Trego's Mountain Ear

I scored a copy of Dorothy Johnson’s book The Bloody Bozeman. It was published in 1971, and Don Boslaugh had a new copy – so I got to read a couple of chapters- but I was twenty-one with a lot of other priorities on my limited cash flow. Between cars, guns and tools, hardbound first edition books took a low spot on my purchasing agenda. Still, fifty plus years later, I have added Dorothy Johnson to the family library.

As I have boasted about this acquisition, I learned that the folks of Whitefish have, by and large, forgotten their old neighbor. While she was born in Iowa, she moved to Whitefish in 1913 at age 8 . . . one of our old timers, she wrote westerns, some of which you might watch on youtube – The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Hanging Tree, A Man Called Horse come to mind.

Like many of us, Dorothy’s need to make a living took her from Montana for 15 years – hers were spent in the New York publishing industry – homesick on Long Island. In a Montana Magazine article by Rachel Toors she was described as “She was raised by her widowed mother, was married for about 15 minutes to a creep and spent most of her life as a character.” Her tombstone in Whitefish is marked “PAID” possibly referring to the years she spent paying off her ex-husband’s gambling debts.

But on to the book – The Bloody Bozeman tells of the early years of Montana’s gold fields – basically 1862 through the last use of the Bozeman trail in 1868. A time that included the Fetterman Massacre, and hanging the Sheriff in Bannock. The time of Red Cloud, the Vigilantes, and acting governor Thomas Francis Meagher. The time of the Hayfield Fight, the Wagon Box Fight, and the Crazy Woman Fight.

It seems strange to look at the original 1971 price tag of $9.95 and realize that the book was beyond my budget when it was first printed. I have it now – and a copy of Miss Johnson’s Bedside Book of Bastards to keep it company on the bookshelf.