North of Laramie. William W. Johnstone

The old gray no longer moped like an old nag, and Hagen no longer rode like a drunk slumped over in the saddle. He rode upright and erect, the way he’d seen some of the army officers ride when they came to Wichita on their first day of leave. They hadn’t ridden out the same way, of course, but on that first day, their poise left an impression on Trammel.

      His horse bucked a bit and he could tell it was anxious to follow. He let up on the reins and let it have its head. “Okay, Mr. Hagen,” Trammel said to himself. “Let’s find out if you know what you’re talking about.”

      CHAPTER 6

      Ambrose Bowman’s bones creaked as loudly as the floorboards of his back porch as he walked to his rocking chair. He sat down and filled the bowl of his pipe the way he had almost every night he had spent in his home. This very same home he had built decades ago with his own hands. His own sweat and labor. He saw no reason why the death of his kin should interfere with the ritual. Bowman men and women had been dying in Kansas since his father had moved the family to the wilderness long before the War Between the States. They had died since and, he reckoned, more would die before he finally passed over to whatever lie beyond. He knew not whether he would go to Heaven or Hell, but imagined that God, in His own infinite wisdom, would find a way to split the difference and plant him in Purgatory for a spell, if such a place existed. If it did not exist, he had no doubt the Almighty would create such a place if only to stick him there out of spite. His relationship with his creator had always been thus.

      He struck a lucifer on the side of his chair and brought the flame to the bowl, puffing until he brought the tobacco to a decent burn before waving the match dead and flicking it over the porch railing. It was already past sunset, and he watched the purple hues of the western sky grow deeper as the sun sank farther behind the horizon.

      Yet there was still enough light for him to see the family graveyard where his people lie molding, their headstones crooked and bent in the soft Kansas soil. He saw the outline of the horses in the near field and, just beyond it, the pasture where his cattle grazed.

      Both herds were larger than his father and his uncles had brought with them. He was confident they would grow larger still under his son Matthew’s reign. He was sure of that. His son wasn’t good at much, but he knew how to raise horses and cattle. He was a Bowman, by God, and Bowman men knew how to make this land their own. They always had and, he reckoned, they always would.

      He looked at the place where his own headstone stood, at the far left of the yard next to where his parents had been buried years before. It was a Bowman tradition to place the headstones of their kin within the first year of their birth, name, and birth date already etched. It was a practice that had kept the family grounded for generations, knowing that one day, they would die for one reason or another.

      Two of his sons were already there. Anthony, his second eldest, and Bertram, his youngest, had both been taken from him in the war. He had mourned them in the way the Bowman family had always mourned their dead. He threw himself into building the ranch and made it even bigger.

      Now, Tyler and Will would be buried beneath the stones that had stood waiting for them since their births twenty-one and twenty-five years before. They were his nephews and, in his own way, he supposed he loved them. They would join their father, Hammond, who had died in a similar fashion following an argument over a card game in the Belle Union Saloon in Newton. He judged all three men were better off where they were, more useful beneath the earth than they had ever been when they walked upon it.

      But despite their shortcomings, they had been Bowman men. And that still meant something in Wichita. In Kansas. At least it would for as many days he still had before he joined them.

      Ambrose Bowman looked when he heard the back door open and saw his eldest boy, Matthew, come out to join him on the porch. The sounds of the wailing and sobbing of the women inside mixed with prayers reached him. He was glad Matthew shut the door behind him to drown out their sorrow.

      “Finally had enough, I reckon?” Ambrose asked his son.

      “Been so long since we had a death around here,” Matthew said as he pulled over a chair from the outside dining table, “that I forgot how much of show it is.”

      “Catholics,” Ambrose said. “They do love a show, especially in mourning.”

      “We’re Catholics too, Pa.”

      “As far as it goes,” Ambrose said. “Too much ceremony for a hard land like this. But it pleases your mother, so I let it go. Never did much for me, though.”

      He heard his son’s knees pop as he sat beside him. Matthew was going on fifty years of age and was no longer the young man he’d once been. Neither am I, Ambrose realized. He knew they called him Old Man Bowman in town, and had for some time, just as they had called his father and his uncles before him when they had run the BF brand. The “BF” had first been struck by his father and stood for “Bowman Family.” The letters had made for an easy brand and each Old Man Bowman since had done his part to make it stand for something more than it had when he had taken it over. None of them had run it for as long as Ambrose had and, as he approached his eighty-first summer, he took no small amount of pride in that. His eyes may be going and he may not be able to ride a horse for as long as he once had, but he still made a point of checking his herds on horseback daily. And despite his growing aches and pains, he thanked whatever God there was that his mind was still as sharp as ever. His father had not been given that dignity, and he hoped he’d be dead before that same fate befell him.

      Matthew interrupted his thoughts by saying, “I didn’t tell you what happened in town today, Pa.”

      “Tom told me.” His second youngest was a good horseman, but an incredible gossip, a failing Ambrose decided he had inherited from his mother. “No need to relive it.” He looked at his son. “No need to be ashamed of it, either.”

      “There were twenty of us,” Matthew said. “And I let one man buffalo me. One lousy, skinny deputy.”

      “That deputy is the law,” Ambrose said. “He’s also Wyatt Earp. He’s not the kind of man you cross. Not a man like you, leastways. He’s buffaloed many a man and worse. Many a man better than you with a gun or their fists. Fighting him only would’ve gotten you killed or worse, and this family has suffered enough tragedy for one season.”

      But the words did not seem to soothe Matthew any. “It was his look that stopped me, Pa. A cold stare that felt like it went right through me.”

      “It’s the kind of man he is, boy. Men like you don’t go up against men like that. He’s younger and meaner than you. Going against him would’ve been suicide. There’s a place for his kind, and he’s found it among the drunks and heathens he deals with in town. Put him on a horse and have him tend a herd and he wouldn’t last a month. There’s a place for our kind, too, and don’t you forget that ever. You’re a Bowman, by God, and you don’t have to bow your head to any man, not even a man like Earp.”

      Ambrose was glad his son had decided to let it go for now. He knew the slight would eat at him for a while, but in time, it would pass. Matthew had a family of his own. A good family with three boys—Archer, Miles, and Joseph, and four daughters who were of marrying age with plenty of suitors among them. Ambrose knew he would take solace in that eventually, and the sting of his embarrassment would dull a bit more each day until he came to his senses, which he always did.

      The deaths of his nephews, however, would be a different story. He knew what Matt would ask of him, but Ambrose would wait until he got around to it in his own time. For now, he was content to smoke his pipe and watch another day die in the beautiful twilight of the faraway sky.

      He wasn’t sure how long it had been until his son said, “I’m going after them, Pa. I’m going after them right after the burial tomorrow.”

      Ambrose puffed on his pipe. “You sure you want to do that, boy?”

      He heard his son’s chair creak as he faced him. “You don’t expect me just to let Tyler and Will’s deaths go unanswered, do you?”