptation. Johnson was a primordial beast, dangerous from the start but after tragedy strikes embarking on perhaps the greatest story of revenge this country has ever seen. The book is written in an engaging way, clear and interest story telling.

This is the best book I have read out of the mountain man era.

[Shaun · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the book despite the fact that it is presented as historical even though it is largely fiction. For what it is, it is captivating. It tells the story of a rugged man who exemplifies the era in which he lived, and in fact outlived. It was a gruff era of self reliance and bloodshed. Vendetta after vendetta is carried out. And yet, for all the gruesome bloodshed, bigotry and hatred there is a morality present. There is an odd respect for this man driven to do detestable things.

I only have two complaints really. One is that the dialog is absolutely frustrating. It attempts to capture the supposed mountain man lingo of the time. I have no idea if they really spoke in such a manner, but it sure as heck is a pain to read when words like "horse" turn to "hoss" and "can" turns to "kin."

My second complaint is that it is presented largely as fact. Clearly much of it is myth which can be enjoyed in its own right but leaves a sour taste when presented as actual. I would actually enjoy seeing a more factual depiction of the man, though that is probably hard to come by.

[Tres Herndon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Man, John Johnson was about the baddest human being ever to walk the planet if even half of the stories in this book are true. I recently saw the movie "Jeremiah Johnson" for the first time and was curious about the true story behind the character's inspiration.

Johnson's story may be fairly unbelievable, but the authors went to great lengths to verify most tales from multiple sources. I constantly had to remind myself that the world the Mountain Men lived in was vastly different from the world of the "tenderfeet" of that era, never mind modern times.

I can't say it's the most well-written history, but the prose is fine. Anyone interested in the history of the American West would do well to read this book.

[Philip · Rating 4 out of 5]

This and another book called "Mountain Man" by Vardis Fisher were the basis of the movie "Jeremiah Johnson" -- one of my top 2-3 movies of all time. Based on real mountain man John Johnson, the name was changed for the film to make it sound more old-Westy.

[Tana Wold · Rating 5 out of 5]

The movie is nothing compared to this. They should make a movie closer to this story. I loved it. I wanted to read this book since I was a kid and saw Jeremiah Johnson, forgot about it until recently.

[Dusty24]

This is a literary analysis I wrote for my English II Honors class.
The Crow Killer
The Crow Killer is a great non-fictional book about the mountain man Jeremiah Liver-Eating Johnson a big mountain man back in the mid 1800’s. I highly recommend this book to anyone that is interested in old mountain men stories.
The story starts out in St. Joseph, Missouri, when Johnston was just 20 years old. He stops to grab some supplies for his trapline, traps, rifle, powder, and a horse. The store clerks name was Joe Robidoux. Robidoux and Johnston were on the trapline for months and when Johnston returned home he found the skeletal remains of his pregnant wife raped, killed, and scalped. The main point right now is revenge. He knew it was the crow indians, so now he is hell bent on killing indians. At this point Johnston is the protagonist and the crow indians are the antagonists.
Johnston continues his life as a fur trapper with Robidoux and kills, scalps and eats the raw liver of any crow indian he finds after his experience. His trapping partner Hatcher teaches Johnston how to scalp indians after a close encounter when Johnston took an arrow to the shoulder and still managed to kill an indian and Hatcher killed the other two.
Johnston and Hatcher continue with their trap line and killing indians. At this point all of the indians are scared of this huge mountain man. Standing 6’ 2’’ and a massive 240 pounds he could kill an indian with a swift kick. The book is stating that Johnston is a scary big mountain man.
Johnston then travels to an Indian camp to trade furs for the Indian chief's daughter in marriage. Johnston took his newly-wed wife to his original home and this is when he finds out his wife has been murdered. He kills who he thinks is the murderer and shows hi father-in-law the scalp as proof of revenge.
He then continues his life as a trapper with his wife and other trappers living the same life as him. In the 25 years of his revenge it is said he had killed 400-500 indians in that time. He died in 1900 in a hospital bed at a Veteran’s hospital.

