‘The Ox-Bow Incident’: A Timely Tale on Groupthink

This classic Western explores law, justice, and the human heart.
‘The Ox-Bow Incident’: A Timely Tale on Groupthink
The illustrated version of the Western classic "The Ox-Bow Incident" by Walter Van Tilburg Clark.
Jeff Minick
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Early spring, 1885. After being cooped up together in a cabin through a long Nevada winter, two cowboys, Art Croft and Gil Carter, ride into the small town of Bridger’s Wells looking for some excitement and relief from their months of solitude and boredom. Their lives will never again be the same.

As the two men settle into drinking at Canby’s saloon, they quickly learn that an outbreak of rustling has left local cattleman tense and angry. After a run of good luck during a card game, hotheaded Gil gets into a fight with one of the other players, mean-spirited Farnley. Canby breaks up that fight, and it’s all but forgotten when news arrives that rustlers have struck again, stealing more cattle and killing a man in the bargain—Larry Kinkaid.

Jeff Minick
Jeff Minick
Author
Jeff Minick has four children and a growing platoon of grandchildren. For 20 years, he taught history, literature, and Latin to seminars of homeschooling students in Asheville, N.C. He is the author of two novels, “Amanda Bell” and “Dust on Their Wings,” and two works of nonfiction, “Learning as I Go” and “Movies Make the Man.” Today, he lives and writes in Front Royal, Va.