The Wild West Adventures of Forrest Gump

You will not find his name in any of the period documents, letters, newspaper clippings, magazine articles or book volumes dealing with the conquest and settlement of the Wild West. Although he was at one time a mule hunter and scout for General George Armstrong Custer, you will not find him on any list, inventory, statement or payroll of the US Army, which fought hard battles with the Arapaho, Cheyenne, Lakota and by others. Nevertheless, Jack Crabb, with the Indian name Little Big Man, became a direct participant in important battles and personally got to know not only General Custer, but also the legendary gunslinger Wild Bill and his girlfriend Calamity Jane, Wyatt Earp and other iconic figures of the West. The son of white parents, kidnapped in childhood and raised by Cheyennes in the spirit of Native American wisdom, stood like Forrest Gump at all the twists and turns shaping the modern history of North America. He lived alternately between Indians and whites, married several times, fathered several children, survived the bloody massacre of Indians at the Battle of the Washita and the victorious retaliation at the Little Bighorn. He was a bison hunter, a gambler and a gold digger, and his other adventures would take several lifetimes. He himself tells about them "as his beak grew", i.e. in colloquial language, easily, briskly, engagingly and with humorous exaggeration. You can read his perspective on the history of the Wild West in one sitting and learn more about the Indians than all the Mayans combined.

According to Berger's book, director Arthur Penn made a successful Western of the same name in 1970, in which Dustin Hoffman excels in the leading role.