[Patrick Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book interesting, after watching the movie Jeremiah Johnson I knew of the legendary mountain man, John Johnson. The real Johnson was a far cry from the Redford version in the movie though. Standing 6’2” in his stocking feet and weighing nearly 250 pounds, he was a mountain man among mountain men, one of the toughest customers on the western frontier. As the story goes, one morning in 1847, Johnson returned to his Rocky Mountain trapper’s cabin to find the remains of his murdered Indian wife and her unborn child. He vowed vengeance against an entire Indian tribe. Crow Killer tells of that one-man, decades-long war to avenge his beloved.

With stories taken from the time, told by those that knew him, although elaborated on, the book was full of insight and described a time that most people today don't know of. A time and people that are not generally in movies or TV shows, a time and people that most are not acquainted with.

Showing both the human and potentially inhuman side of Johnson (or Johnston) this book was a good read for those that enjoy history with all the rough edges. History as it was and as it should be told. The story of a larger than life man with a larger than life story. A mountain man, a law man, a soldier, a man among men, revered by those like him and those not like him. A living, walking, legend.

[Andy Herzfeld · Rating 5 out of 5]

Raymond Thorp writes a great book on one of this Countries most iconic mountain man Liver eating Johnson. He took historical documented facts which he includes in his writing to tell a story about this savage mountain man the way I am sure he would have wanted it told using mountain man slang. Johnson was a man among men and a deadly enemy to the Crow Indians after a war party killed and scalped his pregnant wife. His years long vengence against them culminated in him making peace with their war chief and becoming Allied to them. He had many adventures with other indians as well and was made a Shoshone war chief and he answered their call when they asked. He fought in the Civil War, was law officer and did many things that have been lost to time but he was deeply respected by his peers and all the Indian tribes feared and respected him.

[Hayley H N · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is old-from the 1950’s. Due to times, It’s accidentally racist and probably purposely,too. There’s some slurs in here I didn’t know existed. We know better now but there were some moments that made it difficult to keep reading.

I wanted to read this book because I grew up watching Robert Redford in Jeremiah Johnson, and wanted to know the real story. There isn’t much info out there about this man.

Much of the books content are from mountain men who knew Johnson, which brings the accuracy of this book into question for me. Also, there is some dialogue fictionalized for story purposes that dripped with much exaggerated machoism that it was also hard to digest.

I feel like I got what I came for: a better knowledge of the man they based Redford’s character off of. Some hard facts presented in the book will always seem uncertain to me, due to the source.

[John Kestner · Rating 5 out of 5]

A stunning read. I have fond memories of JEREMIAH JOHNSON with Robert Redford in the 1970's, an almost-lyrical ode to the trapper's on America's frontier in the mid- to late-1800's...and then I read "Crow Killer: The Saga of Liver-Eating Johnson," the actual history of that character.

Wow. This is a compelling read, drenched in blood and so much more intense than JEREMIAH JOHNSON. They could make another movie about the real Liver-Eating Johnson and few people would be able to connect the two! It is a jarring way of life. The trappers killing, skinning, and eating animals...and then trappers and Native Americans and just about everyone else killing, scalping, and, in some cases, eating each other.

Very powerful stories of towering personalities in the Old West.

[Ronald Schulz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was 15 and a runaway when I read this decades ago. It encouraged me to persevere when I was hungry and alone, having been dumped by my would-be girlfriend who chose not to join me in what was to be our odyssey on the open road to hippie adventures.
Well, the story of Liver-Eating Johnson is amazing and became a movie, I'm not sure how factual all the details are. Tall tales were omnipresent in the American Frontier, but I need to hear from the Crow tribe, whether his outrageous body count is accurate. If so, he put a bigger dent in their warrior population and may have been a factor in their lack of resistance and compliance to Manifest Destiny, by assisting the Army against their enemies, the Lakota tribes.

