Perhaps most amazing of all, in an era where women had few options in life, Calamity Jane had the audacity to carve them out for herself. The gun-toting, tough-talking, hard-drinking woman was all Western America come to life. Flowing across the untamed small towns and empty spaces of South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana like the wild running rivers of the American West, she helped create the legend of Calamity Jane from scratch. Part carnie barker, part actor, part sexually alluring siren, part drunken lout--she was all of these and much more.

Herda’s interest in Western Americana goes back to his childhood. His fascination with Calamity Jane stretches back to his earliest recollections, and he has been researching her life for decades, convinced that one day he would chronicle the story of the real Martha Jane Cannary in a book. D. J. Herda has lived in the Rocky Mountains of the southwestern United States for nearly three decades.