From Bowie's childhood exploits, which included hunting wild cattle with only a rope and knife, to his lustful adventures with Annie Christmas, a six-foot-tall frontier madam who loved him during his wild years as a young man, this enigmatic hero comes of age before our eyes.

From the harrowing tale of why and how the Bowie knife came to be to the five-day battle Bowie and a few friends fought against several hundred mounted Apace, this story charts the making of true American legend. Jim Bowie remained a fearless if elusive figure up until his final battle at the Alamo in 1836. Now light is finally cast on the man behind the myth, a man at once dauntless and humble.