[M. Shipley · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you’ve ever seen the movie with Robert Redford called Jeremiah Johnson, and you enjoyed it, then you simply must read this book. It is 1/3 truth, 1/3 myth, 1/3 legend. It is the story that the movie is based on, and while there are some scenes that are almost exactly like the movie, the book goes on way past what the movie does. A fair bit of warning, the book is a product of its times, and if you like history, then you are aware of the almost genocidal hatred between Anglo-Americans and Native Americans. But there are moments of kinship between them that is highlighted in this book. It is a violent book to be sure, but it was describing violent times. An absolute must read for anyone who is interested in the times of the mountain men in trappers and the conflicts of the American West.

[Scott Schmidt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book among the few paperbacks that were among my grandparents belongings in their old house. I'd seen the Robert Redford movie "Jeremiah Johnson," but didn't know it was loosely based on this book about the larger-than-life mountain man, John Liver-Eating Johnson. And all I can really say is that the movie pales in comparison to the book. The historical accounts of Johnson and his fellow mountain men and their life on the frontier is intense, harsh and exactly the sort of history that grabs hold of my imagination. If you've any interest in frontier history, Crow Killer is a must-read.

[Paul S · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are interested in true tales about the life of a mountain man trapping in the American West in the 1800’s, this book is for you. It is the tale of a trapper John Johnson. Aka “Liver Eating Johnson as told by those who knew him. The book pulls no punches with the harsh and violent lives the mountain men lived. I found the book interesting as it almost seems you are sitting around the campfire at times, listening to what stories others are telling about Johnson while the writer adds narration to provide historical background and to keep the tale tied together along a common thread. An interesting book and a bit different than anything I’ve read before.

[Ron · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Crow Killer” The Saga of Liver-Eating Johnson, is a good book! For those of us that have seen and remember the movie with Robert Redford, Jeremiah Johnson, this movie was loosely based on the life of the Crow Killer.
The real Johnson was a lot bigger than Redford, he was a “mountain of a man” they say. One morning in 1847 he returned from trapping to his cabin to find that his wife and unborn child had been killed. Johnson realized that they had been killed by the Crow Indians and he decided to revenge the killing of his family.
It is said that he killed up to 300 Crow Indians where ever he found them, individually or in groups, and he scalped them and ate their livers.

[Dean · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most people have heard of the movie "Jeremiah Johnson" starring Robert Redford and Will Geer. What many don't know is that the movie is based on (with some liberties taken by Hollywood) the real life story of John "Liver-eatin'" Johnston, a true mountain man that took revenge on the Crow Indians for killing his wife and unborn child. Not only did he kill probably hundreds of them, he always made sure to eat their livers. It is one time where Hollywood actually tamed down a life story instead of enhancing it, because it is so grizzly.
The story is greatly researched, well told, and fascinating. A great read.

[Nagel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Why anyone who would purchase a book titled “Crow Killer: The Saga of Liver-Eating Johnson” and then complain about the racism they might find in the text, or the highly skeptical veracity of the stories therein, confuses me.

Skip the preface. You don’t need to know if the stories are true. You bought this book to read about a mountain man who fought Indians. You’re going to get stories about a mountain who fought Indians. If that’s not what you’re looking for, then I cant recommend this book.

[Paula · Rating 4 out of 5]

Our son gave this book to my husband a while ago and I put it aside to read. Well, much later, I have finally read it and have to say I really liked it. It is quite brutal but then the old west was a very brutal place. I have seen the movie "Jeremiah Johnson" but it was this book that brought out the true way these mountain men lived. You had to be sharp and very skilled to survive.

John Johnston was as tough as they get and well respected. This book certainly opened my eyes and I truly hated to see the book end.

[Sumaiya · Rating 5 out of 5]

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