Harvey Logan: Wildest of the Wild Bunch.
By: Donna B. Ernst.
Publisher: Wild Bunch Press, 2003.
Pages: 100, including contents, Appendix, Bibliography, Index.

Review by: The Man Behind the Mask

The idea is simple. Take one of the most famous photos in Old West history and write a small book about each man in the picture.

That’s the premise behind Donna Ernst’s new series on the so-called Fort Worth Five photo of members of the Wild Bunch. It was November of 1900 when Robert Leroy Parker (Butch Cassidy), Harry Longabaugh (the Sundance Kid), Ben Kilpatrick (the Tall Texan), Will Carver and Harvey Logan (Kid Curry) posed in their Sunday best. They thought it was a lark--but then authorities discovered the picture and began the process of running down the photogenic five.

Up first for the Ernst treatment is Kid Curry, who the author calls the “Wildest of the Wild Bunch.” He certainly was one of the most deadly gang members, racking up at least nine kills before turning a gun on himself in 1904. There was an ever-present aura of danger around the Kid, who was generally a quiet type—but he could suddenly explode in anger, for no obvious reason. And when that happened, nobody near him was safe.

His life certainly seemed headed down the wrong path at an early stage. He was born in Iowa in 1867, orphaned at a young age, then lived with an aunt near Kansas City until he headed West while still in his teens. He hooked up with Flatnose George Currie and his gang at the Hole in the Wall area of Wyoming, and Harvey adopted the Kid Curry moniker as a show of respect for the older outlaw. The Kid then headed into Montana with a couple of his brothers and a cousin, tried ranching for a few years, but his temper took him to the wrong side of the law. He killed the founder of the town of Landusky in 1894. Perhaps he should have stayed and gone to trial; two of his compatriots were tried for the Landusky killing and were acquitted when they claimed self-defense. But Harvey Logan ran. It was something he would do for the rest of his life.

He rejoined Flatnose Currie’s gang and specialized in rustling. By 1897, the boys decided to take a step up to bank robbery, with the target being an establishment in Belle Fourche, South Dakota. The holdup was a comedy of errors and the outlaws didn’t get much, loot-wise. But Logan got away and ran into a couple of boys who would play a major role in his life: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. And when the group shot up a saloon in Baggs, Wyoming later that summer, they were tagged with the name which would give them lasting fame—the Wild Bunch.

The rest of the story is pretty familiar—train holdups, escapes, hideouts, and growing pressure from the Pinkertons and other law officials. After the Fort Worth photo session, Kid Curry and a female friend went to Knoxville, Tennessee. Even there, the Kid couldn’t stay out of trouble. He got into a barroom brawl and then shot and wounded two policemen. He was arrested, convicted and jailed for more than a year and a half before mounting a daring escape. Logan vowed he’d never go behind bars again, and he made sure that promise was kept. After a train robbery in 1904, the Kid was seriously wounded by a posse. Rather than return to jail, he ended things with a bullet to the head.

This isn’t Donna Ernst’s first foray into Wild Bunch storytelling. She’s previously written about various members of the gang in articles and a couple of books (including the well-known Sundance My Uncle). Harvey Logan: Wildest of the Wild Bunch is a nice addition to her resume.

The book is not the final word on Kid Curry. That kind of “what did he have for breakfast” biography is still waiting to be written. But that’s not a knock on this book. It’s an easy and quick read yet full of facts, so it’s appropriate for Old West newcomers or greybeards. And it bodes well for the remaining books in the Fort Worth Five series.

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