Frontier Justice

The story: Gil and Our Narrator roll into town just in time to hear about some cattle rustling which resulted in the death of a cowboy. The sheriff is not around. A lynch mob forms and heads out to bring…what? Justice? Murder? That is the question.

As you sit in comfort in the heart of Civilized Society, it is easy to imagine that you are protected by that large impersonal force called The Law. You are unlikely to be murdered today by a stranger; everyone you meet is likely to respect your rights to keep your property. The Law is your friend.

But, that abstract entity called The Law cannot maintain itself. It is maintained by the fact that the people you meet have internalized it; they obey its dictates. Why? Why do people obey The Law? It’s either good character or fear of punishment. Truth be told, you don’t really which; you are just glad that they obey The Law.

You will most likely go your entire life never having to think more about The Law. It is mere background to your daily life. Sure every now and then you’ll run afoul of the minor manifestations of the law; jay-walking and exceeding posted limits on the speed with which you may drive your motor car are your most frequent infractions. But these are merely minor annoyances. They are not The Law.

Law is more than the words that put it on the books; law is more than any decisions that may be made from it; law is more than the particular code of it stated at any one time or in any one place or nation; more than any man, lawyer or judge, sheriff or jailer, who may represent it. True law, the code of justice, the essence of our sensations of right and wrong, is the conscience of society. It has taken thousands of years to develop, and it is the greatest, the most distinguishing quality which has evolved with mankind. None of man’s temples, none of his religions, none of his weapons, his tools, his arts, his sciences, nothing else he has grown to, is so great a thing as his justice, his sense of justice. The true law is something in itself, it is the spirit of the moral nature of man; it is an existence apart, like God, and as worthy of worship as God. If we can touch God at all, where do we touch him save in the conscience? And what is the conscience of any man save his little fragment of the conscience of all men in all time?

That is part of the argument of Davies, who is desperately trying to stop the lynch mob from its extralegal activity.

If Davies is right, The Law is something above any one of us; a thing pure and worthy of veneration. If Davies is right, then it is indeed a test of character to abide by the dictates of The Law even when it seems expedient to do otherwise. If Davies is right, The Law trumps our preferences. If Davies is right, then it is better to let the murderers and cattle thieves escape than to go forth and hang them.

A man lies dead. His blood cries out. The Law has been broken. Justice is demanded. But, because there is no sheriff around, the killer goes free? Is that Justice? Davies again:

“If we go out and hang two or three men,” he finished, “without doing what the law says, forming a posse and bringing the men in for trial, then by the same law, we’re not officers of justice, but due to be hanged ourselves.”
“And who’ll hang us?” Winder wanted to know.
“Maybe nobody,” Davies admitted. “Then our crime’s worse than a murderer’s. His act puts him outside the law, but keeps the law intact. Ours would weaken the law.”

Them’s some fine words to be sure. But, who, one might ask Davies, gets to enforce The Law? Who gives the sheriff his authority if not the people of the town? And if the people of the town decide to grant that authority to the lynch mob they all just joined, who is to say that this was not a duly constituted legal arrangement? Winder is onto something there—you don’t hang the hangman. The hangman only has the right to hang someone because the society has given him that right.

In the East, in civilization, there are those trappings of government, the kings or the elected officials who bring a veneer of respectability to the appointing of the hangman. But, what happens when you cross that divide and enter the land where civilization is in its infancy? A wrong has been done. Is it your job to right the wrong by bringing justice to the wrongdoer or to stand aside and let the wrongdoer go free?

The problem is even worse. You think you are an individual, but how free are you to make your own decisions? You are, after all, part of the pack. As young Tetley explains:

“Why are we riding up here, twenty-eight of us,” he demanded, “when every one of us would rather be doing something else?…We’re doing it because we’re in the pack, because we’re afraid not to be in the pack. We don’t dare show our pack weakness; we don’t dare resist the pack.”

I hear you. You are thinking that this is a perfect explanation for why the lynch mob is a bad thing; everyone knows it is a bad thing but have joined it anyway because everyone else is joining it. But, your new advocate, young Tetley, is a coward and a weakling. He would be quite happy joining the pack if it would have decided to just stay home. He doesn’t want to be out of the pack; he just wants a weaker, more cowardly pack.

How sure are you that your instinct that the lynch mob is wrong is not simply your desire to avoid the responsibility of enforcing The Law? How sure are you that you aren’t afraid to join the lynch mob simply because you know all your friends are cowards too and you live in that cowardly pack in which nobody is brave enough to be the hangman?

The Ox-Bow Incident is a marvelous reflection on the creation of a society, the nature of justice, and the rule of law. It is also great story, well-written and gripping. So, why is it not more widely read? Westerns are out of favor these days; we no longer tell tales of cowboys. The Library of America just included this story in its new volume The Western: Four Classic Novels of the 1940s & 50s. Let us hope this brings attention to a book well worth your time.